September 15, 2014, Thursday Night is "Rescue"

Greetings,

I'm going to write a short email today because I don't have much to say. We have a wedding planned this Saturday for a couple of our investigators.  That should be good.  We've got to make a couple of cakes, but they'll be simple.  They're getting married in their house so the whole thing should be really short.

Sister Notise and I switch off teaching seminary a few days a week.  I teach Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ajeltake Branch has two seminary classes because there are a lot of youth, and we take the 14 and 15 year-olds.  They're studying from D&C this year, and it's fun to prepare for the lessons.  The CES missionary couple that leads Seminary and Institute on the island only want us teaching in English. About half of the kids get it, and the other half struggle. Sometimes if they don't understand something, I'll explain it in Marshallese but we're not supposed to, which I think is silly. Reading Joseph Smith History with them was a pain because the English in it is not what they're used to.

The Ajeltake elders have a van that can fit 12 people, so the elders and sisters are basically the Ajeltake taxi service for seminary, institute, and church.  Normally missionaries aren't allowed to drive other people, unless it's a member going to a lesson with us, but we got permission to pick up people, because if we weren't there to drive people, no one would come to things at the church.

Every Thursday night we have branch activity called "rescue."  I guess they've started doing it in the islands in the Pacific, but I'm not sure where else.  Basically we meet up at the church and divide into groups and go out and visit the less-actives.  We see if they need anything and we ask why they haven't come to church, and we invite them to come on Sunday.  Usually people don't come because they've been offended by someone at church.  I saw a lot of less active members at church yesterday, which was good.

Normally transfers happen every 6 weeks, but they decided to have a "mini-transfer" in the middle of this transfer to get ready for the next one?  If that even makes sense.  Luckily Notise and I are both staying in Ajeltake and we're also moving into the big, nice house this Wednesday.  Sister Moea'i and Seegmiller are both going off to Ebeye this week and they'll probably come back to Majuro right before we leave in December.  Four sisters go home in about 3 weeks (Sister Crane, Samuel, Tofa, and Anitoni) and we don't get any more sisters until November or December, so they're closing down areas for sisters.

I hope you all are staying warm and happy.

Tootles.

Sister Ellen Butler