January 21, 2013

dear family,

salamat po for you letters:) (also, masarap young bugain means the food is very good to a filipino)
before i forget (because i usually do), please dont send me anymore stamps. we can't use them here for some reason. we always just have to buy a 45c stamp at the post office. i will send all of the stamps back to you in a letter. sorry for not telling you this sooner, it just always slips my mind until after im done emailing:(

so im gonna write about something crazy (and kind of long and descriptive. maybe you will want to edit it if it ends up going to the ward newsletter). to preface it, i will say that i know God lives; and because God lives and there are angels of God, Satan lives and there are angels of the devil. now that i've scared the living daylights out of mom, here we go:

we went to teach a less-active family and have a FHE with them. to get to their house, we have to walk past another house where an old, slightly crippled woman lives. as we walked past, elder conejero told me to be careful, because she throws rocks at missionaries. anyway, she heard us walk past her house, but it took her a little while to come out, and by that time we were in the other house. (realize that most of the houses here dont really have doors) but while we were starting to talk with the family, she limped up to the doorway and started mumbling under her breath and staring at us (i say us, but she could really only see me because of where we were sitting). i dont think i have ever seen any creature on this planet look more...creepily unhappy. so, not really knowing what to do, i looked her straight in the eye and gave her my most cheerful "ke wo!" (good evening). she didn't really take that well and went and sat down to wait for us to leave.

so the lesson went well and everybody was happy--except of course for the crazy person outside--and then it was time to leave. as we were walking towards this being, i had an odd feeling. i felt the spirit's presence, but at the same time, the complete lack of it. i don't really know how to describe it. picture yourself in a blizzard, and not feeling cold or worried. she shambled up to us and started threatening us and mumbling weird stuff, but she didn't throw any rocks and we just walked away with a "fong wo" (good night).

well that was fun:)
as for other church leaders, a couple of the island's investigators are lay ministers (i try really hard not to laugh when they refer to them as laymins). but for the most part, they don't really talk to us. the Jehovah witnesses are actually probably some of our closest non member friends. go figure.

andy! you broke your arm buddy! what happened?! sounds like you were really flying! i hope you are able to keep doing stuff with a cast on.

so it sounds like it is missionary season down there and they're all getting ripe. im really happy for all of them and hope that everything goes perfectly for them. if you get the chance, tell them hi from me, but don't sweat it; im gonna try to write them letters.

pops, you could be in berlin!!! i'll pray for it, but know that mom is probably praying for you not to go;);)

as for other package requests, hot chocolate is always a treat.

i love hearing about all the stuff that is going on with your class, mom. keep up the stellar work and they will all remember you forever.

oh, something i realized is that in a lot of letters people have sent to me, they ask about the mission and how it is set up, and i haven't really answered them. so i'll try to explain a little bit better: there are 3 companionships and a senior couple. normally, a missionary will stay on his island for about 18 months and then get transferred to another island (usually guam). pres. mecham flies out for a zone conference every 3 months and is actually coming today. usually there is a companion swap every transfer to another area, but we are all kind of waiting for elder conejero and elder vesikula to get transferred off the island since their kosrae time is just about up.
there is a place on the island called waclung that doesnt have missionaries yet. elder despain and i are hoping to open it.
district meetings and zone meetings are pretty much the same.

i hope i answered a couple of questions:)

love,
Elder Gerber

January 13, 2013

hello everybody:)

thanks for the pictures! it looks like snowloads of fun back there:) when i read that the storm was called gandalf, i had to show everybody in the internet booth here:)

thank you for having the missionaries over for dinner. getting fed by people here is a fantastic experience that sadly doesn't happen too often. we were fed last night, though, by one of our investigators. she is a filipino that only speaks tagolog, so elder conejero is able to teach her while i sit there and smile and pray:) she is super nice and funny and told us she wants to treat us like her kids since her own kids are still in the phillipines and have kids of their own. she is really receptive and wants to receive her answer from God. and she makes delicious food. she even made taro leaves palatable;)

i realized the other day that a good few of my friends were leaving around now; some are already in the EmptySea. good luck elders and sisters:)

the relief society translation huh? honestly, you don't have a translation yet because there really isn't one. they would just spell relief society like rilif sosaceti. "charity never faileth" could be "lungse pwaye orekma pacl nu kewa" but that really means charity works all the time. there isn't a word for never. i guess for relief society you could say "mwet suc kasruh mwet" but that means people who help people. really, they just say relief society. there are quite a few english words that kosraeans just adapted the spelling.

