We Found a PIcture of Kevin!

Elder's from left... Tuiatano, Mifale'o, South and Ulmer. Elder South is the newest missionary in this photo and is getting help on his Chuukese language packet from Elder Ulmer as they wait their turn for interviews after zone conference. Our missionaries are really supportive of each other.

We were delighted to find this picture of Kevin on his Mission President's blog. We have not had any recent pictures due to the missing camera card mentioned in a previous post. The only thing we wondered was why he doesn't look more suntanned!

Turtle (Pwapwa) Soup

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thanks for the email even though you sent out a letter in the snail mail. It is always nice to hear from you guys as much as I can. So things are going great out here right now. The work is going great. We are on Weno right now because we had zone p-day yesterday. We were supposed to go back to our islands after everything but we ended up staying the night because our zone leader, Elder Hill, is leaving to Guam today to be the new zone leader there. It is a long story about the whole organization and why it is all happening. We are all sad to have to see Elder Hill leave. He is a stud missionary. We are all going to miss him a lot.
So about the missionary pal book, don't worry about getting the one in the best condition you can find. It doesn't matter to me at all. Just having one is great. I really could have used it the other day when we tracted into some guy who is a head church leader for one of the protestant churches here in Micronesia. He was really hard hearted and only wanted to bash. He says that none of our doctrine is in the Bible so I would have loved to show him how everything really is in there and the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. He said he was busy and could go back another day. We didn't get the chance to meet with him again though. It was probably a good thing. Contention isn't good so we avoided it I guess.
So we have a baptism coming up next week if the guy can stop smoking. We have been working on helping him with his struggles and he is showing some real heart and desire. We have been meeting with him for literally two times a day to make sure all is well. Hopefully it will all turn out good.
I wrote to you about this in a letter I sent out today but I think it would be neat for you to hear about it sooner because I know you have asked me about it a few times. I did get the chance to eat something cool the other day and I will eat it again tonight at a branch party. It is a soup with pwapwa in it (turtle). It is really really good. I love it. It is like a lean beef. I think that turtles are on the endangered species list or something because I know that it is illegal to have anything in the states made out of turtle shell. I wanted to send home some rings they make from the shell but I don't want to risk it. I heard it is a $10,000 fine. The turtle we are going to have tonight is huge! It is the biggest turtle a lot of the Chuukese have seen. I took pictures of it when they were dragging it over to the branch president's house. He lives right next to us so it is just laying on its back outside our house. It is sad to see it just have to sit there and wait to be killed. It tries really hard to flip itself over but it can't do it by itself. The little kids around us all torture it and throw rocks at it. We watch out for it and take care of it the best we can. They leave it sitting out in the sun all day and it seems like it would dry up so we take water out to it and pour it all over it. We just want it to have a little less suffering in its last few days. Even though it is illegal to kill them the Chuukese really don't care. They have eaten them for as long as they have lived here so it doesn't really dawn on them that the turtle is protected. They probably don't understand what it means that a species is in danger of becoming extinct. That would be a way complicated thing for these people to comprehend.
Well there really isn't much news for now. We have been working hard and things are going great. I have another letter from last week that I forgot to bring with me today but I will be having it sent out on the 20th so you will get that soon. That has a lot of the news from last week. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon. I hope all is going well. I am glad to hear that Grandpa is continuing to progress with everything. Give him and Grandma my love. I wrote them a letter that will be send out on the 20th as well.

