April 1, 2014 I Learned the Important Distinction Between "Donat" and "Donaj" This Week

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

March 25, 2014 Did I Tell You About the Dog That Follows Us Around All the Time?

Greetings!

It's been a fun week.  It started out last Tuesday with the second part of the Relief Society birthday celebration.  The beat (or "biit"...I'm not sure how it's spelled) was lots of fun.  The evening started out as a "get to know you night" which was great for me because everyone wore nametags.  I got to learn some people's names I hadn't caught before.  Then each of the branches performed their dance and people talked and then finally we got to eat cake.  I think it was a 3.5 hour long RS activity.  Holy cow.  I was trying to translate for Sister Becker most of the time.  I'm so bad at translating.  I can understand what is being said, but then while I switch it into English word order in my head I miss what is being said.  Every Sunday I make the elders translate for the Beckers.  It's so hard!  I'll try to attach some photos from the activity.

We tied for first place for our apartment inspections, so we got a pizza from kwaj last week.  Pizza is so good after not having it for months.

Did I tell you about the dog that follows us around all the time?  At first it was kind of nice because she's a friendly dog, but she's starting to get annoying.  She attracts the other dogs and they come over, bark, and start playing in the streets.  Or sometimes she thinks if we go into a house that she can come in too.  People ask us if it's our dog and we tell them no, but then they wonder why there's a dog in their house.  All of the kids call her "angel" and she supposedly also follows the elders around.

The other night we were home and we thought we heard someone trying to get into our apartment.  We always lock the door right when we come in, so we knew we were okay.  We checked the peep hole but no one was there.  We heard something again so Sis. Tafili called a pair of the elders that were nearby to come check.  They called back a few minutes later:  "Hey, do you know that dog that follows you all the time...?"  Dumb dog.  She was waiting outside our door for us.

Happy birthday to Kate and Annie this week!  I hope you two had a fun time.  Sister Tafili has the same birthday as Kate.  I wanted to plan something fun for her since we just work all day, so I got a bunch of the youth in Branch 3 to meet at a member's house that evening.  Wherever we went throughout the day I invited them to come, and somehow Tafili didn't catch on.  I thought it was pretty obvious.  I told her we were going over to Thelma's house to set up things for a split the next day and she believed me.  We went up to the house and they started singing.  Someone played ukulele and another guy was on a keyboard.  Marshallese birthdays consist of lots of singing-- there are a lot of Marshallese birthday songs-- and then there's a mini iakwe-iakwe where everyone goes around and shakes the person's hands and gives them money or amimono earrings or flowers for their hair.  Then people give speeches and it's over.  I made a cake so we ate that at the end.  I somehow trapped a gecko between the plate and bowl (that had been over the cake) once the cake was finished, and I didn't find it until the next morning when I was doing dishes and found a little lizard fellow in the sink.  I don't mind them because they're everywhere, but it took me by surprise.  The poor fellow was afraid he was going to drown in the sink.

It was also Sister Becker's birthday this week so we got a group of youth to go over and sing birthday songs for her.

Everyone plays volleyball in the Marshall Islands.  People string up nets between houses and they play all day, everyday.  All of the little kids play with marbles.  It's a game called "ping" or something like that, and they draw a square in the dirt and place all of the marbles inside the box and then toss a marble to see how many the can get out of the box.  I don't see how they don't get tired of it.  They'll play it for hours and hours.  It looks pretty boring.  There's also a game similar to Sorry that they draw on a piece of-- yep, you guessed it-- plywood.  they use rocks or pennies as the pieces.  Sometimes I feel like this isn't the 21st century...more like always.

Oh, and you know those small, curved combs that women used to use in the 90s or 80s?  The ones that you can comb your hair with and then leave it in your hair?  All of the women use them.  They also have big, fancy carved combs that they stick in their hair for Sundays.

We had some good lessons this week.  We seem to walk around a lot but a lot of people are gone.  The early afternoon hours are so hard because it's hot and everyone's sleeping.  The streets are dead in the afternoons and then come alive at night.  People stay up all hours of the night because it's nice and cool, and then sleep during the day when it's hot.

