Happy October !
Sending our love and thoughts to our family and friends !
It is Elder Norton’s turn to write but my heart is full so I will write some thoughts.
We loved conference so much! How exciting when we heard about the change in the ages for missionary service! We were told that there were 600 applications in and 4 days after the announcement, 3,600! Wow! Evidently it is now up to 7,000! We are curious to see if more missionaries will be sent here. We could use them so badly! Five senior couples go home within the next 6 months, and if they don’t have replacements who knows where will go? We have a calm peace of mind that the Lord already knows and we will serve wherever we are needed most.
Until all that comes about we are happy as ever and LOVE our mission!
Two weeks ago we had our 4th Merizo devotional, and last Friday night we loaded up the volleyball tire/poles and had an impromptu game there. Because there was a stake dance all the teenage kids were gone so our game consisted of around 20 kids under the age of 12, ourselves , Elder Dalmer/Roko and Brother Tigilmai. The kids didn’t know what they were doing but had fun running around ,until a big storm came up and ruined all the fun!
Last Sunday the baptism for Ermina’s son, Steve,19, was planned but he told us he couldn’t be baptized because he got drunk the night before, got in a gang fight, and the police were called. Ermina and her family live with her sister and because of this, kicked them all out .So Ermina and her 7 children were taken in by our Bishop. The next day they had to break the locks to get in so she could load up her few belongings and our Bishop found her a little house to stay in until she can get into the government housing. Steve hung his head that day and was very, very sorry about what had happened, Ermina was embarrassed and just cried. She will be living close by to us now and the elders and out from under the rule of a mean sister so that is a blessing in disguise. Steve will need a little more time but has a desire to be baptized so I know he will soon. His friends persuaded him to drink and fight that night, maybe through this experience he will be stronger now and if it happens again he will be able to say no and stand firm to his beliefs.
Our days are busy with picking up our boys each day and getting them and their bikes to their areas for the day and then picking them up at the end of the day and back home. We are teaching new member discussions ,teaching with the elders, fellowshipping with all our many families, teaching institiute and doing a lot of service. We are so blessed!
Last night the CES senior couple in another ward put on a Halloween murder mystery and we helped out. The stake RS president wrote the script and I got one so it will be fun to do sometime in the future when we get home.It was fun to see Micronesian kids read and act as this was their first time to ever do so. It went great and they all had such fun. Elder and Sister Jex keep saying that when they go home in April we will have to take over their Institiute/40 kids if another couple doesn’t come in. I honestly can’t imagine where we would find the time to do that too but like I said we will do whatever is asked of us!
Update on our Welsi….. we hit the FINISH button on her mission paperwork today! Yippee! Bishop and the Stake Pres. do their part and then we wait! We asked for her to be a ward missionary and we love when she can come with us for the day!
OOG (ONLY ON GUAM) story: Elder Norton is sitting in the chair and the next door dog chases up a 6 ft monitor lizard to the sliding glass door and it is scratching frantically to get in the house! Glad the door was shut! So it takes off and I’m running to find the camera and by the time I got outside it had run into a hole under this big rock. That would have been a fun video for the kids to see!
