Letter from Elder Meyer: This is just home (Q7).

Hello Everyone

Things have been pretty good. We taught a lot of people this week it was a lot of fun.

Sorry about the letter last week, I don't have the rest. I am not sure where it went. I hope you get it all this time.

Dad

Sounds like the game was a lot of fun. I am not sure how much I would have enjoyed that. 20,000 people are a lot of people. I don't think that would be to fun for me. The Elder that fell of was half Tongan and half Samoan. I never met the elder, but it is still really really sad. I couldn't imagine how his companion is feeling, let alone the parents.  Glad you enjoyed Switzerland. That is really fun that you sat next to the brother of Brother Wooley. Crazy how small the world really is. Yes my mission is tough. Don't worry. It is work is hard, and there are many problems on the island that we as missionaries face, but I don't like to focus on that. That stuff is boring. The exciting stuff is on the success that we have. I guess that is why I don't share the hard things going on. I don't like to talk negative about things or people. I just like to keep things positive.

Question 1: How is the zone doing?

Answer: We are doing pretty good. It is a little hard being a zone leader. Everything that goes wrong comes straight to us.

Question 2: What made you smile this week?

Answer: The baptism we had. It was great. The boy’s name is M*ckey. He is super awesome. And we have the same birthday, May 26th. It was funny when we found that out. We are going to celebrate our birthdays together.

Question 3: How many lessons and with member's present? –

Answer: we had 27 lessons this week, and 15 with a member present. It was an awesome week.

Question 4: Now that you're in Colonia, have you met with any island visitors?

Answer: I actually don't teach in the city, I am just in the Colonia branch.  The city is the sister’s area. I am still teaching in the village. So I still don't see many tourists.

Question 5: How does someone get to be an island chief?

Answer: They are borne into it. It runs in the family. If your dad was the chief, when he dies, if you are the oldest son, you will be the next chief, it will forever stay in that family unless they all die.

Question 6: Are any of the young men on the island planning to serve missions?

Answer: Yes several of the recent converts go teaching with us all the time. They want to serve a mission. And a couple boys from Thool would like to serve as well.

Question 7: Do you remember your first week on the island... compared to now, what has changed the most for you?

Answer: I can remember the first week fairly well. At first everything was new, now this is my life.

The people, the surroundings, it is home to me. Not being able to speak to the people in their native language, and now being able to. It is awesome. At first I felt that I was in a strange land, I loved it, but it was strange, now I just feel like I am home.

Mom

Note: This letter was lost in the email message…  combining two letters into one.

I am glad that you had fun teaching with the sisters. I know that they really loved your help. That is good that they were bold. If they were not members already, did they invite them to be baptized? We are supposed to, on the very first lesson!!! Keep working with the sisters. I know that you can help them. You know like everyone in Chico.

Question 8: Tell about church this week.  Anything unique happen? –

Answer: Well, church was good. I am teaching the youth Sunday school class. They are a crazy group of kids, but I love helping them. Nothing super unusual happened. Well, there was almost nobody at church yesterday. There is this huge tournament going on for basketball. It killed the work for the week, and it killed church attendance. I am hoping that it will end soon, but I don't think it will.

Question 9: Tell about a tender mercy this week.

Answer: We are teaching a boy named And*rson. He doesn’t' go to school. He is 19 and stopped while in 3rd grade. Not good. He has seizures if he thinks too much about things. We taught him the entire restoration, and it caused him to have a seizure. Then we found that he gets them. The dad still let us come back. He was not mad at all. So we are still working with him. Just taking it really slow.

Question 10: Describe a time you felt the spirit this week.

Answer: I felt the spirit when we were teaching And*rson. He is such a good kid, and is so eager to learn. He wants to do the best he can, and you can tell by the way that he talks and listens. Every time we are there, the spirit is there helping him learn.

Question 11: Describe a lesson this week that someone asked something unexpected.

Answer: Every Friday night we do a sports night at the church and play basketball. One of  the investigators of the sisters, was there. We taught him for a while, but now he lives in their area. He was just taught about the law of chastity. And this guy has a challenge with that commandment. He came up to me and asked if it was okay for him to break that commandment once a month. I just kind of smiled and tried to teach him more. We talked for a little while. It was a bit funny.

Question 12:  When you study the Book of Mormon, are you studying in Yapese or English?

Answer: I study in both languages. I am almost done with the Book of Mormon in English, then I am really going to focus on the Yapese again.

