Chuuk, Chuukese, Chuukese . . . . . . . . . . . . I love them!

2/22/10
Fakkun Ran Allim chapur ngenikemi!!

Man, that was a good week of e-mails!! Thanks everyone! I'm still kicking around out here in the middle of the Pacific all systems are go! Sometimes I forget I'm on an island... Guam is sooooo big! But on a map it looks super teeny tiny, but after being in Chuuk for so long I can hardly classify Guam as an island. ha

Alright I'll give you the low down on my comp before I forget. His name is Elder Sandvik, he's actually a convert of about 2 1/2 years now. He is from Portland, Oregon and is the only member in his family, which is pretty neat. He served in Guam for 4 months then in Pohnpei for about a year and he's been back in Guam for about 4 months. He's a good guy, really dedicated.

Me being from Chuuk everything is very laid back and you have to adapt to that or you will definitely go crazy (especially on an island of 600... Romalum), and I had no problem with that seeing as I started out in Romalum.ha But it seems everywhere else in the mission is go go go all eight cylinders all the time! ha Which is good but I'm from a different world and getting adjusted to that is crazy. ha

This week I had another funny experience with my Chuukese. We ran into some Chuukese that knew really really good English, which is very odd. Anyway, I spoke to them in English and they looked at me and asked me if I was from Romalum. I told them that I served in Romalum while I was in Chuuk for about four months and then they just gave me this dumbfounded look. They said my English sounded like I was from Romalum! I didn't know that was possible but I won't lie I was stoked about that! Then a missionary serving in Palau that is from Chuuk said the same thing when I gave our Zone Leader Council training that I sounded like I was from Romalum the whole time I was training and so I started listening to myself and you know what? I did! ha It's crazy but it makes me happy! ha

Our Zone Leader council went well except for the fact that only half the ZL's showed up. ha The flight that picks up Pohnpei, Kosrae and Chuuk just decided not to come. So they stayed on their islands and they'll be flying in next week so that we can do another ZL Council for them! Gangsta! I'm so pumped to see Elder Kuss! I love his guts and I miss him a ton. We trained on Chapters 8&9 in Preach My Gospel and so we kind of took the needs of the mission and trained on how Chapters 8&9 can help fix those. It went really well with a lot of input from the Zone Leaders which always makes it better. The best part is thinking of sweet ideas and activities that we can do so that the Zone Leaders don't fall asleep on us. I came up with some good ones! ha The idea behind the activities is like what you talked about dad; about remembering the spirit and what we felt from the Zone Conference or the Zone Leader Council. The activities are easy to remember and it will bring back the feeling and emotions that were tied to that activity and to that conference, so the more memorable the better!

It looks like we'll be flying out to Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae in two weeks. We'll spend a week and a half visiting the islands and the missionaries on them and I'm pumped out of my mind to be going back to Chuuk! Speaking of Chuuk, the Zone Leaders got kicked out of their house by a mob of men Friday night! ha The new church is almost done and the Chuukese men are getting antsy and they really want the old church and the missionary house for their own. So late Friday night they came to the missionary house and told them they had to leave. Poor Kuss and Cherrington. Kuss was able to talk them into sleeping the night and then the next morning they took off to go live in Wichap with all their stuff. I'm sad I missed out on that! Now I'm not saying that they couldn't handle themselves but Kuss is a very humble very submissive Chuukese man. So a group of men coming to their house would equal Kuss agreeing to whatever they wanted. If I was there it would have been a different story... there is no way I would've been kicked out of that house! They would have had to physically remove me from the house if they were serious and I'm not just kidding! As soon as I heard that they got kicked out I had about ten different approaches I would've taken to the men and I'm positive we would've stayed in that house. Now I'm not boasting, don't get me wrong, but I've already dealt with people trying to get me off our land and I worked them over, all except for in Paata (But to be fair Paata people are a lot crazier than those from Weno). Yeah so anyway I was pretty disappointed about not being there for all the excitement it would have been a blast!!

The box came!! Thank you so much for that blanket!!!! I can survive at night now! Thanks for those cookies too! They were soft, and all the missionaries loved them! Oh man! Nerisa, the girl we baptized from Paata along with her Grandma and Grandpa came to Guam and the missionaries found them!!!! She is living with her real mom and dad and with all her brothers and sisters and I just talked to the missionaries and they said they're all golden and will definitely get baptized!! I'm so pumped about that!!! I'm going to have to work out an exchange with those missionaries so that I can go see her and her family and get them baptized!! She is so cute and her family is going to get baptized because they're all the blood of Abraham! Man! I love Chuukese!!

Ok, I gotta brag about the Chuukese real quick. The Chuukese in Guam are the people that missionaries have the most success with. Why? Because they are the most humble of islanders and they always want to learn about God! They're studs! There are Chuukese young men here in Guam that are preparing to serve missions, one actually just sent his papers in, and they all are just the most amazing investigators!! Every missionary here in Guam will tell you that Chuukese are the most humble and most accepting of the gospel! They just don't know english and most of the missionaries here don't know Chuukese so they progress slowly! There's just not enough Chuukese speakers! So yeah Chuukese are the bomb and my new Chuukese family here in Guam fed me some mai "breadfruit" the other day and it made my world! I love them so much!

Ok this is a really long one. Wow! Ua fakkun tongeikemi seni anonnonen puei! "I love you all from the deepness of my belly button!"

Keept it real my pwipwi's

Tong Ennet fiti Jaiwak!
Elder Wells "Ito"