This week has been....interesting. It didn't start out great, but it ended well. (Editor's note: there is a paragraph here that I've removed about her companion relationship.)
I've been here for one month now. Holy cow. Happy anniversary, Annie and Travis! I realized that yesterday...except it's really today for you.
Last P day my district went out to eat at a fancy restaurant (fancy for the marshall islands) and I splurged and got a hamburger and a slice of banana cream pie. It was a great decision. It was so nice to eat real, good food. The banana cream pie was so good because the bananas were of course real and delicious.
Ellen and her friend, Neine
Annie and Kate, I didn't get the package last week, but I should for sure get it this week. :)
Oh, I finally found a type of breadfruit that I like. It's called Kwanjen me, and it's breadfruit that is roasted on hot coals and then the black skin is scraped off. One then pulls off a chunk of it and dips it in oil and salt. Of course it's the best way to eat breadfruit...it's roasted and has oil on it. Boiling breadfruit instead of roasting it is like boiling eggplant instead of roasting it: just plain stupid and the waste of a perfectly good vegetable.
Someone gave Ellen a pumpkin this week! She asked for pumpkin recipes.
On Thursday sister Ieie and I went on an exchange, which was really fun. The zone leaders came and picked us up in Laura wednesday evening and then drove us to Long island, and then sister Tofa came back with me to Laura. It was fun to work with someone else for a day. Sister Tofa has been here for 3 or 4 months and she's really fun. Her Marshallese isn't great though, so it forced me to talk more and of course I realized I can say a lot more than I think I can. It was also really fun to drive to long island and back two nights in a row and spend some time with our zone leaders, who are much nicer than the awkward Laura elders.
I got my hair braided by a Marshallese woman this week, and she put a lot of coconut oil in it. It was kind of gross and it didn't wash out very easily, but I'm sure it was good for my hair.
The power was off in Laura Sunday morning and so the ceiling fans weren't running. It was miserably hot.
We had a good experience with Alje this week. She's probably our investigator that's doing the best. She had a baptismal date, but we needed her to get married to her boyfriend that she lives with. Well, this week he left her and went back to his ex-wife in Rita and so she stayed around at his house for a couple of days and then went back to her mom's house in Arrak. We found out what happened on Thursday when Sister Tofa was out in Laura with me, and Alje was just crying and crying during our lesson. When Ieie came back to Laura we heard Alje had left. We got permission from our DL to go to Arrak to find her, and we eventually found her. She was so happy to see us and before we could ask her if she wanted to continue studying with us, she asked when we could study next. We went the next evening and we had a really great lesson with her. We read ether 12:27 with her, and as she read it she got a big smile on her face and she said she knew it was true because she has so many weaknesses and the problem with her ex, and she knew she could get better and stronger. She said she wants to keep her same baptismal date, which is good because our DL said we could only keep studying with her (because she lives so far out of our area) if we could tell she's actually going to keep progressing. So that was really great. And she came to church on sunday, which I think is the first time we've had an investigator come to church. Laura is a really difficult area...my companion misses Delap (town) so much because she says the work actually progresses there.
Sister Jolet and Sister Binejal in their matching dresses after church
Sometimes I come across some really funny things in english. We were sitting talking to our investigator Janet the other day, and she had a partially cut up magazine in english that she was trying to read. I took a look at it, and it was a Clemson Football magazine from '94. I wonder what pointless books and magazines have been sent here over the years.
It rains almost everyday here and last night we got soaked coming home. We decided to wash our hair under the gutter spout so I ran in and grabbed shampoo and conditioner. It was really fun. Afterward, we went in and threw our clothes in the spinner for 2 minutes. I love our washing machine and spinner. It's so useful.
We have zone p day today, meaning we're playing sports with the zone in long island after shopping, which should be fun. It's so nice to see other people during the week.
I made chocolate chip cookies this week for some of our investigators and less actives...and holy cow, I need to stop. The people go a little crazy because that recipe we have is so good. I think I need a bad chocolate chip cookie recipe so that people don't keep asking me to make them cookies. I'm pretty sure all we're going to do is eat this week because we have a million going away parties for sister Ieie this week.
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Bubu Jableke (left), and Tomiko (top middle) and some other ladies from he ward
I love having green coconuts to drink. We got a whole box of them from a family this week, so it's been nice to drink them whenever. I'm getting better at using my thumb to poke a hole in the coconut.
I miss you all. Thanks for the letters and emails!
Sister Butler
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