Snail Mail Letter & Email

Between the last two emails we received a letter in the mail from Elder S.  Here it is (I also added his email from today right after the letter):

1.12.2015

Dear Family,
So the internet was down today so I figured I would just write a quick letter instead.  Since I don't really know what's going on in the outside world (except I know the Broncos lost :( (sad face) ), I will just tell you about my week.

It was a solid week for sure, we got in a lot of time to teach.  We had a couple Elders stay with us for a couple days because one was getting treatment at the hospital.  So we were able to do a lot of splits and stuff, and cover a lot more ground.

We have some cool investigators, one is Pito.  We have been seeing him everyday because he is progressing fast and will hopefully be ready for baptism on the 17th of January, as well as Karleen, a 12 year old girl that comes regularly, but just hasn't yet been baptized!  So we would be able to hit our January baptismal goals if these to happen.

There is this prospective missionary named Curtis that goes teaching with us, and one day we just grilled him trying to get referrals and we got 3-4 of his friends/relatives and they are all awesome!  One named Maurus really wants to be baptized, they live far from the church though.  But I think he will start coming.  He is 18 and about to graduate from high school, so he has already thought about being a missionary like his cousin Curtis will be.

Other than that, we are gonna start working with this less active named JS, who wants to change because his Grandma right before she died a month ago asked him if he would change and go on a mission and help the family name.  so he wants to!  He was all ready to go to church then it rained a ton so he didn't make it.  But next week we'll get him!

I love being here in Chuuk, I still always think about how blessed I was to get called here.  I have had the best areas too!  an old missionary named Blake Fisher is back in Chuuk doing an internship, so it means every once in a while an old missionary does make it back to Chuuk, so there is hope for me!

I love you all, keep me updated.  Ai tong ngenikemi!

Love, Elder Schroath

Here is today's email:

1.25.2015

Hey!

This was another good week, to answer your questions, we just found out last night we have two trainers from Chuuk so maybe both of those Elders will come. We already have two Elders from England, I guess we could get a third!
[A lady in our stake volunteers to Skype with missionaries at the MTC so they can practice teaching.  This past week she Skyped with two Elders that will serve in the Micronesia Guam Mission.  One from England, and the other from St George, UT so that is what Elder S was referring to above.]

It's the time for the English haha. Uman was super fun, we had a really good exchange. The hoop there on their court is only like 9'8" and I dunked on it haha so I still got it! But we found a lot of new investigators, we actually go to walk around the whole island. Uman isn't too far, probably the same distance as Udot, just going SW instead of NW. Transfers had some good changes, Elder Fermanis (my best friend in Chuuk Zone) got transferred to Guam for his last two transfers so that was a bummer. Elder Paulis and I are still together. Elder Pitiol (from MTC, Elder Paulis' companion, he is from Uman) got transferred here to Chuuk so that was awesome, he told us he was confused when they told him transfers cuz he thought he was done with his mission cuz he was coming back to Chuuk haha. He is the man, super funny. He is the one that gave me the name 'Tekia.' He will be moving to Utah when he is done so you guys will probably meet him eventually.

Besides the exchange, we really didn't get to do a whole lot this week, because we were dealing with transfers and getting people on flights and stuff. Elder Fabiano is the new Assistant with Elder Plocher. So now we got two Chuuk Zoners in the top spots haha. We had a bad month again numbers wise, mainly because two Sundays in a row we had a lot of rain. We only ended with 7 baptisms. So hopefully we can get it back in February.

Well, That is about it, i love you guys! Have a good one!

Elder Schroath

Elder Schroath mentions people not coming to church when it rains a lot. The Senior couple missionaries have sent me some pictures of the roads after a big rainfall.  These pictures will give you a good idea of why people don't want to walk to church in the rain!

Sickness, buckets and translating

1.19.2015

Hey!

This week was great! I hope you guys get the letter from last week, it was a good one too.

And okay this week we had a baptism! It was awesome! His name is Pito. He is turning 19 in a couple weeks, and Chiro (prospective missionary) is really helping him out and leading him on the right path. I think he will endure, now we just need to work with him family because they

got a lot of less active members.

We have had a wave of sick missionaries, so this week was filled with a lot of hospital visits. It was not very fun at all. Oh, I forgot to mention with the baptism, the water pump was broken so we couldn't fill up the font normally so we spent an hour hauling buckets of water to the baptismal font. We would have just done it in the ocean, but the other baptismal candidate from Wichap gave birth a couple months ago and Chuukese culture, they can't go in the ocean or else sharks will attack them. So yeah.

The translation team is here (Tod Harris, the head supervisor from Salt Lake and some other Japanese guys) and they have been having meetings about the final revision of the full Book of Mormon, he said after the review, it will take at least 8 months to get it on the shelf:( dang. But I also talked to them about getting on the Chuukese translation team for after my mission, which I can do all from a computer and it is $36 dollars a page which is super good. And during general conference i could make bank! So I am excited for that little side job as well. I never would have thought Chuukese would be that useful after my mission:)

It rained again yesterday, so we had a small church attendance. But Pito was there so that was great. Tomorrow I am going to do an exchange on Uman with Elder Jonas, the district leader out there. I am definitely excited. Transfers are this Sunday, I think I will be staying here in Mwan though. We will know next week though!

I got the box mom! Thank you very much! the shirts were much needed. Yes the neao elders are moving into a new house, way nicer. I felt bad for them living in that terrible house haha so this new one is way better. I am excited for them to leave my house, no lie hahah but I love them, Elder Garae is still in Neao so it is nice to have him around cuz he is the best.

[a trio of missionaries had to move in with Elder Schroath and his companion because their roof was leaking badly]

I love you!

Elder Schroath

Another Week to Report

1.4.2015

Hey!

Another week to report. It was a good week, especially with New Years. New Years is huge in Chuuk, like the most celebrated holiday probably. Pretty much what happens is everyone starts getting empty jugs or water barrels or pots and pans ready to use for midnight and start practicing with their 'bands'. Then at 12 midnight on the 1st everyone goes crazy doing chants and driving up and down the roads dancing on top of cars and sometimes even a few cars will just block the road and everyone gets out and just has a crazy dance party for 10 minutes then jump back in and continue down the road. All this coupled by random fireworks going off from a bunch of different places. It was really fun to watch, we couldn't really sleep that well. Haha. Oh, we also killed a pig for it, so that was fun. Then 12 midnight on the 2^nd everything stops and that morning it is just dead silent because everyone is sleeping. haha. Oh I love new Years.

We were supposed to go to Guam for mission leader council on the 2nd, but there was a big delay and while we were waiting inside the gate, the announcer said that the plane was no longer going to stop in Chuuk but go straight from Pohnpei to Guam, not sure why, but yeah we ended up not making it. Which is okay.

We were able to go to the Priesthood leadership meeting on Saturday and talk to the Branch Presidents, really trying to get branch council meetings going and happening every other week hopefully. Church was also good, we had a good show of about 100, it has been rough trying to get our investigators to church though.

Then we just skyped into the meeting in Guam, which was hard because half the time we couldn't hear and it was pretty blurry, but we got the jist of it. Hopefully we can make a good zone meeting out of it tonight. I am super excited for the new year!! We are setting goals so I'll let you know about them next week! In 2014 we had 1214 people come into the Church-adding together baptisms and reactivations which exceeds our goal we had of 1,000. So we were very blessed. I will write you guys next week! Love you all!!

Elder Schroath

ps yes I did get the box of candy, on the 31st. so good timing!