The Spirit

     We had a great day today, it started out like most days, we walked 3 miles, came home and met the Zone leaders and the Kjars at a new apartment that we are looking at for a new set of Elders that are coming. We are opening up a new area on the island for missionary work. It is the Sekerra area, now the Sekerra branch will have it's own set of missionaries, so we have to find a new apartment for the missionaries. We are also getting a new sister missionary. All the new missionaries arrive on Friday.

Guacamole anyone?

Yum, in about 3 days we will have them for breakfast , lunch and dinner

     then we went over to Ponrockiet because a member called this morning and said she had some avocado's for us.  Trust me the pictures do not do justice to these. some of them are almost as big as out phone.
     After that we went out to do the apartment checks. about every 6 weeks the Kjars and us go to each of the missionary apartments and check them. We check for Cleanliness, to make sure all the appliances are working, etc. but mostly because it makes sure that they get a good cleaning at least once every 6 weeks.  We will give out 4 awards at District mtg on Thursday.  The very coveted "Pine Sol award", that is for the cleanest apartment, The "Cleanest Floor" award, that one is obvious, the Cleanest Car award, ( the cars get inspected too.), and the dreaded "Putty Knife" award, for the apartment we need a putty knife to get through.  We will see who gets what award on Thursday.
     then on the way home, we stopped at  Angie's for dinner, because our power was still out and a really strange thing (strange in a good way) happened. We walked up to the counter and ordered our food and as we walked back to get a seat this man stopped us and with tears in his eyes wanted to shake our hands. In very broken Pohnpeian I asked him his name "ia dome" and he told me,  I then ask if he was a member of our church, and he nodded yes and just sat there and stared at us and kept wiping the tears from his eyes. We tried to talk to him, but he didn't understand much English and our Pohnpein leaves a lot to be desired, so we patted him on the back and shook his hand and he let us go. While we ate our dinner he kept watching us and crying. When it came time for us to leave he once again shook our hands, and I patted him on the back. the spirit was really strong, I don't know what his story is, I wish I spoke the language better and understood it better, so we could have helped him more, but I think it did help that we took the time to try and to shake his hand and pat him on the back. He knew we were representatives of the Church and that somehow gave him comfort. We couldn't even communicate enough to get his information, other then a first name, so we could have gone to visit him. Hopefully the Lord will put him in either our path again or the other missionaries path, so one of us can help him.
       It is amazing to me how the spirit works sometimes, I don't think there are ever any coincidence's, all things happen for a reason, we meet people along our journey through this life for a reason, I hope I can help all those I meet, to know there Savior Jesus Christ better and to come unto Him. that is what this work is all about, to brings souls unto Christ.  The Church is true, I know it and I love it. I hope I can do some good here in Pohnpei.
   

