My life is good!!

November 24, 2013

> My life is good, and before I forget to ask could you send some maple syrup? I have these investigators who are going to make a marshallese mat, which is called a jaki and I said I'd get them some maple syrup, so if you could do that, that would be awesome! This week I have some good stories, on Thursday went on an exchange with Elder Parkinson, who is my new district leader, he is the man. We get along really good, anyway we did an exchange and I was not feeling so good, so decided I would sleep for just a little bit, a little bit turned into like 4 hours! And then we went out and did some work, and I was still feeling crappy so came back and just thought I'd take a little nap, another 4 hours later I woke up. Apparently I really needed some sleep, and was not feeling too good, so that was Thursday. But I'm better now, just to let you know. My trainee really does not know english that well, so makes things a little more difficult, like I said before. It's just hard not really being able to communicate with someone let alone converse with them. So, that's a little tough, but oh well, it could be worse. I got some really good mona in majol this week, which is like marshallese food. I had bwiiro, which is marshallese cake as the lady described it, but it is so good. The way she cooked it is the best I've had on the island, so that was really nice, she made me and my companion our own things of bwiiro and just so good! I've been really getting into the marshallese spirit of just sharing everything and it works well. I'll cook people breadsticks or pizza or whatever and they just love me. A big part of marshallese culture is sharing food, inviting everyone to come and eat with you, so when you share that same interest, it works very well and people are a lot more open! So that's something new I found out this week, I also get to eat more traditional marshallese food that way, which I like because when I get home, I don't think I'm going to get it that much! To answer some of your questions about the senior couples, the senior couples all live next to the presidents house which is in Rairok or Long Island, the center of the island pretty much. Then they will drive out to the Laura ward, which includes the Laura Elder's, the Laura Sister's (tripanionship) and us in Arrak. In terms of hearing from the outer islands, we hear a bit here and there. Maybe if they have a baptism or something, but I'm pretty low on the chain of information right now especially with where I'm working, it's kind of isolated and I tend to be out of the loop quite a bit, but oh well! I honestly don't know my companion's first name, it's something fairly difficult to say, but I'll get that to you next week. He was baptized when he was 15, 5 years ago. He is the only member of his family who is a member of the church and yes he emails his family. He's kind of quiet and shy, but he's learning jiddik kon jiddik. In terms of packages, I got the Halloween one and that's been it for a while, I got one from Sarinah and the family as well. That was nice, but yes I did keep my promise and have been patiently waiting, the wrapped contacts and toothbrush are just sitting there waiting for me. Haha Best experience this week was probably the fact that I baptized someone in the Ocean, her name is Mercyla Lolin and she was one of the sister's investigators and asked me to baptize her. That was awesome, it was pouring rain and super windy, with the ocean really not being that nice to us, but we continued with the baptism and that was cool! So that was a really good experience from this week! Companionship study is difficult, just because I am the only one talking for pretty much all of it, but it's been good, and doing role plays where we take the spot of our investigators really helps. It helps me see things from a new perspective and helps me think more like my investigators. Also I think working with an islander will help me understand more as well. I don't know if it's all that powerful or whatever but it really answered my investigators question about the sacrament and the sabbath day, there are 2 of them in acts 2:42 I believe and acts 20:7, that was exactly what my investigator needed to hear and really helped her understand more and more because she knows the bible extremely well, so I have to use the bible in those lessons to help her. They both talk about Sacrament and the Sabbath Day and when it should be and how often we should do it, because she believed more of the Mosiac law and didn't fully understand how Christ fulfilled the law of Moses and made it better. I'm working with a lot more perspective missionaries and kids around that age, and have been finding some success in finding new people to teach around that age, so we have an 18 year old named Richie that we just started studying with and his cousin Bobson, who is 19, there both pretty good and they like having us around and are always ready to study, so hopefully that will go well and we'll be able to help them get baptized. That's the plan anyway. Then we have Danny, who has a lot of desire right now, so we'll try to continue working with that, but first we have to get him divorced, married, and to live the word of wisdom, so that's just a patience thing. He's been coming to church lately and we just had a really spiritual lesson with him last night, so that was good and hopefully it will give him that extra push to really live all these things he's learning. No real Christmas festivities yet, those will start soon though, getting into beat and all that stuff. I haven't really heard from anyone that surprised me lately, and yeah I heard about the disaster in Phillipians, it sucks to hear stuff like that, but it hasn't really effected us that much, its just been raining a little more lately, but that's about it! And well if you haven't told me you loved me lately, you just did! Haha and I love you all a lot too, and thanks for the email, this thing is huge, well have a great week!
> Lots of lovin'
> From Elder Jordan Michelson
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