the bit about driving in the snow made me smile a little. let me explain: driving in slippery mud and driving in slippery snow are pretty similar. it takes practice. poor elder conejero grew up in downtown manilla, so has not had much experience in either. i have had to get out and push a couple of times. im really glad you were safe and protected:)

im really glad my letters made it home! im still writing and writing and writing and writing them. hopefully they will all be sent by today.

so we are trying really hard to find new people to teach, and apparently, satan is trying really hard to stop people from listening to us. he has two main tools here: drugs and traditions. most people here were brought up in the protestant church, and have a really hard time letting go of  doctrines. i am reminded of the early jewish christians who had a really hard time of letting go of the law of moses. that is kind of the situation here. it gets a little frustrating. but, things are getting better:)

it has been a really hard past week. we've been getting sick with things that are just serious enough to keep us in the house for a day; a couple of people are scared of their neighbors and so they ask us not to come back; members are going less active because the protestant church here taught that if you make a mistake, you aren't worthy to go to church; etc. But, spiritually and scientifically, the more force applied one way, the more force applied the other. we are seeing miracles and progress. we are sharpening our focus and becoming more effective. we have been able to be extremely bold with people and they accept it. for some reason, it is always easier to focus on the hard things than on the incredibly awesome things.

as for the package, peanut butter, hot chocolate, granola bars (really just snack food to eat when we're running out of time), and maybe a little more pero if possible. if not, it really is not a big deal. 

thank you so much for the news and i hope things continue to go well (and if things aren't going well right now and you just aren't telling me about it, i hope they get better). i love you all so much and look forward to hearing from you.

love,
Elder Gerber

ps, i heard a lot of kosraean swear words yesterday and realized just how blessed i am that i don't remember them or recognize what they sound like. im sure people have sworn at us and we are still able to just smile and wave:)

Christmas Chat with Sam

We got to skype with Sam on Christmas Eve.  Everyone was there, and we had so much fun seeing him.  That cute kid just would not stop grinning and he seemed so happy.  It was so good to talk, and let him see his little nephew, have his brothers play their instruments and feel his wonderful spirit.  He has already grown so much, and we loved sharing in his spirit!

January 7, 2012

dear family:)

happy new year nuh sumtahl pa!
it sounds super cold back at the ranch...i remember cold...i think.

i love wearing my fast sunday tie, too. i actually gave andy's to harry george because he felt really bad he didn't have one while he was participating in priesthood ordinances.

story time: so a member died this last week. he was a previous branch president and was really well known and liked. but to put it lightly, funerals here are different. elder conejero and i were told that we needed to go to the funeral. so, we went to the house around 9:15 at night, and there was the dead guy in the middle of the floor with everybody sitting around him. we were given special seats of honor...right next to him. maybe to help you understand a little better, watch the other side of heaven funeral scene. dad will probably know exactly what i mean anyway. also, we were the ones who lifted him up and put him in his coffin. i kind of felt bad when the only scripture verse that really came to mind was, "Let the dead bury the dead..." i have decided that i will never get a job even remotely related to dead bodies:)

the miracle for this week:
elder conejero goes to guam every month for zone leader training, so me and elder despain have been in lelu together for the past couple of days. on saturday, we ran into an apostate member. we were able to teach a lesson about going to church. i was super bold and borderline stubborn with the guy about his needing to come to church. the next day (fast sunday), he not only showed up, but also bore a pretty good testimony. i'll admit, i was pretty scared when he stood up, but it turned out pretty well:)

all of my bugbites have gone away, im one of the two elders here who aren't sick, and things are progressing. things are good:)

oh, i keep finding out im saying things in kosraean wrong, but the beauty of kosraean is that the words all sound similar enough, and there are a couple of different dialects, that people still understand what i'm saying. odd kosraean phrase of the week: yacn acngyacng. in the first vision, joseph smith says "standing above me in the air." yacn means land and acngyacng means windy. does it make sense to an english speaker? no. does it make sense to kosraeans? not sure yet:)

so i am swamped trying to write everybody back. thank you soo much for your letters and gifts. they all came when they were needed, and i really want to write to all of you, so know that i am trying really hard to get those sent. also know that if you think the post office hours in the states are ridiculous, the kosraean post office sometimes decides it doesn't even want to open somedays. so, sometimes, getting a letter sent off is harder than just writing it. i guess im trying to say, "im sorry i haven't sent your letters yet. i will take care of it." :):)

i love you all very much and appreciate you and your examples.