We need help

     I have had a lot of impressions in the last couple of days, and I want to share some of them with all of you.
As I look at all the work that needs to be done here on Pohnpei and there are just not enough hours in the day to get to everything, I realize how much help we need. And if we need this much help here on Pohnpei, how much help is needed through out the world in this effort to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world.  We don't have enough missionary's young or old. We need more. I am sure that every mission in the church needs more missionaries.
     We taught a class on missionary work and the temple to 3 different groups of youth today. and we talked about the importance of not only every member being missionaries, but the importance of preparing to serve missions. We talked about the reason we do missionary work goes along with why we do Temple work. So that all of Gods children can return home to Him someday.
     I have always told my children and husband that when I die, I want a saying put on my headstone. That saying is "No Empty Chairs". My children know that this means, I want them to do everything they need to so that when we sit down to dinner in heaven there will be NO EMPTY CHAIRS. We will each have done enough to be worthy to live together as families, all of us, no one missing. Well I think that is how our Heavenly Father and Mother must feel also. They also want all there children to come home one day and have no empty chairs. this will not be possible if we don't all do our part.
     So many times we think of all the reasons we can't go on a mission, i can't afford it, I can't leave my grandchildren, who will take care of my house, I want to vacation, I am afraid,etc. Believe me I came up with every reason to not go on a mission. and I had every doubt that was possible come to mind. I will be honest with you. This is probably the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, But it is also the best thing I have done FOR my life. So I would ask each of you to ask yourselves  and your friends and family this question, instead of listing all the reasons you can't serve a mission, What are the reasons I CAN go on a mission.?
  let me help you, you can go on a mission because your children and grandchildren will  be blessed immensely for you service, you can go because we all have things that we need forgiven for and we are promised in the scriptures that when we open our mouths in proclaiming the gospel, our sins will be forgiven. You can go because you love the Lord and you also don't want there to be any 'EMPTY CHAIRS" at the Lords table, but most importantly, you can go because HE LOVES YOU, and shows you that love each and every day in all the blessings you receive.
    Please look deeply into your lives, if there are things you need to fix, repent of, or do to go. JUST DO THEM. WE NEED EVERYONE POSSIBLE IN THIS AMAZING WORK.
    Selfishly, I will be praying that you will be sent to the Micronesia Guam Mission, because i see first hand how much we could use more help. But I know every mission in the church needs more missionaries.
    I know this gospel is true, I know we have a Father in Heaven that loves us and wants ALL of us back, I know we have a Savior that suffered and died for you and I, so we could repent and come back one day. I know this work is of the Lord and I hope that even just one or two of you out there will reevaluate your own lives and come on a mission. Just come, it doesn't matter where ( although I will be hoping for our mission) We need you, The LORD NEEDS YOU. I promise it will be the best thing you can do FOR your life.

More Pictures 2

Elder Kjar, and Pres. Ongesol at the airport

Seeing Elder and Sister Kjar off at the airport

Elder & Sis. Kjar, Pres. Ongesol and Sis. Ongesol

Pres. Hadley, Pres. Ongesol, Sis. Ongesol , the Kjar's and Us

teaching Piano at Sekerra

This is how you make a Mini Van into a Truck

refreshments at Sapwalap

Getting ready for the basket weaving compitiion

the secret is find any shade you can

Sapwalap

Sapwalap Church ( the biggest church on the Island)

Sis. Redesz house, right next to the church

even the pwiks come to the party

prizes for the competition

 The Nett's branch arrives

the rest of the Nett's branch

 The coconut stools for grading the coconuts

Go team blue

Sis. Salaiu gratting coconuts

Sis Calio grating coconuts, the race is on

Husking Coconuts

basket weaving compition

The basket 

the men's tug of war

our sister missionaries,  go team

Local medicine to heal our sunburn blisters

women's tug of war, we almost had them

     We had the opportunity of going to an all day "fair" (for lack of a better word) at Sapwalap. We got to participate in coconut husking & grating contest. sack races, tug of war (my team almost won), kids races, donot & water eating contest, baseball game and volleyball games.  The prizes were coconut tree start, yam start, cocnuts, pinapple start, a whole bunch(we are talking about 50 in a bunch here) of banana, suger cane start. It was so much fun, for refreshments we had coconut juice (drank it right out of the cocnut, thats how we do it here, it is great), banana's and some koolaid ( the locals love koolaid). We had a blast and got really, really sunburned. So we used local medicine to help with the sunburn and it worked great, looks a little funny, but it works.

When it rains, it pours,(litterally and figuratively)

