Monday, June 24, 2013

He didn't get my email :( So this is what we got

I'll just write you a quick one, Trina was baptized and it was a good week, I'll probably get your email later, but I'm emailing now and don't have anything I'll send you some pictures, thanks mom, hope life is good there! 

Mom's note in my defence. He usually doesn't write until 9 or 9:30, he was several hours early :( I was very sad. I even had one almost finished and then supper needed to be made.I wrote a couple and sent pictures to make up for it!!

Here are the pictures he sent. I wrote the  captions, he only ever sends pictures without explanations. 


This is obviously a beautiful sunset on the Island



This is Trina who go baptized on Saturday. He has been working with her for a few months now. He was really thrilled that she committed and followed through!


His companion is on the left of him. His name is Elder Schmidt. Notice Jordan's classy tie. Nice tie eh??

Islands in the Marshall Islands Majuro mission. He is on Majuro right now

These are the islands of the Marshall Islands mission. Jordan would love to serve on one of the outer islands at some point is time. He is currently serving on Majuro the main island. I sent an email last night but apparently it was later then he was in the email category. I felt bad because I started it before we started making supper but was interrupted and didn't get it sent in time. He sent a few pictures.


Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Mission Conference and what Jordan is learning June 17, 2013

Thanks for the email and before I answer your questions and what not, I want to say that we had a mission conference and Elder Pearson our area 70 came. It was incredible, the spirit I felt from him was amazing.  I didn't feel tired I just felt like I could do anything and talk to anyone and spread the gospel through the power of the Holy Ghost. I guess he helped me realize moreso of the magnitude of what I'm doing here, and then after the conference he randomly picked a couple elder's and sisters to have a one on one interview with. I was kind of nervous at first, but we just talked and one thing he asked us in the conference was to write down, before our missions what we were, and what we had to give up to become a true disciple of Christ.  The spirit was able to tell me some things I need to work on in order to become the best missionary I can be and the missionary that my mother thinks that I am! haha I know that that is very important and also his wife gave a very good talk in mission conference as well. She said that her parents served as mission presidents in Norway, but they didn't know my dad,  but oh well still cool and got me really inspired. I always try my best each day, but it just gave me more of a drive I guess, which is important.
Sometimes that's what I lacked before my mission I didn't have the drive.  I would just let life happen as it would, it's good to be laid back but if you are too laid back you can be your own worst enemy.  I guess the spirit was trying to tell me I need to be a little more driven and motivated which is good, so that's what I'm working on right now. Just way excited to be working where I am right now, and it is hard  to get motivated here because the people just have an attitude of laziness but I have to rise above that  and show them what the church can do for them. Hopefully I will still be working with Elder Schmidt because I'm really liking working with him and we get along really well.  On to answering your questions, all the islands are pretty much inhabited other than Bikini atoll I think, they moved them all to Edjit. The food people eat here besides spam are..... rice... lots and lots of rice, but they also eat chicken mostly fried legs and stuff like that. They eat corned beef from a can, sometimes they eat pig if they can get it. If we're lucky we'll get coleslaw and that's about the greenest we can get, although at mission conference the other day we had like mexican taco salad and that was like heaven, oh baby!! Well I've made fajitas and chicken and then just whatever spices I can get I'll throw on some chicken and make like a chicken alfredo or spaghetti or whatever else I can throw together from what I have, but its good. I can mix it up and I'm way glad I know how to cook as is my companion, it just takes a long time on one electric burner that can't even get water to boil!  So no, recipes probably won't do a whole lot. Nope no crock pot, our house has like literally nothing, the other Elders have them so maybe later in the mission I will use a crock pot. Yeah I've got some letters from Aunt Deanne and I'm working on replying to them. (the letters I get) The language is actually coming way good, it's nice being able to get into a taxi and just bwebwenato with the taxi driver, it's way nice! I understand mostly what people say to me, I just have to add little words in now that I dont' know, but I can have real conversations now and I feel like I don't need a senior companion to lead me everywhere, so that's nice. It's crazy how fast we can learn! Trina has not been baptized yet, but she will be this week, her mom has come now and for sure this saturday she will be baptized which is nice. I will send you pictures and tell you all about it. I guess I'll tell you how a baptismal service is run, sorry if I  stink at explaining things, I just tend to assume you know everything.  Seeing as you're not here you don't. I spoke at church a while ago, I  might have forgot to tell you that, I don't remember, but I  spoke at Easter and talked about the atonement and that was good. There are some solid members in the ward, they have enough people to run everything, Rita was the first area that missionaries had success they have like 7 high council members in Rita and none in Delap or Uliga which is the more city area. Seems like there is not a ton of solid memebers when you go to church on Sunday, but when we go out and meet members we find out they are all High Priests. Right now there's only one outer island open, there is Ebeye, Majuro and Lae open right now. Ebeye isn't really an outer, but Lae is moreso. My new companion, he's just awesome, way easy to get along with is sarcastic and at the same time knows how to work and work hard. We're having some pretty good success right now and hopefully if all works out, we could have a whole family baptized. Tthe guy is just way solid and reading in the Book of Mormon a ton. We didn't even commit him to read it and he had already read up to the end of second Nephi,  just way solid!  His name is Jillia and if all goes well we could have the whole family baptized but his wife is in Hawaii right now going to BYU but is also not a member, so if she got baptized there and he got baptized here that would just be awesome! I think that's about all for now, I'm loving the work right now, I'm way happy and excited to see how the work will change when the new mission president comes! Thanks for all the love and support, and I pray for you aelop iien! 
Lots of love
from Elder Michelson!

