September 1, 2014, Happy to Be Back in Ajeltake

Greetings,

Ajeltake is so beautiful. I'm so happy to be back. It's about 11 miles of coconut, banana, breadfruit, and pandanus trees.

The elders and the sisters switched houses a few weeks ago because there was some problem, so we're living in the tiny chapel house. Meaning a tiny house that's right by the Ajeltake chapel. It's one room, and then a bathroom. We have a bunk bed, fridge, and a tiny kitchen. But it's really not that bad. It's cosy. I do my studies on my bed and Sister Notise sits at a desk right by the bed and that's where we have to sit. We actually have hot water, which is crazy.

We had zone conference last wednesday before our transfer and that was good.  Right after we switched our luggage around from car to car and we drove off to Ajeltake.  Driving is going better. The road in Ajeltake is fun to drive.  you have to maneuver around coconuts and there are lots of potholes and bumps.  You also have to be careful for dogs. There are a few road bumps near the schools.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of it though. The hardest part is remembering where everyone lives.  It just looks like there are trees everywhere and their houses are back in a little ways. I also miss the turnoffs and have to stop and back up, but it's okay because there are very few cars on the road. 

My new companion is Sister Notise. She's from Samoa and she went to school with Sister Tafili. She's good. She works hard but has fun too, which is a nice combination.  She has 10 more months on the mission and her Marshallese is really good.  It's really nice going from a companion where I had to teach 95% of the lessons to teaching very little.  I actually wish she would let me speak more! But it's good.  Maybe I'm just the driver.  We get along well though. The first few days with a new companion are always awkward because you don't know how they do things, but it gets better.  I'm tired of being the boss so I'm trying to make her make a lot of the decisions. It's good.

The beaches are nice in Ajeltake.  We went wading out in the lagoon the other day and the water was so hot.  It was almost burning my feet.  There's a really nice view of the other islands in the atoll from Ajeltake.  It's really paradise here.  Hopefully this is where I'll finish my mission. It's nice to see that the branch has grown.  It's nice I already know most of the people. Hopefully it'll become a ward while I'm here.

There's a YSA in Ajeltake that just got her call to serve in the West Indies, English speaking. Her name is Shimiko and I think I've maybe talked about her before when I worked in Ajeltake. She works with us when she's not busy.  She's great.  Her English is already amazing and she's excited to go.  She doesn't go until December though, so she'll keep working with us and maybe we'll leave around the same time for the US.  

Okay, I think that's it for this week.  I don't think I'll send any pictures this week.  I tried to upload some but it didn't work.  We'll see.

Tootles. Love you all.

 Sister Ellen Butler (or "Bubu" as all the missionaries call me)

August 25, 2014, Sometimes I Forget I'm White

Greetings, 

It's Monday and I transfer to Ajeltake on Wednesday after a zone conference in Long Island.  So that meansmtomorrow is really my last day in Jenrok.  I don't really want to leave Jenrok.  I always have mixed feelings about transfers.  I am excited to work in Ajeltake though.  And the good thing is that I'll have a car so on P days we'll be able to jambo (I don't know the english equivalent of this word...) wherever we want to on the island.  

The week started out rough because Sister Boutu messed up her foot on P day from kicking a rugby ball.  She could barely walk Monday night and we didn't work Tuesday.  The nurse said that she might be in pain for a couple of weeks, but luckily it turned out to only hurt a couple of days.  

Marshallese culture of the day:  If you have the hiccups you tear a small piece of paper, lick it, and stick it to your forehead.  I taught a couple of women my trick to get rid of hiccups and they were quite impressed.  I don't think the paper on the forehead thing works.

Sometimes I forget I'm white.  The white people on this island are so annoying and embarrassing sometimes.  I forget that I stick out a lot because I don't feel like I stick out anymore now that I know their language and culture....but then sometimes I see white people and I realize how ridiculous they look  and sound when they try to speak marshallese and then I think maybe the marshallese people see me that way at first.  But I think that goes away once we talk.

Driving on Friday with the Johnsons was great.  We drove to the airport and then I drove from there out to ajeltake and Laura.  They made me go down a bumpy dirt road in Ajeltake and then back up to the main road. I'm not very good at backing up, but I can do it if I need too.  Driving was fun.  I think I just needed some confidence.  I drove from Laura back to town, which was good that I got practice driving in town.  So on Wednesday I get a nice, new, fancy car.  The mission just got all new cars, so I'll be driving a really nice car.  I'll have to find out what type it is.

This evening we have a FHE at the mission home for all the sisters.  I think they're trying to build sister unity or something like that, so we're doing a talent show.  Everyone's going to sing or dance so boutu and I are planning on doing something different.  We'll see how it goes.  I'll let you know how it goes next week.  

