17 Jan. 2011

Family,

We had a pretty exciting week. We have 2 people on track to be baptized in just a few weeks. One of them is named Hayleen, and she's doing awesome. Her parents are really nice (not interested yet) and bring her to church and mutual on Wednesdays (about a 30 minute drive each way every time). She was supposed to be baptized this week, but since she lives so far, we can only visit her once a week, and then teach her on Sundays at church. We just didn't have enough time to teach her everything we needed to.

The second one is a kid name Jayvan. We were going over to teach our recent convert and he joined in. He is a pretty cool guy, and pretty open. He doesn't have a problem answering questions or even asking them. We've only met with him twice, but I'm pretty confident he'll continue meeting with us (that is, assuming his parents don't say otherwise). I don't really have much to report on this guy, but I will soon.

I'm glad you sent that package, thanks a lot. The journal and the shorts are very needed. Of course the rest of it is needed too, but those especially.

Funny story. So in Palauan, you can just change the suffix and it indicates who something belongs to, or who you're talking about. We were teaching the Law of Chastity to a returning less active woman, who isn't married to the man she lives with. I wanted to ask her if she wanted to marry him at all:

"Soam el mo bechil a rubak er kau?"
Do you want to become the spouse of your boyfriend?

Instead, not thinking, I messed up the suffix:

"Soak el mo bechil a rubak er kau."
I want to become the spouse of your boyfriend.

They just laughed and laughed, and it took me a second to realize what I had said wrong. It was pretty funny.

Some more good news, our recent convert was just assigned to teach Elders' Quorum. He's pretty excited and I know he'll do an awesome job. It's just for one week, but cool nonetheless.

I realized that I stopped wishing people a happy birthday, so I apologize. I just don't have everyone's birthdays committed to memory (sorry again), so I forget to look at the calendar I got from Hannah last year. Just a little explanation.

That's all for this week. All three of us are going to Guam next week for leadership training, we'll be there from like Sunday-Thursday.

Love,

Elder Barlow