I just can never seem to smile haha

September 1

I guess you guys are getting back into the swing of things again, but it's crazy to me that it's already September.  Where the heck has the time gone? I don't know if you guys feel it but it has gone so fast so far, and thanks for the what 34 steps on how to be a happy missionary. You know how I struggle with being happy, I just can never seem to smile, I'm generally miserable all the time :p haha totally kidding, but I do appreciate it. I'm loving the work in this area right now, because everyone in the mission seems to think that this is a hopeless area that the people are all too busy and that it's hard to have success here, but things have really been picking up and hopefully we will help some more people within this area. We have 5 people with baptismal dates, but as you already know have some crazy situations, but we are doing everything we can to help out. I hope I don't get transferred, I definitely want to follow through with these people in helping them accomplish their goals that they have set for themselves. Another random question, about food again... seems like I talk about food a lot, but could you hook me up with another recipe. Any new news? Any people getting married that I don't know about and are any of the cousins my age dating anyone or anything?? haha just curious. Got some pretty glorious tan lines from doing some service on saturday, the kids at church thought they were pretty funny to go from like reddish, because you know how I tan, to a super white. They all tend to laugh at that, I'll tell you about an investigator that I'm pretty excited for his name is Franky and he's this 16 year old kid who's living with some members, one of the hardest parts about this work and these people is getting them to act, or use there faith in any degree, if they don't want to do something they'll usually come up with an excuse like they're sick or whatever, things like that. This kid is just a champ, I can see him being a future missionary and a really good one, we ask him to read a chapter from the Book of Mormon, and he does it, we ask him to come to church, he does it, no questions asked. He pays attention in all the lessons and just really has a strong desire, it helps that he's living with such a strong family as well. There's this bubu who always feeds us and gives coconuts or makes coconut cookies and gets like offended if we don't stop and eat, she always has to give us something, just love that woman to death, super strong. And then there's the teenage kids, that just love me and think I'm cool, and always ask me to beatbox or whatever because it's entertaining. We'll go over there and play with the bubu's grand kids and I just think that makes her like us even more. I love going to that house, it's just so perfect, always the highlight of my day. Franky has a baptismal date for September 28 and I really don't think there's anything holding him back, so hopefully he will be able to get baptized then and continue being strong. Also the power has been going of in our house a lot lately, kind of rough, especially after you come back from being in the sun and there's no way to cool down, so there's tile on the floor and that's how we cool down when the power is out. Reminds of home sometimes when I would overheat and couldn't sleep just go lay on the tile floor to cool dow, kind of funny. Anything else magical or exciting about this week? We found this new investigator named Katline she is an older woman who works at the college super nice lady and really has a strong desire to study. We taught her the message of the restoration this week, and I don't know it was just a really powerful lesson, I felt the spirit very strong so hopefully we will be able to help her and give her a baptismal date as well. I think that's about it for today, today is combined pday random fact for ya, that's always fun to see all the elder's and sister's again. Hope you have a fantabulous week and hope to hear from you all soon, good luck in starting school again! Miss you all, and jeramman nan komi aelop! lots of lovin' from Elder Michelson

Sent from my iPhone

Truly amazing .... he is growing so much!!

