This place is ready, I can feel it!

January 19, 2014
Alright so I finally figured out how to write you back. The Internet is way slow, but this place is way nice.  I think I might have burnt my neck today, just randomly saying because we just kind of walked around the island today and tried to figure out where stuff is. There is quite a bit out here, and it was cool to see how prepared this place is, we had 23 people to church on our first Sunday, and we'll see if we can keep that up, we've located 6 or so members now, and this one family already wants their children to be baptized, so that'll be good if that can go through. The only problem with the solid family is that they don't speak Marshallese so when we held our service on Sunday she didn't really understand what was going on, but it's all good. We'll figure it out little by little, oh it's super funny how surprised some of the people are when they hear this white boy speaking in understandable Marshallese, the smiles on some of their faces is like priceless! My companion is Elder Va'aulu from Samoa he's been out for a while now, almost 2 years, he goes home at the end of March, so I'll get someone new at that point obviously. He's the man and it'll be awesome working out here, definitely different but still good.  Naw the dialect is relatively the same, they just speak way fast and stuff and it's a little harder for them to understand what I'm saying because my pronunciation isn't perfect to say the least, but hey, I do what I can and as long as I can get my point across that's all I really care about. I'm going to attempt to learn some Kiribati while I'm out here. That'll be fun starting from square one again but hey I learned one language so why not try to speak another? The family with the two kids they want baptized don't speak Marshallese at all, but they do know a little english, so that's nice we'll see how that goes. This island is sick, there's all sorts of world war two stuff on it that the Japanese left, and there's nice shady beaches and it's a really neat island. It's also a whole lot cleaner and the water is so blue... haha but don't worry I promise I won't go swimming :p I think that's about all for now, we're still just trying to get stuff established and figured out right now, so it'll be different for a bit. But this place is ready, I can feel it!

Lots of lovin'

From Elder Jordan Michelson (laddik in Wotje)

Moms comment

Usually we get emails on Sunday afternoon so when at 10pm we got this, it was a WONDERFUL surprise!! 

Sorry for the Craziness

January 19, 2014 

Haha okay so sorry for the craziness, and not letting you know what's happening exactly, just kind of been rushed and running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but it's been good! Haha so basically I got to say goodbye to almost no one, it was way rushed and then I just went and worked with a bunch of other companionships throughout the mission, it was weird not having any investigators and what not, so yeah and my companion right now is Elder Vaaulu and he is the man, it's going to be really fun working with him, plus we're going to go do work! I don't know we'll see what the island is like when I get there, I heard that maybe it has email, so we'll see once again. We're kind of just going in blind and setting everything up from scratch, we don't even know if we're going to stay there or not, we need to go find a place to live, and all that. We have a week, if the irooj or like the king i guess of the island says its okay to work there then we are good to go, and we can find a house and figure stuff out. If we don't then I come back and probably head out to arno, where there definitely is no email. So it'll be an interesting next month, but it'll be fun for sure! Oh and the lady that I worked with for all that time, I was not able to see her get baptized but oh well it's not that important, I know I did my part and as long as she does get baptized right? And let's see what else Wotje is, from what I understand, the most beautiful island in the marshall islands, so I'm kind of excited to see it! And we almost flew out this morning, checked all of our bags and were on the plane, flew for 2 minutes and then came back down because there was a problem with the plane, hahaha aindein majol in (just the way it is in the marshalls) but hopefully we'll fly out later to today and all goes smoothly! I guess just send some emails on Sunday and I'll try to respond when I can and see if I can get some internet access! But I love you all a ton and thanks for everything,
lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson (Ri-wotje)

mom's note
we got this on friday and didn't know if we would hear from him again for 6 months. I was on pins and needles. Other families with missionaries in the Marshall's haven't heard from them in 5 months so I know it was a possibility.:( 

January 5, 2014

Let's see just like a bit of new news this week... Like maybe I'm going to open an outer island or something and I might be out there for like 6 months with probably no email, and I also get to fly to another outer island and see if that's ready for missionaries, if that's the case that's where I'll call home for the next 6 months. Haha so I'll either be working on Wotje or Arno, I don't know, but then again I don't really care either way I'm opening up a whole new island to missionaries. It is going to be awesome, apparently President trusts me a little so that'll be nice! I'll be working with the former AP which will be nice because Elder Vaaulu is that man, oh it's going to be awesome! It was weird saying goodbye to all my investigators and the area that I was accustomed to once again, and it kind of sucks that I'll miss Katline's baptism, but it's not really important if I'm there or not, at least I helped her progress. And my last sunday in the Laura ward there were 7 investigators that showed up to church, which was just a really nice way to end leaving! So hopefully all those people will progress and do well, so hopefully your online for a bit because otherwise I don't know if I'll be able to talk to anyone for a while. 

Mom's note 

This is the email we got, and got left in the dark with no other emails for a couple of weeks. I needed to know more info so I emailed the mission office. They said that he would be able to email before he left. Unfortunately he didn't email for almost 2 weeks.