Friday, October 10, 2014

I will be going to Ebeye to finish my work out there.

Oct. 7, 2014

Alright well this week was kind of really slow in all honesty just kind of running random errands and trying to get Elder P ready to go home, we did have an awesome young man get baptized though, so that was a definite positive to the week. I really think that he will serve a mission. But I also found out that I will be going to Ebeye to finish my work out there. Ebeye is an island about 1 square mile with roughly 20000 people on it... from what I hear it's a little crowded, so I don't think I'll run out of people to teach. I will be leaving on Thursday morning and will try to help out there, because the missionary work out there has been struggling a little bit lately. So my new companion will be Elder K, don't know his first name yet. I definitely did not see this transfer coming, but I guess that's just kind of the way it works sometimes. I also finished the Book of Mormon this past week, which was good to do once again. I really like Mormon chapter 9 I believe it is, kind of have a lot going on right now so yeah maybe I forgot exactly what chapter it is. I guess something that I've learned lately is that I really don't like doing things somebody elses way, it can get kind of frustrating at times and I wish it could change at times. I've also learned that keeping people happy is a lot easier than trying to cause arguments over things that aren't really that important. I don't know I guess I wish I just could have worked a little bit differently in this area and am now kind of sad to be leaving it. I guess it will all work out in the end. I'm excited to be able lead the district in Ebeye and try to help out as much as I can, I definitely want to finish strong and have no regrets! But that's about it I guess for the week, hope you all are doing awesome!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson

I feel like I always tell you about food, but ehh that's just something I really enjoy I guess!

Sept. 29, 2014

Alright so nothing all that exciting, Elder P  gets home on oct 8,  I am going to miss him when he leaves and you will definitely be meeting him sooner rather than later he also says he wants to come to the marshall islands with us, but I think that could get a little bit costly...   I will be the zone leader still and wait until my new companion gets here, which I still don't know who it is, which is kind of killing me honestly... Life goes on though. the couple that we were studying with had a little setback and so I guess we will see what happens with them, they will get baptized at some point but we don't exactly know when. However we do have another way solid young man that just caught fire out of nowhere and will be really good, hopefully he will be able to serve a mission. At least that's his plan at this point, I met him out on Wotje though and then he came back here and we ended up studying with him. He's awesome and I'm excited to see him get baptized. I guess in terms of studying Preach my Gospel I just studied a little bit about helping people keep commitments and the importance of following up afterwards. I'm trying to be able to find the right balance and it's hard to show that you care and help persuade someone to do something without nagging them. So that was my Preach My Gospel studying and I also started reading from the Gordon B. Hinckley book, which has a cool interview in it that I had never come across before. It really is eye opening. I think that's about all I have to say for now, sorry I'm a bit rushed, but I love you all very much and I find it mind blowing that I actually have my flight plans and things like that. So I guess I will be seeing Y'all sooner than I realize! Thank you for all the love and support and ps I did get your package and it was awesome hahahah you know me fairly well, just chocked full of chocolate and sweets, we made a pretty nice oreo cheesecake from the cookies... Anyways I feel like I always tell you about food, but ehh that's just something I really enjoy I guess!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan MIchelson

Our prayers are not to change the will of God but rather to align our wills with his.

September 21, 2014

In terms of my week this week it was pretty good. We had a zone conference and I gave a training about the importance of prayer, and I definitely learned a couple of things while preparing for it and also giving it. I love what it says about prayer in the Bible Dictionary about how when we remember our relationship with our Father in Heaven that prayer will become instinctive and it will be easy to receive answers to our prayers, it also states that our prayers are not to change the will of God but rather to align our wills with his. Seeing that he knows literally everything and what will help us more than we do ourselves I found that to be a good reminder, that we need to ask to know what to say and what to do because of it. The last thing that I liked about prayer was that it is a form of work, sometimes in my own personal prayers it just becomes a list of things that I want and I start to become selfish in my prayers and then after the fact, I don't do anything about the things that I pray for. When we pray with real intent, and we really want answers we will do everything in our power in order to allow the Lord to bless us, we can't just wait until he answers. It requires diligent seeking for those answers. So I guess that's a little bit from my studies this week, I definitely recommend reading about prayer in the Bible Dictionary and why it is so important. I know that it has made a difference in my week and my attitude about prayer. Oh it was Elder P's birthday and so I made him a birthday supper that turned out pretty good. I made him a homemade chicken gnocchi bacon soup in a bread bowl, and then we had panna cotta with a citrus berry sauce for dessert, needless to say I thought it turned out pretty good, and that panna cotta was pretty delicious. Haha never thought I'd be able to eat anything close to that on my mission, but just gotta get a little bit creative and just come up with ideas from things that you see. So that was a pretty good day. We also have another investigator named Jemomo that is doing really well, he's been coming to church for a while now, but never really had a desire or a testimony and then one day a switch just kind of flipped and now he has plans to go on a mission, which would be really nice to see. He should be getting baptized on the 4 of October, which is right before Elder P leaves on the 8. That will be weird to see all of them go, I definitely have some good friends from that intake of missionaries and I feel like I came here at the same time. I guess I will be following them fairly shortly. I also filled out some plans for my flight home today... Yeah that was weird, weird that it is almost done. So you should be getting that fairly shortly in an email. For companionship study we watched a CES fireside that Elder Bednar spoke in and it was about learning by faith. It was a really cool training and I don't know if you could find that online or not, but it was cool how closely it related to teaching by the spirit. That the person who is receiving the teaching also has to learn by faith otherwise it will not be accepted. That is why we are to teach investigators and not just simply people, there is a noticeable difference between someone who will act and someone who will just be a "hearer of the word". I did know that my mom loves me, hahahaha one of the senior couples showed me the emails you sent to the mission office right as I was going to Wotje and he got a pretty good kick out of my worried mother emailing so many times and how sister wayas dealt with it. Other people may have been embarrassed by that, but I could care less, it just shows that you are concerned and also is good to have a laugh at. Anyways I think that's about all for this week, still doing well and am healthy and happy. You stay classy there in Canada!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson


Mom's note... we did get Jordan's travel plans, he comes home really late Dec. 17 and his homecoming is Dec 28. WAHOO!!!

