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July 15, 2011

We're emailing on Wednesday today. I'm sorry to keep you all waiting. Hopefully nobody has had a breakdown while waiting for this email. =P

The work is going great. Most of our investigators are moving along nicely, and a few have gotten to the point where we have to really push them to keep progressing, or just drop them. I hope it doesn't come to that. We had 8 investigators come to church last Sunday, which is a record high for the last 3 transfers. We did "church round-up" before church started, and it was crazy. We had 20 people to round up, so we were all over the place, waking people up for 11:00 church. It's great that all these people came to church, but what made me the most happy is the fact that Andrew came to church. This was his first time coming to church. He's a great guy, and I hope we can teach him quickly enough to get him baptized before the end of the transfer.

Sarah also came to church. She's currently the investigator who we have closest to baptism. She's really ready for it, but is still building up the confidence to go through with it. We're shooting for this weekend, and I'm very confident that she will be baptized on Saturday.

Rednis, the Chuukese man, is also progressing well. He understands what is taught, and loves it. He just hasn't quite made the connection between what we teach and why he needs to be baptized. The lessons are mostly just Brother Herring teaching in Chuukese, and us listening and trying to follow along based on his hand motions and diagrams. Brother Herring tells us it goes well though.

That's about all for now. I hope everyone is doing well in the sweltering heat back home. I won't tell you how pleasant it's been up here, because I don't want to make anyone jealous.

I love you all!

-Elder Giles

July 4, 2011

Hey everyone! Happy Independence Day! Sadly, we're not really doing anything special to celebrate (besides today being a P-day). We are spending the day at the Herring's house. It's pretty great. We've been playing games and such. P-day ends at 5:00, so that pretty much rules out the chance to attend any barbecues or picnics. President Weaver said we have to be in by 8:30 tonight, which is pretty early. Normally we get in between 9:15 and 9:45.

We had two baptisms last week: Meagan on Tuesday, and Seamus on Saturday. I was the impromptu pianist on Saturday, because the one who had been called didn't show up. So far I've averaged 1 baptism per week. Not too bad, eh?

One interesting thing that happened this week was a car invite (inviting while driving). We rolled down the window and asked this guy if he wanted to go take a tour of the church. He said, yes, so we parked and walked to the church with him. We quickly found out that he doesn't speak much English. He's from the island of Chuuk, and speaks Chuukese. Lucky for us, Elder Mauss knew somebody (Brother Herring, actually) who went on his mission to Chuuk. He came with us the next day, and we re-did the church tour in Chuukese. Rednis, the man we invited, came to church on Sunday, and said he wants to be baptized. Brother Herring is going to help us teach him, and he'll probably be baptized in a couple weeks.

The work is still going great. We go finding a lot, since we're always looking for new investigators.

Some of the investigators we have are progressing very slowly, which is frustrating. The Downs family doesn't seem to really take it seriously, and it's hard to get them to come to church. A man named Rudy has a similar story. His wife is a Jehovah's Witness, and she's always saying things to confuse Rudy and point out differences and things. Rudy is a very logical person. So much so that he doesn't rely on the spirit or faith at all. It's frustrating because he wants us to prove the Book of Mormon is true, and that the things we say are right, instead of just praying and trusting the answers he receives. Hopefully we can do some good things this week.

That's all for now. Thanks for all your letters, love, and prayers!

-Elder Giles