Mom's note. It was so good to get this email. Usually they come on Sunday sometime in the evening. We didn't get one on Sunday and I was worried he hadn't gotten ours because we sent them while we were driving. I guess it was just because of Mission Conference. Whew everything is good! I love hearing how he is realizing what the important things in life are!!!

Monday, June 10, 2013

word mishap with the new companion June 2,2013


Close on the marshallese, mottan jiddik kwonaaj jela aelop kajin majul haha raanin ej raan im jabot im iaar etal nan monjar haha thats like today is sunday and I went to church, and that sounds like an interesting camp about the mid evil theme. This week was way good, I love my companion he's so awesome and he has been here for 5 months and for sure I am still learning marshallese, I feel like on the last day of my mission I'll still be learning marshallese. The old stake president is the guy who's teaching me marshallese and he's really helping out with the gramatical use of the language because you can't really get that from the normal marshallese people. If you do come, you will definitely have to meet him. No he doesn't really cook, I do all the cooking but no worries, I cook and he does dishes and he's really glad that I cook because I made some really delicious food this week. made a cake with an orange glaze and some mac and cheese with a homemade cheese sauce and then some spaghetti sauce and it was just way good! I also ate some turtle this week which was probably one of the best things I've tasted here so far, so good! I got a good ninnin story about my companion he also learned this word this week! hahaha so Trina our investigator was showing him a picture of one of her friends and as soon as he looked at the picture he stares at it for a sec and asks "ewi ninnin?" kind of struggling through it, and me and Trina look at each each other and just start laughing like what did you just say??? haha its like looking at the phone and asking "wheres the boob?" What happened was she got a message right as he got the phone, and the message said "ewi nin2(squared)" and in marshallese phone kind of text that's like asking where's the baby, but he had no idea why we were laughing so hard, because he hadn't heard the word ninnin before that was a good story quite humourous. We've doing a ton of finding the past week and had a pretty successful week seeing as we started basically from ground zero. My trainer didn't really work the way missionaries are supposed too, and 
I found out that I was training him half the time, oh well you learn right? Elder Schmidt and I have been working hard and trying to get our area to what it could become, because the people are really nice and friendly and this area could be so much better than it is. It always had the rep of a bad area, so we're trying to change that, Elder Schmidt says that I'm just going to stay in Rita and after the next transfer I'm going to train. Holy if that happens that would be a long time in Rita I hope that doesn't happen and I don't know if I'm ready to train, but thats not for a while anyways. Trina is getting baptized this week, which is really exciting because I have seen her completely change, its like she's a new person who she is really solid and ready for baptism. I am so excited for her, it'll be cool for sure. I think that's about all I have for now, thanks for the love and support and lots of lovin from your son Elder Jordan Michelson 

Charmaine here
So I wrote him a sentence in Marshallese, so I guess it wasn't quite right so that's what the beginning is about. I also asked him about the people at church so that where the old stake president sentence came from. 


June 9, 2013

Okay first I’ll answer all your questions, yes they have a Book of Mormon in Marshallese and a bible, so reading from the Book of Mormon right now. I'm to the point where I can understand most of the words in the Book of Mormon and get a meaning from reading in marhsallese, Ill look at an English one to clarify but yeah they have a Book of Mormon. No D and C or anything like that yet, but they're working on it. Me and my comp are bros!! haha I love this kid he's originally from Boston, and Philly but his parents live in Saint George right now, and he’s worked in two places now, and he’s pretty good at the language and we work well together I think. I'm loving the work right now and I taught him how to play rook and he says he's going to come for the rook tournament so we can show him what real rook is! Trina hasn’t been baptized yet, but this Friday she will be. Her mother was off island and she wanted her there for it! Selina is getting a calling shortly and I think she’s doing really well. I hope she stays strong, its hard for them to not backslide, that’s a big problem here. The weather depends on the day, I don’t know when the rainy season is, it's kind of a drought right now.  We went jumboing,  jumbo is like wandering kind of just walking around, kind of mixing English and Marshallese a bit, but we went for a jumbo to ejjet which is the other island, in our area, we tried climbing huge coconut trees and then this Kiribati guy, Elder Atantaake who you saw on skype just climbed it like it was nothing, it was ridiculous. We drank some coconuts, tried to go fishing but ejjelok toprak, haha no success, and we got nice and toasty because it was hot and just kind of walked around and hung out, walked on some corral with no shoes on, because I thought it was sandy, not really my brightest moment that kind of hurt a lot and just took some pictures and had a good time. Elders and sisters I have no idea, like 10 sisters on island and probably 40 elders?? I don’t know haven’t really counted, and I love my mother a lot, because she knows her son really well and sends him awesome packages of just straight chocolate!! Haha that was awesome!! And appreciate everything you do for me! And sounds like Taylor is doing well, I would say wish him luck, but I don’t know if he's gone yet! If you do see him again before he leaves tell him I still expect a letter from Eunice. I don’t know what else to say, not a lot of excitement this week, hope you liked the story last week I thought it was pretty good, and yeah if I'm brief about certain things tell me, that’s about it thanks for everything!! Peace out my madre!! Lots of love from your son!