Miracle with Serleen

Here's a lovely miracle that happened to me and Sister Schow this week:

We met this woman named Serleen a month or so ago on the death date of one of her sons. We talked with her and shared a bit about the plan of salvation and asked if we could come back. She said "Of course" and so we've seen her a couple times. She had two sons, 14 and 11, who both died of Muscular Distrophy in March 4 years ago. Every time we've been back to her house, the spirit world is very very near and we can feel a different spirit there. But Serleen wasn't really progressing like we'd expect. She was reading her Book of Mormon a little bit, but didn't have as much enthusiasm for being baptized and coming to church. So Saturday, Sister Schow and I were planning for her, and it was as if our minds had been wiped blank. Strangest feeling ever! The only thing we could talk about and the only thing we could really make sense of as we were planning for her, was the doctrine of eternal families and a temple sealing. We could feel Serleen's two boys pushing and fighting as hard as they could to get us out the door and over to teach their Mom this good news! We could feel their anticipation, and it gave us power. We went to her home, and with a heaven sent power, testified in perfect words, guided by the spirit, what they needed to do to live with their family forever. And that this was the only church on the face of the earth that holds the sealing ordinances and authority and fullness of the gospel. The lesson was moving. Everyone felt the spirit. But Serleen still said that she had her own church. But while I was testifying, Serleens mother wiped away her tears and demanded "What time does church start?". She had it set in her heart, she was going. And she was bringing Serleen with her. I was shocked! This woman had been taught by missionaries for yeeaarss and was fully ready to leave all her excuses behind. She was going to church.
This church is true. God gives us power when we follow his will, find his prepared souls, and purify our souls through exact obedience to the promptings of the spirit. I know these things are true. And I say these things in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Sister Felt

Week 39 - "But an unseen power will aid me and you"

In the glorious cause of truth!

Fear Not.

General Conference was amazing. The prophet is such an amazing man! And what a fun guy for Jesus to chose to represent him :) And I represent the the prophet. Huh.

All is great! I love people and this work is good. Had a double exchange this week and I went to Uh on Tuesday and Kitti on Wednesday. Not much else. Transfers were last night and there's only four sisters on the island. There were six but Sister James and Sister Wari go home tomorrow. Now it's Taunauta and Schow in Uh and me and Sister Caldwell in Kolonia. All is well an i miss y'all :)

Love,
Sister Felt

On an exchange in Kitti with Sister Caldwell, my new companion.

Week 37 - Another one bites the dust @me

I'm ready to leave civilization and never come back. Kapingamarangi, here I come!

Buuuuut heelllo beautiful Utahans!! Did I spell that right? I'm not sure. This week has been quite exciting. We had 7 investigators at church yesterday! We walked with a family we've been teaching for a while. The father cannot read or write and the mother just wants to know what church is true. The father is stellar and just trusts what we teach. and his wife reads the pamphlets and explains to him. It's been cool to watch their progress and retention of information. And Mither has already begun fellow-shipping them! Haha the woman isn't even a member and she's already defending the faith and fellow-shipping less actives and investigators haha she's going to be amazing!

For those of you younger RM's and Missionaries, Do y'all remember Elder Tui-tu? The Elder in The District Video's who's from Guam? Ya. He comes to Pohnpei sometimes and he just drove past us this week as we were proselyting. Waved and said hello. We run into him at church sometimes. He's a stud.

Not much to write about this week. I've had hot water, air conditioning and fresh fruit, so life's pretty boring. If you're sad this email is short, go finish the email I sent that you started reading last week and then stopped because it was too long ;)

Love you all!! Remember to read the book of mormon and love your little siblings!

Sister Nicole Felt

Sister Felt with some of the girls from Kitti branch.
She ran into them while on splits with Sister Caldwell.

Week 36 - To The Pain

Relief Society Service

This week our investigator Mither, who approached us last week and told us she needs us to come over everyday to teach her, was finally established as OUR investigator. Here's the story.

So last week, when we contacted her, she had gone and had a couple lessons with the Elders in Paliker (there are two chapels between her house and paliker, and three sets of missionaries). Paliker has some recent converts who live in our area, but they're in paliker everyday so they were baptized into that ward. Mither is their friend, so she went with them to a couple lessons. She felt the spirit and wanted to be baptized. Shortly after she saw us, she had a lessons with the Paliker elders and they put her on date to be baptized into their ward. This is where the "To the Pain" comes in. 

