Week 18 - Lenger

Hi Fam! We're going to go out to an outer island today with beaches and stuff. So I'll email in several hours. Have a good Sabbath, enjoy the cold, I'll tell you how the beach and the ocean waves are ;)

Hi Fam, I'm back! Sounds like Thanksgiving was a blast! I've heard it's been unusually hot in Utah this year :/ odd. I'll pray for snow for you all ;) For Thanksgiving we had district meeting which was okay, and then at 5 went to have thanksgiving as an island :)

Pohnpei Missionaries - Thanksgiving 2017

Everyone brought a dish, and Behling made killer mashed and augrauten (i dunno how to spell) potatoes. It was really good. There was AWESOME dessert too. Pineapple cobbler, apple crisp, a philipino desert with graham crackers and sweetened condensed milk (everyone here loves that milk.) It was really good. After we all ate, we watched a movie: The Spirit of the Game. People kissed at the beginning and in the middle and it was great. :) People here don't touch each other really. PDA is not allowed in any form. Handholding or kissing. So ya, it was a good movie ;) After the movie Sister Behling and I felt so normal, it was great :) 

Thanksgiving Night

Friday was weekly planning, and Saturday we mweted for this family and I used my machete again. I went on an exchange to Mand with Sister Leslie. She's from Idaho and she's pretty cool :) We also went to see Tontole in the jungle again, and got fresh coconuts again. didn't rain this time though so we were able to survive without a tree umbrella :)

Church yesterday was pretty bad. 33 people at church but only 3 were actually from our area. every sunday morning we're basically the telephone for the driver (President Route) in Kitti who comes and picks everyone up in Pehleng, and then everyone all around Kitti. It's pretty sad and pretty rough. But all is okay. 

Looking a little discouraged at church

So this island we just went to, Lenger, is just a cute $7 boat ride away from Pohnpei. No one really lives on it except for a few people. And we just wandered around through the jungle finding old things, tromping through the jungle, and finding random beaches. 

We found what looks like a really old plane take off/landing point. That's where we got in the water the most :) Stuck our feet in. The water was just perfect. We all wanted to jump off the dock thing and just swim. It was so clean and clear and pure and blue. We were all dying. 

I took pictures and videos underwater of all the beautiful fish! I found Dori, and the black and white fish. 

I saw locals (back on Pohnpei) at the dock fishing with a peice of chicken, a line, and a beer bottle. that's all. No pole or anything :) One of the sisters brought banana bread cupcakes and so we fed a bit to the fishes. They got so close to me, I don't know if they've ever seen people before. But it was pretty cool. 

Two sets of elders came (One was Elder Charlton from my intake) and three sets of sisters. Two of the sisters that came will be going home in 13 days. Next transfer is in two mondays I think? Maybe 3. I dunno. But it was really fun to chat with them and just party on an island!

Love you all! Hope you're having a great week!! I'll get to email more next week.

Sister Felt

Week 17 - Local Umbrellas

Heellloooo Family!! (Spiritually, that includes everyone. Because, ya know, we're all children of God)

How are you all??? Did you have as fantastic of a week as I did?! Maybe that's an exaggeration. I don't really know the difference between one week and another anymore. I was just working.

Writing emails in the Panasong Chapel

Anywho, We taught lots of people! Told Senrick about the word of Wisdom and that he needs to stop chewing Pwuh (beetelnut) and drinking Sakau. He nodded his head and talked about how it was hard and that he could do it and then laughed nervously because really, he doesn't want to stop, but he's trapped now because he knows what we say is true. Haha so ya, we'll see how it goes :) His daughters are solid though. Seriously a very funny family. They all yell at each other and have a super dry sense of humor. It's great.

Peeling bananas

A counterfeit and a real $20 from the ATM

Yesterday we taught Olga again. The American lady. She has a lot of Facebook sites and learns a lot about the Bible from that. She is honestly and truthfully seeking out Jesus and takes everything we say, and that the Book of Mormon says to be the word of God. But her husband Jim does not believe the Book of Mormon, and usually asks us prying questions attacking the faith. It's pretty subtle, but yesterday, he attacked with a fire. So I fired back :)

I said "You can attack me for my mistakes and my short comings, but don't you ever attack the path I am trying to walk. because everything I am trying to do, everything I have taught and testified of is solely to bring me closer to my God and my Savior Jesus Christ. So don't you ever tell me that this book is not true. I know the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. I know the Bible and the Book of Mormon support each other. And I know that if you read this book with a humble heart and a willingness to learn and accept the will of God, you will find knowledge. And you will discover truths that will bring you closer to God than you ever could on your own." Olga felt the spirit, I was on fire, it was great!