love,
Elder gerber

ps, 39 steps is fantastic. let me know if the play was good or a let down

December 30, 2012

dear everybody:)

this morning elder eldredge stopped by our house before we left and told me i had too much mail and gave me a boatload of letters. without even having to look at who they were from, i apologized to him and said "i'm sorry your family isn't as great as mine." ;) but really, all of the letters i have received are incredible and i am very grateful to all who wrote to me to show support, give advice, boost morale, and wish me happy holidays:) i am trying to write back to each and every one of you, but i only have about 40 min a week to write, so i am trying to just go by order of date received. please be patient with me:)

it is always a little gratifying to one's pride to hear that you were the highlight of someone else's christmas. i treasure that experience as well:) i love you all so much and it was great to see you guys. i loved hearing owen and andy play their instruments and just so they know, they have letters coming eventually. also, it was crazy to see christian again and see how much more of him there is;) it was great to see and talk to ken and kyle and leslie and jesse. really, you all have letters coming, im just not sure when they will arrive.

im glad that my present to the boys was appreciated and used:) oh we threw some soft taro in the oom as well and it was actually pretty good. i still cant palate fafa though (mashed banana, kaki [grated coconut], and taro).

so something that has kind of just happened is that everyday i look for and expect miracles, and then write them down in my journal (or try to write them down in my journal. i at least try to remember them long enough to record them somewhere).
so, the miracle i want to talk about happened on friday: everything that could have gone wrong that morning, went wrong. i realized i didn't have a clean pair of pants to wear, i hadn't slept that night due to a terrible sore throat, i spilled my chicken on the floor, etc. then, right before we were about to go proselyte, i started feeling really sick. sick enough to feel like i wouldn't be able to work. i said yet another prayer and asked for just enough strength to work. then, still feeling awful, we got in the truck. i felt sick all the way to the point where we parked. as soon as i stepped out of the truck and we started walking, i immediately felt better. we taught a lot of people that day and we taught a lot of good lessons.
also, that same day, we were teaching a man when it started raining outside. something that came to mind was that i had been blessed that i would see the elements tamed. so, when we went outside, i kept that blessing in mind. and, the rain stopped around us. it was still raining but we didn't get wet. oh, my crocs got wet, and my hair got a little damp, but other than that, i was dry. for some reason, i wasn't supposed to get wet that day. i wonder if it had anything to do with my sickness. either way, i am grateful for every miracle here and i want everyone at home to know that miracles are very real:)

grandma and grandpa schwendiman have sent me excerpts of spencer's letters and he sounds like he is an incredible missionary. i hope to be able to work as hard as him and be as effective as he is. his letters reminded me of just how similar people are to each other and how the gospel is the same everywhere.

christmas has continued up until today and will end tonight;) with the celebrating, there has been a lot of drinking and drug-doing. it has been incredible to teach at this time. i'm not really sure how to explain it: we will be talking to somebody who we know had been drunk or who is smoking at that moment, and all of the sudden i just hear words come out of my mouth telling that person to repent. and i mean like super bluntly. similar to, "smoking is a sin. that cigarette you are holding is stopping you from enjoying peace." ...i am not a very bold person when it comes to calling people to repentance, but God is.

im trying to write you all so i am cutting this email a little shorter than usual to give me time to keep writing. hopefully you will all get more news through these letters:)

i love you all very much and pray for you. thank you for everything--everything i receive from you guys is treasured:)

love,
Elder Gerber

ps, i would love to get some addresses from the old gang of friends.

December 23, 2012

dear family:)
i got one package from home and it was absolutely perfect. actually, i got it last monday about an hour after i emailed you all. anyway, thank you sooo much for all of it. it was so obviously thought out (dont worry, i got the humor of the solar snowman). i have to admit, i was so excited, i opened it all that day. i love you all so much.

as for the kosraean book of mormon, it is being worked on. last i heard, the translating team was working on 3 Nep, but the editing and confirmation team is only in Mosiah. so there won't be a book of mormon here for another couple of years:(

home sounds like you guys are pretty busy and having a good time:) i am happy to hear you are doing so much together. something missing here on kosrae is good solid family relationships. it might be that since everybody is related somehow or other, they dont consider it to be a big deal. or maybe im just not understanding correctly.