When we called Paliker to get on the same page with them about this investigator of ours, and they said she was going to be baptized in their ward, oooohhhhhh boy I was LIVID. This woman, who does not own a car, has family and friends she's ALREADY begun fellowshipping, and who lives a 10 minute walk away from our churchouse, was OUR investigator, and she needed to be baptized in our ward. I was ready to FIIIGHTT. I just udahn sto perenki Elders mehn Paliker akei pahk. Mwaing I kak wewehki ahpw dahme ira anahne pirapki naht investigator?!? gah!

But. It's okay. Because I know that anger and anxiety are just not godly things that we need to feel. So I poured out my soul in prayer and then devoured the scriptures, Full faith God was going to teach me. And he did :) Alma 42:26 isn't a scripture of real significance doctrinally, but it touched my soul. It reads "And thus God bringeth about his great and eternal purposes, which were prepared from the foundation of the world." I felt so much peace just remembering, God has EVERYTHING prepared. Everything. If we really had faith in that, if we really knew that, we would never worry or ever be anxious, and never be angry. I had so much peace brought to my soul, which was then validated that night when Mither asked us if she's allowed to be baptized in Pahnasan ward :) (our ward) Even though she's been taught by Paliker Elders. It was a really cool opportunity to testify of and witness the truthfullness of the gospel, as it is the same. No matter where you go. Paliker to Pahnasang, Pohnpei to Yap, Yap to Utah. It's always the same :)

My new skirt. Thanks, Grandma!

So Mither has been amazing. We went to go see her on Saturday and brought Bishop Edward and his wife with us. We showed up to the house (which honestly looks like a disney tarzan house but pirates of the carribean style. kinda taking place in that time period/those sort of buildings) and she had pulled out her old couch and covered it with a white sheet, then put out a table and covered it with white lace, almost similar to the sacrament table lace. Then set up chairs all around for everyone to sit and sarawi (lesson/holy) together :) I've always only had lessons sitting on rocks or the ground or outside in a naus and what not. Mither just showed us so much respect! then her 80 y/o Dad put on his oversized blue suit coat, and his long grey suit pants to join the lesson too. This woman is amazing!! She came to church yesterday with us and can't wait to be baptized April 14. She's 51 years old.

No one usually prepares to treat us with this much respect, but I just thought as we received this huge amount of respect and service, Jesus Christ received this much respect and more. And he humbly accepted it and let people serve him. As representatives of Christ, we should do the same. Humbly accepting it because it's appropriate.

The coconut garden wall we made for relief society service. It's made out of coconut husks.

One of the relief society ladies helping with service.

So to answer your question, Mom, prosetlying is pretty normal I think? I don't know. We just walk around to our appointments and investigators, and if we see people we talk to them. People are pretty nice and open. If we talk to them and the subject of religion comes up, everyone usually says "Oh yes, and it's all one God so all same, right?" No. ugh. I'm working on my response to that. In fact last night we had some investigators who we were teaching and I kept saying "you will know these things are true" and they'd say "we know already, we beleive it. it's true. but we also beleive all other churches." I'm fed up with people beleiving all other churches (cuz I'm impatient and human) so I just kept saying "you'll know these things are true" untill finally, the woman said "I know, and I want to be baptized. But I beleive all are true because if they're not then my parents wont make it into heaven, right? Or wait... what happens after we die? What about those who aren't baptized like I want to be" Hahaha I had just a *Lightbulb* *pay attention sister felt!* Moment :) 

But people don't usually stick around to one place, so honestly the most difficult thing is keeping track of your investigators. Everyone just kind of lives everywhere. So there's a little bit of missionaries picking up other missionaries investigators because they chill out in their area for a while. Kolonia is especially like that, because it's the town, the main center, of Pohnpei. Everyone comes here for food and things they need. 

Finding investigators usually involves just walking up to an area where all the houses are and just saying hello to everyone, walking into their property. Which I am still not comfortable with, but it's totally normal here. And then we say we're missionaries and we teach people. We want to teach them and help them grow their faith. They're usually like "yes yes, of course, Jesus is great, same God, we love Jesus, sure you can come back, anytime" Weather they mean it or not. So we set up a time to come back and then after a couple lessons and baptismal invitations we weed out the serious ones from the not so open hearted ones. 