Question 13:  Did you try some food that I would think would be unusual?    Answer: I had some squid this week. It was all right. It is not very fishy. I was quite surprised.

Question 14: What was in the last package you got?   Answer: I got a lot of jerky and the huge thing of tootsie rolls. The kids really loved those.

Letter to Everyone

Alright, this was a really good week, accept for the fact that one of the elders in the mission died in an accident. President asked to be 100% obedient, because the rules keep us safe. He also asked us to move the work even faster, in the name of the Elder. We are all said because of his death. As far as I know, this is the first death of a missionary in this mission. You never know when your time is up; you just always need to be ready.

Let’s see... Elder Ramiterre and I had a baptism It was really great.

The sisters had a baptism as well, and the Elders in the Thool area.

It was great. That was 3 in one week. We need to get to more to reach our goal for the month. As of right now, we have 8 baptisms this year… that is really good. I think that we can reach our goal of 45 for the year. It is a big goal, but we are doing pretty good. We need to work harder and faster to get the goal though. My goal is to have 25 for the island before I go home. That is about half of the goal, and I leave about half way through the year. But I don't want to talk about that. We are doing pretty good.

The three people that were baptized are named M*ckey (mine) N*chele (sisters) and T*m (Thol). The baptismal service down here was pretty good. It was really nice and the spirit was there. M*ckey is a really good kid. His dad was not going to sign his baptismal record. We went to go talk to the dad, we explained what it was and how it all worked. He said that he didn't want anything to make his son upset because he is carrying a lot of burdens because of his mother’s death. I talked to the dad about the atonement and how it works. The dad signed the paper, and he was baptized. I talked to M*ckey on Friday about how the atonement can really help him feel less burdened from is mother’s death. I told him to pray and ask heavenly father to take the burden away when he was baptized. After the baptism we talked with him. He said that he feels so so so much better that the burden is so much lighter. It made me feel happy. I know that he is going to to good. He has a strong testimony.

Could you please send some little consecrated oil containers. There are a lot of people that have the priesthood, and would like to give blessings, but nobody has the container to hold the oil. That would be great. Also do you think that you could send the best two years video? The young men would really like to watch it. I told them about it, and they want to watch it.

I love you all so so much

I am trying to send pictures, but the internet will not attach them. Time is almost up, but I will keep trying

Love you all so so much

You are the best

Love

Elder Meyer

Letter from Elder Meyer: Surprises (Q1, Q2). Food news (Q12).

Hello Everyone

Things are going pretty good, here on Yap. Well, actually I am on Guam right now, but I will tell you about that later.

Dad

Question 1:  If I was to spend 1 week on Yap Island, what do you think would be most surprising to me?

Answer: I don't know. I think the most surprising thing would be the amount of ladies without shirts on. That is surprising for most of the APs that come to visit Yap. They have all heard about it, but they all are caught a little off guard.  

Question 2: If someone who lived on Yap Island there entire life, moved to Chico, what would surprise them the most about how we live?

Answer: I would say everything about how we live. The house, water, beds, food, everything that is normal to you, is entirely different for them. I know they don't understand the normal in the states. 

Question 3: I remember there being a little group meeting on Sunday. Is that still going? If so, how many attend and how’s it going?

Answer: It is still going. It is a very small group. There have been about 4 to 5 people going to that. I was working with a less active lady whose son was turning 8. I was hoping that would help motivate the lady to come to the small group. So far that has not worked. We will keep working with her though. 

Question 4: Did you every talk to those visitors from the big boat?  Anyone notice Mormon missionaries walking around the island and think that was interesting?

Answer: I did talk to some of them. They are going on the world tour trip. It was the first time in 3 years they could stop at Yap. So that is cool. We’re the only FSM island they stop at because we are the only island with a culture that is alive. 

Question 5: If you could share just one more message with the people you have been blessed to baptize, what would that message be?

Answer: I would say something about enduring to the end. What we need to do to endure and what blessings will come to them if the endure. And of course, I would want to share my personal testimony of Our Savior Jesus Christ.

Question 6:  What has been the toughest and best thing that happened this past week?

Answer: I would say having 5 young men teaching with us on Sunday. It was really hard to keep them all focused, but it was really good at the same time. They really like teaching with us, it is hard to have them help you sometimes, but we got some good work done yesterday.

Mom

I can't believe that Reed is getting so old. He is going to be on a mission really soon. Three classes to prepare for is a lot. I am sure that you are loving it though. I know how much you like to teach. 