The ocean here is full of fish.  That sounds stupid, because of course it's full of fish, but you can just look into the water and see a whole lot of fish.  I've seen some pretty yellow ones and there are also schools of fish all over the place.  It's really neat to watch them.  They sometimes jump out of the water at the same time too.  I want to know how they communicate.  During a baptism a couple of weeks ago we saw a big foot and a half long fish jump out of the water.  I have yet to see another shark though.  

I'm trying to think what else happened this week.  One of our RM friends fought a drunk guy for us.  He got a nice swollen eye.  We're starting to teach the Beckers a little Marshallese because they want to learn and they're going to be here for a while.  We're going to go play Ticket to Ride with them this afternoon for P day!  Dr. Skinner, an LDS doctor on Kwaj, came over yesterday to talk to us missionaries about staying healthy and he also brought Subway over for us, which was really nice. 

Tootles.  Love you,

Sister Ellen Butler

March 18, 2014 It's Not Too Hard to Compete Against Three Sets of Elders

Greetings and happy St. Patrick's day,

It's been a really good week in Ebeye.  It started with a trip to Carlos last P day.  We were going to take two boats so the Beckers could come, but we ended up only having one boat.  They're going to come with us the next time we go.  The boat we used this time was definitely smaller than the last...but it was also longer.  At first we were a little wary of the thing, but once we got going we realized it was a lot smoother than the other boat.  I also think the driver really knows how to drive boats.  He was really good at steering the boat to avoid big waves and sometimes he would just stop it (the motor was still running) so that we would ride a wave instead of force our way through it.

On the tiny boat on the way to Carlos.  We were just leaving Ebeye in this picture

The trip to Carlos was a lot better than the one before.  I think we felt a little more comfortable to explore.  Thelma and Rutha, two recent RMs, were on the island for a week visiting Rutha's grandparents so we met up with them.  They took us to the north end of the island and we took a lot of photos.

At the north end of Carlos with the next island north in the atoll.  The ocean side is on the left and the lagoon on the right.  It was high tide, but when it's low you can walk to the next island. 

 The most beautiful beach on Carlos.  The water was so pretty.

Representing the 692

I was so happy to see trees again!

I thought it was beautiful and the beach was so nice, but they said when it's low tide the beach is so much better and you can walk to the next island north in the atoll.  There was a little bit on jungle on the island where the US hadn't cleared it out for their helicopter landing pad and other electricity generator things, so it was nice to walk through the trees.

 It felt a little bit like being in Laura again, except more remote.  I think I saw about 10 houses on the island.

Thelma and Rutha singing and playing ukulele

 Me and Rutha (the one that just got back from her mission to the philippines).  She and Thelma were visiting Rutha's grandparents on Carlos for the week, so we hung out with them on P day.

On Saturday six of our investigators got baptized.  They're all teenage girls and they're from Ujae atoll.  Three of them are sisters and the others are cousins.  Their parents studied with the sisters right before us and they got baptized in November or December.  The dad is now the high council representative for Lae, which is an atoll near Kwajalein.  They're part of our district.  The best part is that he got to baptize the girls.  We had one of the elders go over and teach him how to baptize them.  It was really great.  All of the girls' friends in Branch 3 came and there were a lot of people that came.  Everyone was so happy to have so many get baptized.  The craziest part for us was finding enough white dresses for them.  I think we spent most of Saturday running around to members to find clothing.  It was a really nice evening.

More photos before the baptism.  That ledge is my favorite place to watch baptisms from.

All six of the girls that got baptized on Saturday.
Three of them are sisters and their parents are also in the photo. 

Outside the church

Girls getting ready for their baptism

We met a Marshallese LDS woman that served a mission in Majuro in 1992-93.  She is less active now and we're studying with one of her daughters.  I talked to a member about her, and they said she can't come to church or her husband's family will kick them out of the house and they don't have anywhere else to live.  The woman is really talkative and she tells us a whole bunch of stories from her mission.  She said in 92 there were 4 sisters serving in Majuro:  2 from Laura to Long Island, and 2 from Delap to Rita.  We have 12 sisters in Majuro right now.