Aug 24
Sounds like a pretty exciting week, and kubwe ekwojarjar!! (holy crap) hahaha but no one actually says that I just like saying it. That's insane that Joss and Taylor are both going that soon, I mean I guess I've been out for quite a while now, but it still doesn't feel that long. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot, but at the same time I feel like you guys are missing out on a lot of the stuff that I'm learning out here. When I really sit down and look at myself it's crazy how much I have grown, and I haven't been out that long. I'm still the same person obviously but just things I am able to do now, 7 months ago I never thought that I would be doing them. To answer your questions, the best thing I have learned about myself is how well I can get along with people, I always tried to get along with everyone before my mission, and I feel like I don't know if it's patience or what, but I can really get close to people. I've made so many really close friends since I've been out and it's almost like another family in all honesty. I guess I've learned a lot of patience. Umm most spiritual experience I've had thus far is when Kevin W. Pearson came and I was able to sit with him one on and one and just talk, the power I felt in that room was incredible and the whole rest of the day I literally felt like I could do anything, it was like a shot of spiritual adrenaline is the best way I can describe it, just being super confident and powerful, it was really an amazing feeling, I wonder if that's how prophets feel everyday? Random thought. But let's see how has my testimony of the saviour increased, I don't know how hasn't it increased? Just seeing the effect it can truly have on people's lives when they accept it, is amazing. Like I've said before my best investigator, Trina, had no idea how to pray before, went out and partied and just didn't know what to do with her life, she has seen the benefits and has shared with me how she has felt the spirit. One example is when she went in for her baptismal interview, she had to be interviewed with the mission president because she had done some things that required a higher power to clear her for baptism, and she was really nervous about it and thought that she wouldn't be able to answer the questions. When we helped practice with her before, she was still forgetting things and thought she wouldn't be able to get baptized, but she prayed before her interview and was able to answer all the questions and she told us that she didn't even feel like she was answering them, that someone or something was telling her what to say, I thought that was cool. And just to see how she could go from her life before, to that, has really strengthened my testimony of the power of the Atonement. It is clear, it does have power and it is truly incredible. Umm miracles.. still working on that, just with our investigator on probation, he has to show us a desire to change and he hasn't really showed that, he hasn't come to church for the past 3 weeks which makes it a little harder, he said he was sick, but sometimes people just make up excuses and its frankly pretty frustrating, but we just have to keep being patient and working with him. It's not our job to change him, that has to come from him. I guess one thing that is difficult about this mission, is that there are lots of people that we can baptize, but they aren't truly converted, they don't truly understand and most likely they will fall away shortly, I'm trying to prevent that as much as I possibly can, I don't care about the numbers or about what everyone expects. I want to try and help these people truly become converted, and I hope I've been doing that. There are so many less actives here, who have forgotten everything they have been taught, they have no clue who Joseph Smith is, and they have never even opened the Book of Mormon, they were just baptized either because they liked the Elder's or they were too scared to say no. So yeah I don't know, kind of went on a little rant there but, still working on seeing miracles in the work, I saw one with Trina and also Selina I would say, but still working on seeing some in this area. The investigators are doing fairly well, had more of a slow week because my companion was sick, but no worries, still managed to go out and work. The problem is the people who would probably be really good investigators can only study once a week, or not even that, because they are so busy working. The educated people are always busy, and then the other people frankly aren't that educated so it's harder for them to understand, which is also where the patience comes in. Just trying to do what we can to help everyone come closer to the Savior, we have some young kids who are really progressing towards baptism, but we are still looking to try to change someone's life. The church is also still so young here, that the people don't exactly know how it's run, and bring ideas from their previous churches into our church which causes some arguments and hard feelings, so hopefully as this next generation grows up in the church the wards will continue to get stronger. Sometimes I lose sight of that, it is frustrating sometimes when people don't understand how the church should operate, or they're too lazy to care. I feel like it would be easier to explain all of this once I'm back home, just saying but I'm trying. Umm things that I can't get here, I don't know anymore, I'm pretty much content with anything haha those mios last time were really good, enjoyed those, made drinking water a lot better, and I mean we can get a lot here, it's just ridiculously expensive. Umm a side bag would be nice though, one I can put my scriptures and stuff in just a small little bag, because apparently we're not supposed to be wearing backpacks as missionaries anymore, so I've been using another missionaries side bag and it's actually pretty nice, I think I like it better than a backpack. I dont know exactly how long letters take to get here, it's not ridiculously long or anything, they definitely get here faster from the states though, I can tell you that much. Umm let's see, person I've heard from that I was the most surprised to hear from, probably Angie? Wasn't expecting that one, so yeah. Umm funny stories... okay the other day we were teaching a nine year old what repentance is, and he just wasn't quite understanding, so we tried to give him an example about how stealing is bad, and how if you steal in order to repent you need to give what you stole back, or pay for it. So we thought he understood and then a couple days later, we were preparing him for his interview and he forgot, so we asked a little girl what repentance was and she just remembered our example, her response to what repentance was is " when you steal something" haha and that was it, that was pretty funny i thought. Did you get my letter yet? I tried to break down how many missionaries there were on the island, but we keep getting more so it's hard to keep track of, so hopefully they'll start opening some more outer islands. Right now there are 3 open as well as Ebeye which is I think the most populated place on the planet? I don't know maybe check that one out, but for one square mile there are 15000 people, so that's fairly ridiculous. I don't know the exact number of missionaries now in this mission, its somewhere around 58 I think. This email Is ginourmous so I hope you enjoy it! Take care I think that's about all for now, lots of lovin' from the pacific!!