all the elders are staying at our house right now. we got up really early today and went fishing. collectively we caught a grand total of one fish. and it was about 6 inches long. i took a nap:) but we did get some really great pictures. we are working on our oom for tomorrow and have been playing ping pong:)

there are two miracles i want to talk about. they both have happened a few times. the first is we wont be able to find our consecrated oil for a few days; then randomly find it in an obscure pocket. later that day, somebody asks us for a blessing.
the second one is a little more conditional on attitude. i'll be feeling pretty hungry or thirsty. when i keep a good attitude and forget about it, somebody offers us food or water. but if i start feeling like i don't really want to work anymore, that doesn't happen as often.
oh yeah, miracles exist.

so all of our baptisms for christmas have fallen through. the people we were really hoping for, didn't come to church or didn't keep their commitments. the christmas season is really hard here because everyone we want to visit is busy or gone, and everyone else is busy getting drunk.

fun kosraean phrase of the week: bako matohm (literally, shark your face) it means i feel sorry for you. also, atro matohm means your eyeballs, but literally means egg you face. i have had fun saying these to people:)

we have been teaching a girl and she really wants to get baptized, but her mom hasn't been letting her. the odd thing about it is, her mom had a dream where her ancestor came to her and told her to let her daughter get baptized; but the next night a devil (like with horns and stuff) told her not to listen to the missionaries. i guess i am confused because it is so obvious who she should listen to. anyway, i think that given a little more time, she will allow it.

i love you guys so much. i pray for you and hope you are all doing well and are as happy as can possibly be. 
love,
Elder Gerber

ps, i have been loving the uke book. i got a uke now too and have been having a good time with it:)

December 16, 2012

hello everybody:)
first off, there is no such thing as a letter that is too long, so don't feel pressured to condense anything or leave anything out;)

our plans for christmas is to have a sleepover with the all the elders, get up really early and go fishing, make an oom, and have a small celebration. then we will go to the Eldredge's and call home:) it should be fun

as for kosraean and present, future, and past tenses, there is a slight rule. the word "ac" (pronounced A as in way) means will. so there is a future tense. also, the "dari" means past or done. so there is a past tense. however, the past tense is not used much, and im still not really sure when to use it.

thank you so much for the recipies:) i haven't really got a chance to try them out yet, but i will eventually. the hardest part about cooking here is that we don't really know what's going to be at the stores, and im no cook, so i don't really know what to buy anyway. but i do make pancakes a lot:) and i also found some almond extract here so im going to make something deliciously almond flavored:)

it sounds like the motab concert was great:) im glad you guys got to go. we have been listening a lot to the motab/nat king cole album so i kind of got to experience it;)

i got a guitar the other day. there is a ahsiht (white guy/foreigner) who has a store that we were at and he actually had a gibson. so i picked it up:) it has been really fun and we have been christmas caroling with it.

i also gave my first talk in kosraean yesterday in church. i talked about as members of the church, we need to be good examples. it was about a 5 min talk, but i think everybody understood what i said.

for my missionary script. for the plaque, i really like mosiah 8:18. if it's on the list that would be great:)

there are little miracles here everyday, and most of them when shared wouldn't really seem like a big deal to anyone else, but that is part of the beauty of them: they are personal. a specific miracle that has happened was we were teaching a guy named spencer (by the way, names here are either very simple english names like john, smith, etc.; or, they are names like elsiye, tolpe, conapoo, etc.). anyway we are teaching this guy, and i don't really know what is being said, when elder conejero looks at me and asks if there is anything i want to say. and i said auk (yes) and then went on to talk about keeping the commandments and the results of obeying God, with specific focus on WoW. i talked for about 5 minutes straight in fluent kosraean. when we were finished with the lesson and were walking away, i asked what the lesson had been about and was told it was about the WoW. God knows exactly what people need to hear. we really dont need to speak kosraean well or be  good teachers; we just need to be worthy enough to be guided by the Spirit.

this part of the letter is dedicated to everyone who has sent me things via the mail. first off, i want you all to know that i appreciate each and every letter. they are blessings to me and i want to thank you. also, know that due to the christmas season, the mail service is not very fast, so a lot of you have letters coming, but don't be too surprised if they don't make it to you until sometime mid january. also, i have heard that letters mailed on the same day don't always arrive at the same time. but, i love each and every one of you and read your letters often. i am so happy to hear from you all and love reading your notes:)

i caught a lizard the other day and named it Mahana (as in the Johnny Lingo movie). technically it's name was "Mahana Kom Sifung" (Mahana you ugly). i was planning on growing it into the huge monitor lizards here on the island and use her as an object lesson, but i let her go. i think i would have killed her accidentally, so maybe once i learn how better to take care of one, i'll try again. it will not be a pet.

