Monday: we have our preparation days on this day. This means emailing, grocery shopping, and other basic things. Washing clothes is fun because there is no washing machine. I wash my clothes in a bucket and then hang them on a clothes line. Grocery shopping we'll usually go to one of the major grocery stores. Both grocery stores are owned by Americans so I have access to everything in the states but just somethings can be really expensive like 11 dollars for a thing of cheese. Emailing we go down to the satellite building. Emailing is kind of a pain because they charge you for Internet which is like $5 an hour. P-days activities can be a little boring here because usually the only thing that happens is we'll go to the church building and play basket and volley with all the other missionaries.There are about 30 missionaries working on the main island of Majuro. There are 6 in another major island of Ebeye and then some companion shops in the outer islands adding up to about 50 missionaries.
Tuesday: is a normal proselyting day so after waking up, studying and eating we will try to leave the house around 11-12 and then return at like 9 at night. The areas in the mission are pretty small so fairly dense. Right now the area we cover is about a mile long but has quite a lot of people.
Wednesday: we have district meeting every week, our district is made up of two wards with 6 missionaries. Then every beginning of the month we have a zone conference, which is made up of my district and another. Wednesday night the ward does this really cool thing called rescue. Rescue is where all the ward gets together to bring back the less actives to church by just seeing how they are doing. There are quite a bit of less actives here in the Marshall Islands and I found out that about 1 in 6 people are members. Which is crazy to thing because work started here in the early 90's. On the main island of majuro alone there are 7 wards.
Thursday: is a regular proselyting day
Friday: is a regular proselyting day
Saturday: we will try to do a service project in the morning if not it will just be a regular day. If there is a baptism for the district we will all go.
Sunday: we've tried trying to proselyte before church at one but with not too much success. Sunday is really lazy here all the people just sleep, go to church and watch movies. The majority of people are Christian so there is nothing going on and all the stores are closed.
That is my basic week. I really love it here in the Marshall Islands. The people are great a lot of the guys have fades here and play basketball. Women in Marshall only wear dresses and skirts so I haven't seen a woman wear pants in quite a while. All the Marshallese people are really kind and love to feed missionaries which means enormous plates of rice. If we eat at people's houses it is always rice and then it varies between either fish, chicken, spam and sashimi (raw tuna).
Other highlights of my week is going on an exchange with a new Elder who got here a few weeks ago. During companionship study we went over the Law of Chastity and the Elder was really awkward about it. He wasn't sure how to teach and like didn't know how to explain it. I told him straight up you just teach "no sex before marriage." After a few times he like finally was able to teach it straight out. I think he felt awkward talking about sex.
I am doing really well my language skills are well and the Marshallese people are always impressed. They ask me "how long have you been here?" When I respond with "three months" it is always the same responses. "You're fast at learning Marshallese" or "you really know Marshallese." I love these people and am so happy to be serving here.
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