Yesterday or today is the Relief Society birthday, and holy cow, they go all out here.  Yesterday we had a fireside/event at noon and Sis. Tafili and I got there a little late.  we stepped into the chapel and everyone was wearing blue or yellow dresses.  Supposedly these are the colors of relief society?  We asked if it was announced that we were supposed to wear blue or yellow, and they said nope, everyone just knows...?  We were both wearing white shirts and Sister Becker was also, and was really glad that we were also wearing white because she felt out of place.  She later said, "I'll make sure to wear something bright and colorful tomorrow so I don't stand out" and then we laughed at how funny it is that bright colors make us blend in more.  The talks about women and RS were all really good.  The Marshallese women are so strong and I loved being in the chapel with all of them.  Tonight there's an activity/celebration for the RS birthday and each branch is doing a beat.  We practiced with Branch 1 last night so we're going to be dancing with them.  We hope the other branches don't get annoyed that we don't dance with them.  We have a 4 part dance and part number 2 may be to an ABBA song, so we're pretty excited.  The dance moves are like a modernized beat.  At first we're air strumming guitars but then we go and do the regular hand-motions.  I don't know what all of them symbolize, but almost all beats have the same moves just in different orders.  There's a move that means a boat and another where you pull nets in from the ocean.  You also point to the lik (ocean side) and then to the iar (lagoon side).  I'll try to get some good photos tonight.

Relief Society Birthday

Relief Society Birthday

Pretty sunset with the ferry on Ebeye

       

We had a really great evening on Sunday.  We had gotten a whole bunch of referrals from members, so we had a goal to contact a lot of them. We went and met a woman (Marshallese) that lived in Hawaii all her life.  Her Marshallese is so good for living in Hawaii all her life.  She said it's her first time to Ebeye.  She and her husband are visiting her husband's family (they're all members) and they want to get married and baptized this summer.  It was so fun talking to her because we kept going from English to Marshallese and back to English and she was so nice and talked (unlike a lot of Marshallese that are so silent in our lessons, so it's impossible to know if they understand what we're saying).  At first her husband was going to study with the elders, but it looks like we're going to study with both of them.  We had a nice lesson with her on Sunday.  We then visited a girl's parents.  The girl is 15 or 16 and she spoke in church a couple weeks ago about how she really wants her parents to join the church.  We talked to her about talking to her parents to see if they want to study with us.  She talked to them and her dad said yes but the mom said no.  We went to see the dad and the mom was there...and they both agreed to study.  So we're really excited to study with them and the girl (her name is Baby...so Marshallese) is really happy too.

We have apartment inspections today and so Tafili and I stayed up late cleaning last night.  We better win.  I don't think it's too hard to compete against 3 sets of elders.  We'll see.  I mopped the whole thing, so I think we've got to win.

A couple of elders are going home on Friday so we get two more from Majuro on Saturday, and they're both white, so I will no longer be the only ripelle missionary on Ebeye.  I kind of liked being the only American.   

It sounds like you're all cold and freezing your fannies.  Stay warm!

Sister Ellen Butler

March 11, 2014 That Dog Had Some Ugly Teeth

Greetings!

It's been kind of a boring week in some respects because it took a while for me to get better from being sick.  We didn't go out to work until Thursday last week.  I was so weak and tired that after one trip across the street to the grocery store I just wanted to lie down for the rest of the day.  I realized I was so weak because I hadn't eaten much, so once I ate I felt a lot better.  I still have a bad chest cold though, but hopefully that'll go away soon....and then I'll just pick up another one from a little kid here.

On Sunday we took naps after our million hours of church.  It was the best decision ever.  I also unintentionally took a nap yesterday on Monday and it was glorious.  I miss naps so much.  Senior missionaries are allowed to take naps whenever they want.  Why can't we?