 Here are some pictures he sent from while he was riding his bike in his new area... Arrak

 He laughed when he saw this one

 This is his MTC companion. Elder Ingalls they aren't serving together but still get to see each other sometimes

 At zone conference

 He said he knew he was being tempted to go bare footing but resisted it!!

The Marshall's need I say more was his comment

Thanks for the recipes

Aug 18
Well that's nice that you get to know some of Eric's friends, do they ever come by?? Does Erc just kind of chill with the same people?? That's cool that Logan went through the temple, when is he leaving exactly?? I'm definitely going to make the orange scones, excited for that for sure!! Crazy that school is almost starting again, time out here has been flying, it still seems to me that I just got here, but I have 2 intakes of missionaries after me now. I'm starting to be one of the older missionaries and it's weird to me! The investigators are coming little by little it's hard to find time to see them all because of the length of our area, but it's going well! I love biking places, the tire got destroyed one day and I just remembered how much I don't really enjoy walking out in the hot sun, with the bikes you get a breeze and it's just way better. On p-days so far it has mainly just been drive into town and come back, no time really to relax, just go get your stuff done and come back, hopefully today will be better, p-days have kind of not been so fun lately. Still am able to get all the same stuff I was before, hasn't changed, just if I ever go to an outer island, that'll be the huge change. My companion is pretty good at Marshallese, I mean he's been to an outer island and been out 21 months so he should be pretty good, but I understand pretty much all of what he's saying and I just need to keep learning new words. He's helping me out and I'm getting along with him pretty good, in terms of working with him, I'm actually loving it. We've been teaching better together and working in unity which is nice, and also I had to give a talk in church today, a little nerve wracking for sure, but I think it went pretty well, it was also these new missionaries first sunday, so I wonder how much they understood of what I said. A couple of people came up to me after the meeting and told me they appreciated what I said and they understood it and said that my marshallese was good. All the Marshallese people say our marshallese is good, I don't know if they're just being nice, but regardless I'll take it. So that was exciting, pretty good experience and I felt confident speaking, more so than I thought. Yes we use object lessons, that is the way to teach these people, use rocks, pictures whatever you can find, object lessons are what's up!! Random question are Geoff and Andrea still sort of interested in our church, I was wondering if the Elders could help them and be normal?? I don't know. Hopefully found some new solid investigators that we can help them progress. Life is good out here, just chilling and hopefully I can send some pictures, but this computer is kind of jorraan so yeah... we'll see. Anywho love you lots, hope your week is fantastic!

Haven't posted for most of the summer so here are Jordan's summer emails ENJOY!!

Aug 11

The week is going pretty good, and we got the transfer calls and me and Elder Parente are staying together for another transfer, I think. I don't know for sure but I'm definitely with him for some more time. You're a seminary teacher?? haha who are you team teaching with? I just want to thank you for the package and the letter's, I got them today and that was really nice. Do you know if the Brooks' got the letter I sent to them a while ago? I hope so, because it was a fairly big letter, if they didn't let them know how much I appreciated the packages and all the time and effort they put into doing all those nice things, that was a really cool package, and I also love the tie they gave, super classy! Random little funny story before I tell you about the rest of the week, we were driving into town today and in the middle of town this little kid just pulls down his pants and starts peeing in the middle of everyone. You really see some crazy stuff out here! We did a lot of biking this week, like a lot, hopefully the legs are getting stronger, because I am definitely sweating a lot! Everyone always asks me if I'm new to this island because my face goes all red all the time, haha dang genetics, oh well. When my face isn't red the tan is actually quite nice, just saying. I have a couple interesting situations to deal with in this area, and it's going to require some miracles, but I have faith that these things can happen. So first we have this investigator named Moen, good solid guy, and has the desire to get baptized but he is on probation from the Marshallese government, so right now he can't be baptized, but they are willing to excuse his probation if he is baptized and shows that he changed his life. If he starts living the word of wisdom and coming to church every week we can go down to town on his behalf and I guess testify of the fact that he has truly changed his life and is worthy to be excused from his probation. Then the other story is that we are starting to study with this less-active couple. The man is a member since he was young, served a mission and did all that, but his "girlfriend" of 8 years hasn't been baptized yet. In order for her to get baptized they obviously need to get married, but the problem is that he was married before and his wife refuses to divorce him, and is now in america and they don't really know where. Makes life a little interesting to try and see how to solve this problem. Those are a couple of the difficult situations we have right now, so we'll see where those go, we are also studying with this 9 year old kid, just way smart and the bishop wanted us to study with him, hopefully he will be baptized in 2 weeks, but in the meantime we are trying to find some more investigators who want to progress. One thing that I've really being trying to focus on lately is my diligence, sometimes it's hard when you don't see people making the changes that you think they should and that sometimes this work is pointless, but once I really studied it 

