Greetings!
I've been trying to come up with a good April fool's joke, but I can't even joke about transfers in case it comes true. I'm worried either Sister Tafili or I will leave Ebeye around April 24th and neither of us want to go. I guess four new sisters are coming at the end of April and one of us or both us of will train. We don't want to. I either want to stay in Ebeye or go to Lae. The members in Lae have requested sisters, and president is thinking about sending two. That would mean no email (maybe mail??) but the island is gorgeous and there are about 400 people and the atoll is shaped like a "C" and supposedly if you see dolphins jump up when the boat enters the lagoon that means you'll go to back Lae again someday....ah. Anyway. Wishful thinking.
Today for P day we (and Sister Becker, so maybe you can see a blog post about it sometime) are going to Mama Loeak's house and we're going to learn how to make bwido!!! Bwido is a food make from fermented breadfruit that's stored in a hole in the ground. It gets really soft and smelly and then you have to rub it/knead it on a piece of--yep, plywood-- until it's really soft. I'm not exactly sure how to make it, but I will learn today. I'll be sure to take photos of the whole process.
The Weirs were here again this weekend. They come to Ebeye once a month for a weekend. They are always traveling between Kiribati (Tarawa and Christmas Island are the main ones they travel to, but they also go to outers) and Majuro and Ebeye. Sister Weir went out teaching with us Sunday after our 12 hours of church and she helped a lot in lessons. Luckily we had one lesson we taught in English, so she really was able to help in that one.
I learned the important distinction between "donat" and "donaj" this week. Both are donuts, but "donat" is a donut in a spherical shape and "donaj" is a wheel-shaped donut. The women make donats almost everyday. They mix up the batter and then drop a clump into a pot of boiling shortening or grease. The donuts aren't very sweet and they're so good, especially when they're hot. One of our investigators is going to teach us how to make them tomorrow.
We played ticket to ride last P day with the Beckers. Mike and Travis will be proud that I won the first game. We're playing again today, at the request of Sister Tafili (we got her hooked on the game). I've been playing basketball with her this week, so maybe that means we're working on our "companionship unity" or something like that.
We're teaching a couple who's 16 yr old daughter is a member. The dad's name is Kamina and the mom's name is Mickey (like the mouse...similar to the ones that scurry around in our bathroom and have gone through 3 boxes of mouse poison and still aren't dead. Maybe something else is eating the poison?). We had a lesson with them this week about when Jesus Christ was baptized and about the priesthood and Kamina asked if he needs to get baptized again since he got baptized in SDA. Sister Tafili asked him where the guy in SDA that baptized him got his authority to baptise and Kamina responded with "Well, he was white!!" and we all just lost it a bit. If it was anyone else I wouldn't laugh, but somehow it was completely fine...maybe because his wife was also laughing. As Sister Tafili started to explain, he searched for some other source of the man's authority and he said "Oh, and he came from Guam!" I think that's when we all really lost it. Guam is so big compared to the Marshalls, so any white guy from Guam's got to know what he's talking about. The best part is that his wife kept cracking up later during the lesson and whispering to others "He came from Guam!!" We were in the home of some members and one helped explain things...and long story short, they want to get baptized. Their daughter is really excited for them. It was a really funny and good.
We had a FHE last night with the Jesse family. Their daughter is serving at Temple Square right now. I realized as I sat there in the FHE that I understood everything that everyone said. And I didn't need to translate in my head anymore. It just makes sense. It's still really hard to understand church. I think when people speak into the microphone, it just gets garbed and fuzzy a bit. It's much easier to listen to someone standing a few feet away. There are some people I may never understand because they mumble, but at least no one else knows what they're saying either.
Thursday evening we were tired so we walked to the dock to take a break. We met a guy pulling in his boat and talked to him for a while. He wanted to study so we set up an appt. for the following day. We went and met his girlfriend and a whole house of people to study with. We also found a less active man who told us to come to his house the next day at 2 pm. We went to his house and found the man's wife (who wants to study) and also a woman we've been trying to find (a church) for a while. The two women happen to be sisters. It was cool from talking to one guy how many people we found to teach.
Okay, this email is getting long. Things are going well. I miss you all,
Sister Ellen Butler
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