We haven't done much today. Just cleaning and finding computers to email at. Church didn't have power so it was back to the library we went! People tell me I'm fluent now so thats cool even though clearly I'm not. That's about it. I'll talk to you next week! I love you all!!

It's been good real fun :) Happy easter y'all!

My Easter Eggs!

Week 35 - 8 Months

Wellll.

This week I put the fear of God into some 6 year old kids. We were having a lesson with our 8 year old investigator who introduced herself to us as "Mormon". Her aunt is a member and we have lessons at her place. Her aunt has these two twin boys about 6 years old. They're absolutely insane. Throw rocks at us for fun even though we're their "friends". This week during a lesson, I had just asked Lulu (the 8 y/o) if she had read. She said no and I showed that disappointment Elder Holland askes us to show, for really the first time in my mission. I got really really serious. Lulu got real serious too and I explained to her how it is VERY important that she reads the Book of Mormon if she wants to be baptized. She nodded her head and for once, I think, really absorbed what we were saying. Then, one of the twins came up and said "look" opened his mouth to show it was full of Betelnut. "I'm chewing" and then proceeded to sassily chew in front of us (Betel nut is against the word of wisdom). normally everyone just yells at the twins and smacks them. But this time I just got real serious and just looked at him with the most "don't. you. dare." silent stare down ever. The kid froze and his jaw dropped. His eyes widened with fear and then his mom yelled at him and he ran away. Missionaries 1 Children 0 (okay, maybe more like 17 but still. We got 1!)

But the work has been improving. My leg is healed and we've had people running up to us asking us to teach them. In one lesson, a stranger joined and sat in the back. I felt impressed to invite our investigators to be baptized on April 28th. They both said they need time, but then the stranger waved her hand in the back and asked if she could ask something. She asked when that day was and if she could be baptized on that day. Haha of course!! She was just about to go to her other friend's baptism, which turned out to be the Nett Elders investigators, and said she wanted to follow them because she now knows this is the one and only true Church of Jesus Christ. Amazing!! She then asked us to come over every day or so so we could understand together and prepare her for her baptism. Later that day, we were walking around and a man came running up to us late at night. Asked us who we were and then said he has family in Salt Lake. He would love to be taught by Mormons and learn more about our church. Haha God truly is preparing souls! Not one effort is wasted in this marvelous work! I'm sure there are plenty of missionaries who, years ago, were walking around in our area preparing these people.

Also this week our car got locked into the school parking lot. New area, didn't know they locked it after 7. But we squeezed through the gate to get to our car to get our stuff, then prayed, went back and the gate was unlocked. What?!? Power of God what can I say.

We've also had lots of landslides this week. Lots of rain so lots of fun.

One area that we go to down by the dock has a lot of our teaching pool living there. But for the past couple of days, every time we go there, after about 20 minutes of being there Sister Schow and I both get very very uncomfortable and feel itching to leave! The spirit is just yucky and we don't want to be there anymore. Haven't figured out why yet. Maybe it's best we don't' ;)

God is Great! Taro is Good! Old Ladies are Crazy!

But really though, I have a lot of love for all of you back home. You have a special place in my heart and I care for you and your salvation as much as these Pohnpeians I'm serving out here. Remember who loves you most. Remember who's beckoning you back home. Remember where peace and happiness come from. Love one another and Serve God 😇

Much Love,
Sister Nicole Felt

Running out of food so I made eggs with tomato sauce
and we had ramen cooked with kool-aid. For breakfast.

Week 34 - Red Sky at Night, Sailors Delight

Well. It's been an interesting week. As always.

Tuesday morning I fell down walking. I felt pretty dumb. It was a random fall. But enough to mess up my knee and we had to stay in a couple of days while I iced it and elevated it. And then when the day came we thought we could go out again, the Assistants called and told all of Pohnpei to stay in.

Thursday night, it began raining. Hard. It did not stop until Saturday night/Sunday morning. You can only imgaine the roads!! Those sewer cap things in the road were just bursting with water out of them like a fountain. Bridges were collapsing and everything was just a mess. So all the missionaries had to stay in on Saturday.

But it was okay :) Because me and Sister Schow had some cool experiences.

