28 March 2011

Family,

One of my teeth has been hurting for a couple of months now (on and off), so since Elder Dein has to go to the dentist tomorrow anyway, I asked them to schedule an appointment for me too. The thing is, dental isn't covered by the mission, so if you see a bill or something from some dental place in Guam, just know that's what's going on. I have a feeling it's probably an old cavity. Other than that I'm healthy as can be. That's more than I can say for a lot of the other missionaries. I don't know if that's the case every transfer, but I was surprised how many medical issues we had to take into account in moving people around. Especially because Guam is the only place that anyone can get any significant medical care.

This week we'll have just a small orientation - only two new missionaries. Looking at our schedule for the next three weeks, we have something to do for transfers every day this week (picking up and dropping off at the airport), we're going to Pohnpei next week, coming back for Zone Leader Council that weekend, and then going to Kosrae the week after that. So much for any investigators that we have right now. To be honest though, this last transfer has been pretty calm. At least more so than I expected. We've been able to work a lot in our area, and still take care of the administrative stuff pretty easily. Then again, we weren't traveling for meetings or tours or anything like that.

Lately I've been doing a study on unity, which is something that we'll be training on in the next Zone Leader Council. I always thought it was kind of a bogus topic, and would either tune it out or skip over anything about it. However, I had a really great study. I focused on President Eyring's talk, "Our Hearts Knit as One" and learned a lot about it. He asks us to think of a time in the last week when we've been asked what we think about how another person is doing. I thought of the times when the mission leaders come to Guam for meetings and then ask how each others' companions or other missionaries are doing. He encouraged to focus on the positive things when asked these types of questions. Again, I thought of these times and how often missionaries, including myself, don't focus on the positive, but rather the areas that missionaries are struggling in. He reminds us that there are times where we need to evaluate another person's performance (interviews with the mission president, exchanges with mission leaders, etc), but how looking for the positive unites people together in every situation. It was just really cool for me to look at this talk again with a different angle (I skipped it before).

Next Monday we'll be in Pohnpei, like I said, so I don't know if I'll get a chance to email over there. If not, I'll try and write anyway.

Love,

Elder Barlow

Pictures:

1) Chuukese semi-active member whose family we're teaching.

2) Let me see yo' grillz.

3) Departing missionaries, Elder South and Elder Standage

4) Recent Convert/Part-Member family we're working with plus our Chuukese member friend (red cap).

21 March 2011

Family,

So today is officially my 17 month mark. The months are going by like weeks, which is weird because the days feel just as long as ever. I remember looking at the missionaries who have been out for 18 months or so and just thinking about how far away I was from that point, and now I feel like I'll wake up tomorrow and have to go home. Anyway, every time I cross another month-mark, I think this same thing.

Well, we had a missionary transfer to our mission from the Marshall Islands mission because he needed some serious dental work done that they couldn't do over there. His name is Elder Dein, from Chuuk. The funny thing is that before his mission, he didn't speak English. In Kiribati (where he served the last 17 months of his mission) they don't speak English either, and they definitely don't speak Chuukese. So he got really good at Gilbertese (which is what they do speak down there), and forgot how to speak Chuukese. The only English he learned was the little that he picked up from his American companions. So we're taking him to our Chuukese investigators and forcing him to speak to them to help him remember. Gilbertese is really a useless language in our mission, but Chuukese is probably the most common, so we need him to remember. Today we took him to the dentist so they could evaluate what it is exactly that he needs done.

I also had my first experience with transfers this week. We went into President Dowdle's office and he opened up the transfer board, and we talked about what needed to happen and who would go where and how that would affect each area and what not. It's pretty exciting, but then we can't even talk about it to anyone for another 2 weeks afterward.

Saturday we were sitting in the drive through to McDonald's and this kid (I think he might have been drunk) walked up to our window and started off pretty cordially but after a minute he started swearing and insulting us. It was pretty funny because here's this 17 year old kid, and both Elder Matthews and Elder Dein are pretty big dudes, and could have easily made this kid chew on some pavement. It was just a pretty random thing, and we laughed about it after, so I thought I'd share it with you guys.

Sorry I don't have more to say, this week I'll try and perform some amazing feats so I can have more to say next time.

Love,

Elder Barlow

14 March 2011

Family,

So I'm sure some of you are wondering what the tsunami was like on our end, but somehow Micronesia wasn't touched. I think it has something to do with the reefs that surround each of the islands. But anyway, Friday evening just after our training, we were heading home and the mission president texted us and told us about the tsunami warning and asked us to alert all the zones and have the missionaries get to higher ground. I was pretty surprised and probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, but since it came directly from President Dowdle, I thought it was pretty serious. So anyway, we took all the missionaries that were staying with us (about 14 total) and drove to the mission office to make the calls to the other islands. We were able to get in contact with all but one companionship, which happened to be the one we were most concerned about. People were camping out on hills or in church buildings, and in Guam the missionary apartments are all pretty high, so they were told to stay in their apartments. So then we waited. We were told it was supposed to reach Guam at about 11 p.m. our time, but the time came and went, without so much as getting my feet wet. This is the second tsunami warning that I can recall on my mission, and both had the same result. I did hear a little about the devastation in Japan, and I couldn't believe it. We saw the number deaths go from 5 to 10 to 32 and I guess now its around 10,000. It's just really sad, so we've been praying for not only the missionaries serving there, but the people in general.

