christmas majuro 2007

December 26, 2007
Here we are again with much to tell. We have been working with Josephine and Nemia since the second week we arrived. The President has been very interested in them because Josephine has relatives in Naru who could help with getting that country to allow the missionaries in. Josphine’s cousin is the personal secretary of the President of that country and he really listens to her. They have been taught for some time now by the missionaraies, so Elder P and I have just become their friends and taught a little along the way. We showed them the film “Christ in America” and bore our testimonies and asked them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about the truthfulness of the gospel. We told them that we felt they have a purpose that they may not be aware of yet and that it was not just a coincidence that they were here in Marjuro for a short time and that the missionaries have been teaching them. Josephine said that she has been reading the Book or Mormon and that she would continue to do so. Nemia still smokes and although he has always been very happy to see us, he has not taken on the challenge that Josephine has. So last Sunday they came to church and she had a light in her eyes I have not seen, she announced to us that she wants to be baptized and she knows it’s the right thing to do. We were very happy about that – she and Nemia are also going back to Naru to live – I believe that the Lord brought them to here just long enough for her to get a testimony and help bring the church to Naru. She will be baptized tomorrow evening and we feel very grateful that we were able to teach them and see the Lord work with her. We have 6 men we have been working with on addictions and four of them came to our first 12 step meeting on Thursday. One of them has slipped but that didn’t surprise me because he is such an alcoholic and so far gone that I don’t know if he will make it but he has been coming to church each Sunday. We will continue to work with him. I have needed to rewrite the steps so that they would be useful for the people here – we do a lot of education and I have given them some easy assignments. The problem is that there is a good chance that we will be transferred to Kiribiti soon and then they will probably have to go back to the old program – but I will give them the steps so they can read them over and over. There are two good men that could possibly help with that program, one is Dale with 6 weeks sobriety now and comes to church, the other one is Jack who is well educated, a member and could be a strong member of the church here but he hasn’t come back to church yet we will continue to work with him.
We went to the home of Anjo and Alma’s, they are the people with the sick baby. I don’t even want to tell you about what they live in – the baby is sick again – they brought him to the 12 step meeting and I wanted to take him to the hospital. The missionaries are making sure that he goes today, he has an appointment with the doctor there. I found out that he is one year old and he looks about 6 months old. He is not even crawling or trying to stand. We are going to keep an eye on that. The good news is that the Father, Anjo tells us he is ready to stop drinking and the whole family came to the 12 step meeting last week. They even were 15 minutes early which doesn’t happen here. Another man we have worked with – with the missionaries will be baptized in about a week. He and his “wife” have to get married first and so that is all happening soon. It just goes on and on and its all good. If we leave here, it will be hard to leave the people we have about 15 appointments each week that we teach and visit and we have really become attached. Christmas Eve we all met at Pres. and Sister Bleaks home with all the missionaries and had a great dinner and fireside. Christmas day was spent at the “beat”. Twelve hours of singing and dancing. It is held in the Long Island chapel and so we had a nice meeting first and then it started. All of the 6 branches present their dances and singing they have worked on all year. It’s mostly the youth but the women get involved as well. There is a lot of food, which I don’t eat, and they just dance and dance with different costumes for each different branch. The leader blows a whistle continually to give them signals as when to change their dance routine and by the end of the evening that whistle rings in your ears. All the missionaries lead by Pres. and Sister Bleak danced in and John and I did the swing, the people loved it, we all sang “I hope they call me on a mission” we should have sung “called to serve”. Anyway it was a good time and the youth love it and its better than just out on the street doing nothing. The youth are strong here and the strength of the church will be with them. Today we have appointments and then tomorrow the Pres. has chartered a boat and the seniors are sailing off to another island, cook hamburgers and explore then return, get to Josephine’s baptism and then to the 12 step meeting. One of the senior couple’s son is here visiting for the week so that’s why we have the boat trip. He is going snorkeling on some of the small atolls. Christmas wasn’t quite like it is at home but we had a good day. We didn’t realize how many people that we have met and come into contact with until we all get together like yesterday. If we go to Tarawa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) we will miss them. We didn’t realize how quickly you become attached to people on a mission. They all want to come and say “amon a ke amor?” “how are you? Or literally “how is your life?” Our answer is always “eman” or “good”. I’ll send you a couple of pictures when I get online to send this for the blog. David Patten and his family are in Hong Kong for vacation during the Christmas season. They have a built in interpreter and hope to be able to see and do lots of things in the time that they are there. Life is good for us. We’re healthy and happy and working hard. We think of you often but to be honest we are really busy and don’t have time to spend much time thinking of home. This is our home for the next 16 or 18 months. If we go to Tarawa our release date would be just two months before they change mission presidents so we might not leave until the end of June, 2009 instead of the end of April. Elder/Sister Patten