We were pretty depressed and let down because of rain and no appointments and broken knees and what not. But On Saturday we went out in the morning and then came in for lunch and studies and we were just done. So done. I put on my hoodie, and fuzzy socks, I was cold and hungry. So we're sitting there moping just wishing one of us would get sick so we could stay in. When it rains, people sleep. So we didn't get to talk to anyone when we did go out. So we're sitting there, really just feeling like we should not/don't want to go out again, when whaddayaknow we get a call :) Telling us to stay in. It was truly divine, and God taking care of us.

We decided if we were given this tender mercy, we'd make the best out of it we could. Sister Schow and I learned so much. We studied a lot about the Plan of Salvation and I learned a lot about Satan's plan for us. Did you know his plan was evil from the beginning? It was proposed as a method to dethrone God and take his power for himself. I had always thought it was proposed more innocently in the beginning and then grew to something evil. But understanding the nature of Satan helps me understand more about who I am as someone who chose to reject his plan and follow Jesus Christ.

I am so grateful for our savior and that we can, through Him, return to our heavnly home to live with our eternal family forever. Families are my favorite thing <3

Love you all! Hope you have a good week!!

Love, Sister Nicole Felt

The WHOLE sky was this color of orange pink purple last evening. It was AMAZING. 

Week 33 - The Black Eel and Taro

Can you guess what I've eaten this week? That's right. Black eel. The long, fat, water snake from the depths of the ocean. It actually tasted surprisingly good! Lots of meat, not a lot of bones. Tastes more like fish back home than the fish here taste like fish.

Our lovely basket of fried fish, fried banana, Taro, and the Black Eel.

We also took out a Member Present this week. Shanya. She's from Fiji and her Dad is from India. Very cute! Her whole family is very active and strong. When we dropped her back home, her Mom invited us in for dinner, we smelled strong Indian spices so of course we said yes!

They had made chicken gizzard curry and lamb stew. Both, AMAZING. Very very good authentic Indian food, with homemade tortilla/naan bread. The best part? We were in a home. A beautiful, nice, clean american house. But what really made it a home, was all coming together at the end, reading a couple scriptures, and then everyone willingly, and anxiously, gathering together to kneel in prayer. Gospel centered families and homes are so so powerful. I am forever grateful for mine.

So the member present we took out has these new neighbors. A couple and their little baby. The wife is from central america, the husband is VERY German. We met them and they were very nice. The German, Chris said his Dad's brother is the leader of the Mormon church in German or somewhere. Anywho, just the day before we met him, I was unpacking some more, and I found the random pamphlet I brought from the MTC that was in German! Crazy coincidence, eh? I totally forgot I even brought it. We'll see what happens eh?

Our district

On Saturday, it felt like a pretty darn chill summer day. Sunny and warm, and we walked down to the dock of Pohnrakied (The village of Kapingamarangi people who speak Kirinit) to do service. The people we were going to do laundry with, the local way, weren't home. So we sat in a hammock at the members house, while she sewed a handicraft, and we taught her the "saturday is a special day" Primary song for a little bit. It was quite lovely :) You may be thinking, "What? You just sat and talked in a hammock? And didn't share a gospel message? You're wasting your time as a missionary." That might be true in some aspects. But, in reality, I look at it more from the perspective of we took the time needed to show someone the love we're called to share. That's what this gospel is :) And sometimes, in the mission, you need to just take a couple extra minutes, sit down with someone, and just lovingly converse. Sometimes all people need is your time. Not your words, not your work, or your gifts, but your time. The member we sat with is an older woman who we haven't had the greatest connection with yet. But after that short 20 minute rest with her, I feel we all love each other a whole lot more! Yesterday, three of the less actives from that area came to church. and the week before, two others came. It's pretty amazing :)

The O.G. Kitti gang!

So I'm trying really really hard to learn Kirinit as fast as I can!! Kinda hard though because there are NO materials at all. I'm going to try and buy a Kirinit Bible from the Protestant pastor in Pohnrakied. Just gotta meet him this week. But that's all that's translated. Wish me luck!

I'm glad all is well back home and the gospel is alive and thriving in Wellsville! I hope you've all had a wonderful week! Love you so much!! Pet a horse for me and share the Good word of God <3

Love,
Sister Nicole Felt

Pretty sure this cat's got brain damage