Chuuk is Amazing

We were able to talk to Kevin on Mother's Day and then we received a letter today. Our house is a happy place to be!
Because of the time difference and Kevin's schedule, we talked to him at 11 PM on Saturday night. We were able to talk to him for about two hours. Even then, it was hard to hang up. It was so nice to be able to ask questions and get the answers right away. We noticed several things, such as that Kevin seems to talk with a draw and that he was extremely grateful and appreciative. He loves the packages he has been receiving. We expected him to say he loved the Werther Carmels and he surprised us by saying how wonderful it was to eat the canned chicken and the tortillas that Grandpa Bob and Grandma Helen sent.
We are sad to say that it will be a little while before we can post new pictures. Kevin sent us one of his two camera chips. We unloaded everything and sent it back quickly. The chip never made it to him so until we get another chip and mail it to him, he can't send us anything new. Sigh.. We are working on this.
Kevin says hello to everyone! He loves all the letters! He is excited to hear Skyler is going to Virginia! Wanlass family, he asked for your address which I have passed on to him.
The letter we received from Kevin starts with this paragraph, "Another week has gone by with some good memories made. All is well here in Tonoas right now. Nothing has changed. Then again, things in Chuuk never really do change. It stays awesome all the time."
Kevin says his Chuukese is progressing though he is impatient when he is not able to say what he wants to say. He has learned to love the people there and would love to be able to communicate better than he is.
Kevin gets a day off each week. For those of you who don't know about missions, this is called a P-day. Kevin said this last P-day he and his companion, Elder Wood, went exploring in an old World War Two tunnel. It started as a tunnel and turned into a cave. There were a lot of bats in there and Japanese remains. They saw many artifacts that were left behind, including items such as trays that the Japanese ate off of.
Since many of you are very interested in the Chuuk culture, I always ask Kevin a culture type question and he is getting pretty good about answering them. This time I asked him about school. He said, "The children do go to school here but it is not mandatory. Most only go a couple times a week. They have grades just like in the states. The problem is that there is only one school on the island and it is about 3 miles away from our house. that is a long way for the kids to walk. Most don't like doing it. School is only a few hours as well."
Kevin reports that he is teaching a mother with three children and a 15 year old boy. He is enjoying working with these people. His zone had 14 baptisms at this time last year and right now they have 42.
This week Kevin will be staying on Weno for 5 days as he attends a zone conference. There are 14 missionaries there and Kevin reports that he really enjoys working and hanging out with the other missionaries. He said several are as big of BYU fans as he is and he loves talking about all the "fun stuff" at BYU.
He will be hearing one of our church leaders named Elder Stevenson talk during zone conference and he is really looking forward to that. Kevin also mentioned how much he loved Elder Holland's talk from the last conference.
It is amazing how much Kevin has learned and experienced in the last three months. We are very excited for him and very proud of him.

Letters Make the Happiest Days

It is amazing how happy a letter can make two people! So, you can imagine how happy we were when we got not one, but two letters on Saturday! We are still not sure how the mail works since they were mailed a week apart. The following is a combination of the two letters.

Dear Mom and Dad,
I have been spoiled by chances to e-mail lately but I probably will not get a chance to e-mail again for awhile.
Things in Chuuk are going well. I have some exciting news! We had a baptism on Saturday. The guy's name is Atong. Guess who did the baptism? I did. It was awesome! I did it in Chuukese. We did it in the ocean. The water is really warm here and we all just waded out a little ways. I wanted a picture of it, but it was raining really hard so we couldn't get one. I did get one at the church afterwards. It would have been nice for you to see what it looked like in the ocean. Hopefully I will get a chance to baptize someone else in the ocean. It was a really good experience.
Thank you so much for the new socks. They will come in handy. When you send the crocs, send some that are easy to slip on and off. When you go into someone's house here it is bad culture to not take your shoes off even though the floors are just plywood with a lot of dirt on them.
You will be happy to hear we have water now. The dry season is over for now. Our tanks are overflowing. I did not think it would be possible to fill them, but then I saw what true rain is. In about 24 hours, with the rain coming and going for a total of about 4 hours of rain, the two tanks that hold about 100 gallons of water each were filled and the excess flowed over. It is nice to not have to worry so much about water and to not have to survive off of coconut milk.
Both of my companions were transferred and I have a new companion named Elder Wood. He is a good guy. He is from Oceanside, California and has a fairly large family. He is still learning the language too and so we are putting in a lot of extra language study at night. My brain is pretty much fried. I am praying for extra help.
We have a new missionary in our zone. I have not gotten the chance to meet him yet. His name is Elder Vanculman. I am not sure of the spelling. He is from from either Guam or Saipan. I will get to meet him in a few weeks when we have zone conference.
I got to go to my first Chuukese party a couple of days ago. The branch president's daughter was married a couple months ago and so they decided to have a celebration. It was pretty fun. It is customary here to give a dollar to the bride and groom and then you get as much food as you can eat. We were given a huge platter with a lot of different Chuukese foods. There was a lot of fish. Some was raw and some was cooked. There was also chicken, hot dogs, rice, pig, tapioca, and taro. It was all pretty good. I tried most of everything though none of it was anything to write home about. (haha, lame joke)
I am working hard to know the needs of the people here even though I do not understand them real well or know them real well.
Thank you so much for the packages. It has been amazing to have variety in my diet and the candy makes a good little snack. I also got a package full of food from grandpa Bob and grandma Helen. Tell Grandpa Duane, grandma Jenny, and Uncle Shaun that I got their peanut butter and honey and it will come in very useful here.
So I have a few questions. How is Grandpa Duane? And have you sold my car?
Tell everyone hi for me! I hope to hear from you soon!

