"Jidik kon Jidik"

Hello,

Right now we have two areas because the other Elders are waiting to get here. We had one Elder who is staying with us because he is waiting to get his companion. Once he gets his companion they will get Rita North and we will have Rita South, so that will be nice.

What I mean by Elders are waiting to get here it's because AirMarshalls (the airline here) always has broken down planes so when they finally fix them they can start to bring the elders back haha. We call the airline here AirMaybe. You would think if the US gave the Marshalls 1.5 billion a year they would use some of it to get either new planes or really fix the planes haha.

So as far as investigators we have like 20 right now and it's a lot of work, and even more walking.

 A lot of the islanders and pretty much everyone tells me that in as soon as like 3 months I could be skinnier and that by the end of my mission I will have lost a lot of weight. So this mission is pretty awesome! Not only do you get to preach the gospel and build character, you also get a free Jenny Craig subscription. The Marshallese program is pretty unorthodox with lots of walking and sweating and low food. So even if you get a lot of food a few times you will sweat or walk it off pretty fast.

This week the electric company did a "routine Check up" where they turn off all the electricity from 10am to 5 pm. but what really happened was it got turned off at 9am and then didn't get turned back on until 10am the next morning! Sucked so bad!

We didn't do service last week so I still don't know about that. I have asked about doing service at the hospital though. There is a man who is LDS, American and served his mission here that is a surgeon here so maybe I can do something I don't know yet. 

The weather is normal like it has been for the week. If there was a hurricane here or Tsunami there probably would be no mas Marshall Islands.

For fruit there is Coconut and Bōb fruit.  Here is a picture of me eating bōb . You don't really eat it, you just chew it and then you suck the juice out. It tastes good but when you chew it it gets really stringy and gets in your teeth haha.   Learn more about Bōb fruit

 

Here is a picture of me eating Bōb

 

The best thing that happened this week was one when the power came back on haha and a couple has committed to getting married. That is a big thing because here people just start families but never get married. So we have to try and get them to do that before they can get baptized, because splitting a family apart would be contradicting to what we want to accomplish as well. I would rather have a family stay together than get a baptism. Which reminds me I need to explain some of the culture.

First, as far as raising children once they get about 7+ the parents don't really care what they do so they just run about the island and do whatever. Which is one reason why teenage pregnancy is a problem! Try convincing a whole culture to do better on certain rules like the law of chastity and word of wisdom, which is a nice challenge haha.

Second, like I said before, marriage is difficult because people will just start a family and not get officially married. It's funny but it can get frustrating when investigators are ready to get baptized but they won't or haven't gotten married.

Third, one year old birthday parties are so big here. It is like a quinceañera with the Hispanic culture. really big. Birthdays in general can be pretty big but the one year old one is huge. And they sing for like half an hour before they do anything else. I told Harris that so far I like American birthdays better because it is one short song and then you can get to the cake/eating part haha.

The kids are in school right now but I feel like all it is is like one big recess. I don't know how good the education system here is. How they do it I don't know yet. But there is a school right next to the chapel or right next to me right now. Maybe all the kids went back inside to do their work now.

If I think of any more I will email them but those are what I can think of currently.

As far as what was hard this week I can't really think of anything. I mean the mission in general can be hard at times and it's never like easy but I guess I'm used to just having hard days? I don't know haha. I want to learn the language like now so I can do better but I have to be patient and learn it. As the Marshallese say "Jidik kon Jidik". Or little by little.

 

love,

Elder Romney