Tales of Turkey Tail

Family,

As you may have guessed from my clever and mystical subject line, I had turkey this week.

Turkey tail is actually one of the foods forbidden by Sister Dowdle (the mission president's wife). However, they are more of "guidelines than actual rules" (name the movie). We went to a less active member's house for dinner and he made chicken curry with rice (or so he told us). It looked pretty good so I began to eat (which I would have done if it didn't look good, being the missionary that I am). Halfway through the meal, he mentioned something about turkey tail, which is when I realized that there was a reason why this "chicken" tasted nothing like chicken. It was turkey tail. Let me try and help you understand this particular delicacy:

Imagine cutting all the fat off of a steak or bacon or anything that has the really chewy rubbery fat on it. Take that fat and compress it into a chunk of meat. Now remove the taste. Then eat it. That's turkey tail. It tastes like nothing, but is pure fat and feels gross in your mouth. Delicious right?

So this Saturday we have 2 people being baptized. Their baptismal dates have been postponed many times over the period of about 5 months now, and they seem ready finally. Hopefully they pass their interview tomorrow.

We are going on exchanges again tomorrow so that one of the zone leaders can come with me and do these interviews. It's going to be a real test for me because we have appointments scheduled all over the area. I'll have to get us from place to place without Elder Stanley to guide me. I think I'll be okay except for one hamlet(or village) called Ngerbeched. It's the biggest hamlet with a maze of roads, and everything looks the same. I'll see what I can do.

Dad having a lot of church and work meetings sounds a lot like Dad before Gospel Doctrine. Looks like Hannah will get to use the computer more - no more planning lessons every hour of the week.

Palau has several islands. One (Babeldaob) is huge. It takes about an hour and a half to drive from one end to the other. The other is the main island where we live (called Koror), then there is Malakal, and Meyuns. Meyuns, Malakal, and part of Koror are in our area, and all of Babeldaob and the other part of Koror are in the other area (it's the biggest area in the mission). These are the only islands we cover in our zone, and we drive to them all.

Mail seems to come faster now that its coming straight here and not through Guam. Only like five days.

We have some awesome investigators. 6 of them are planning to be baptized in the coming weeks, we just aren't sure when.

Support money doesn't go as far as I thought. I have to plan things a lot better. Looks like I'll be eating a lot of bread and rice this week.

Oh! Mom, speaking of rice. Can you send me some things that are good with rice? Preferably easy sauces that I can buy. Its really bland alone, but with sauce it makes for a easy, filling, inexpensive meal. Thanks.

That's all the time I have for this week, I'm going to try and send a few more pictures.

It's amazing to see how I always seem to have just enough energy to get through the day, but no more. The work is hard, I'm always exhausted, but the Lord is helping me through.

I love you all,

Elder Barlow