A Terrifying Boat Trip to Weno

Dear Mom and Dad,
Hi! Everything is going great here. I am glad to hear that things are well with you. That sound like a fun trip that you will take to Half Moon Bay. I definitely miss golfing right now. It will be fun to golf with dad again in two years.

So I am on Weno right now for transfers. We all come in to do shopping and other stuff. I lost both of my companions and I get Elder Wood. He is a good guy and we will get along well. I don't know much about him but I will soon. It is going to be really strange only having one companion on Tonoas with me. I'll get used to it soon.

So don't worry about the Easter package. I have gotten four packages from you that have been amazing. Thank you so much for all the stuff you sent me. I also got grandma and grandpa's package. I sent them a letter earlier this week. I sent a letter out today to you that has some of the stuff that has been going on here lately.

So Easter didn't feel at all like Easter. They celebrate it here but not like we do. They don't have candy and have no idea what a rabbit even is so don't worry about sending eggs next year. They only celebrate it as a Catholic holiday (even the LDS members. Weird huh?).

I have some exciting news. I had my first baptism the other day. It was an awesome experience. I did it in Chuukese and in the ocean. I elaborated more in the letter so you will hear more about it then.

About me staying on Chuuk... I think I will be spending most of my time on Chuuk for my mission. It sounds like I will go to an English speaking zone around my year mark and then will return. That's how President Dowdle does it at least. He won't be my President the whole time like I thought. They only serve for two years here. It is too stressful with the traveling and extra responsibilities with District Presidents and stuff. I guess I will find out how it goes when the time comes.

We had an experience while coming to Weno that made my testimony stronger. We were literally in the hardest rain I have ever seen in my life in raging water. The waves were big and we could not travel fast. It was extremely cold because of the rain and we were all soaked. There was not a dry inch on any of us. To make it worse, it was raining so hard that it blanketed our sight beyond about 50 yards. We did not have any landmarks to gauge our position on. It was scary. The five elders in the boat got on our knees and joined together in prayer. The rain seemed to lighten and we soon found ourselves within sight of the shores of Weno. We were grateful to arrive safely.

So how is all the family doing? I haven't heard from Tori in a long time. Is Kolby better now? I would have more to tell you about but I put it in the letter. You will get it soon. Take care.
Love,
Elder Kevin South

An E-mail from Kevin

Dear Mom and Dad,
Thank you very much for the email. It is good to hear that everything is well back home. I am also excited to hear that Grandpa is recovering well.Things have been well here. We have been working hard. Nothing new or exciting has happened since my last letter. I am fortunate that I get to email you again this week. We had to come to Weno again for Elder Matuauto's ears. Nothing big, just a follow up appointment. We may be coming in next week as well. Next week we will be having transfers. I think that both of my companions will be leaving and I will be getting a new companion. I'm sure whoever that will be is going to be a great missionary. I would be happy to have any of the other Elders in my zone come to Tonoas with me.
In regards to the families we are teaching... Things are well. Unfortunately we have still been pushing for them to come to church but they will not take that step yet. We have dropped a few of their baptismal dates and may end up dropping them as investigators for the time. We have tried everything to get them to come. We have even offered to walk with them but the culture here is much different than what we are used to so they do not want us to walk with them. All we can do with them is pray and continue to encourage them.

Do not worry about me not making friends with my investigators. I do what I can to be kind to them but there is not much I can do as of now. I say hello to people when I pass and smile. There isn't much more I can do now but the time will come when I can do more.The language is continuing to improve. I have been able to have simple conversations with people but nothing beyond that. I know as I continue to be diligent in studying it the Lord will bless me.

So as for mom's questions:There are about 5 cars on Tonoas. They are barely ever going around and there is no gas station there so they have to go to Weno to get gas in the cans.
There are stores on Weno but none on Tonoas.
The people here do eat a lot of seafood. They fish all the time and come back with a lot of fish. I haven't tried any of it yet but hopefully I will soon.
We do have a small refrigerator in our house. Nothing fancy but it has enough space for bottles of water.
Well I hope that everything is still going well back home. I am excited to hear from you again. I love you so much.
Love,
Elder Kevin South

p.s. I have not received your packages yet but they will probably be here shortly. The mail is reliable here so you do not have to worry about it at all.

Note from DeRonda

I had asked Kevin about cars on Weno and had received his e-mail when I happened to look at his mission president's blog and noticed they had also discussed gas on their blog. I have taken these two pictures off of their blog.

This is Home!

Here are several videos that Kevin sent home on his camera chip.