Good Week

12.28.2014

Dear Family,

So yeah, this email won't be super long either, since it has only been about three days since we talked!! it was awesome being able to talk to you guys, it had been a long time! Now just a little over 4 months and we will talk again.

So we got all the elders out to their islands and had a good finish to the week, we were able to go see a couple more investigators with the hopes that they would come to church. On Sunday, Elder Kjar (fairly new) and I got to go do church in Fono, because currently there are no missionaries there. It was fun, and I got to give a talk and pretty much told them what they need to do if they want to be a strong branch because I have quite a bit of experience seeing the ups and downs of building a branch. I told them that if they follow the commandments no matter what, even though they are a few compared to the island, that it will shine forth and that is where the real strength will come from. If they can, one by one, accept and welcome people into the branch and help them to be strong as well. They were really responsive, mainly because the missionaries that have been there the past few months aren't yet fluent in Chuukese so they really liked my talk haha. The group leader told me I spoke perfect grammar and pronunciation so that is a pretty cool compliment. That group leader is awesome, his name is __ and he actually served in jail for 8 years because he manslaughtered someone while he was drunk. And he has completely changed his life. It is really cool to see. and now he has the Aaronic Priesthood, hopefully he will get the Melchizedek soon as well.

That is about it for this week, now I am going to go play some ball. Congrats to Nick and Casaundra!! I always knew they would end up together. I love you all!

Elder Schroath

Stellar Week!

12.21.2014

Hey!

So this week was stellar, we taught quite a few more lessons than usual, and it paid off! First of all we had transfers last week, and the switches worked out super well, areas are starting to blow up. We are still low on baptisms, but we should be going hot into January.

At church we had a record-breaking 176 people come to sacrament meeting. It was even raining a little bit in the morning! But pretty much all the people that are off and on coming to church came at one time, probably for the Christmas party. But Elder Paulis and I also
had 5 investigators come so that was exciting. Two were actually in the Christmas program they did, haha.

It was standard the rest of the week, I did make it out to Udot again to do a baptismal interview for another one of my old investigators. It was Reileen, the sister in law of Keileen who was baptized last week. So that was exciting.

I am excited for Christmas here! We have our branch Christmas party on Christmas I believe so it should be fun. I love you all! Thanks for all the love!

Elder Schroath

We had a wonderful visit with Elder Schroath on Christmas evening!  The internet was being touchy so we just spoke with him on the phone.  He is growing and changing and becoming more like his Savior every day.  I asked him how his sandals and church shoes were holding up and he said that he gave his sandals to another missionary from Samoa who needed them.  

Here is a picture of us talking with Elder S.  I had my son Garrett (who is in Dallas) on speakerphone on my daughters cell phone and held it up to mine so he could hear as well.

A Good Long Email

12.14.2014

Hey!

So this week should be a good long email, as long as I can focus with all these other missionaries talking haha. Okay, where to start...

So I will talk more about the District Conference we had last week. President Ringwood and President Zarbock got here on the Friday and we had a little Zone Meeting where President Ringwood talked to us. He talked a lot about the Spirit of Revelation, the Spirit of Prophecy,
and the Holy Order of God. Pretty cool to learn and realize that we all have the spirit of revelation and spirit of prophecy. We just gotta act like it! Then one missionary asked what is the best way to help be obedient and stay obedient and President Ringwood brought up a
really cool point. That we signed the paper to come on a mission, the acceptance letter. Meaning that we already agreed to follow the rules and be exactly obedient. So even though we may not want to follow some of the rules or justify them, or if temptation comes, just remember
that it is too bad because we already agreed to follow the rules so we should just follow them! It's too late to back out now! Just like it is for less actives, we can help them realized that with their baptism, they already agreed to keep the commandments so now God is expecting them to no matter what! They can't back out now! It all goes in to fearing God, which plus we do it out of fearing God but he also gives us blessings for it so sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Anyways, Saturday session was super good, we had a lot of people come. Probably 500 just on Saturday. Fono, the island barely opened in August, had 50+ people come on like 7 boats. Amazing, since most are nonmembers. Udot had a good show too, 4 boats full! It was good seeing them again. I translated one of the talks to President Ringwood, it was cool because President Ringwood would keep coming to me with questions and comments and stuff, I felt like I was pretty tight with him hahah but really though, I love that man, he is definitely a servant of the Lord. I was so blessed to be able to work with him so closely. In the Saturday afternoon session, the Sapuk branch had a musical number where they sang a song the branch  president's daughter wrote, and it was AMAZING. Like every single person went dead silent
listening to this musical number, complete with piano and all.  Chuukese people were like crying and they never cry besides funerals!! Honestly that is going to be something I never forget, because the Spirit was so strong. I can't get over it!