A girl named Hellen got baptized on Saturday.  That was nice.  We have a group of 6 teenage girls getting baptized this Saturday.  They're all from the atoll of "Ujae" (I think in an earlier email I said they were from "Wotje" which is incorrect.  They sound really similar).  Three of them are sisters and their parents just got baptized in November.  they had studied with the sisters before.  The other three are cousins.  These were some of the girls that were at the big FHE from about a month ago.  We're excited for Saturday.  Sometimes I get a little tired of teaching so many teenagers, but they are a strength to the church here.  Many of them already say that they want to serve missions.  There are 24 students in the mission prep class right now and quite a few are turning in their papers this week.  Three of those students are our investigators, so it's really great.  I just sometimes get a little tired of the teenage girls.

I got the packages with the powdered milk in them, and i've been drinking that stuff like it's real milk.  I used to not like it, but if I get it fairly cold it's pretty good.  It's also great to put into pancakes so I don't have to use my delicious "New Zealand Anchor Ultra-Pasteurized milk."  Whole wheat pancakes have become a staple recently.  Pancakes and muesli.

It's been wicked hot recently.  It's terribly hot and we just wish for rain, and then it rains for about an hour and stops, and then it's hotter than before because the air is so humid.  I'm not sure what's better.  At least our feet stay cool because the streets flood.  I don't want to know what else is on our feet though.

We're teaching a Marshallese/Filipino woman.  She's married to a Chinese man and their kids are learning Marshallese, English, and Chinese.  They're going to be smart kids.   We teach her in English and Marshallese, which is fun.  It's so hard to teach in English.  We struggled, so we kept switching back into Marshallese.  She has a good friend that's a member (and she lives across the street from her) and so her friend helped in a lesson yesterday.  We stayed and talked for a long time before and after the lesson just talking because they love to talk.  The woman has gone to many churches and tells us that she really wants to find which church is true, so we had a really good restoration lesson yesterday.  We're excited to study with her.

My English is starting to get messed up.  The other day I said something to my companion in English but it was so Marshallese:  "I think we should ask with Fred that he should talk with Mercy and ask with him if he is happy to study with the two of us"...or something like that.  Or we'll say, "She's the mother of Mary" instead of "she's mary's mom" or things like that.  I don't want to know what my english is going to be like in 10 months.  Maybe graduate schools won't take me!

A dog tried to bite me yesterday while we were walking, so I started yelling and shaking my water bottle at him. I yelled "enana! enana kidu!" at him which means "bad!  bad dog!"  I think a lot of people thought it was pretty funny, but I don't even care.  That dog had some ugly teeth.

Okay, my email is a little short this week.  i should have more to write next week.  love and miss you all, 

Sister Ellen Butler

March 4, 2014, We're Big Cheeses But Not as Big as Other Big Cheeses

Greetings!

I've been a sick puppy all weekend, but I think I'm starting to feel better.  The sister training leaders (aka "sister APs") and the Weirs were in Ebeye for the weekend, which was really fun and nice.  Sister Crane and Sister Tago are some of my favorite sisters in Majuro, so I was really excited to see them. We went on splits on Saturday when they got here, but then I got sick on Sunday so I stayed home with one of them or sister Becker or Sister Weir so they could go out and work.

I realized how much I've missed seeing the other sisters during P days, since Tafili and I are the only sisters on Ebeye.  We really need two more sisters on Ebeye.  It's just hard being the only sisters here sometimes, and our area is the whole island while each set of elders have only 1/3 of the island.  It's a bit exhausting at times.

