25 July 2011

Family,

It seems like things stayed pretty much the same until just recently. All the nieces and nephews are going to be super old, plus a bunch more that I've never met, Dad's going to be retired, Jacob's going to be married, the house is going to be upgraded with a new flat screen, and who knows what else?

Anyway, we got back from Kosrae this past week. We had a good time over there, but I don't think some of these people realize how small their islands are. We got to Kosrae's excuse for an airport and apparently you have to be there 90 minutes early (it didn't say that on any of the documents I had). We got there 80 minutes before the flight, which I thought was plenty of time, especially because there is only one room to the entire "airport." Anyway, the guy said check-in had closed and we would have to wait until the next flight - which wasn't for another 4 days, just so you know. I asked to talk to the manager and he said "I can't grant you any exceptions, in the future you just need to know that for flight 957, you need to check in at least 90 minutes early." He doesn't realize how many flight there are in the world, and you cannot possibly memorize all of these things. Kosrae is a tiny island in a forgotten corner of Micronesia serviced by an airline twice a week, it's not the center of everyone's attention. Mind you, I didn't say any of this to him, but I wanted to. That's why I'm saying it now. In the end, we did in fact get on the plane, but I was pretty frustrated about the whole thing. Especially because by the time we finished going through security and immigration and everything, the plane hadn't even arrived. I think they had some family members waiting standby to get on the flight, and they thought they would since we were 10 minutes late, but when we actually showed up, it messed with their plans. Other than that, the Kosraean people are wonderful, and the island is beautiful. There was a white marine biologist from New York who was doing some work there, and his wife is a member from Tonga, so she invited us over and her husband, Larry, made us lobster enchiladas. It's been a while since I had enchiladas, and I'd actually never had lobster before. These were pretty spicy, and I spent some time in the restroom that night, but they tasted really good going down.

We had a Pioneer Day celebration and a baptism this last Saturday in our ward, so it made for a pretty crazy day. They had a barbecue, one of those inflatable moon bounce things but this one was a water slide, a slip-n-slide, a water balloon fight, basketball, and this guy in the ward brought his bagpipes and played them for like an hour (it was pretty weird). But there was a really good turnout. Right as we started to take everything down, it started pouring super hard, but it was bright and sunny and hot the whole day prior to that. Pretty lucky for all of us. All the while we would leave to go teach a lesson and then come back, since the party was like 5 hours long. The girl that was baptized is the sister of a Chuukese guy (but they live in Guam) who is now serving a mission in Australia (he was the only member until just now). Elder Matthews and I used to teach her back when I first came to Guam, but some things happened with her family, so she moved out of our area and the missionaries couldn't visit her where she went. Then one day about a month ago she showed up at church and told the sisters she wanted to be baptized and if they could start teaching her. So they did and she asked me to baptize her, after she came up out of the water she just kind of stood there for a second and I directed her back out of the font, and as soon as the door closed, I heard her basically yelling to her cousin who was waiting for her how awesome she felt and how cool it was. She bore her testimony at the end of the service, and her mother is supposed to be baptized next month, and I'm pretty sure her sister will follow as well. It was pretty cool to be a part of it.

We should be having a baptism again this coming Saturday. It's a guy that used to be taught by missionaries but then his mom got offended or something, so she wouldn't let us come over (she's an active member, so I'm not really sure what the problem could have been). Anyway we called and asked if we could come teach him. She readily agreed and we went and taught him for the first time yesterday. We got a feel for where he was at, and it seemed like he was ready (he's been coming to church every week for the past like 5 months), so we asked him to be baptized this coming Saturday, and he said yes. Then his mom told us a story about the night before (when we called) about how she had been praying asking God when her son would be baptized, and then we called. She's kind of a weird lady, but still a cool experience nonetheless.

This is pretty much our only normal week until the transfer happens next week, so I'm excited to just work without any administrative duties to get in the way.

I love you guys, and I'll talk you again soon.

Elder Barlow

P.S. Oh and the other picture is of the office couple that just went home.

Not for the faint-hearted

So while we were in Kosrae, we were waiting to have Family Home Evening with this family. They were butchering this pig so I thought I'd document the process for you guys. After the shaved it, gutted it, and chopped it up, they had been heating these river rocks that the put the meat on then they covered it with some green taro leaves, and then to seal the air inside, they put wet ones down. It was pretty cool and gross at the same time.

11 July 2011

Family,

This has been a crazy week. We spent everyday meeting with President Mecham talking about the upcoming transfer - which is still a month away. We're losing 6 missionaries and only getting 4, so we have to close an area and replace a bunch of leadership positions. It's been kind of a headache. Usually President Dowdle would just do the transfer, and then towards the end have us check for problems and add our input. Now we're having to make way more suggestions because he doesn't know any of the missionaries. All he knows is where they've served in the past. We're nervous to say anything because as soon as we do, someone gets transferred. It's pretty crazy. But President Mecham is awesome. One of the zone leaders called because a companionship in their zone was bickering and not getting along and they wanted to talk to President Mecham. We gave them his off-island phone number and he called us back and told us that they're being foolish and need to learn to get along - or never get married. It was pretty funny, and it was just evidence to me that he's the man. We're going off-island again this week by the way. We're headed up to Saipan tomorrow and then we'll be in Kosrae all weekend, so if you don't get an email from me next week, that's why.

