20 Sept. 2010

Family,

This week has been pretty interesting to say the least.

First of all, we just recently moved into a new apartment, and then we learned that everything is broken. We then went through the apartment with the landlord and showed him all the problems. He then made some observations of his own (we needed a smoke alarm, fire extinguisher, kitchen hood, towel rack, etc), and sent his worker over to fix it all. They installed an instant water heater (our first one was broken) with a shower head on a hose attached to it, but he didn't put a hook or a cradle or anything for the shower head to rest on, it just hung down. The next time the landlord came we asked if there was supposed to be a hook, and he said yes, and that he would send the guy back. They guy came again and was about to put the hook about two feet off the ground, but we asked if he could raise it up, so that we could actually use it to shower. He said sure and proceeded to drill. The next few days we realized that water was leaking out from behind the hook/cradle thing. I unscrewed it to see what the deal was, and then turned on the shower, and water shot out of the hole that he drilled. Mr. Construction Worker drilled right into the pipe. Needless to say the landlord was pretty upset, and so was the worker when we told them the problem. Saturday, the worker came in (absolutely fuming - it was pretty awkward), and tightened the screw and was about to call it good and leave. The landlord said, "listen, if it doesn't leak out, it's going to leak in. You have to fix the pipe!" So then the worker angrily hammers some cement/putty stuff into the hole and called it good (the landlord had to go). Today we saw the landlord and he asked us if he fixed it. Not wanting to cause more trouble, but still make it clear that it was still broken, we said "yeah, I think so, he hammered some stuff in there and it doesn't leak anymore." Again, angry landlord. Then he called the worker, yet again, to come and fix it. That's where we're at now. I'm not anxious to see the workers face when he comes back. Pretty exciting though.

On a lighter note, a young woman in the branch left for her mission in Australia this week. I think she was feeling excited about it, because she gave us some great referrals just a couple of days before she left. One was for a girl that she met just running errands, and the other was for a family across the street from her. We were only able to meet with each of them once, but the mother and the two kids agreed to be baptized in a month. The father wasn't sure, he said he'd already been baptized, but I think he'll come around. Rilang (the girl who left on a mission), was so excited when we told her. It was a great send off for her I think.

We'll be getting a new missionary here in Palau when Elder Lyman leaves in 3.5 weeks (he's going home), and I'm pretty excited to see how it all plays out.

Love,

Elder Barlow