P-Day!

But this week we've found all the possibly active members in our area. Not a single person in our area is recorded as active (because they're not) but some are very close. We have 4 priesthood holders who could be active, their wives (who are more likely to be active), and then of those 4 couples about 3 children who could be active as well. And then another lone woman. Those are the members in Pehleng. The ones who live closest to Kitti are 7 miles away from the chapel. And no one has a car. This week, the members talked about bringing a unit back to Pehleng. I think it will happen :) And if it does, we will definitely have a lot more members at church, and investigators that are able to come. No investigators at church this week. But we still have dogs and chickens walking through sacrament meeting :) It's a party.

Learning Pohnpeian

Our house

Our kitchen

Here's a story. We went to go see Tentale (Chawn-chaw-lee) way deep in the jungle on the top of the mountain where she lives, and we had a great lesson with her and all was good. We were hiking back and passed one house along the trail back to the road and it started raining really hard. So we stopped under a bunch of banana trees on our way out to wait out the rain. One of the men at the house noticed. So he walked towards us and used his machete to chop of a giant leaf, and when I say giant, I mean HUGE. The leaf was literally bigger than our car and was all held together. He gave it to us, we said Kaselehlie, and off we went! I just held onto the stem, Sister Behling walked behind me, and neither of us got wet :) It was pretty darn cool.

Just me and my goat friend

Love you all!!
Sister Felt

Week 16

We've had a fantastic week!! Really worked out our baptismal invitation because we're suppose to invite in every lessons. And we do, but it usually ends up in confusion or awkwardness of "I've already been baptized..?" Everyone here is sprinkled on their head as a baby so they're a child of god, and not a child of satan. It's more like a baby blessing, but that's what baptism is to them. thats it. So it created a lot of confusion and not any positive answers whenever we just said "do you know joseph is a true prophet? will you be baptized?" etc. I'm super simplifying everything, but I'm sure you get the point. We'd just be teaching the lesson to teach the doctrine and you don't really teach about baptism in the first lesson. But sister behling recieved an impression we need to work on our baptismal invitation this week. So we did during a companion study :)

Now, a baptismal invitation goes something like this...

When we follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ we want to follow Him and be apart of his fold. We do this through making promises with God, promising him we will always remember him, we will keep his commandments, and we will take his name upon us, which means being a part of his church/group/fold/flock (whatever analogy you want). When we promise those things to god, and we keep our promise, god promises us that we will always have his spirit to be with us, the Holy Ghost. This promise is sealed with the priesthood (power and authority of god. Manaman oh mweimwei en Koht). Jesus Christ showed us how we can make this promise when he was on the Earth. We do this through baptism by immersion. Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone holding the priesthood of God?

Now the end result of our beautiful baptismal invitation is 8 investigators on date this week to be baptized :) Our numbers are CRAZY high compared to the whole mission :) I love it. 9 New investigators and a little 10 year old at church on Sunday.

We had a pretty neat miracle of Divine Design making itself known. Senrick Paul: an older man who used to be a pastor; very well versed in the Bible and great faith in God. His wife Mariuna had a stroke and can't get around great, but she is very coherent. Their two daughters Marleen and Mayreen are on Date for December 2nd with him and his wife, but Senrick wants to talk to his kids on the other islands and in America first and tell them to be baptized before he gets in the water. He said with a toothless grin after we asked him to be baptized, "I will be baptized, but I want to make sure all my eggs are in one basket. All my fish in one freezer." Because he firmly believes and knows this is the True Gospel of God, and he wants his kids to be partakers as well.
We got his kids' names, and one of them lived in Guam; Johnsper. We were going to contact the missionaries in Guam, but we weren't sure how exactly to give that referral to them. This was difficult as we didn't have an address, just Guam. Then on Saturday, Elder Crawford called us. He said they're teaching someone who needs permission from his parents to legally marry his partner before he can get baptized. We asked for names, and he said his name is Johnsper and we need to talk to Senrick Paul. Johnsper was already on date for December 2nd! :) We told Elder Crawford to tell Johnsper that Senrick gives him full permission (he does) and that Senrick wants him baptized ASAP. What else can you call it but Divine Design? :) We told Senrick and he wasn't even shocked. He just nodded his head and said "Manaman en Koht" (Power of God). He's pretty excited to have found the truth. And we're excited to be secondary characters in watching his conversion story unfold.

