Week 6

Fam-Bam,

This week is week 6 (the last week) of my second transfer here in Palau. President Dowdle comes on Friday for Zone Conference, and we're hoping he tells us personally how transfers are going to go. Chances are he won't and the Assistants will just do it like usual. It's pretty fun to predict what will happen, but really we have no idea. Elder Stanley thinks he'll be leaving Palau, but won't admit it. He's been taking pictures with all the families/people we've been teaching. We'll see - things could very well stay the same.

I've been informed that I recently came into some money from "Glee". If this is indeed the case, it would be awesome if someone invested it - or used it for my mission I guess.

It seems like every week I have a new dog story. Well, this week is no different. Before I begin, I would like you all to know that I am no longer afraid of these dogs. Without flinching I will walk by any dog to get to the door I need to. Even the ones on chains. One of the young men we bring teaching with us said, "you guys are either really stupid, brave, or you just don't care." Either way, it's been fun. Now my story. If I remember correctly, Kim asked if any animals had ever taken my things. Well, this week we were going to teach a family, and in Palau (probably all of Micronesia actually) you have to take off your shoes before you go in someone's house, so we did. After the lesson, we left the house and went to put our shoes on to go. However, I only saw one of my shoes. I assumed Elder Stanley had taken it and was hiding it or something, but it turns out a dog stole my shoe. The family we were teaching proceeded to search for my shoe (it was our last appointment of the day, so it was very dark). The little girl finally found it, but the insole was missing and the back was chewed. Other than that though, it was it great shape. I've been walking with uneven shoes all week, but then yesterday we were walking by the same house and the same girl said she found the sole. Great news. So now I'm back to normal.

A few quick facts about Micronesia:
1) 1 year "Liahona" subscriptions cost $1
2) Palaun doesn't have a standardized spelling system. You can imagine how much more difficult that makes things for me.
3) Apparently there was a Survivor - Palau. I had no idea, pretty cool though. For the record, anyone can survive in Palau. There's so much wild food: fruit, fish, chicken, tarro, etc etc.

While Adam is putting towels on his windows, we had to take all the food out of our freezer and refrigerator because it was leaking to the point that our entire floor was wet. The land lord said he and the maintenance guy would give us a smaller, temporary replacement until this one gets fixed. Also, sometimes our apartment just smells awful. We've pinpointed the source to the drain in our bathroom sink - at least we think. It smells like fruit bat - gross.

I actually didn't know there was an earthquake. Now that you mention it, I remember one of the chiefs saying something about a disaster in "hi-dee". I don't really know anything about it though.

We dropped 4 investigators this week. One of them has been avoiding us - we think it's because he asked us to borrow money and we said we couldn't. The second girl we taught twice and when she prayed about the Book of Mormon, she felt like she needed to be baptized, so she talked to her mom. Her mom said she already has her own religion and is no longer allowed to talk to us. We've tried going over there to talk to her, but her mom has her go inside as soon as we show up, and screens all of our phone calls. Pretty sad. Third person - we decided she just likes hanging out with missionaries (she's a 13 year old girl). Fourth is the Branch President's step daughter. She comes to church every Sunday, but it has to be because of her boyfriend and her parents, because she doesn't read and has no desire to be baptized. Pretty discouraging week.

I think we're going to start focusing on helping less active members. It's pretty safe to say that the reason 90% of them are less active is because they chew. We decided we would help them understand that if they didn't spend so much money on the stuff, they would be able to have a phone, or to buy food for their family, or clothes. Also that the church isn't for perfect people. They feel like they aren't worthy to go to church, so we need to help them understand that everyone has struggles, and the church is there to help us improve. I think it may actually work.

Yesterday, Elder Stanley and I tried to spend the whole day speaking Palaun to each other. To be honest, my Palaun is better than his, so we had to speak English here and there, but I thought it was good. I learned a lot.

We have to go pick out food for Zone Conference, so I'll talk to you all next week.

