december 14, 2007

Elders Woodland and Beecher with Junior an investigator....Same elders with Sister Patten.....We all have a bet in the district as to when this house will fall down. They still are living in it and the kids say they are afraid that it will fall down on their family.....These ladies were awaiting the clouds to clear after a quick rain.


We just got home after a long Sunday. We start at 8:00 a.m. and it's now 10:00 p.m. A good day though. Lots of inactives, investigators, and addicts attended both of our branches today. After church we ate with Sisters Croaker and Seely and then visited with a young man and his girlfriend who have several children. We asked him if he wanted help with his drinking and he thought about it a bit and said that he thought he could take care of the problem himself. Sister P. then reviewed with him how well that was working in his life and he thought and thought and then said he was afraid. Afraid of what? said Sister P. After much contemplation he told us that he was afraid that if he quit cigarettes and alcohol he would have a heart attack. After that insightful and much thought out answer we had to explain that maybe he had his thinking turned around a little. While teaching another young man tonite a rat came calling to see what all of the activity was about. He ran right by Sister P's foot. Fortunately for all concerned she didn't notice it but was watching the mother of the house throw rocks at another brother rat. I should explain that the rocks made up the floor. On the way home I told her that isn't it interesting the things that you can get used to in six weeks. I said it was a good thing she had a long skirt on and she didn't see the rat because her legs would have been higher than her head in a nano second. She was busy counting roaches running up the wall and beetles checking out her shoes. One of our friends in Uliga branch lost her brother last week so we will take food tomorrow. The funeral is called a midge and it goes on for about a week. Most of the people here have diabetes. Their diet is bad and no one knows what insulin is. The common tablet for controling diabetes is tylenol. The average age in this area is somewhere around 50. Life is good. We love what we are doing. We are sending a young man to the mtc tomorrow. he's never been off the atol and has to fly to Honolulu, then transfer to a flight to Los Angeles, then to a flight to SLC. He's excited and ready to go. Today he had one frayed white shirt and a pair of worn out slacks and that's about the size of it. We put a few dollars in his hand to help him a little. The young ones like him are the future here. He's a sweet boy and will be a good missionary. The days and weeks go by to fast. We try to do as much as we can each day so that when we get on that airplane to come home we will know that we did our best. Love, Elder/Sister Patten