I don't know what else to write about this week. We made a moat around our chapel to keep it from flooding. 

Also Olga, the online dating lady who received a blessing last week, we taught her about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She says she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet (in her New York accent) but she doesn't like how much I talk about him. She said she doesn't want to talk about Joseph, she wants to talk about God, but she knows hes a prophet. I explained that he's important to know if the book of mormon is true. She said she knows he wrote the mormons, and that the mormons is true. Then we explained it's the Book of mormon, and he didn't write it. We explained and read the intro and she got super excited. She really loves Jesus and God.

Oh. I had a language day this week. That's where I can literally only speak in Pohnpeian. It was a very rough day. I cant describe how frustrating it is to be unable to speak and communicate. BUT the language day taught me a lot, and It was still able to say a fair bit. It was just a lot of the same.

That's it for this week. Love youall! People keep feeding us, everyone is nice, the local kids remember my name and yell at us, and life is good.

Love you all! Feast upon the Words of Christ!

Sister Nicole Felt

Week 15 - panCake by the Ocean

I love and I hate transfers.

I'm staying in Pehleng with Sister Behling though! And she is now a Sister Training Leader :) So my companion goes to Guam once a month (except for December. Because an authority or someone is coming to each island instead). And she already went to Guam for the November month. So really she wont go to Guam during this transfer, but if we're still together next transfer, she'll be gone for a bit. 

Sister Behling and Sister Felt

However, I got to spend some time with the Kolonia sisters this week! Sister Wari from Papau Neu Guinea and Sister Petrus from Chuuk. Holy wow, 4 days with islanders and you start to think you're one yourself. It's all very chill, fun loving, and so SO selfless. These people literally live the law of consecration as a part of their life and culture. As a result, they're blessed with those blessings promised. But I heard AALLLL about what Chuuk is like, and all about PNG :) I feel like I've just been on these islands my whole life, they're so apart of who I am now. I don't think I can live without this culture.

 Kitti Branch girls

But while we were in Kolonia, we walked alllll over creation! It's a huge walking area. And those sisters just go. Granted, at a slow walking islander pace, but still I swear we went miles and MILES all day. Haha I'm definitely not a walking area missionary.

 Beautiful Pohnpei

Monday evening last week after we received the call Sister Behling would be going to Guam for a bit this week, we ran all around our area telling our many investigators we would be gone. And by-golly we had 3 very solid spiritual lessons. Teaching and testifying of the pure doctrine in the Book of Mormon, the miraculous occurrence of the first vision, and committing people who were quickened by the spirit to pray sincerely about the things we taught, and if the Book of Mormon was and is the word of God, and if the Gospel was restored through the latter day prophet Joseph Smith. Holy wow you can really see the light in peoples eyes when their hearts are open and they receive the word of God garnished with the Spirit. They hunger for it and long to keep the feelings with them. Do you hunger for it?

I had the privilege of watching conference this weekend at the Kitti chapel in the small office. It was incredibly spiritual and wonderful. If you didn't learn something from it, watch it again. It was awesome. I loved Dallin H. Oaks talk about Families, because they truly are the beginning of it all. Funny thing though, aren't we all family? I gave a talk about that in the Kitti branch a while ago. Kitail Peneinei. We're all family. Because we're all children of God (Baptized, or not. Kind of an issue in this area...). So we should all love each other and treat each other kindly like the Lovely sister who spoke before Elder Oaks talked about :)

With members of the Kitti Branch

Also, I'm taking the prophets words to heart and reading the Book of Mormon every day :) Of course as a missionary I was reading the scriptures everyday, but not necessarily the Book of Mormon. But I've learned that the Book of Mormon is so sacred because it is pure testimony, so untouched and uncorrupted by the world, that it gives a stronger testimony than any other book. So I'm going to read it every day :) Even if it's just 3 verses, and then back to D&C, Preach My Gospel, Jesus the Christ, The Bible, or whatever. The Book of Mormon comes first. Literally no where else in the world can you find, in more direct letters "this is the doctrine of Christ" and then be able to figure out EXACTLY what the doctrine of Christ is.

Love you all :) Thanks for reading through this crazy long email. Hope you have a spirit filled week!

Love,
Sister Nicole Felt