Baptisms for the New Year

In January we had the baptism of Ned Gallen Jack.  He had been taught by Elders Rufus and Madsen.  President Ben Alokoa baptized him.  He is a  young man in his twenties and will be a great addition to the Lelu Branch.  He has a strong testimony and desire to do those things that are right. He now goes with the Elders as they teach others who want to hear the Gospel. 

February saw the baptism of three people.  We started out the month with the baptism of Milson Albert.  He had been taught for quite some time by Elders Rufus and Madsen and was very excited for his baptism.  His wife was already a member and now they attend each Sunday together.  Milson was baptize by Brother Paul Nena.



A couple of weeks later we had the baptism of Divinson George.  He is a 12 year old boy who is handicapped and does not have the use of his legs.  He uses a wheelchair to get around.  He is very intelligent and speaks excellent English as well as his own native language.  This was the first baptism that we have been able to attend where it was held in the ocean.  We held the service at the home of Divinson and then went out to the ocean that is located directly behind his house. 

 Our Branch President carried him out into the water while two of the Elders, Coffey and Agalzoff, looked for a spot deep enough to immerse him.  When they found it, Elder Conejero held onto Divinson and baptized him.  Divinson wanted the baptism here so that his entire family could be present for it.  He is the first person in his family to be baptized.  It was a very special service and the family seemed to be excited for him. 

This was a great experience for us to witness a baptism in the ocean.  Divinson was taught by Elder Coffey and Conejero.

 

The last weekend in the month we held the baptism of Sammy Miklos.  He is an 8 year old boy in the Lelu Branch.  He was baptized by his father Ken who has only been a member himself for about 18 months.  This also was a very excited young boy who looked forward to his baptism.  We have had the privilege of home teaching this family.

A Month of Conferences

It all started with a Senior Couple Conference on January 16-17th.  We flew into Guam on the Saturday before the Conference and were able to attend the Barrigada Ward on Sunday.  We stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Guam with 9 other senior couples.  Since our last conference in July, we have had four couples return home who have been replaced and the mission has added an additional four couples, so we met 8 new couples in the mission.  Three of the couples plus our nurse live in Guam. We had 25 senior missionaries to the conference.  Each of the couples presented a stewardship report of what they have been doing since we last met.  Some are involved in Seminary and Institute, Humanitarian--medical, family history, member support and leadership, office work, and mission nurse. They are very talented and bring many gifts with them to do the Lord's work here in Micronesia.  We were were instructed by President Mecham, our Mission President.  He helped us to set goals for member reactivation.  He has a great vision on how to build the Church here in this mission.  Each island has its own goal and ours is 17 members to be reactivated.  The total for the entire mission for this year is 348. We came away inspired and ready to do all we can to move the work forward.   Besides all the great instructions we also had fun eating and doing things together.

   Here we are at the mission home enjoying a Sunday afternoon dinner together.  This is a beautiful and spacious house with enough room for all of us.  The President cooked a great BBQ and it was wonderful to eat all the things that we do not usually get to eat. 

One week after we returned from Guam we held our Zone Conference under the direction of our Mission President.  It was great to have him and his wife on the island.  We actually were able to spend some extra time with them as the plane going back to Guam did not stop at our island the day they were scheduled to leave.  The next plane was not for three more days.  It was a great treat and blessing for us, but he had to cancel the zone conferences on two other islands because of this delay.  We have 6 great Elders serving here with us and they each took part in the conference.  We met for two hours and then had dinner, which I prepared with very limited supplies as we have not had a boat coming here for more than a month.  Then we met for a couple more hours and ended up with each person having an individual interview with the President.  These conferences are so great and our zone leaders do most of the work for them.   We have one of them every quarter so it will be about 3 more months before we have another zone conference.

One week later we had the Kosrae District Conference and the Mission President and his wife returned along with Elder Michael Ringwood, of the First Quorum of the Seventy, and his wife,  He is 1st counselor in the Asia North Area and lives in Tokyo.  Meetings were held on both Saturday and Sunday.  It was somewhat warm as our air conditioning was not working in the building.  Extra floor fans were purchased to help circulate and cool the air.  While the men were being instructed in a Priesthood session on Saturday afternoon, the women held an auxiliary meeting.  It was so great to be a part of this.  Instruction was given on how to prepare physically and spiritually for your calling and how to minister to those you serve. One of the things that Elder Ringwood counseled the members on was that the Gospel is simple and we need to do three things;  Believe in Heavenly Father, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and to keep the commandments.

On Monday, we held a missionary conference in the morning with Elder Ringwood.  May I say that it is such an honor and great blessing to be instructed by a General Authority.  What makes it even more special is that the Church sent him to an island with only about 300 members and to meet with 6 Elders and one senior couple on a very small scale.  That does not happen very often and all of us that had this privilege felt so blessed to be a recipient.  We were able to ask questions of him and learned much about how the Quorum of Seventy functions.  He then taught us many great principles and attributes that missionaries need.  We also learned more about Nephi's faith and obedience and how we need to implement the same things in our own lives.  I was able to serve dinner to Elder and Sister Ringwood and President and Sister Mecham on Sunday in our home.  A never to be forgotten event.