June 9, 2013

Dear Family,

First, to Andy: Happy Birthday, buddy:) I thought about sending you a
birthday message last week, but I figured that it is better to extend
it out later that spoil something prematurely;) I got your letter and
you mentioned that you now have a favorite pen. The G2's are fun, but
if you want the missionary-endorsed pen, go with the zebra f-301 bp
(honestly though, this pen is used by every elder here; it even made
it into an edition of the ensign. I just barely started using it and
am a fan). I hope you are pleased with your life so far, and wish you
the best of luck:)
Also, it might be fun to know that your birthday is a really big holiday here.

So Burnis was all set to get baptized (I finally really found out how
to spell his name because we filled out his baptismal record with
him); then on the night of his interview, we showed up and he was
hammered out of his mind. We are trying to get through to him that
there is no such thing as, "My last drink."
Thank you for your prayers in his behalf. Even with this set-back, he
has still made astounding progress.

I feel a need to explain something: in Kosraean, women are referred to
as, "Ninac" (pronounced, KNEE-NAY) which just means, "mother"; and men
are referred to as, "Pahpah," which is self-explanitory. I hope that
this helps when I talk about people and say "Ninac Drina."
So, Ninac Drina is doing well. She has a nice schedule in the fact
that, since she joined the Saturday Dentists, she sits around all day
on Sunday (Kosrae practically shuts down on Sunday). Her kids don't
like that she meets with us, but since they are at church most of the
day, we have a nice slot of time to teach her without any
distractions. Anyway, she finally read out of the Book of Mormon. We
assigned her to read 3 Nep. 27, and she read the whole thing. I can
see that she felt something when she read, and I think that it really
confused her. She was asking a lot of questions about the Book of
Mormon in relation to the Bible, but I left feeling like something had
been missing. Then Likiaksa, who had joined us for the lesson, started
answering all of her questions while we were walking back with him. I
was super surprised at his knowledge and faith; if only we had coaxed
him a little more in the lesson to teach what he knew. He is a boss.
We are looking forward to our future visits with her.

The Rilif Sosaiti translation looked pretty good. The longer I am
here, the more I realise just how much the Church is doing for this
island--like standardising the language. Nobody really knows how words
are spelled here, but the Church has found a standard spelling, and
prints most of the literature on Kosrae. Once the Book of Mormon
arrives, I'm pretty sure it will be the second novel-sized book in
Kosraean (behind the Bible). What a blessing.

Everything is going really well. We are seeing a lot of progress with
the young people on the island. We are holding a basketball tournament
at the Lelu chapel this coming Thursday--team Utwe versus team Lelu.
We are expecting a really good turn out with a lot of investigators.

Something I found out recently is that too many of these people don't
know how to pray. The main church on the island has a practice of
"silent prayer," where they don't pray out loud in a group. This has
made it so that a lot of people never learn how to pray. So, we have
been writing out little cards on the steps of prayer with scriptures
that have been translated from the Book of Mormon on the back of them
(we have been water-proofing them with tape). It is really quite
shocking to me on how helpful this has been. Moral of the story: if
you're going to ask somebody to do something and will base your entire
future relationship with them based on the result, make sure that they
understand what you are asking them to do.

I am very happy with where I am, and am healthy. I hope that you are
all doing very well. I love you all very much.

Owen and Andy: I have heard that you guys are tearing it up with your
instruments. Keep it up:)

Love,

Elder Gerber

ps--I received that invitation to the Parkinson Reunion. I was
wondering how to break it to Gma and Gpa that I wouldn't be able to
make it...

pps--I'm glad that I could help out in a small way in your talk, Dad