Letter from Elder Meyer: Possibly 1st baptism in the world for 2013, CTR rings are a big hit.

Hello everyone,

Well as you know this week was pretty much amazing. Yes mom, it was a white Christmas!!!! And it just keeps getting better. 

Alright… Well, you know about the baptisms, but I will share again. There were six of them. It was fantastic. The Spirit was there. We could all feel it. And guess what, we baptized the most people on one day in the history of Yap. Everyone told us that they have never seen that many people baptized on a single day before. That is awesome right??

Well then the rest of the week went by. Then yesterday, Sunday was great. All six of the people who were baptized came on Sunday, and not only did they come, but they were like the first people there. It was so great. J*nior who is the guy that we are teaching and he baptized T*mmy and L*sa, gave them the Gift of the Holy Ghost too. It was the first blessing he has ever given. It was an amazing experience for him. I really loved helping all of these people get ready for baptism and it makes me so proud that they did it. I have so much joy in my heart right now. 

New Year's Day: Baptism

Christmas Baptisms:   T*mmy,  --   L*sa,  --   M*rtha,  --   Sh*nty,   --  Andr*w,  --   D*fan

Okay, now for what I’ve have been putting off... So we have something special for New Years Day. You probably can guess what it is. Yep, you are right… another baptism. I knew you guys would know. ha ha. Okay here is how it happened. This is also the experience that I talked a little bit about in mom's section. Okay so we went to go see R*nny. Now R*nny has been ready to be baptized for a long time, he just didn't feel that he was ready. He also wanted to make sure that it was the right thing. We have tried to get him on a baptismal date to help him receive his answer. Well nothing has happened. Well, when we went to go see him, we brought a video about Wilford Woodruff, the fourth prophet in this dispensation. Can't spell his name… And how he found the Church. The Spirit was there. The video showed him getting baptized and that other guy not getting baptized before he did. You know the video right?? Well after that we started talking to R*nny. We said this is what we want for you. He made some kind of excuse. I said how about we pick a date and have that help you get and answer. Well, what do you think he said? Yes we can pick a date. Yeahh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we were picking a date, he said that he wanted to start off the new year fresh and clean so new years day. We are going to baptize him at 9:00 am on January 1. Probably the first baptism of the mission, maybe the whole world for the year 2013. What a way to start off the New Year.  Tomorrow is going to be a big day. A*gistine is going to baptize him and Arv*n is going to confirm. He is also his friend. It is going to be in the ocean too. I am stoked.

Okay I was talking to Arv*n and he said that he wanted the Book of Mormon movie. I said I would talk to you guys. He said that is what we need here on Yap are movies about the gospel that are powerful. What do you guys think of that? Any movies that are powerful that we could give out and use for teaching. I am still talking to the B*mlul about what you guys could send for other service ideas, but right now movies is what I got. 

I gave out some of the CTR rings and it is helping R*nny stop chewing. Which is great and all of Aug*stines kids are wearing one. They loved them. I am going to keep handing them out. 

Dad

It sounds like you and Reed are getting to spend a lot of time together. That is really cool. I am glad you guys get to do that. Sounds like your work is a little tense. I hope it is all going well. Have fun skiing and make sure you don't break anything. Remember you are like 47. ha ha love you

Mom

Question #1: Did you read Luke 2 over Christmas?

Answer: Yes. We read from it during the Christmas party. We also acted out the nativity skit. It was not quite as good as the one at grandma's house though. 

Question #2: How did the confirmations go?  Did you speak in Yapese?

Answer: They were great. I confirmed 3 people. Sh*nty, Andr*w, and D*fan. It was great. I did not do any of them in Yapese. That would be tough. They all speak English well enough for us to do it in English. 

Question #3: Did you get more packages?  What was in the last one you opened?

Answer: I got three the day after Christmas. 1 from Staheli, and two from you guys. I also got one from the Drummonds last week. Will you tell them thank you so much. In the ones you sent I got the wrapped presents like the book, balls, shirts, shorts, and Aug*stine scriptures. He loves them by the way. It was great. 

Christmas packages and tree that family sent

Question #4: Do you do follow up discussions after someone gets baptized?

Answer: The ward mission leader is supposed to teach all of the lessons again. However, since there is not one of those guys, we teach them all the lessons again. We also teach lesson 5, laws and ordinances in Preach My Gospel (PMG). We are going to have a lot of lessons to teach to recent converts now. It is great. 

Question #5: Share with me one thing you learned while studying this week.

Answer: I relearned how important the Spirit is. The Spirit is the teacher. As missionaries, all we do is bring the Spirit into a person’s life. If it were not for the Spirit, we would fail as missionaries. It talks a lot about the Spirit in PMG. As I was reading in PMG, I just know that we have to have the Spirit. It does not work with out it.

Staheli

Thank you so so much for the package. I loved all of it. The candy cane warheads are interestingly good. They are sour, but not too sour. They are great. I really loved those cookies too. They didn't last long. Elder Nelson and I ate those pretty fast. And the Christmas lights, we have very little plugs in our house. So they are just kind of next to the tree on the wall. It looks kind of funny because it is not on a door way or on a window frame, but I like them. Thank you so so much. I love you.

Reed

Okay, if you are going snowboarding, don't break anything. You just recovered from the last thing, you don't need another. But if you really decide to go snowboarding, don't strap in your back foot, and go down the bunny hill a lot. It will help. Snowboarding is pretty easy if you just don't go fast. If you do start to go fast just fall on you butt. It will hurt your butt, but you will minimize other injuries. I am sure you will do fine.

Grandma

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I know that you had fun at Christmas Eve. We acted out the nativity scene here too. It was no where as good as yours though. I sure did miss not being home for Christmas Eve and your house. I love you.
 

Everyone

Well, I love you guys so so much. You are the best family in the world. Hope you have a great 2013. I will see you half way through 2014. ha ha. 

Love Elder Johnny Meyer

War Missile abandoned