Can't say I miss the snow all that much!

September 14, 2014

Well that sounds like a good week, I definitely miss some good sushi! But I can't say that I miss the snow all that much, it was funny a senior couple from Cardston just came out here and will being working in Ebeye which is kind of the hot slums of the Marshall Islands... Apparently she was crying because well frankly Ebeye isn't a whole lot to look at, and they are having quite the time adjusting to the heat but I'm sure they'll figure it out sooner or later. Kind of bummed that I probably won't see them again, they seemed like a really nice couple. What else happened this week, we set a baptismal date with our couple for the 4th of October so that should be pretty good, they are both awesome. And for the zone picture I'll ask one of the senior couples to see if I could get that, I'm pretty sure they were the ones who took that one. It's also been a while since I've received a package, I got one from the brooks' family after I got back from Wotje, but other than that no I haven't seen anything. Once again I still suck at writing, I'll try to get some letters out before I go back home, I know I need to, just before I didn't really have a whole ton to write about in all honesty so I didn't know what to say. So hopefully I'll have a little more to say to people, and I can get some letters out, but honestly with having this little time left I don't exactly know what to write to people. I just feel like it's kind of the same old same old, but maybe they wouldn't be thinking that. As far as I'm aware my release date will be December 17th and that is when I should be flying out, I don't have my flight plans or anything yet, but those will probably be coming sometime soon. It's kind of weird to make the transition to being on Majuro again even though I was only gone for a week, haha I guess I just got kind of used to being out on the outer island again. Just completely random thing, but one of the members here knows that I love anything to do with watersports or whatever so she showed me this video of this thing called a flyboard, don't know if you've ever seen that, but it looked pretty cool not going to lie. She said that she was going to buy me one, I just had to give her the receipt when I got home... For some reason I don't think that is going to happen, but the Flyboard did look pretty fun and I would like to try it at some point, don't exactly know when or where, but that's going on the bucket list. Sorry nothing all that exciting this week, I think that's about all for right now. Hope you all have an awesome week!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson

We stayed longer in Arno

September 9, 2014

Iakwe iakwe everybody!
So this week was kind of an interesting one, we were going out to Arno for supposedly like 2 days... turns into a week because the boat didn't come out, so I wore the same pair of clothes for a week and they may have been slightly yellow... I also didn't shave for a week because we didn't bring our razors either so we came back looking pretty dirty to say the least! But the week was definitely a memorable one, it was fun to be with Elder Schmidt again, he was one of my favourite companions and it was nice to be able to just bwebwenato again (ps you all have to learn that word because I feel like I'll be saying it a decent amount when I go home, basically means chat) but yeah that was a lot of fun. Also got to go out to another island in arno, because they were all doing a fun day there, so Elder Schmidt and I went out and played volleyball and just met some of the locals. They were all really nice, and they had like a volleyball tournament and picked me for their all-star team... hahah needless to say we won fairly easily, they were actually really good out on that island. It was some good volleyball, and had some fun doing that again. Also just randomly saying I forgot how much I miss drinking coconut, that stuff is delicious and I'm going to miss that once I go back home, here in town you can hardly find any. What else happened... Oh we went out crab hunting and just picked up some crabs, that was fun, and we also went shark fishing, but didn't catch anything. The people on that island are also way good, I say there should be a good amount of baptisms there soon and that's kind of exciting. I definitely liked having a little taste of outer island life again, and it was nice with 4 elders out there as well, we worked hard and had fun too. Coming back today was kind of interesting because you forget how much you appreciate the little things like having a fridge in your house, or air conditioning or having a car, just simple groceries all that stuff, haha I feel like the culture shock is going to be fairly interesting coming home as well when I go to the pantry and there is actually food in it and stuff, but we'll wait until that one actually happens to see. I've been studying about the atonement a decent amount lately and read the book "The Infinite Atonement" by Tad R. Callister and it definitely had some cool thoughts and perspectives on it that really improved my appreciation for our Saviour and his sacrifices that he performed for us. It's honestly truly remarkable how perfect he was and how perfect that plan was, without it there would be no purpose to life. So I enjoyed those studies quite a bit, and if you can find that book I would suggest reading it!  As far as investigators go, I literally have no idea, we have one guy who left to Hawaii but should be back on the 15th so I guess we'll see, he's definitely our best one right now. But everybody else I haven't seen in a week so I guess we'll see... The people in Arno are good though! And when I come back I'm definitely going to go to Arno, it's got some cool things to see out there. Anywho I think that's about all for the week, it was an exciting one which was good seeing as the last couple have been a little dull at times. But love you all and thank you for all the help!
Lots of lovin'
From Elder Jordan Michelson