30 March 2010

Family,

Happy birthday to everyone in March! (McKay, Adam, Jacob)

I realized that every time I've been hitting reply, it's just repeated the subject line that you had. I didn't like that, but I also couldn't think of anything good this time. Hence the date.

This past weekend (Saturday) we had a branch missionary activity. All the members were supposed to bring a friend and we'd have cookies and watch a movie and stuff. Even though it was a missionary activity, we weren't supposed to do anything with the activity except schedule appointments with people afterward. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. The branch president delegated everything to us mostly. We had to plan the activity, make assignments to anyone we wanted to participate, bake the cookies, decorate posters, and coach anyone that had a part in the program as to what they were supposed to do. It's so frustrating that I'm called here to be a missionary, but instead we're laden with all these other tasks that should fall to the branch members. Not to mention the 12 families we are supposed to home teach. All of our work didn't even pay off, because the members didn't bring their friends (with a few good exceptions of course), if they even came themselves. It just seems like the members feel like they don't need to do anything because they assume we (the missionaries) will take care of it - which we usually do because no one else will.

Moving on, bek el sils ak milsuub el kmo ak medengei el tia el tekoi ungil er a kulemdasu (every day I realize that I know this language better than I thought). I'm to the point now that I can pretty much say anything I need to (it takes me some time to form sentences though because I still have to translate from English to Palauan in my head). While sitting in church on Sunday, a woman named Evangeline (she teaches Palauan and English at the college here), who refuses to speak English in church and speaks Palauan super fast, made a comment - and I understood. I was amazed. I leaned over to my companion and whispered, "Elder Shular. I understand!" It really was such a great feeling. I have a long way to go still, but that was an encouraging moment - especially because Palauan is supposedly the 5th most difficult language to learn in the world.

I also realized that I've already been a missionary for 5 months. That's almost 1/4th of my mission. It's weird because I'm still the youngest one in the mission, so I feel like I've only been here for a month or something like that - not so. We're SUPPOSED to be getting 2 Marshallese missionaries this next transfer though. It should make things interesting.

I've been trying to get a Palauan Bible, but supposedly the only place you can get them is at the Catholic Church. We went this morning to get one anyway, but we couldn't find anyone to talk to. It was pretty awkward - especially in proselyting clothes.

The dry season should be over pretty soon (sometime in April) - and I'm counting down the days. It's been just ridiculous these last few weeks. I think everyday I walk outside and say, "oh, it's hot today." That goes for rainy days too.

We have a member teaching us a traditional Palauan war dance at 4, so I've got to get going to we can finish everything before that.

Love,

Elder Barlow