         Our wonderful other Sr. couple the Kjars, had a death in the family. Sweet Sis. Kjars father passed away, our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. They flew home to bury her father last Friday. they will be back tomorrow (Thursday Feb 23), while they have been gone a lot of things have happened. It all started Sunday morning. Our friend Janice, had to have an emergency. She had to have her appendices out and it all went south from there.  Our language teacher, Tony, his granddaughter got really sick and they had to run her to the state hospital. I got a phone call from his daughter, Michelle, asking me to please come to the emergency room quickly. Well i did not have a car, because all the men were at the District Priesthood Mtg. Then I remembered that Kjars car was here, so I borrowed it. I hope that was o.k.. Elder and Sis. kjar?, I spent the next 2 1/2 hours in the emergency room with Tony's family. It was pretty scary, she was having seizures and she was really sick, they finally got her stabilized and moved her to the pediatric ward, and when I say ward, I mean 14 beds per room and you have to bring your own bedding. There were a lot of other things, that were pretty scary about the hospital, but I don't dare write them at this time, maybe when I get home in 2 years, i will tell you about it. Then Elder Davis got sick again, with another kidney stone, Bro. and Sis. Davis if you are hearing this for the first time on my blog, I apologize, Elder Davis was suppose to call you. he is doing better, but may have to go to Guam to get the stone blasted with ultra sound. Between teaching seminary ( I already was in awe of the Kjars, but after teaching all the seminary classes, I am even more impressed, I don't know how they do all that they do), piano and taking care of the medical emergency's, we are exhausted.,but I can tell you that prayers have been answered.
     Through all this, many Priesthood blessings were given, many prayers offered and I know that the Lord loves and watches over us all. Janice is healing nicely, Little Leila (tony's granddaughter) is doing well and came home from the hospital and Elder Davis is doing really well. It will be good to get him better, because he is an amazing Missionary, that is why satan is working on him so hard.
    All our testimony's have been strenghened and the spirit is strong out here in Pohnpei. Thank You to all of you at Home, for all your prayers, the Lord really does bless His missionaries.

Young Women Personal Progress Gift

     About 2 months ago, our daughter in law, Kammie( she is the young womens president), ask us if there was something her young women could do for service for the young women in Pohnpei. So we ask around the 8 branches here and found out that we have not been able to get any Young Women Personal Progress books on our island. So we let Kammie know and her and her young women, not only got us about 20 personal progress books, but they also got and decorated journals and wrote letters to the young women here.
     Well, the Personal Progress books arrived this week, and we were able to give them to one of the branches, I wish you could have seen the look on the faces and the tears in the eyes of these young women leaders, who had fasted and prayed for a way to get books for the girls they love so much.  I can't wait to give them the journals and letters when they come.
     We are going to see if there is some way we can get enough Personal Progress books for all the young women on Pohnpei.  Sometimes, we take for granted that everyone in the church has the same resources that we do in the states. We have learned, they don't all have the same resources.

The Young Women of the Kolonia Branch ( the largest group of Young Women on the Island)

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The Young Women of Kolonia with there new Journals and Personal Progress Books,  Thank You, Harvest Park 5th ward Young Women.

    To Kammie and her young women,   A Big THANK YOU. You will never know what a amazing gift you gave to the Young Women and their leaders in the Kolonia branch on Pohnpei.  I wish I had gotten a picture when we gave the books to Sis. Youngalou and Sis. Cimeron. Words do not adequately express there and our gratitude.  Thank You. when the journals get here, we will have the camera ready.

Zone Conference

Elder Haas and Elder Carlson (Zone Leaders)
Preparing for Zone Conference

Preparing for Zone Conference

Our Zone (Pohnpei)
Top Row Elders Loveless, Cole, Carlson, Haas, Stewart
2nd Row :  Elders Crapo, Pierson, Gasu, Dalmer, Davis
3rd Row : Sisters Kennech, Salaiau, Varia, Sister Mecham, President Mecham, Sister Kjar
Elder Kjar, Elder LeFevre, Sister LeFevre

The Sister Missionaries and Sis. Mecham

     We had Zone Conference this week, Pres. Mecham and Sis. Mecham came on Wednesday, we learned alot about how to be better missionaries. One of the best ways is to open our mouths and not be afraid to share the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. There are so many scriptures that promise that if we will not fear, but open our mouths, that the Lord will bless us to know what to say. I have a hard time with this, but I am going to work at over coming my fear of opening my mouth.