Sunday session was awesome too, the final count was over 1,000!! That was more than any STAKE in our mission, Guam only had like 500! And Pohnpei 800 or so. So that even put the attention more on Chuuk to become a stake, because we are proving we have the numbers for it! The talks were really good too, President Ringwood planned specifically for Chuuk District, everyone could tell. And he said exactly what we needed to hear. So hopefully this starts to help people out more! We had probably 200 people just from the Mwan branch alone, it was a huge
show. I am excited to work with all the less actives and non members that came.

This last week went pretty well, everyone was back in full force to work. We were able to meet with a few investigators, because we need them to come to church! Lots of areas should be seeing a lot more investigators after this last Dist Conf. On Friday we got to go to Udot to interview one of my old investigators who was finally getting baptized! Her name is Keileen, Sato's older sister. We also did an interview in Romalum, for a girl I found out is cousin's with Rodrick and them from Neao! Pretty cool. We did a baptism for a child of record, named Rentaleen. This super cute girl from across the street, her dad is less active but he came to the baptism.

Transfers happened yesterday, it fixed all the problems we had before, haha. We got a couple missionaries that had previously got transferred from Chuuk are now coming back so that is exciting. No trainers though.

We talked to President Wainis (dist pres) this morning because he barely got back from Guam at the stake presidents meeting which went super well i guess. He said Chuuk's spirituality compared to Guam and Pohnpei is way lower. He said we all need to take this a lot more
seriously and bring the Spirit in a lot more. Also talked about the branches and missionaries working better together. The one thing chuuk is missing is good organization/priesthood. So President will be working a lot more with the branch presidents and training them in exactness, starting it off in 2015 with a big meeting for all the branch presidents and their missionaries. I am excited.

I got the boxes mom, the three. Thank you so much! And that is exactly what I meant by junk food so thank you so much:) oh so you know the conference ensign, in the first talk by Boyd K. Packer, the second picture, those two missionaries are in our mission, in Saipan. The one
on the right is Sister Matisima, she is Chuukese and the daughter of the 1st counselor here in the branch I am working in. So a little bit of Chuuk for the world! Represent. I love you all so much, I look forward to talking to you on Christmas. I believe I signed up for 9am on the 26th, which I believe is 3 pm for you guys on Christmas. Good time or bad time? Let me know. I will call and confirm on Sunday probably. And we only get 40 mins, since we are exactly obedient now:) this is pretty much my last one, besides the mothers day which is right before I go home, so ask questions if you have them! Love you all!

Elder Schroath

PS mom if you could send a box full of candy to give out on New Year's
that would be awesome:)

Hey dad! pretty cool story, so the other day Elder Paulis fell asleep on the bed in one room which is not the one we usually sleep in so I figured I would just sleep in my usual spot in the other room and no big deal but that night I had this freaky scary dream ha and woke up at like 2 in the morning heart pounding and everything and just realizing I should have been in the same room as Elder Paulis and then all of the sudden I heard him move and he was in the same room! And it eased me so I went to bed right away. In the morning I found out he woke up randomly and felt the need to go in the other room, and so it
just strengthens my testimony that yeah even though the Lord chastens people for breaking rules or commandments, he lets us know that he is there to comfort us at all times no matter what.

Not much else exciting happened this week, Christmas should be fun, the Hardy's are planning some stuff. It will be fun to talk to you guys too! Good to hear BYU basketball is having a good year so far. I heard Boise State was in the Fiesta Bowl? is that still a big bowl?
Well, Love you dad!

Elder Schroath

Rentaleen and her parents and little sister after her baptism

People from Udot arriving at Conference!

Lifting the casket for a lady we took the sacrament to every week.  She had an amazing testimony.

Church on the ocean where also our house is
(the kid on the far left goes teaching with us a lot,
 his name is Nitik, he will go on a mission next year)

 Octopus! Super good!

Short email and pictures

12.8.2014

The internet at the church in Mwan was down last week so Elder Schroath wasn't able to email us.  This week we just got a short email because he didn't have time!  Chuuk had a District Conference and members from all over, including the outer islands, came to the church on the main island to attend. The church helped pay for gas so they could all come.  Elder Schroath and his companion helped organize the District Conference so I imagine it has been a very busy day for him!

The Senior Missionary Couple, The Hardy's, have emailed me a little bit and shared this:

"Elder Schroath has done a great job helping to organize conference!"
"We all love Elder Schroath! He leads with humble heart and a valiant spirit!"

Sis Hardy also posted some pictures from the District Conference that I have included below.

Here is Elder Schroath's quick email from today!

So I don't have a lot of time again because all the other missionaries are here. But this last week was district conference and we had a huge show! Like boats and everything. Probably 30+ boats. Sapuk had an amazing choir performance, so that was super cool. I want to write more but I don't have time, maybe I will write a letter all about it or just tell you about it on Christmas. I love you all!

Elder Schroath

If you click on the pictures below they will open up in a larger window.

District Conference.  Elder Schroath is the person standing up on the right.

Elder Schroath and missionaries from Chuuk Zone

Trucks the church uses to transport members.
Elder Schroath is standing behind the truck on the left.

Outer island members heading home.

Elder Schroath at Zone Conference.