From left to right: Sisters Tafili, Anitak, Butler, and Ned

On Thursday night we went to a "keemem" or a kid's 1st year birthday party.  Holy cow, the keemems are a much bigger deal here than in Majuro, possibly because people have more money here.  It was in the restuarant of the Ebeye Hotel and they had hired a guy to play keyboard and sing.  The food was really good and the place was packed.  The kid is a son of a lds couple (I think they're both RMs) and the three of them were all wearing matching clothes.  Sister Tafili and I got there a bit late and we were ushered in past everyone sitting in the hallway (because it was so full of people there wasn't room) and we were led to a table where Sis. Seremai (district pres' wife) and sis. Thomas (1st counselor in the district pres) were sitting.  We're big cheeses.  But we're not as big as the big cheeses that got to sit in another smaller, adjacent room (Pres. Seremai, Pres. Thomas, the Beckers, and the family of the young kid).  Of course we got our food first and it's polite to just start eating once you get your food, which is so weird to me.  Sister Thomas gave me a guam dress that I think she had gotten as a party favor.  It was a crazy party.  The keemems in Majuro are definitely not as extravagant.  I didn't get any pictures, but I know sister Becker did, so maybe you can find some on her blog.

Baptism on Saturday

Another view of the baptism

I forgot to tell you!  I saw a shark a few weeks ago.  It was the P day when we headed to Carlos (I thought it was "Charles") and we were standing on the dock and we saw a big 5 foot shark lurking by the dock.  We were surprised how close it came to the dock.  The water is so clear and pretty that you can see a lot of really pretty fish.  We want to find a member to teach us how to fish one of these p days.  Everyone fishes here, so it shouldn't be too hard.  The ocean here is just full of fish.

A sister missionary that served in the Philippines just got back from her mission on Friday.  We went to the dock to pick her up and she actually stayed with us for the evening because in Ebeye they say the missionaries can't sleep at home until they're released (which we all think is crazy, but whatever).  She's really nice.  Her English is better than a lot of the missionaries' english that served in english speaking missions!  We took her to go see her family as soon as she arrived and it was super awkward.  I don't think any of them hugged her nor seemed too excited to see her.  Marshallese people and their lack of affection drives me a little crazy.  Sister Tafili said to me later "if that's how it is when I get home, then I'm going to cry."  Of course Samoans are the exact opposite.  They all hate goodbyes and will cry and cry for hours if they say goodbye to someone they just met two weeks ago. 

Do you guys know what beetlenut is?  It's disgusting.  Look it up.  Supposedly everyone is PNG (Papua New Guinea) chews it and a lot of the men chew it here.  It's stains one's teeth a reddish brown and supposedly makes them high.  And then they spit in the street and it stains the street.  It's so gross.

We had a baptism on Saturday and we have another one this saturday.  A girl named Hellen from Ailinglaplap (an outer island) is getting baptized. 

I'm going to take a nap and drink lots of water and take it easy for the rest of the day.  Two elders are coming from Majuro today, so we might go to the dock when the ferry comes at 3.

Love you all, 

Sister Ellen Butler 

February 24, 2014, You Know You Are in Micronesia When....

Hello!

It's been a rainy week in Ebeye, which is weird because it rarely rains.  The streets have been flooded.  There are gutter drains of some sort, but they're all filled with dirt and garbage, so nothing drains.  Walking through the streets has been gross.  I just make sure to wash off my feet when we get home.

Elder and Sister Gardner came from Majuro last week for a few days.  They're CES missionaries and so they make sure seminary and institute is happening.  They changed a lot of things around to get seminary to actually happen.  Some of the teachers didn't come last semester, so in order for the kids to get credit for last semester they have to read the book of mormon through the end of mosiah and write a short summary on each chapter.  So in order to help them, Sister Tafili and I are reading with them everyday.  We just started yesterday so we'll see how it goes.  We set up our chairs in a circle and went around and each read a verse.  We're reading it in english because the Gardners want them to do seminary in english.  Some of them are pretty good and some of them struggle a lot.  It's so hard to see how much they understand.  But it went pretty well for the first day. 

One of the great things about working with Sister Tafili is that she makes cocoa samoa for us to drink.  That stuff is so good.  She's also been telling me samoan legends this week.  She had never been on a boat until she came on the ferry from Kwaj to ebeye and she doesn't know how to swim.  What sort of Samoan is that?  We joke that she doesn't know anything about Samoa, because I asked her what the Samoan flag means and she doesn't know.