Like I said, we had a training meeting this week for all the leaders in the mission. We housed most of them but we had to ask the district and zone leaders in Guam to house some too, just so then we would have enough room in each of the cars to take everyone to the meeting and everywhere else they needed to go. It was pretty crazy. Then after the 4 days of training we had a huge service project clearing brush around a high school in the north of Guam, and then followed all of that with Zone Leader Council. It was a lot of stuff to plan and put together. It's weird to be on the other end of it though. It's the same feeling every time. Training from a leadership position you just want the missionaries to get what your saying and put it deep into their hearts, but I never understood how important the things they were saying were until I was the one actually saying them. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I don't really have much else to say. Most of our week was spent shuttling missionaries around and sitting in meetings. This next week we have to re-draw borders for a few of the areas in Guam, but other than that I think we'll have some time to do some good finding. We should be going on a tour of the mission in a couple of weeks, so we'll be preparing for that as well. I will say that the time is flying faster than ever. Dealing with so many things seems to make the days pass in seconds.

I'll talk to you soon.

Love,
Elder Barlow

7 March 2011

Family,

So we're storing two bikes in our apartment since every companionship in Guam has a car, and Elder Matthews and I decided that if we have them, we might as well use them. We did it twice and decided that we prefer the car.

We've been pretty swamped planning for this week's leadership training. In the past there has been a separate one for the west side (in Guam) and the east side (in Pohnpei). This time around we're doing it all together in Guam. We've had to make plans for where everyone is going to stay, who is going to pick up who from the airport, organize a service project for them all, and find out how they're all going to eat this week. Plus, we've had to prepare handouts, and our own training. To top it off, there is a problem with two of the companionships, whose area boundaries fall in two different church unit boundaries, so they are attending a different branch/ward than their investigators, so we had to redraw the area boundaries and move some people around. It's just been crazy.

As for our missionary work, we had some interesting turn of events there too. So we're teaching this Chuukese girl and her aunt (the same ones I mentioned last week). The girl's family is back in Chuuk, but she moved here permanently for school, and her family has no plans of coming. So her aunt is the legal guardian, but wanted to double check with the family for permission for this girl to get baptized. Saturday evening they called and the family said no - her grandfather is apparently some minister and got pretty upset. We're not really sure how to deal with it all because their permission doesn't really matter since the aunt that she stays with IS the legal guardian. We'll see how it all unfolds.

As we were walking around one day (I think Friday), we came across a woman who motioned to us that she was deaf, and was about to close the door. I called to memory what little sign language I could muster and asked this lady if she knew how to sign. She said yes and excitedly invited us inside. Unfortunately she is a single woman so we couldn't teach her. We gave her a pamphlet, asked her to read it, and then she told us her story of how she doesn't like Americans because her ex-husband was American and he left her and took the kids to the US and his family refers to her as a witch. It was pretty interesting. I was pretty impressed with what I could do after a basic high school class and then almost 4 years of nothing. We'll have to go back again when we can find a man to join us. I don't know how great of an investigator she'll be, but we'll never know unless we try.

I think that's pretty much how our week has gone. We're just trying to balance everything we have to do.

Love,

Elder Barlow

End of February

Family,

So this week was my trip to Saipan. It was very different from Guam, and even more so than Palau. That's not really what I expected. I thought that it would be just a miniature Guam. The Micronesians that we met had been in Saipan for basically their whole lives, so they didn't really speak their native languages. The majority of the people we met were Filipino and American - I've never felt so uncomfortable in my whole mission. Anyway, the branch in Saipan is probably the most diverse and the most united. Everyone is friends with everyone and there are so many members! It was really cool to see a new place and meet some missionaries that I hadn't before.

Yesterday Elder Matthews and I asked all the zones to have a day of finding. They were to have no prior-scheduled appointments and avoid the homes of members. The point was to get the missionaries out of their comfort zones and go and talk to people. The results were tremendous, more than we expected at all. Almost every single number that we keep track of weekly went up, some doubled and one even tripled. I couldn't believe it. President Dowdle is out in Palau right now so I can't wait for our meeting tomorrow so we can show him what happened. Just goes to show how important finding new investigators is.

I got the Valentine's Day package, and it's been great. I had the Stroganoff for lunch after church yesterday. One of the wrappers broke open so there was a ton of ants in one of the little bags. I just shook them out and threw away a couple of little candies, but the rest seemed okay.

There's this girl and her aunt that we're teaching and neither of them speak English. It has been one of the most interesting experiences. The girl is supposed to be baptized this Saturday, and the aunt a few weeks later. I know they understand what baptism is, and they've agreed to be baptized but I'm not sure how much of what we're teaching is very clear to them. Our Chuukese friend Cheech is coming with us tonight to make sure everything is clear.

I'm not sure if I told you about the new mission president. He arrives July 1st and I forgot his name. President Dowdle said they were friends in college and in law school and spoke very highly of him, so I think it will be fun. You might be able to find out more about him in the Church News or something.

We should find out tomorrow if President Dowdle wants us to go to Pohnpei and Kosrae in the next couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited about that. We'll be having a combined leadership training in a couple of weeks, meaning there will be just under 20 extra missionaries coming to Guam. We have to run back and forth to the airport and find places for them all to stay and who's going to take them where and when and make sure that everyone always has a companion. It's going to be crazy.

Love,

Elder Barlow