"Never a Dull Moment"

Life out in the Pacific is never a dull moment so I figured since I was sitting in a meeting with the island women and I don’t understand what they are saying since it is in Chuukese I could write a letter and give you an update. Lucky for you all I have a printer now so I can type this up and you don’t have to guess what it says.

This meeting I am at is for the Chuukese Women’s Council. CWC it is part of a larger group of women in Micronesia islands trying to make a difference. It has been quite interesting here trying to get the LDS women involved. You see the people here live with a Caste system (it's more in Yap than here) and then on top of that they separate into tribes and religions. The main religions that are here is LDS, Protestant, Catholic and Seven day Adventist. All of the women are such beautiful people and are mostly very friendly to us but they are not to each other. This island is a fairly small island so you would think they would all know each other. They don’t and they don’t even bother to unless they come from the same circle or caste. Apparently the reason the women own all the land here is because the men were to competitive and controlling. Can you imagine that? Men fighting over land. We have heard many stories of the culture here it is all pretty interesting and we are learning how to work with it.

So Tuesday we were out doing GPS location on one of the outer islands called "Patta". What a beautiful island. We really like this island it is so pretty and clean. We have a small boat that we normally take out there, we also have a larger boat that has been broken, but now it is fixed. Well, this day we had to take the large boat. We don't know why, we don't question why? We just go... So we arrive at Patta, meet up with the Branch President and he takes us through the mangroves to the church to meet up with the Elders. The big boat won't make it through the mangroves. We then make a plan; head back to the big boat and go around the other side of the island. The day started out amazing, everywhere you go you are greeted by a lot of people. It’s like you’re a celebrity they are so happy to see missionaries even the small children. We meet up with the member we were going to see and he led us to his home on the beach. Anytime you enter a home here you first have to be invited in and then you take off your shoes. They don’t have furniture here and normally the floor is wood, sometimes with tile or linoleum laid on it. His sister was there at the house so she joined us. She is not a member and his wife and children are living on another island. He wanted Elder Tiffany to speak to him and tell him why we were there. Elder Tiffany shared his testimony and invited him to come back to church. He told him that our Heavenly Father loved him and we were there to let him know that he cares about him. He then invited him to come join us to go out and find other members. Which he decided he would love to come join us. The funny thing about all this is even the kids from the neighborhood come hang out in the doorway, around the windows. I cannot believe how love the missionaries are here.