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