The woman in the black (that's kind of white) in the picture with the RS sisters is Cindy.  She and her boyfriend both came to church yesterday.  We actually are going to go see her today because she works all the time.  

Love you all.  Tootles, 

Sister Ellen Butler

August 18, 2014, Sister Boutu Requested Pizza, Rice, Sashimi, and Cake

Greetings, 

I'm starting my email really late today.  I don't know if I have a whole lot to say from this week.

Yesterday was Sister Boutu's birthday but we decided to celebrate on Saturday.  We got permission to have a few of the other sisters over for lunch.  Sister Boutu requested that we eat pizza, rice, sashimi, and cake, so that's what we ate.  It was good and nice but since all the kiribati sisters were over they spoke in kiribati the whole time and Sister Moea'i and I don't understand them.  

I now know enough Marshallese that most of the words I'm learning now are kind of silly words like: "to remove scales from fish," "sleeptalking," "afraid of ghosts" and "puddles."  

The work is going really well in Jenrok.  We had ten investigators come to church yesterday, which is crazy.  It feels like Ebeye sometimes.  I'm excited to go to Ajeltake though.  The work is good here but I still don't like it as much as Ajeltake.  It just has a different feel to it. I guess it's because I don't like the ward as much, and that makes a big difference.  

We have a plan to drive out to Laura with one of the senior couples this Friday so I can practice driving.  I'm glad I get to practice before I go to Ajeltake...I don't really want to just practice when I get there.  I need to get a license but supposedly I only have to take a written test for it.

We have a FHE planned tonight with the kiribati family, and we're inviting a couple investigators to it.  We're going to make pizza for it.  I think I've made too many pizzas in the last week.  But it's okay because everyone feeds us fish and they occasionally request that we make a pizza or cookies...things that you need an oven for. Everyone is jealous we have an oven.

Sorry my email is short this week.  Love you all.  Tootles, 

Sister Ellen Butler

August 11, 2014, I Have to Learn How to Drive

Greetings,

I had a pretty good week.  Sister Boutu gets sick a lot and so the week was kind of slow.  It also seemed like all of our appointments fell through, but that happens.  I realized I've had over a year of perpetual summer now.  I'm so tired of the heat.  The weirdest part is that one can't tell the passage of time very easily.  It's just always summer. 

Our investigator that's Seventh-day Adventist is still a struggle.  He keeps asking the same questions about eating pig and fish with no scales and going to church on Saturdays and it's just exhausting at this point.  We've answered his questions and now are trying to focus on other things, knowing that he's going to get over these things. But he still keeps bringing them up as if we're going to have a new answer one day.  I wish I could just give him over to the elders!  But we don't have any elders in our ward. 

Transfers are happening at the end of the month and supposedly I'm going back to Ajeltake.  Meaning, I have to learn how to drive.  I think I should be able to do it because there's just one road and the cars are automatic (not that I know how to do that).  Supposedly it's really easy to get a driver's license here.  I need to find someone to teach me.  I'm excited to go back to Ajeltake, but not to drive.  Hopefully it'll be my last area.  I think I'd be okay with "dying" in Ajeltake.  I've missed the west side of the island.  It's so beautiful and I'd get good food too.

All the pandanas fruit is starting to get ripe!  Mmm.  I'm going to see if I can bring some back in my suitcase. Would the TSA people confiscate fruit coming from another country?  We've eaten (except there's a verb just for eating bub) a lot of it this week.  All of it came from the other side of the atoll though.  This side looks a little more like ebeye. That's a good thing about going back to Ajeltake...I'll have lots of bananas and bub and papaya. 

I had some really good fish this week.  It's called rainbow runner.  It's really good raw and fried.  My least favorite fish is canned mackerel.  It's cheap though!  I've heard that you don't want to eat red snapper raw...you can get really sick from it.  

I keep thinking of stories from Lae that I haven't shared yet.  The whole way there, the men sat at the back of the boat and fished for big fish.  If you're trying to catch a tuna you need a really big fish hook.  They let out long fishing cords/lines behind the boat.  They didn't catch anything on the way to Lae, but on the way back from Lae one of the the men caught a big yellowfin tuna.  When they noticed they had caught it they let the driver know so he slowed down the boat and then they pulled it in.  Then they had to finish killing the poor beast, and let's just say it's not very fun to sit on a boat with a big tuna flapping around.  A few minutes later, another guy caught a big mahi mahi.  holy cow, those are pretty fish.  They're really green and have funny shaped heads.  they cut it up and started eating the sashimi.  I really wanted to try some but I was feeling sea sick at that point, and raw fish didn't sound that good. 