Betik a renguk er kemiu,

Elder Barlow

Fruit Bats and Chinese Terrorists

Family,

So last Tuesday night, Elder Stanley and I decided to end our P-Day with some ice cream on the dock. As we were doing so, a husband and wife in the branch drove up and told us they had some food for us, but we had to come pick it up. We stopped by later to pick it up, and lo and behold, it was a couple of fruit bats. I think I explained this before, but it's called fruit bat soup - when really its a whole fruit bat boiled in water. Apparently the water tastes good after the boiling process, but I couldn't bring myself to drink it. I hear Chamorros love it. They'll pour the "soup" into water bottles and drink it throughout the day. Anyway, the bat still has its fur and teeth and insides and everything. I could only stomach the actual meat, but Elder Stanley ate the wings, the eyes, the brain, the insides, and everything else. The assistants were in Palau the next day too, so the one that came with us even got to try some. It tastes like turkey, with the same texture and everything - but it smells awful. The best word I can use to describe it is putrid. Always a good time here in Palau.
The second item on my agenda this afternoon has to do with Chinese terrorists. I recently learned that there are some former Guantanamo Bay inmates residing in Palau. Not only are they in Palau but they live about 35 seconds away from our apartment - if we're walking. They look middle-eastern, but speak Chinese, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Anyway, I tried to share the gospel with one yesterday. He just looked at me, so I said, "Good evening" and got in the car. Nice fellow I'm sure.
If someone could send me some really good pictures of the effect that Betel Nut has on someone's mouth (preferably medical/hospital pictures), I would really appreciate it. The more gruesome the better - I'm going for the shock factor here. 4x6 would be perfect. People don't understand how bad the stuff actually is.
Yes, I know Aaron Basco, I've been in classes with him since middle school. Small city I guess.

The seminary teacher here was in Guam for some training for work, so she asked me to cover her class. It's only one night a week, so I agreed. I taught the entire class of 2 students about taking upon us the name of Christ. I had to keep it fairly short since we had an appointment right after, but I thought it was pretty good.
Oh! So I taught the first lesson (The Restoration) in Palaun this week. It was pretty short, and very simple, and my pronunciation was probably atrocious, but I did it. Elder Stanley said I'm the first missionary to ever teach anything in Palaun. I don't know how true that is, but it made me feel good nonetheless.

I got the package with my sunglasses. Thanks for including some things for Elder Stanley. By the way, that roast beef stuff was delicious. I used it to make BBQ beef sandwiches, and it was awesome. Elder Stanley was drinking his hot chocolate and some toast, and I told him to try it together. He was unsure at first, but dipped his toast in the hot chocolate. He loves it. He's made that several more times since. Pretty funny.
Well, that's all I have for this week. We're going on another exchange this week (starting tonight), and I'll be leading one of the Zone Leaders around our area. I'm kind of nervous because I have a hard time finding my way around one of the villages (there are a lot of roads that criss cross over and around hills, and there are no signs or anything), but it's always a good learning experience for me.

Ak medengei el kmo a Ikelesia a merang, me a Jesus Kristo a kiei.

Betik a renguk er kemiu,

Elder Barlow

Slaves and Slumps

Dear Family,

I'll begin this week's news with how the work in Palau is progressing. As you might have guess by my witty, alliterative title, it isn't. At least not very quickly. I thought we were on a roll, we had like five baptisms scheduled for January. However, this is how things played out:

Investigator #1) Drunk on New Year's Day (at night) when we showed up to teach him, and haven't been able to see him since.

Investigator #2) Told us he knew everything was true, then went M.I.A. and we couldn't get a straight answer from his family.

Investigator #3) Thought of yet another reason to postpone her baptism. It's now the 23rd instead of the 16th - we'll see.

Investigator #4) Her mom told us we can only come every other weekend because they're Catholic and her daughter needs to focus on school.

Recent Convert #1) Ran away from home shortly after her baptism, and we haven't seen her since. Her mother suspects her to be smoking Marijuana with her wicked cousin.

