We were invited to come to the Mechitiw Branch party last week and because this is the branch we started in when we first arrived on the island last year, we were happy to attend. Our island may be small but this branch is still on the other side of it. The road is very bad over there and little Berta, our car, sometimes has a difficult time getting over the large chuuk holes. We really love the Mechitiw people and miss seeing them each week.
This is the Anton family. Brother Anton is the 1st counselor in the Branch Presidency. He has really bad hearing and can only hear in one ear. He said that sometimes he gets really bored because when he is at church he doesn't know what anyone is saying. Sister Anton taught us Chuukese for several weeks when we first arrived. She thinks she is pretty tough and a rebel which is probably why we became friends so quickly. She is a sweetheart, and a very funny lady. The Anton family have over come many challenges. We are taught that when necessary the Lord will even carry us over obstacles as we seek His peace with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Often He speaks to us in ways that we can hear only with our heart. This lovely family wants to go to the temple and be sealed together. We are working with them to make it happen when the Chuukese group gets approved to go.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf teaches us that as we accept Gods ways and overcome our pride by softening our hearts, we can bring reconciliation and forgiveness into our families and our personal lives. God will help us to be more forgiving, to be more willing to walk the second mile, to be first to apologize even if something wasn’t our fault, to lay aside old grudges and nurture them no more. Thanks be to God, who gave His Only Begotten Son, and to the Son, who gave His life for us.
These beautiful ladies are the movers and shakers of the party. They cooked all afternoon, cleaned the church and planned a program.
They prepared large plates of macaroni salad, rice, chicken, hot dogs, ham slices and fruit salad. One thing Chuukese people do is know how to eat. It was all very tasty...
It is ice cream time ~ "ice cream, ice cream we all scream for ice cream".
These are the elders that serve in the Mechitiw Branch. Elder Obray and Elder Rainey. Both of these elders are very new to the mission, but they are doing incredible work and are teaching the lessons in Chuukese. They are “sanctified by the Spirit" and carry with them a mantle. The fact that our Heavenly Father would entrust this power and responsibility to man is evidence of His great love for us and a foreshadowing of our potential as sons of God in the hereafter.
This picture has the humanitarian missionaries that came this week to Chuuk to deliver wheel chairs and teach the doctors how to fit people for the correct chair. Elder Andy and Sister Roylene Schnebly and Ronald K. Honey. We had such a wonderful time showing them the island.
A sure testimony of Jesus Christ and of His restored gospel takes more than knowledge—it requires personal revelation, confirmed through honest and dedicated application of gospel principles.
“Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.”
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