Also, flying fish are real and can really fly a long way.  We saw a lot of them when we got close to Lae.  We also saw a dolphin and some other big fish jump out of the water when we were close to entering the lagoon.  It's really good luck to see dolphins...it means they're welcoming the boat into the lagoon.  We were also supposed to throw some food into the water so we'd be protected from the demons, but I don't know if we did. 

Ierutia gave me a tibuta this week, which is a kiribati shirt.  It's so comfortable.  It's really loose so you can eat and eat and it won't show.

Okay, I hope you're all having a good week.  Tootles, 

August 4, 2014, For Skewers We Use the Ribs of Coconut Leaves

Greetings,

Holy P cow.  It's already August.  I think I'm leaving the islands on December 17th.  That's the plan as of right now.  I gain a day coming back so I'll either arrive on the 17th or the 18th.  Not sure.  It depends how long I'm stuck in Hawaii and a million other places along the way.  

Sister Boutu and I had a really great week.  We found more people to study with and most of them are progressing.  Most of them are women who's husbands/boyfriends are less active (either because they haven't gotten married yet or they smoke and drink and chew betelnut-- disgusting stuff).  The women are all really interested and are helping to bring their boyfriends back to the church.  We had a lot of people come to church yesterday, which was really great.  Granted, most of them left after Sacrament Meeting but it's hard to get most of the members to stay for more than that too. 

In the evening we had a Relief Society devotional/fireside.  It was good but way too long.  We had been at the church all day (because we have church at 1 and then we had to prep for the fireside), and so we were starving by evening.  Luckily Lerutia brought us a big bowl of chicken and rice, along with the donuts and soup as refreshments.  They always make donuts and soup or donuts and gravy for refreshments.  The soup is mostly rice, fish, a few carrots and celery, and coconut milk.  it's pretty good, except that there are always a lot of fish bones in it.  When I was in Lae someone made a really yummy corned beef gravy to eat with donuts.  Mmm, so good.  And so full of grease.  

I got the package last Monday.  Thanks!  The chocolate survived, and so did the stuff for making S'mores. Thank you so much.  We made the S'mores at the Kiribati family's house on Thursday night.  We waited until the tide went out and then we made a little fire on the beach using coconut husks and shells.  For skewers we used the ribs of individual coconut leaves.  The smores were yummy.  

I think I told you about the man we're studying with that goes to SDA.  This week we started studying with his wife.  We'll see how things go with them. 

 

What else...there are so many drunks in Jenrok.  A lot of them supposedly make a drink with water, sugar, and yeast and drink that to get drunk because it's cheaper than alcohol.  All of them want to study with us, or talk to Sister Boutu because she's hot stuff.  All of them call her "likatu in kiribati" meaning "pretty girl of kiribati." There are also a lot of Kiribati in Uliga and Jenrok.  Boutu finds new cousins and aunts all the time that she never even knew existed.  Everyone knows everyone in Micronesia.  

Have you guys seen the "my family" book that the church recently made?  It's to help people fill out a 4 generation pedigree chart.  Family history is near impossible here because there are no records.  But most everyone lives with extended families, so at least 3 generations live together.  We're trying to do FHEs with members and to help them fill out the book.  They should at least be able to get to their grandparents names, and if they live with their parents or grandparents they should be able to go back farther too.  When you meet a Marshallese person you always ask them what islands they're from.  Usually they list off 4 outer islands where each of their grandparents are from.  It's really important to them which island their from.  And there are jokes about each one.  If you're from Jaluit, you talk way too much...etc

Tootles,

Sister Ellen Butler

July 28, 2014, I'm Going To Miss These Sorts of Evenings

Greetings,

This last week was pretty eventful.  The best part is that we were able to move into the elders' old apartment.  After the first five minutes of being there I thought it was a bad idea because of how dirty it was.  We ended up throwing away boxes and bags of stuff elders had left in the apartment.  It was gross.  But now that it's all nice and clean, it really is a much nicer apartment.  I think the highlight is the shower head.  I think I missed real showers.  And the water is warm.  It's really nice.

Okay, that's not completely true.  The best part was being able to go on a exchange with Sister Tafili.  It was the best day I've had since being back on Majuro.  We had so much fun and got a lot of good work done too.  It was great teaching lessons with her...it was just like the good, old days in Ebeye.  She's always so happy and optimistic about the work, and she knows Marshallese and it was just really refreshing.  It doesn't matter how hot it is outside when we work together.  She was with me when we moved into the new apartment, and she helped me clean the place out and throw away all the stuff. 

I finally feel like we have some good people to teach.  One is a woman named Cindy and she genuinely wants to study and know if the church is true.  She's really good at english and she asks questions.  You know you've found someone that wants to study when before you can ask to set up a time to come back, they suggest times for the next two lessons.  She's great.  We're also studying with a man that the elders studied with before.  He's SDA and has a lot of questions, especially about unclean and clean foods.  The elders taught him all the lessons so now we're just trying to tie up loose ends, answer his questions, and get him to come to church.

