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.
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