There are two island chains in the RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands).  The "ratak" chain in the eastern chain.  Majuro is in the ratak.  Ebeye is in the "Ralik," or the western chain.  We sang "come, come ye saints" on Sunday in one of the many sacrament meetings, and the line that says something like "we'll find a place prepared far away in the west" made me think of Ebeye because it's in the west for the Marshallese people.  West is relative anyway.  Maybe the song's really talking about ebeye.  It's the zion of the Marshall Islands.  And the garbage dump.

I'm glad to hear that Eliot likes watching the bobsleds.  I actually got to watch about 10 minutes of 4 man bobsledding yesterday.  I saw something about one sled going down on it's side for half the course.  they weren't too happy.  I watched the speedy Germans and Russians, and I think the Americans we're fairly speedy too. 

You know you're in Micronesia when you keep anti-diarrhea pills in your purse at all times.  It's fun.  I don't even think I've been drinking bad water!  Whatever.  It's fine. 

The Weirs are coming to Ebeye again this weekend.  They try to come once a month.  And the sister training leaders are coming with them for the weekend, meaning Sister Crane and Sister Tago.  I'm glad I get to see Sister Tago again before she goes home to Australia in a couple of weeks.  We're going to do splits with them this weekend.  Sister Tago is really excited to come back to Ebeye because she served here at the beginning of her mission.  Crane has yet to come to ebeye, so she's excited as well.  (mom, they're going to bring my box from Majuro.)

We have a baptism this Saturday.  A girl named Kella is getting baptized.  Everyone thought she was a member, but we can't find any records for her anywhere in the church.  She's doesn't remember getting baptized, so I don't think she did.  We taught her the lessons in just a few weeks.  Although she's been coming to church forever, she needed the lessons.

Things are pretty good overall.  We're busy and tired.  I am going to try to take a real nap today.  Last p day I found a 5 lb bag of whole wheat flour in the store (one of two bags)!  I made some 2 hr rolls and I've got a bag of them in the freezer right now.  I've been eating them with peanut butter.  I've also made whole wheat pancakes this week, which were surprisingly good.  I think lentil soup is on the menu for dinner. 

I'll try to take more photos this week so you all can see what Ebeye is really like. 

Love and miss you all,

Sister Ellen Butler

February 18, 2014, Trip to Carlos Island

Greetings!

It's been a great week in Ebeye.  I've been looking forward to checking my email all week so I can see pictures of baby William.  He looks like a big, healthy baby.  I can't decide if he looks more like Kate or Mike. 

Ellen on the boat to Carlos Island

The week started with a trip to the island of "Charles."  At least that's what everyone calls it (later we found out it was actually called "Carlos Island").  But if you go to google maps and look at Kwajalein atoll it's the island called "Ennylabegan."  It's across the atoll from Ebeye to the west.  We fit about 15 people into a pretty small motor boat and headed across the lagoon.  It took about 30 minutes to get there.  On the way there I sat down and I felt like I was sitting right there in the ocean with the waves coming near.  I got some cool pictures without getting my camera wet.  Sister Tafili got soaked on the way there because she was sitting at the very back where the waves kept hitting her.

A church on Carlos Island

In front of a WWII Japanese shipwreck

The island was pretty bare.  There were coconut trees and...breadfruit trees.  There are about 60 people that live on the island now.  We went with some members, a young family.  He grew up on the island and he said there were about 400 people on the island before.  The US used to use it for something, but I don't think they use it much anymore.  there's a helicopter landing pad and a few abandoned buildings.  And then there are a few houses.  There are also two huge white golf ball looking things.  I don't know what they are.

