It's Been a Good Week and a Bad Week

The picture above shows a friend of Kevin's on the island of Tonoas. Behind him you can see blue water tanks. Chuuk is experiencing a drought and the tanks on the islands are now empty.

Surrounded by water, but none in the water tanks

2-23-2009
Dear Mom and Dad,
Another week has gone by, but this week there were problems abounding. Today we were suppose to go to Weno and have zone conference, but for some reason it was postponed. We got all ready to got this morning and waited and waited and waited, but the boat never showed up. I can't say I am not getting used to that yet! We don't have a phone here either so we had to go find someone who did have one. We called and found out that we won't be going until next Thursday so our whole day was messed up. It's a p-day though so that isn't too bad. It does throw off the rest of the week though too.
Through all the bad news there is some good news. Our investigator, George, is doing way good and is going to get baptized this week. We have to figure out how everything will happen without any problems because we will now leave on Thursday for zone conference and we won't be back until Saturday which is the day of the baptism. I am sure everything will happen just fine. I am excited for George and he is pretty stoked. During my first transfer here we worked with him and then he lost interest, we tried again and now he is getting baptized! It was a fun adventure with George. He is a clown.
So other than George's baptism the news from this week kind of stinks. We are in a drought right now and our tanks have only about twenty gallons left in them. Our water pump broke again so we now bathe in the ocean and then fill a bucket of water from the tank and use that to get the salt off. For drinking water we have a filter that Elder Schuler's family sent him while he was on Uman. We bring water from the only couple of tanks that have water any more. They are for the church bathrooms, but it is still just rain water. The tanks are super filthy but the filter cleans the water so it doesn't matter. I don't know how long the tanks are going to last until they are empty. Probably not long. All the tanks that the church provides for the community are completely empty now. The wells on the island are dry too. We received news from the Guam weather station that it may be a few more months until it rains again. They said maybe even 4 to 6 months. I know they can't predict that accurately and they did not take into account the power of prayer and fasting. Life without water is not the most enjoyable thing, but life continues and the work is good so that is what matters.
Right now the work is strong and we have good things going on. We have the potential of 4 or 5 baptisms in the next couple of months. Most of them depend on helping people overcome family issues. It is possible though and the Lord will prepare the way. So the news is not all bad this week. Conditions are poor right now but the work is good and to me that is all that matters.
I tried a new food this week. Shark! We paid one of the kids to catch one for us and he ended up with two. They were each about two feet long. I took some cool pictures of them while they were still fresh. We fried them up and they were pretty good. It was like white meat almost. It is not like the typical fish meal (which I also love!) I am hoping to get some more soon. We told the kid if he caught us a 4 foot one we would get him a basketball. A 4 foot one can't do much to a kid so don't worry about that at all.
Since we haven't gone in to Weno yet I haven't heard from you again. I don't have anything to respond to. Hopefully next week. I hope you are both doing good and all is well. Thanks for everything you do!
Love Always,
Elder Kevin South