Question 7: Tell about one thing that happened when you were finding this week.

Answer: Nothing really happened this week when we went finding. It was pretty uneventful. We tried finding at a thing called Yap Day. It is a day to celebrate their culture. And something cool happened. A member came up to us, that I didn't know, and started talking to us. It was pretty sweet. I really liked it. We are going to start working with him. 

Question 8:  Do the members do family history work there?  How do they keep track of their genealogy?  Do they wait until they go to the temple and try to do their own family history work then?

Answer: Not really. The catholic church has all the records. They do as much as they can on Guam, so when they go to the temple, they can just do the work for them. 

Question 9: How was the Colonia ward?

Answer: It is good. It is a lot bigger than Thol. I really miss the people down here. They were all so surprised to see me back. I got a lot of comments like, “I thought you left the island”, or are you staying down here for the rest of your mission? It was great. I really missed them.

Question 10:  Describe a food you ate this week that was new.

Answer: Well, it is old to you, but new to me. When I was in Guam I ate panda express and Wendys. It is really greasy. It tasted really good, but it made me feel really sick. Island wise. Nothing. I asked a Yapese boy to catch me a big lizard so I can eat it. And my companion and I are going to try to get and eel from somebody to eat that soon.

Question 11: What do you think I would find the most interesting about Yap?

Answer: umm... I think you would find the culture interesting. Just how strong it is here. Also, I don't know if you would like it, but you might find the hospitals interesting here. You probably won’t approve of them, but you might enjoy walking around and looking.

Question 12: How many were at church in Colonia yesterday?

Answer: There were about 60 people there. That is a little bit higher than the average for Colonia.

Question 13: What was the favorite thing you taught this week?

Answer: I would say the restoration. We taught it to a guy who is very unfamiliar with God, and what he has done. It was really good. It was a fast lesson, because he had to go really soon, but we are going to go back and teach him again.

Question 14: Describe a tender mercy you experienced this week.

Answer: I would say teaching with one of the young men. He is a recent convert named Z*ric. He is a really good kid. He is pretty shy sometimes, but we went to go and see his grandma. He really opened up to her and shared with her. It was really awesome. He is kind of a big jokester. He likes to goof around, but when we went to his grandma he really settled down and was really respectful, but still shared the gospel. It was really nice.

Staheli - Mom and dad said that you guys are going to go watch a basketball game. That sounds like a lot of fun. One of the sister missionaries loves basketball, she kind of reminds me of you and how you played a lot and were really good. You both have a really good shot.

Reed - Happy Birthday man. You are getting really old man. One more year, and you could be out serving a mission. That would be really great. Have fun at the basketball game. I am sure that you are going to love it. What is your favorite team?

To everyone

Alright, Guam was good and crazy. The meeting with President was very good. I think I told you about that last week. On Tuesday night, at like 3 in the morning, we finally made it back to my little island. I cannot tell you how happy I was when we made it back. I felt so good, even though it was early in the morning. Wednesday Elder Ramiterre was really sick. We didn't do much that day, but Thursday on we taught some good lessons.

We are going to have a baptism on Saturday. His name is M*ckie. He is super interested and super solid. He loves the gospel. I have really enjoyed teaching him. Elder Ramiterre was teaching him for a while before I came back to Colonia, but now we are teaching him and he is ready for baptism. He is really excited. He wants one of the young men to baptize him. It is going to be a really awesome baptism.

Yesterday we were teaching with Z*ric again. Yesterday is when we found that new boy I was telling you about in the questions. We went to go and see a couple of the recent converts that have slipped away. We went to the house, and there they were, just sitting there and talking there. It was really nice to see them again. After that, they took me to their uncles house, he is a member, and helped me teach them. And there was a boy there that I didn't know. I asked him if he would like to join us for a lesson. He said yes. It was really good.

Let’s see. oh yeah… yap day. It was so hard. Everyone came to yap day, and nobody was home. It was really hard to teach people those two days. So that was no good. There was lot of local dances which I really enjoy. So that was good. I love the culture here on yap, so I liked the event. Umm... I am excited to serve down in Colonia again. I am even more excited to serve with Elder Ramiterre. Him and I are really good friends… we have wanted to serve together for a long time. And we finally are together. We are going to get some good work done.

We should have a couple baptizes this month. The goal for Yap is 5. The goal for the mission this month is 120. We are going to get it. It will be the most that we have ever baptized in a month. So that is going to be awesome. 

Well that is about it.  I love you guys so much.

Love

Elder Meyer