11 May 2010

Family,

A lot of this is going to be redundant, since I just talked to you guys yesterday, but that's the way it is.

First of all, I was going to use the phone call to wish a happy birthday to Kim, Heidi, Kandis and Hannah, but then I remembered to only one I could talk to was Hannah. Happy birthday everyone, as late as this may be.

Moving on, I'm starting to think that the reason I'm here in Palau is not to teach and baptize. Rather, to learn Palauan, teach, and reactivate. I think our branch has been kind of depressed watching recent-converts go less-active shortly after their baptism, so they have been reluctant to fellowship them, and give them some kind of responsibility. As a result, things have just gotten worse. One lady that was baptized at the end of last year, has been having a lot of family pressure lately. She used to be Modokngei (a Palauan church that is pretty deeply rooted in old Palauan culture, traditions, and gods), but realized it wasn't true and was shortly baptized. Her uncle is the leader of her old church, and convinced her that there are evil spirits in her house now because she has been meeting with us. He and some other members came and did this black magic ritual to cast out these "spirits". Ever since then she has stopped coming to church, and then this week she tried to return everything to us - her Book of Mormon, Bible, lesson manuals, etc etc. It's not because she likes the other church better, it's just that in their culture, so much respect is given to the Rubak (the old man in the family) that they will do whatever he says. It was really a sad situation. We've asked another lady in the branch (whose husband is this other lady's first cousin) to go and talk to her, just to see what she can do.

On the bright side, we've been working a lot with a less-active family lately, and we've having some encouraging success. One of them, Daichingo, has now come to church for a month straight and said his goal is to not miss a week for six months. His father (Chief Singeru that died) was less active before he died, and Daichingo feels like he should take his place and make up for that. His brother-in-law, Idip, isn't a member, but has come with Daichingo three times in a row now. Before he gets baptized, we want to make sure that this family will be active enough to support him spiritually. They also have a cousin, Farrah, who is starting to come back too. She's come twice now, and wants to meet with the Branch President to start her repentance process - and she's fed us twice now, it's been great.

Also, there is a woman named Carsla. She has been a member for who knows how many years, but has not been active for the last couple of years. She hasn't even left her house actually. She claims that a while ago, she got into a car accident and now cannot drive in a car, or be away from her mother. Missionaries have been bringing her the sacrament since ever since and have been trying to get her to come to church for just as long. Well, we decided that it's all in her head, so she needs to come to church. After lots of help, we got her to "try" to come last week, and if not, then this week. Well, she didn't come last week, and told us she had changed her mind and wasn't coming this week either (she called us Sunday morning). Apparently she just said that because she wanted to surprise us, since she actually came. She convinced her bed-ridden, super old, mother to ride in the car with her and then wait in the parking lot so she could take the sacrament. She didn't stay for all of sacrament meeting, but it's a start. Pretty cool.

Seems like there hasn't been much success in the family lately in the dating area, but if it's any consolation to anyone, I don't have a "significant-other" either, so chin up buck-o's.

Sounds like all is well, it is here too. It was good to talk to you guys yesterday, let's do it again real soon (I'm thinking like in 7 months, what do you say?).

Love,

Elder Barlow