kennedy sent me a letter and told me that i have not described Kosrae very well. so:
the mountains here look like they are very far away, but in fact are just not super tall and are super steep. like if you were to run straight at the mountain, it would be the same as running at a wall.
also, here in lelu, there is a protective coral reef/rock garden around the beach, which means that the water is very calm for about 100 yds out, almost to the point of looking like a lake. the most beautiful lake you have ever seen.
everyone lives within sight of the ocean. there are only a few times where we go somewhere where we can't hear or see it.
there are really cool little birds, and really cool lizards. also, there are big bats. there are a lot of ants, cockroaches, and spiders. chickens and pigs run around the island.
the hard part about describing kosrae is that it is truly indescribable.

i love all of you sooo much and look forward to hearing from you every week. we check the mail a couple times a week, and letters usually take about 6 days to get here, so i also love hearing from you all via paper and pen:)

love,
Elder gerber

December 9th, 2012

dear family,
haha yeah the machete is fun. we just got them sharpened yesterday, so we had freshly cut open coconuts for breakfast this morning:)
the schedule is as follows:
-6:00 we get up and exercise
-7:00 breakfast and shower/get dressed for the day
-8:00 personal study (mainly BoM and PMG)
-9:00 companionship study
-10:00 12 week training
-11:00 language study
-12:00 Lunch
-12:30 Proselyting time
actually, i think the main reason i lost so much weight is that we don't eat dinner that often. we usually just work through it. but thank you so much for the recipes! i've made a personal goal to cook more and make more food that we can take with us to snack on in the truck.

the members here vary in strength, as do all wards. so there are a few members that will be able to help harry progress. however, there is a tendency on the island to get offended easily. it is a problem that has caused a lot of inactivity in the church here. we are working with a lot of less actives and there needs to be an attitude adjustment as well as deeper conversion for the church to really grow here. we are seeing higher church attendance since we've been here though so that has been nice to see some results of our efforts.

the christmas season is hard because everybody is out and about and so about all of our appointments fall through (normally we are able to keep 2 or 3 out of about 5 appointments). So we haven't been able to see all of the people we want to. However, we have been teaching a filipino lady. she and elder conejero chatter in tagolog, while i try my hardest to follow the spirit and say simple truths in english when i need to;) she is really progressing well and has a baptismal date for the end of Jan. she is doing all that she needs to do to become converted to the gospel, so we are having a great time teaching her and are excited for her progression.

language study is me and elder conejero. there is a kosraean-english dictionary, but let me explain a little more about the language. there aren't a whole lot of kosraean words. however, that means each word has anywhere from 2 to 5 different meanings (this means that any sentence i say could mean different things based on context). kosraean is also very simply put together. this means it is easy to translate into english, but really hard to translate english into kosraean. for example, to say the premortal existence, we say moul lasr tuhkun kuht isusla or our lives before we were born. in other words, we just kind of describe simply what the complex english words are. this has pros and cons. also, something that is causing me some grief is that there is no tense. everything we say is in a present tense. joseph smith is prophet. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appear to him. and so on and so forth. but, i am getting it. i have found that i do a lot better when i am humble and ask God for help and recognize the help when it comes than when i think that i am really learning the language well and good for me. humility is the key to the gift of tongues.

our scripture study is incredible. we are constantly interrupting each other's study with exclamations of excitement:)

also, little miracles happen every day. for example, i was teaching a less active while on a split with a member who comes with us quite often. it was going fine when my member companion turned to me and said share that scripture with him in the d&c about repentance. i had no idea where that verse was. so i said a very quick prayer and got the impression of 58. so i flipped to section 58 and right there in the middle of the page on verse 42 was the one he asked me for. God is definitely a God of Miracles:):):)

i may have gone a little overboard with the christmas season. i have discovered that i need to decorate for christmas. i found a little tree in the house and set that up, and the eldredges gave us a bag of christmas decorations when they heard i love christmas. so our house is sufficiently decorated:) i have missed the snow, though so will you please enjoy it for me? thanks. also, we have been playing the motab christmas concerts music all the time so i am excited for you guys to go to that:)

ooh, fun kosraean phrase of the week: nga luhngse in srosro fin oom lome, or, i want to jump on your oom (an oom is a type of oven used by the locals). if you say it to someone, it means "i want to marry your daughter." if you specify how many times you want to jump on it, it means the number of daughter (first daughter, second daughter, etc.) i haven't found a time to use this phrase yet.

thank you so much for the advice and the news. i love you guys very much and pray for you everyday. i feel your prayers throughout the day and am very grateful for them.
i love you guys:)
love,
Elder Gerber