Two Samoans hamming it up

The shipwreck

We walked around on the island for a while, but it was pretty boring.  We ended up playing volleyball (my favorite sport...so tired of it) for 2 hours and we all got fried.  We ate some breadfruit and drank coconuts.  We made the samoan elder climb the coconut trees to cut them down for us.  And then the Fijian elder husked them for us.  It's good having them around.  Some of the elders tried chasing pigs on the island, which was amusing because the pigs were much smarter than them.  The coolest part was an old abandoned ship from WWII.  Someone said it's a Japanese ship.  It's big and ugly and it looks like it's made out of concrete and rebar.  I'm serious.  I'll email some photos.

What are the white balls?

The boat ride back to Ebeye was pretty cool.  The waves were a lot bigger going back and the boat went much faster, so it was a really bumpy ride.  We definitely got some air going over some of those big waves.  I stood up on the way back and held onto the sort of windshield thing on the boat next to the driver.  We all held on for dear life.  We were all so sunburned that the next day we all tried to avoid the sun because it was so painful.  Everyone's a lot darker now.  I don't know why, but that island sure feels closer to the sun.  It was hot.

We had a really good week with getting to know our investigators better.  So many of them have been really quiet around us so we've been trying to get them to open up.  We're teaching a group of 7 girls that all live in the same house.  They're all from Wotje, which is an outer island.  None of the outer islands have high schools, so when they all either come to Ebeye or Majuro to go to high school.  They live in a house with some recent converts.

We got the YW in branch 3 to set up a family home evening last week and we had a house full of 18 girls.  We had a lesson and played games, and then we all went out to get ice cream cones.  The YW are so willing to help.  It's been great.

Dana and Ceroline

Getting ice cream after Family Home Evening

We had a "new member scripture night" in branch 1 one evening this week.  I love Ebeye because there are always so many activities going on.  This fireside was put on by the gospel principles teacher because she wanted the whole class to get together.  Sister Tafili and I taught a short lesson about reading the scriptures and talked about even though it's really difficult to understand (because the translation is pretty bad) they can still read and get help from older people (that know the old language).  We had a number of our investigators come to that as well.  There are always firesides and meetings and things going on that it's sometimes hard to find a room in the church building to use.  The members are so good at fellowshipping.  We're supposed to take members with us to every lesson if possible, and we have so many people that help.  People just come up to us on the street, introduce themselves as a member of one of the branches, and then tell us when they can come out and help us.  Yesterday a bunch of members went out visiting less actives.  The RMs all get together and go out visiting.  We've been helping the YW start up personal progress, which is really confusing to explain in Marshallese.

We went to 6 hours of church on Sunday, which is tiring but nice because we get to sit and rest a bit.  Two people had seizures during sacrament meeting on Sunday.  It was crazy.  One happened during a branch in the morning and someone stuffed a flip flop in the guy's mouth and then a whole bunch of men crowded around the guy and started rubbing out his muscles.  They laid him on the chairs in the chapel and sacrament meeting kept going on.  The guy either was passed out or asleep (I don't know much about seizures) for the rest of sacrament meeting.  No one seemed too concerned though.  All of the guys sitting around him seemed to know what to do.  Another kid had a seizure before sacrament meeting of another ward.  Crazy. 

I got pizza this week from a member that works in Kwaj.  We also got hamburgers from someone.  They were mediocre but oh so good at the same time.  I don't know where they came from (the elders said members gave them to them to give to us) but I don't mind.  It wasn't rice and chicken, so I was happy. 

It's not supposed to rain very often in Ebeye, but it's been raining a little at least every day this week.  We've appreciated the water.  It's been nice always having water.  A dog followed us around one day to all of our lessons.  He was so friendly and didn't want to leave.  Everyone asked us who's dog he was, but we didn't know. 

I'm trying to think of what else happened this week.  We had 15 investigators come to church on Sunday, which was awesome.  I bought a mumu this week.  I finally found one I sort of like.  The pattern isn't awful.  I thought it was more blue in the store, but I think it looks grey now.  and it doesn't have really puffy sleeves, so I'm excited. 

Time seems to be going so quickly.  I've been in Ebeye for over a month now.  The people here are so friendly. 

Thanks for the letters and emails.  I really appreciate them.  Love you all, 

Sister Ellen Butler