the work goes on.....

Hey Mom!

How are you doing? I am fine, this has been a much better week! Thanks for your words of encouragement and love.

I did not know that Mike Cooper is going to Mexico City for his mission very soon. I am happy for him, that sounds like a fun place to go! Say hi to him from me at his farewell next week. I really like the idea of you printing off blog updates of my friends on missions and air mailing them to me. I only get 1/2 hour on the computer for P-days and in that time I have to read my emails, write my mission president and you guys. So if they are in print copy I can read them through the week. I can't wait to receive my first one.

Thats crazy that Emily has a boyfriend! I have never met the guy and I don't know who he is. No further comment.

Elder Early and I have been trying to clean our apartment better. We want to get it into good shape before President and Sister Mecham come on Thursday for Zone Conference!

To answer your questions, any colour would be good for a new tie, no preference! We have a car, but sometimes cars are too much trouble so we just want to ride our bikes around! It's nice to have a choice of transportation.

The work is picking up here in Saipan. We found some more new investigators. One is a chuukese lady who was meeting with the missionaries a while ago. She went to church alot and was almost baptized. Then the area got whitewashed (elders taken out of the area and not replaced) so she got lost. She moved and then we found her while trying to find another potential investigator! We had a really good experience with Niciana (that's her name) where we had a prompting to read Alma 26 with her. The problem Alma was having in this passage of scripture related alot to a problem she was facing with her daughter. Her daughter was not being treated well by her boyfriend. Niciana was really comforted by the scriptures we shared with her and the spirit was really strong. We had a member with us and he testified about how his brother was less active and really struggling. He shared how he prayed for him alot and he is doing much better and is actually preparing to go to the Boston temple to receive his endowments! Prayer is so important.

We had a missionary fireside last night at the church and we had some investigators there who have never been to church before! Another new investigator, Alfonso, really liked it and received some help with family history! We found him by sharing information about family history and doing service for him. We had a good lesson with him on thursday! We also took people on a tour around the church which was fun! When we talked about family history with Alfonso, Elder Nicerio told him we could find our ancestors all the way down to Adam! He thought that was pretty cool. Our family needs to do more family history! You should go to the center down in Cochrane for family home evening for an hour! I already did mine before my mission. It is in an envelope in my old room (or whosever room that is now). You should take those names to the temple and do them!

Mom, a mission is the hardest thing I have ever done. But even when it is really hard I think about how I need to be here and that always helps me carry on and persevere! Thanks for sending that quote in your email, I am going to remember it!

Time is going really fast for me I can't believe that i am almost reaching my 9 month mark. So weird and crazy!

Well I gotta go, love ya, see ya,

Chommong tong Ngenikemi Ai Famini
(much love to you my family)

Seni noum missionary
(from your missionary)

Elder Kearl
or
Elter Kearn
(thats how they say elder kearl in chuukese)

side note: this is the quote I sent to Dan last week that he was referring too.
"As a new missionary serving in Preston, England, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley was facing a major trial in his life. He was sick when he arrived in the mission field, and he quickly became discouraged because of the opposition to the missionary work. At a time of deep frustration, Elder Hinckley wrote in a letter to his father that he felt he was wasting his time and his father’s money. A little while later, Elder Hinckley received a reply from his dad. It said, “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.”

Earlier that morning during scripture study, Elder Hinckley had read in the Bible, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mark 8:35)." julie