Finally! 9-10-09 ltr

10 Sept 09

Ran Allim Am!

Holy smokes! Forgive me for not writing but last week and this week have been off the wall. Pretty much every week is off the wall and I think it’ll slow down or something but it never does. You didn’t get my letter about Guam? I sent one or two, but you did get the pictures which is good!

Last Sunday night we got a call from the AP’s. They told us they were coming Monday morning and they had a list of stuff they wanted us to do before they arrived. We had already made plans with other missionaries that week so we were scrambling to get everything worked out for them.

Monday came and we catered to the AP’s every need when they flew in, we had Zone P-day on Tuesday, Wednesday was more helping the AP’s get where they needed to go, Thursday AP’s worked with us which is always crazy, Friday we sent off the AP’s, went to Uman in a huge storm to do a baptismal interview and survived, Saturday we did work but mostly tried to take a few breaths from the past five days and Sunday was just fantastic!

We have two baptisms this Saturday, a mom and her daughter. They’re studs!

I need to tell you about two women here in Chuuk. One’s name is Marsine and the other is Hertina. They take care of us pretty well so you don’t need to worry mom. :) Marsine is determined to make me fat. She makes the best Chuukese food in these islands and she always wants to give me some. I try and eat only a small amount, but she won’t have any of that and all but forces me to eat it all. I’ll never starve with her on my side. Hertina is the mom who will be baptized this Saturday. She was sick of coming to church and seeing Sorenson and I in dirty shirts (these machines do nothing) and so she told us: “I hate when you guys wear dirty shirts, today you come to my house and give me all your clothes and I’ll make them clean.” We were more than happy to give her all our stuff and now they are shining white!

So don’t worry mom, I have some amazing Chuukese women (Fin Chuuk) taking care of me :)

We’ll be having three baptisms this Saturday, after I began writing this a baptismal candidate realized she just needed to get baptized so she’ll also be in the mix on Saturday.

We raised our Zone baptismal goal to 82 and we are currently at 61, after this weekend we should be at 66 with many more in the near future. It’s easy to do missionary work (finding and teaching) the hard part is thrown in when you try and have all your time dedicated to finding and teaching people to baptize. I’ll explain : It’s easy to go out and find people, teach them about our Church and get some numbers on lessons taught, that’s easy. But that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to just teach somebody, I want to baptize somebody! And that makes it harder. Finding those that have been prepared by the Lord, finding those of the Abrahamic Covenant that will progress to baptism is my focus and to do that we can’t just go out and find anybody and teach them. We have to find the right people!

Sorry about that, just a whole bunch of missionary talk, ha.

Thanks for those pictures of Hawaii. That’s not breadfruit it’s what we call “fach”. And boiled breadfruit “Tipen” is my favorite food ever! You guys are missing out. Sydnee I can’t believe you jumped off that huge rock! You’re crazy!

Good news for you Mom, I’ve lost weight :) ha I’m only 185. That’s way good and if people keep telling me how good I look I’m bound to get a big head about it. Ha

You’re already out of retirement Dad? Like one of those Brett Favre’s I see. Sydnee’s lucky to have such a studly coach.

Mom you look younger than everyone else! Are you 30 again?! :) For reals, everyone looks like they’ve gotten older except you, and I’m not just saying that (he sure knows how to say the right thing when he’s missed writing)

Zone conference is next week and I’m way pumped for what we’ll be training on. I did get those two last boxes, thank you.

Give my love to the Miller’s, I love those guys so much! What ward are they in? Also to Mamma Hafen and the Bodine’s. I think of them, when I have time, which really isn’t saying too much because I’m definitely short on time, but just let them know I think they’re studs as well as their sons!

Love you all so much! Forgive me mother for being a late writer.

Tong Ennet,

Elder Ito Wells