Rock Islands

Family,

All right, so we had some pretty interesting changes here in Palau this week. After Elder Lyman left, we assumed a new missionary would be coming to replace him. It was going to be interesting for sure because I've only been out a year, Elder Adams is coming up on 5 months, and Elder Wright is coming to 2. What actually happened, is now we're in a tri-panionship. Elder Adams is the District Leader, and I'm the Zone Leader. It's been good because I can still work with them both in Language Study, rather than sending one of them on their own to learn with a new missionary. We moved to live in the other apartment (in Ngerchemai) since that one has the phone that can call off-island when we need to.

I also found out that I have to train in Zone Conference this week. I have to order food, prepare all sorts of graphs and charts, make assignments to my companions, and still prepare my own notes for my training. What a task. President Dowdle is coming on exchange with us the next day too, so that's exciting.

This last week we've been really busy. Because there are only three of us, there is only one area. We cover 4 islands: Babeldaob (it's huge - we don't go here very often), Meyuns, Malakal, and Koror. We've been going back and forth teaching all day, and I've been loving it. The family we are helping to prepare for baptism is still on track for the 30th. Unfortunately one of the kids has been sick for the last couple of weeks, and couldn't make it to church. Either we're going to have to postpone the baptism so they can all do it together, or they'll be baptized without him, and he'll just do the same a couple of weeks later. We're going to talk to them and see what they'd prefer.

We finally got to watch General Conference this weekend, and it was really really good. We noticed themes of agency, following the prophet, and gratitude. During the Sunday sessions, it seemed like everyone and they're children were getting up to get water like 6 times an hour. Plus, people were talking and babies were crying, it made it really hard to hear, and therefore hard to focus. Saturday was great, I really enjoyed it - I regret sleeping through conference every year of my life now.

That trip to the Rock Islands was our one allotted opportunity. We get a new mission president in June though, so who knows what he'll say. I knew they were going to organize a stake, but they've been struggling to do it for some reason. That's good to hear they are finally going to do it. I heard some talk about L. Tom Perry coming for it. Once they do that it's only a matter of time before there's a temple in Guam.

Speaking of temples, I was excited to hear about the temple in Tijuana. I would love to go to the open house for that one. I don't know how long it takes to build temples, but if it's less than a year, tell them to slow it down for me.

Love,

Elder Barlow