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