out in the scriptures it really helped me gain more of an understanding for what we need to do. The key is our 

attitudes and how we think, it really has helped me in this work and I'm grateful that we receive answers through the scriptures. I'm still cooking and stuff, anything that's on sale is usually expired or something like that, but I always buy stuff like that and see what I can do with it. There was this random pomegranate raspberry salad dressing, and it was on sale and I was like what can I do with this! So I marinated some chicken in it and made pomegranate raspberry chicken and breaded it, that was quite a good meal I would have to say. Yes I still do most of the cooking, that's just what I do but it's good, I find that I'm getting more and more creative and just seeing what I can use. I've also been trying to ask people for recipes in Marshallese, I really want a Marshallese cookbook regardless of how effective it will be back home. Still get a lot of coconuts, not quite daily, but a lot, and I've definitely decided when I get home, I am going to help the elders out, the work is just so much more effective when working with members!!!! Anyways I think that's about all for the week, thanks for all the love and support, oh and did you get my letter yet?? I sent it a while ago so hopefully it'll be there shortly, anyways thank ya muchly and you didn't even use the marshallese word for mom, haha wat kain jina! Anyways tell everyone I love em, and have a crantabulous week!

Elder Michelson!

Still don't know what will happen with the newbies

Aug 4

August 15th the newbies come in, but we'll see if either of us are training. Don't really know anything anymore, it's all speculation and I've heard so much different stuff, but I'll know for sure on Friday what's happening, that'll be good to just kind of clear the air. Dang it, I miss bubble teas!!! Not so much climbing coconut trees here, the people usually do that, but before I get home I am learning!! The new area is coming along very well actually, found a ton of part member families, so we'll see if we can help them out. There is this one less active lady named Justina and she said she prayed that she would be able to go back to church and that something would happen in her life to help her change, and then the next day we showed up. She said she knew that God answers prayers and helps, so that was cool and she also said the bracelet I gave her answered her prayer too. She's being struggling to pray recently and said that the bracelet reminded her that she needed to go to church and pray everyday, so I'll continue to let you know how that goes but that was a cool experience. Then also we found this other investigator through a returned missionary (the rm is a huge stud and helps us so much). He's this 18 year old kid who has lots of questions about religion and we were able to talk to them in english which was nice, sometimes you can't say everything you want to say in the way you want to say it in marshallese, so the english lesson was really good. Hopefully we are going to be able to continue studying with him and help him find the truth, this area is really coming along, because frankly when I got here it was struggling a bit. Hopefully through faith it can get a bit better day by day. I guess how you would say mother to me, would be jinam pronounced Geenum but if i was talking about you I would say jinu Geenuh because for certain words you have to add a possessor to the end of end it to declare who's it is, that's one of the hardest parts about this language is the fact that you can't just like say "see you later" you have to say like see the 4 or more of you later, or see you three people later, its kind of cool, or when your praying you have to differentiate between all of of us which is like the prefix "Je" and convert it talking about everyone excluding the person your talking to like "kom". Kind of confusing and you probably don't understand anything I just said but oh well, I'll try to give an example you would say jenaaj katak which is like we all of us will study and there's komironaaj katakin eok which is like the two of us (excluding you) will teach you. Hopefully you understood that a little bit, if not sorry :p and lets see what else, oh Elder Parente and I are getting along really well actually, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but if you really try to get along with people you can get along with anyone, because he said himself he's hard to get along with. On p-day's we go into town and going shopping that's what is exciting, that's what I get to look forward to, and Jeff's getting married?? What that happened pretty fast, when I talked to him 6 months ago there really wasn't anyone but that's good glad he found someone! Is Benton or Brandon dating anyone?? Just randomly was thinking about that the other day, and life is moving pretty fast just saying, I can't believe I've already been out for as long as I have. The weeks just fly by, and of course I'm doing what I'm supposed to, Michelson's aren't mediocre momma! Well rain out here frankly destroys days, its bad manners to enter into someone's house if your wet and dirty it just makes life a little but harder, when it really pours, it's hard to find things to do, but I guess that's just part of the work. I think that's about all for now, hope your doing well! You're all in my prayers and I LOVE YOU TONS 