I found a store that a Chinese woman owns that sells buns with red bean paste in them.  Mmm.  It's become my afternoon snack when we're out. 

I think working with Sister Tafili helped me be less stressed.  It's just hard having a companion that doesn't understand English very well and doesn't really talk much.

The power always seems to be off every Thursday on this island.  Normally it's back on by 5 pm, but they announced on the radio that it wouldn't be back on until Friday.  We ate our dinner, sashimi and rice (cooked on a tiny propane stove), by candle light at the Kiribati family's house.  We stuffed ourselves with raw fish and then lay down and listened to the rain hit the metal roof.  I'm going to miss these sorts of evenings.

Another evening when we stopped at the Reiher's house (the kiribati family...they've got german blood in them, hence the last name) I sat and watched a rat run into the bathroom.  Sister Boutu came by to use the bathroom and I informed her that it was currently occupied but that in a few minutes he'd probably be done using the bathroom.  She didn't seem to mind, and she was happy to use the bathroom with no light. 

I love you all.  Tootles,

Sister Ellen

July 21, 2014, There Are No Longer Elders in Jenrok

Greetings from a 30-mile-long strip of land in the north pacific,

Brrrsky, I am cold.  We got caught in the rain on the way to NTA (national telecommunications authority) and so we stopped at the "kiribati family's" house to dry off.  The rain started coming down in buckets so we changed into guam dresses and helped keep the water out of their house.  I guess it's more like an entry way to their house..it's hard to explain.  They only have the nice, clean part of the roof connected to the pontoon to get water, but another part of the drain spout was open so we put a bucket under to collect the water, and dumped it about every 10 seconds after it got full.  We also swept the water away and put sand to keep the water from coming in.  And then we did laundry in the rain, so we were soaking wet.  It was so fun to play in the rain.  Then we ate lunch and when the rain stopped we walked over to NTA in rita.  NTA is supposed to open at 1 pm but the workers hadn't yet arrived at 1:45 so we decided to just come to the NTA in Delap.  It's more expensive (I don't know why they would have different rates) but at least we have a time to email today.  We're not allowed to email at CMI (College of the Marshall Islands) anymore because the elders were being loud and obnoxious in the library.  Imagine that.

Supposedly the "microsports" are happening in Pohnpei right now.  It's like the Olympics for Micronesia....I have no idea what events they compete in or how good anyone is at sports.  As far as I've seen, no one here really knows how to play sports.  The guys seem to be pretty good at basketball, but that's probably because that's all they do everyday. 

Some exciting things are happening tomorrow:  First off, we get to move into the elders' old apartment because there are no longer elders in Jenrok.  Their apartment is supposedly way nicer than ours.  Their water isn't ever turned off and their bathroom is bigger than a closet.  Also, Sister Tafili came back from Ebeye last week and we're doing an exchange tomorrow in Jenrok!  I'm so excited to work with her again, even if it's only for one day.  I've been kind of stressed recently while working with Sister Boutu.  I basically have to do everything because she's so new and doesn't know marshallese very well yet.  She really seems to understand the grammar, but she doesn't want to speak much.  It's been hard because I can't just give her the things I don't know how to do or explain.  To help with this we just take members to all the lessons...but then sometimes I don't understand anything either and we just sit there and the member teaches the whole lesson.  It's kind of sad because I've been out a year, but I think it's more than people could speak up or more clearly and then I'd understand.  Anyway, I'm really excited to work with Tafili for a day and to get some help from her in my area.

This last week the elders introduced us to all of their investigators they're giving us, so we worked with them a lot.  It was good but a bit overwhelming.  We had a "kajemlok" or a going away dinner/ party with the kiribati family for the elders on friday night.  We had fried fish and chicken, sashimi, and rice, and then the elders made a pizza and we made a double recipe pumpkin pie in a 9x13 dish.  It was an odd mixture of food, but really good.

It was really windy and rained on Sunday during church.  After church the Bishop's family went home to find part of their roof missing.  We went over and helped sweep water out of the house and place buckets to try to collect some water as the men worked on nailing a couple more sheets of "tin"...just that corrugated sheet metal everyone uses for roofs here.  It's always really loud in houses when it rains on the tin roof!  I guess we've swept a lot of water out of houses this week.

Supposedly a few of the elders went out to Laura this morning to try to run from Laura to Rita, or one end of the island to the other.  It's about 30 miles long, so I think they're crazy.  I kind of want to get a few people together and bike it one p day.  I think that sounds a bit more reasonable that running 30 miles. 

P day ends in just a few hours so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be online.  I'm excited to move tomorrow! 

I hope you're all doing well.  Tootles,

Ellen