April 6, 2014

Dear Family,

Happy Birthday, Mom:) You're not as old as Dad is. I hope you have a
fantastic time skiing or whatever else you plan to do on your day. I
love you a heck of a lot.

I got the call last night. I'm going to Guam tomorrow for a few days
to pick up my new trainee. I get to hang out with Elder Vesikula for
his last days and see Elder Jeppesen again. It should be pretty great.

Speaking of Vesikula, he had some pretty dang great farewell parties.
He spent one year in Malem area and one year in Lelu area, so just
about everyone on the island knows him. He's a super great guy and
we're sure going to miss him.

Here's the layout of the missionaries: Elder Vesikula was two
transfers older than Despain, Despain is one older than Jeppesen,
Jeppesen is one older than Land, and Land is one older than me. Wasn't
that nice and Biblical?

Right now, we've got all of Broc's family on track for baptism next
month. It's pretty fun to teach people right next to their marijuana
plantations (those two sentences are completely unrelated...). They're
super nice people and are always trying to feed us. I am a fat and
healthy missionary.

Esmina is doing really good still. She has really accepted baptism,
and is loving the church. We were able to take Pres. George with us to
go talk to her, and she was able to get some concerns out. I think
she'll get baptized this month. The family is getting better too.

It's kind of weird to think that I've been comps with Elder Blackwell
for a quarter of my mission now. It's gonna be a really odd sensation
of not seeing him all the time. I'm sure gonna miss him.

We're still not sure on our Conference schedule. We have a District
Conference the last week of April, so depending on when the tapes get
here, we'll watch it in the next two weeks, or next month. From what
we've heard so far, it sounds pretty good.

Kosrae is doing really well. Mission wide, things are happening. You
mentioned that no new temples were announced. I'm hoping super bad
that a Guam temple is announced in the next batch. Pohnpei is a stake
now, Chuuk is getting really close, and Kosrae has really stabilized.
President Mecham is getting pretty hyped for it.

I'm really proud of the members here. They have been doing some really
good work with getting people to baptism. They are starting to feel
it.

I love you all very much and am very proud of you. I am happy and
healthy. I don't know who my trainee will be, but my bet is that he's
an islander.

Love, Elder Gerber