Missionaries Gather on Pohnpei

The picture below was taken during one of Kevin's trips to Guam for Zone Leader conference.

August 15, 2010
Dear Mom and Dad,
I hope you get the letter I sent off last week soon. It has most of the stuff that happened last week but I’ll give you a brief update here.
Last Saturday we went to Guam and that night we had the service project that you saw on Brother and Sister Clarke's blog. I have no idea who’s house it was but it was good to be there helping them. It was a good bonding time for all of the missionaries too. On Sunday we went to church at the Barrigada branch and that was awesome. I joined the Chuukese Sunday school class again for kicks. It is fun being with all of them again and Elder T and Elder Vankomen were the teachers. After church we ran over to the mission home and then had our zone leader council. President Dowdle gave us a training on the Doctrine of Christ. It was a great training which was the first of the eight sessions during the leadership training later that week. When the Zone leader council was over we went back to the different houses and the next morning we woke up really early and went to the airport. It wasn’t much of a sit around kind of trip to Guam. We got in and out really quick. President flew out with us along with the 2 Assistants. We picked up 3 more Chuuk elders on the way to Pohnpei too. When we got to Pohnpei we got off with the Assistants and the 5 Chuuk elders (2 Zone leaders and 3 district leaders). It was so much fun with all the Chuuk elders again. Elder T, Elder Vankomen, Elder Wood, Elder Sears, and Elder Reiri were all there. That Monday we took a hike up to the top of one of the mountains here and saw some old Japanese guns. It was a good bonding time for us all. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took up there got erased somehow by my camera which is really lame and while we were hiking people broke into our car and stole a bunch of stuff. I had like $80 stolen from me and others had money and watches taken. It was not the greatest. While we were on the hike President Dowdle continued the flight on to Kosrae with the one zone leader from there. They got there that day and had their zone conference then came straight back to Pohnpei. There was the one zone leader, Elder Wilson, and 1 district leader from there, Elder Mathews. They came in on Tuesday and as soon as President got in we started our zone conference. It was a good one. We didn’t give a training which was nice. Preparing a training through all the stuff we had to do already would have been impossible. We had to figure out meals for zone conference and the days of leadership training while also getting 9 extra elders around island while also taking care of our area and all other responsibilities that we typically do. The leadership training was great. 4 straight days of spiritual feasting. The training focused a lot on us teaching by the Spirit and being led by Him in all things. Everything we learned is going to help the people of Micronesia so much. I have seen great changes already. That training was every day from Wednesday until Saturday. As soon as we finished on Saturday we had to run all the Chuuk elders and the assistants over to the airport. They left that afternoon and we had the 2 elders from Kosrae stay with us until today. We just barely came from the airport. We took them there so they can go back. Today was the end of all the hectic stuff. It feels great too! It will come again though. We have a district leader council tomorrow which won’t be too bad but on September 4 we go to Guam again for zone leader council. A couple weeks after that we have another leadership training here on Pohnpei.
That was the crazy of last week but there was good too. We started work in a new area called Sekere and there are a lot of great people there who will get baptized. I am excited to start working with all of them. The branch is a huge help there too. As for investigators in our area we have some that are still making good progress. Selerihna’s kids probably won’t get baptized this month but they will in September. Synthia just needs a little more time. Donna is ready but we want to baptize them together. Armstrong is doing alright but hasn’t talked to his dad yet. We are going to get one of the members to go with us to talk to the dad again so we can get permission. I pray that all that will go well. We have another newer investigator who has so much potential. Her name is Maleen. In the lesson last night the Spirit was so strong and it taught here truth and I know it testified to her about the Book of Mormon. She just needs to identify the feelings that she is having. That is our next lesson with her for sure. That is one of the things that the leadership training taught us to do so I am excited to apply that. The work is going good in Palikir and Pohnpei right now. There were 4 baptisms on Saturday in Sokehs (Elder Parker’s area) and more will follow in the next upcoming weeks.
Your Alaska trip sounds like it is going to be a great time for everyone. Take a lot of pictures of the snow for me. I have forgotten it a lot and love to see it. Take pictures of all the bear and moose. I got a chance to see Jaxson and Kolby in the videos you sent. They are a lot bigger than the last set you sent out. It is amazing.
I continue to pray for Grandpa Duane. I am glad to hear he is still making progress. I love Grandpa and want to see him have a full recovery. Tell him and Grandma that I am looking forward to sushi when I see them again!
Please let Aunt Lisa know that I am sorry to hear about Uncle Roland passing away. I know that he is out of pain and in a great place, but he is missed here on earth.
I could hardly believe it when mom wrote that I have been out for 18 months now. It doesn’t feel like it has been that long. I am grateful that I still have a long time left. The tradition for 18 months is burning pants. I couldn’t bring myself to burn a good pair of pants so I cut out the back left pocket and burned half of that. The other half I kept and wrote on it so I can keep it. I did have a video of the experience but it got erased on the card with everything else. Life goes on though.
I haven’t gotten the new football articles yet but I am looking forward to it. Uncle Shaun wrote me last week and talked about BYU possibly becoming independent. I was surprised by that one. Tell me how everything develops in those regards. Right now I think the biggest thing on my mind though is crushing UNR! I hope we pound them into the ground and kick their mommas while doing it!! Haha jk….. but not really.
Well, that’s all from this week really. I hope you have an amazing time on your trip to Alaska. I am looking forward to hearing about it soon. Thank you for everything you both do for me.
Love Always,
Elder Kevin South
p.s. Mom asked about sending out anything like shower gel and that would be great. Can you send out the Axe one that has dragon fruit in it? I think it is called fever. I really liked that one in the small bottle you sent out. Thank you!