Staying Put for Another Transfer

Dear Mom and Dad,
Well, this has been another eventful week. I just barely got back from Guam about an hour and a half ago. On the way from Chuuk to Pohnpei I got to sit next to the branch president from one of the Chuuk branches. He is also one of the FM workers (that's why he came to Pohnpei) so I knew him pretty well. It was great being able to talk to him and see how everything was going. I came back to Pohnpei alone today. Elder Brandenburg had to stay on Guam to get his back looked at by a chiropractor. He has bad posture and it has caused pain now. I don't know what they will do but he is going to come back on Wednesday. Being on Guam was a lot of fun. There are a lot of big changes within the mission now. We had a lot of new faces at the council. Elder T from my MTC group is the new AP. He is really mad about it because he had to leave Chuuk. He wants to be back there really bad. Elder Krause is going to go back and be the new zone leader. Within every zone there was a change in zone leader except for Pohnpei. Elder Brandenburg and I will be together for a third one here. I can't imagine going another one past that though. It is extremely rare to go with the same companion for more than three. I don't know where I will go next transfer but if I leave but there are a few possibilities. Chuuk and Guam are both in that pool. Only time will tell. For now, I am happy to be able to stay in Palikir for another transfer. There is a lot going on here that I want to see.
There weren't any baptisms this week. They will possibly happen this week. It is really up to them though. We are going to have general conference rebroadcast here on Saturday and Sunday so they may get baptized on Friday. If they do they will have to wait for a whole week to get confirmed. It has to be done in a sacrament meeting. Tonight I am going to see them and see how they feel. Last month I know I told you that the zone set a goal of 22 for baptisms. We ended with 3 which was sad. The zone didn't get the idea of how to set an effective goal. We tried to explain it better this last week and have everyone do it again. We had a bit of a miscommunication though. The zone set it for 26. Elder Brandenburg and I went to the zone leader council wondering what to do. We set a goal for the zone at 8 and made that the official one. I asked for help with how to handle the situation and what it was that we did wrong in getting everyone to set it. President basically said that everyone is just losing sight of reality. That's why we chose to set it at 8. The best month Pohnpei has seen this year is 14 and that was an explosive month (Feb.). I have confidence in 8 as our new goal.
I did get the camera chip and got to see all the pictures from Alaska. It looks amazing up there. Some of the videos you got were awesome. One of the new elders in our zone (Elder Carlson) is from Anchorage and we had an exchange together so we got to talk about stuff up there.
I also had an exchange with Elder Donakey this week (lots of exchanges this week). It was fun to go with him. We were together down in Kitti. He went to BYU for a bit before he came out so we have that in common and we both really like basketball. He is a good missionary and has picked up on Pohnpeian really fast.
Well, I guess that is all that is new and exciting here. The work is still great here and life is good. Thanks for all you do for me. I love you both.
Love Always,
Elder Kevin South