From Elder Jordan Michelson

Arrak is totally different

July 28

So that sounds like a pretty fun week for you guys, this side of the island is crazy totally different then the other side, and i'm loving it! The members are way solid and just really nice, and they're still spam lovers but I haven't eaten spam for a while now so that's good I guess. I've been using the heck out of the spices, it's so nice, our land owner gave us some freshly caught marlin this past week and that was freakin delicious breaded it up and put some fresh lime on it with pepper and stuff oh baby that was a good meal! I seriously get coconuts like daily out here, they're a little harder to come by in town, it's cool out here! I miss just about everything honestly so whatever you send is fantastic. I have been making some cakes with orange frosting on them and my companions have been loving that, so that's good. Teaching people, or just talking to people in english is crazy, we talked with this military guy who's working on island and he was asking us what we did and stuff and it started out as a pretty good conversation and then he went all inception on us and starting pulling out these crazy theories and using physics and science and explained his idea of God. That God was sound and chance, and every single person is God, even rocks and stuff, and then proceeded to talk about this perfect sphere and stuff and it was just totally random and after 3 hours or so my head felt like it was going to explode. He asked some pretty interesting questions and it was just a nuts lesson. I'm glad I don't have to deal with that on a daily basis, it's nice that all the marshallese people pretty much believe that there is a God and they have the same definition of him as I do for the most part. Had the inception lesson, because quite literally I felt like I was watching the live version of inception and then after that we went and taught a nine year old and it made me realize how grateful I am for the beauty and the simplicity of this gospel, you don't need crazy formulas you don't need to overthink it, it just makes sense and its so simple and beautiful that a 9 year old child can understand it. So yeah that was a little from my week. English people are interesting to talk to sometimes. That's one of my goals to find someone who knows how to cook marshallese food and find like a cookbook or something like that, not that I'll be able to make much of it when I get home but still I saw another missionary with a cook book and I want to find one like that. I got a letter from the Holts today that was nice, Ty is freakin hilarious and I'll be sure to write them back. Holy cow I almost forgot that Eric is almost 17 what the heck HAPPY FREAKIN BIRTHDAY ERC eat some cake for me!! That's been the week so far, I miss you all but I'm still alive and doing well 

lots of lovin from the other side of the world! From Elder Michelson

Part II

July 21 part II

Elder Ingalls is now working in Uliga which is in the other side, where I sort of was before. In the letter I sent today, I drew a little map of the island so hopefully that'll help you understand a little bit more, give you a nice visual even though I stink at drawing. Define shopping... haha we have little mon wiias that we can buy stuff from but we have to go into town if we want real food, and because in 3 and a half weeks the new intake of Elder's and Sisters comes in and either me or Elder Parente will be training because there will be 8 new elders. The island is going to be packed with newbies, most likely I will be training because they just moved me to Arrak, which is in Laura sort of, not exactly sure yet. The new Mission President is awesome, knows how to work and definitely getting some stuff done for sure. He's planning on reopening some of the outer islands which is awesome! Yes I'm in Arrak now and I'm getting used to the area a little bit. My day consists of riding my bike and teaching people about the gospel, and when that falls through we go ride our bikes some more and see if there is anyone interested in learning about the gospel and when that falls through gotta go get some majestic pictures because I am still in the islands! So far nothing too exciting still just trying to get used to the area and stuff like that, but sounds like you guys are just big party animals, just partying without me!!! haha but I shink that's all for now, talk to you next week thanks for the email and I'll send pictures afterI finish these other couple emails

Mom' note he didn't send any pictures so you can't see them either. Sorry :(