Recent Convert #2) Doing great, but missed church because she had to go to the hospital.

So as you can see, it hasn't been the greatest of weeks. But that's okay - we all have good weeks and bad weeks.

Moving on to the "Slaves". So here in Palau, some families hire a "Domestic Helper" or "DH". At first I assumed it was just a maid or something like that. This week I learned that this is not the case. A family's DH is responsible for the child care, cooking, housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping, and really any other errands or duties you can think of. The sad part is that they get paid anywhere from $1-$2.50/hr or less. Believe it or not that's less than the average minimum wage (Palau doesn't have a standardized minimum wage, at least that I'm aware of) which is about $3.65/hr. With the price of goods here, I'm flabbergasted (yes, I used that word) that people here can even survive, let alone provide for their families. It's really a sad situation.

And yes, I do have a can opener. In fact, just today I discovered a hand mixer in our apartment. Not an electric one, but the pioneer kind - like the one we had in the University house that was all rusted and I think was more of an antique decoration than actually functional.

I've really upped the quality of my breakfasts this last week. I started making french toast (which I kind of guessed at - I don't really know what goes in the egg-milk mixture or how much) and pancakes which have been just delicious - if I can toot my own horn a little bit here.

Well Elder Stanley is done with his email, and is waiting for me, so I should probably go.

I love you all and thanks for praying for me.

Love,

Elder Barlow

Storytime

This week, I would like to begin with something that happened to me while knocking doors. I wrote it in my journal so I'll just copy what I wrote:

"We had a very interesting run in with some dogs. We were about to knock on a house but a dog was lying in front of the door. As we got closer it jumped up and started barking - causing two or three more dogs (one very angry, mean one in particular) to come running around the corner. The mean one was jet black and going to kill us. Elder Stanley went into Chuuk mode and took off his backpack to use as a weapon. We kept pretending to pick up rocks to scare them off, but its only temporary, and usually makes them angrier - which it did. At one point, Elder Stanley turned to leave, and quickly. Of course, this caused the black dog to start chasing him, but I was between them. I reached down to "pick up" another "rock", which scared it long enough for me to notice two gargantuan beasts, which looked enough like dogs for me to call them that, trotting casually up to where we were. These two dogs, for lack of a better word, then took their place between us and the pack of dogs, which consisted of about 5 or 6 dogs at this point. This was one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. The pack of dogs were all barking, growling and showing their teeth, but the big ones just stood there facing them and didn't make a sound - somehow keeping them at bay."

It was almost as if the two were telling the others to calm down and back off, and the others were trying to convince them to let them eat us.

At this point, we realized it was time for us to go, so we did. I tried to go back yesterday and get a picture with these dogs so you could see how huge they are - but they weren't so nice this time. Maybe I'll try again another time.

If Luke ever wants to come to the Micronesian Islands, Continental is the only airline that flies between the islands. Pretty good vacation spot if he's looking for one.

The outdoor Shakespeare festival in Tuacahn sounds a lot like an outdoor Shakespeare festival that we have been to not too long ago. Sounds like a tradition in the making. If you were waiting for my RSVP, sorry, but I won't be able to make it to the reunion or Mom's birthday bash this year. Maybe next year - I'll let you know.

Did you tell Forrest that Japan is only a stone's throw from Palau? By stone I mean guided missile, and by throw I mean launch, but you get the idea.

Similar to Matt, we got a foot and a half of snow in the last couple of days and are expecting more soon. By snow I mean rain actually.

We set our baptismal goals for this year at 20. We're making a poster that has 20 squares with a black silhouette in each. Each time we have a baptism, we're going to take a picture and place them on the poster. We're trying to find a way to help later missionaries own the goal that we set. We thought this was a good idea.

My time is up, so this will have to be a short one this week. We had a good holiday season and surprisingly successful. We have a few baptisms scheduled this month, and hopefully they work out.

I love you all, keep praying for me, and I'll keep praying for you.

Love,

Elder Barlow