Monday, February 16, 2015

Ebon Week 1: February 16, 2015

Mom's Note: Yesterday we received 15 letters from Spencer. He has been serving in the outer island of Ebon and we have not heard from him since his last email the first week of February. We are excited to FINALLY hear how he is doing. He has been writing every week, but the mail service there is nonexistent. We had to wait till the "plane was fixed" and his companion could be transferred to the main island before we received his letters. 

Week One:

Yokwe!

We flew into Ebon Thursday and I am working with Elder "W". W is from Provo and it is the last six months of his mission. He is way nice and cool, just a bit awkward at times.

Wednesday before I left we had combined Zone Conference, which means all of the missionaries in the main island of Majuro attend. The mission does them overtime a group of missionaires go home. This time, after the missionaries departing bore their testimonies, we watched "Meet The Mormons". That was way good. The Mission President and I were casually talking and he told me a story about being over a SEAL team. He's also been in the helicopter business and sold a lot to the Middle East. Zone Conferences are really fun and I was glad I could go before I left.

Thursday morning I flew into Ebon. While I was waiting in the airport, these women found out I was going to Ebon and one woman asked if I could take her child with me. I asked the APs and they just told me "Am Wot Bebe" or "Your Choice" so I flew with the child. They plane was tiny, it only had 10 seats and we landed on a grass field with the smallest part a little over 10 feet. The child slept the whole time and i just gave him to his aunt who was waiting. I exchanged with Elder "S", who was the elder in my intake, and took a boat across the lagoon to the main island, Ebon, Ebon. The atolls here are almost all alike...just a bunch of islands surrounding a lagoon with the bigger ones being most populated. Ebon is tinier than I thought with little more than 300 people on the main part, the majority being children. Basically, there is no one on the island between the ages of 12 and 30. There is no middle school or high school so all the kids go to Jaluit. All of the younger adults go to college or look for jobs in Majuro. The amount of people emigrating from the Marshall Islands is significant due to not enough job opportunities.

Work here in Ebon is much slower. Mostly everyone knows the missionaries and quite a few have already studied the gospel before. It makes it kind of difficult and a lot of time is spent just casually talking. On Sunday, one guy halfway through the lesson we were giving told us he is already a member. It can be a little discouraging.

Our house is also where we hold church. We have 28 people who come which is pretty good but only 8 of them are actually adults. I get to be the Primary teacher which is fun but Marshallese kids can be really annoying.

Ebon is really beautiful and I am excited to be working here and also pick up missionary work.

Love,

Elder Weenig

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