Saturday, August 3, 2013

August 1, 2013, The Real World is Weird

Dear family and friends,

I had a pretty good week.  We really only have a week and a half left.  I think we leave on the 13th, which is a Tuesday, but we haven't gotten our travel plans yet.  We should get them sometime next week.  I'll be able to call when I'm in the airport, so make sure that you (mom and dad) have your phones on you during the 13th.  I should let you know next P day when I'll get to the airport. 

A few crazy things happened this week.  My companion was playing volleyball on Saturday and she set a ball off a serve, which you aren't supposed to do, and it hurt both of her thumbs.  One of them is just jammed but the other swelled up and got really bruised and ugly.  When we went to the health clinic to tell the doctor about her foot appt, he saw her hand and made her go get an x-ray.  So we got to go into the real world (aka across 9th east) to the BYU health clinic.  It was pretty eventful.  I saw something on the news about some explosion in Philly?  I couldn't catch what it said.  I hate not knowing what's happening in the world.

Well, the MTC doctor said a bone was broken in her thumb joint, so yesterday we again got to go into the real world to the Utah something health place across the street from the hospital.  The MTC doctor clearly doesn't know how to read x-rays and sister seeg just has a really bad sprain.  So we're all really glad that her departure date won't be delayed.  We also have a shuttle pass to go get her new shoes today.  Hopefully it doesn't take too long.  The real world is weird.

When we were out to visit the hand specialist, a couple of elders from another zone were in the shuttle with us and we realized how mature our elders are compared to them.  Oh man, it was bad.  One of them listed off the 9 bones he had broken and told the story of every single stupid thing he's done and I told him that his mom must hate him.  The other one said he doesn't want to get robbed on the mission and that if he does he'll come home.  I told him that I would rather get robbed once a month than have diarrhea for 18 months.  

Sister Seegmiller and I taught an awesome lesson yesterday.  We planned on teaching our investigator Stephan (Brother Swain, who looks remarkably like Elder Lau from our freshman year at Bryn Mawr) about the plan of salvation. We went in and sang a hymn, prayed, and asked him if he had read what we asked him to from the last lesson.  The spirit was strong and seegy and I looked at each other and realized we needed to teach him about baptism.  So we ditched our initial plan and we opened up to 2 Ne 31, but I didn't know what verses to read and it's kind of impossible to choose which ones when you can't scan over the verses very well in a different language.  So I explained what the chapter talked about and then miraculously Seeg was able to figure out what verses to read.  It went really well.  We're getting a lot better at listening to each other during lessons.  At the end our teacher said it was the best lesson we've taught yet and that he didn't feel lost at all during the lesson because we first explained what we were going to teach.  It was pretty sweet. 

Sister Seegmiller, Sister Whitney, and I all sang in the choir during devotional on Tuesday.  About half of the missionaries sing in the choir.  It's huge.  We sang "how great thou art" and we had to hit a high F, but I think I did it.  There wasn't an alto part.  Did I tell you that our district sang in church two weeks ago?  I got to play "come thou fount of every blessing" on the violin.  It was a lot of fun.

We got about 50 new people in our zone yesterday.  They're all speaking Fijian or Tongan.  We got 10 new sisters.  I'm learning a lot of Hawaiian slang.  I've already told Annie some of it.  I'm not sure how to spell any of the words.  "choke" means "a lot," so Sis. Moea'i always says "There are choke palangi girls here."  "Salty" or "salty balls" means to be a sore loser.  "two meals" means above and beyond.  "Crims" (really not sure how to spell this one) means gross or ugly. 

Meagan, do you know if Amanda got baptized?  Did Elder Lindsley come back to Philly to visit?  He said he was going to try to make it for her baptism, but I'm not sure when that is happening.

I've been named "Bubu Butler" by my district.  Bubu means grandma.  They think it fits and it's also fun to say.
I love getting to know all of the elders and sisters from Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, Vanuatu, Marshalls, New Zealand, Australia.  They'll all crazy.  I love how relaxed everyone is.  There's a place outside where the whole zone meets every night before we head off to our residences.  We all just talk and sing and...sometimes it gets to be9:45 and grumpy branch presidents will walk by and tell us that we're breaking all the rules and that we're supposed to be inside our residences by 9:30.  I tried making a joke that we're all chill island people so we're not always paying attention to the time.  Needless to say, that didn't go over very well.
The rules are sometimes ridiculous.  My favorite example:  "Be back to your residence by 9:25 pm" and "Do not return to your residence until 9:30 pm."  That's a solid 5 minutes that I'm breaking a rule either way. 
Did I tell you that we get to stay in Hawaii for a night?  Whenever we get there we get to stay in a hotel and then leave for Majol the next day.  We're going to see how much time we have and see if we can work out going to the temple in Hawaii.  The Kiribati sisters fly from Hawaii to Fiji and then to Kiribati, so they get to go to the temple in Fiji. 

Our classes have mostly just turned into conversation hours now.  We choose a topic and take turns talking.  Tomorrow we're starting to teach other students.  We all got to choose someone we know to act like them as an investigator.  I'm going to be Sara Jane.  Our teacher interviewed us about our person and we let them know how much to tell the missionaries about ourselves.  It should be fun.  We're going to start teaching twice a day now.  Our lessons have been too long, so we're supposed to cut them down.

I'm trying to think of some Marshallese I learned this week.  "Wururrur" is what you say when you drop something.  It sounds like "whurrhurhhurr" ...kind of.  Pakalolo is weed and Ripakalolo is pothead (ri for person).  Oh, this is a fun one.  You add "ka" to the beginning of a word to make the thing happen.  So, "buroro" is red and "kaburoro" is to make red, or to blush.  Except don't say it the wrong way, or else those words mean "pregnant" and "to make pregnant" as we learned last week when Sister Seegmiller tried to say one of the elders made me blush ...
So "katak" is to study and "rikatak" is someone that studies, or an investigator.
I like this example too. "loor" is to follow.  "rikaloor" is a person that follows, or a disciple.

I think that's all from this week.  Love you,
Sister Butler

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