We've done a lot of finding this week since the investigators we have aren't really progressing for whatever reason. One has to get married, but can't until she goes to the Marshalls and back, another is waiting for his court date, and another is working double shifts at work. So we've been spending our time looking for less-active members in order to teach the other members of the family. Finding people in Guam is surprisingly much harder than the other islands. Here, people have addresses and the streets have names, so you'd think it would make things a lot easier. However, there are all kinds of people so you can't just ask anybody where they live, and even though a street will have a name, it won't be marked. Same with the houses, some will have numbers, and others won't, or they'll go completely out of order - from 15 to 732 to 109. It doesn't make any sense. So as you can imagine, finding these people has been pretty difficult. But we found one and asked for the person we were looking for, but he wasn't home. The woman we were talking to said "You're Mormons right? I want to join your church. Me and my husband." Those are the kind of things I like to happen to me when I knock on someone's door.

There is a member in our ward (she's the pianist), whose husband just moved from the states (she just got a job here, which is why she came in the first place). He's not a member but has been meeting with the missionaries for over 20 years. He talks like a Mormon, feeds us like a Mormon, everything about him feels like a run-of-the-mill member of the church (throw back to the 1950's with that phrase), but he refuses to get baptized. He claims to have a problem with Joseph Smith. Anyway, we're the latest set of missionaries to teach this guy. We're afraid he's just been putting up the same wall of defense for so long that he looks at us as just another set of missionaries trying to take a shot at it. We've only taught him twice, so we'll see how things progress from here. He did come to church yesterday, it that counts for anything.

That's about all I have time for today. I love you guys.

Love,

Elder Barlow

Pictures:
1) Vilynta - our Chuukese investigator that was just baptized last week.

2-4) Gangster Chuukese wedding. President Dowdle married them, and they rented a limo. We sat in the limo and took pictures before the wedding party came out afterward.

4th of July

Family,

This week we finally switched mission presidents. President Mecham arrived at about midnight Tuesday night, so we met the mission presidency and their wives at the airport to greet him. It was pretty awkward. We just weren't sure how to act or what to do. But as soon as he landed, President Dowdle reminded him that as soon as he lands on island, he has the keys for the mission, and handed him his cell phone. It was pretty funny. Then a few hours later we had to come back to the airport to pick up the first of the missionaries that were coming for zone leader council (which was this last weekend). The next morning we met President Mecham at the office for our first meeting with him. We said our goodbyes to President Dowdle (I don't know how many of you changed mission presidents on your missions, but it was pretty emotional for all of us that were there), then went into our meeting. He basically just told us that he has known President Dowdle for a very long time and doesn't plan to change anything, just to build on the work he has already done. He's definitely a different personality, but he's still going to be really good for the mission.

We had a baptism on Saturday, and it was really good. On Thursday before her interview we prepared her for the interview, and my companion had me explain the part of the interview that talks about homosexuality. Keep in mind that I'm having to do this in Chuukese. So my companion taught me some of the words that I needed that I didn't know yet, and we went through all the questions with her. I thought it would be a lot more awkward than it was. Anyway, we told her the program and had her choose people to pray, speak, baptize, etc. She called us later in the day and said she wanted Elder Malit to give the opening and closing prayers and me to baptize and confirm her. We explained that maybe she should let some other people do some things, so she said she wanted Elder Malit to baptize her and me to confirm. I started to get pretty scared because I've never confirmed anyone in Palauan, let alone Chuukese. I told her that she may want to think about it a little more because I felt like Elder Malit could give a lot better of a blessing than I could, but if she wanted, I would learn how to do it. So that night and the next morning (the morning of the baptism) I was studying the words for the ordinance in Chuukese, and also a bunch of words that I might need to know to give a blessing. So about 30 minutes before the baptism was to start, we went over to give her the baptismal clothes, and she said she'd just have us switch - I'd baptize and Elder Malit would confirm. I was pretty relieved, but a little disappointed at the same time. I was getting kind of excited to try something new, but on the other hand I knew that it would mean a lot more to her if he gave the blessing, without having to decipher what I was trying to say if it wasn't exactly right. It was good for me to learn all that stuff though. She also asked Elder Malit and I to sing, so we sang this Chuukese song that was pretty cool. Then she came to church, got confirmed, fasted, and paid her tithing. She's doing really good right now.

Another of our investigators, his name is Daniel, is from an outer island of Yap called Ulithe (I think that's how you spell it). We went to meet with him and he said "Before we start, I just want to say that maybe you guys shouldn't come anymore." He went on to say how he feels bad everytime we come and he hasn't read or he has to reschedule or something, and he doesn't like wasting our time. We just happened to have an object lesson in our car about priorities, using a jar, rocks, and rice (sometimes people use sand, but it's the same idea). Some people may have been offended at this point, but Daniel honestly wants the things we have to offer, and is very humble. So we told him that he's putting the things that don't matter (the rice) first before the things that do, "the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (the rocks), so of course he doesn't have enough time for it all. We read the scripture in 3 Nephi about that, and he started to cry. He said that example really touched him, because he knows how much he wants the blessings, but until now he hadn't understood that he was doing it all wrong. So he committed himself to read and pray everyday. It was a really great lesson.

Bart Jolley was just on a flight from Guam to Saipan that a couple of our missionaries were on. He sat next to them and when they landed Elder Cook called me and said, "Do you know Bart Jolley?" I said of course I do, and he replied, "Okay he's right here." So I talked to him for a minute, and he told me the story. Apparently he's in Saipan for a Biology research group or something from BYU-H. He said he was in the Guam airport when we dropped the missionaries off, but we didn't see each other. It was a pretty weird coincidence.

That's it for this week. We're just getting President Mecham settled in.

Love,

Elder Barlow