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).
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