This week was pretty uneventful. It was raining all week so there was not much work done. I know it sound’s weak but you don’t go out and proselyte in the rain. Rain is not like it is in other places; when it rains it comes down hard and will last quite a while. You will be completely drenched in less than a minute if you are stuck outside. In the Marshall Islands whenever it rains all the people just go right to sleep. Even if we do have the chance to go out there is not much point because no one is outside and all your investigators will be sleeping or do not want to study. There are a few culture things here that are pretty funny; they try in a lot of ways to imitate the States. “Black Weekend” happened here where the big grocery stores mark down there groceries and some people have started putting up lights for Christmas. They tried to have Thanksgiving but it’s more of just a funny attempt to imitate it. My favorite part of the culture here is “contacting” where you can basically take whatever you want from people. Most of the time it is just bracelets but the people will sometimes ask for my backpack or some bigger things. It is pretty funny I am pretty good at contacting now and I know how to avoid giving away my things. The Marshallese culture just puts a lot of emphasize on family and friends and stuff that really matters rather than material things. This week the shipwreck also got on the front page of the national newspaper. The week was quite uneventful and we were stuck inside most of the week due to the weather. Hope everyone is doing well. Love Elder Weenig.
November 24th:
This week was really great, Yesterday we helped out a shipwreck. Better yet, yesterday we had 5 of our 8 investigators at Church. My companion right now is Elder Hix he is pretty great. He is pretty smart so he can help me with some gospel questions and some of the parts in Isaiah. He is "makare" at the language, which is Marshallese for expert. With him as a companion, and slowly replacing everyday words with the Marshallese ones, my language skills are coming along pretty well. We had Family Home Evening with a Pohnpein family in the ward, and they had to remind me that I can't speak Marshallese around them because they can't understand it. I have gotten to eat a lot of fish this week and I absolutely love it. Some parts of my day are pretty hard, it can get hot and is hard to get through the day or it can be frustrating when I cannot understand some people. We have picked up some really great investigators; when we asked a couple when they wanted to study the wife wanted to every night but her husband suggested maybe 2-3 nights of the week. I can't believe we had 5 investigators at Church, it is the most even my companion who's a year out has had. As for the shipwreck…... Bishop took the Delap Ward Elders out to his private island on P-day. Way sweet we ate yu and bub; yu is harvested coconut and so the inside turns into this sweet spongy stuff and bub is a sweet fruit that you suck on. When we went out to explore the island we found on the other side that this French guy crashed his boat and it was probably a half mile onto the dry coral bed. We were trying to help him out but after an hour he decided that he would just give up on the boat. Because the Bishop is the land owner the boat became his and we got to raid it for a bunch of sweet stuff. We were kind of hesitant but the sailor told us just to take everything we wanted. I was able to get some nice sunglasses, a hat, a knife from Czechslovakia and a lot of food and other random things. It was a pretty cool experience and just a way sweet day. I was able to see the real Marshall Islands and not the Americanized city that we work in. Overall this week has been really amazing, my knowledge and testimony have grown significantly. This Church is true and I am glad that I have the chance to share that with people everyday. I know this Mission is perfect for me and I could not be serving anywhere else. Love Elder Weenig, Sweenig, Waini, Wanik.
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