March 16, 2014

Dear Family,

Things went really well this week. We had a lot of incredible things
happen. First, we had three of our investigators come to church. We
haven't had an investigator at church for too long. Thank you so much
for the prayers in their behalf. Perok is still working for the 29th
of this month, and is looking pretty good for it. If it wasn't for
Aleksru and his family and their help, she would be having a near
impossible time of it.

We also have been expanding our teaching pool. Normally, all we teach
are Protestants, but we have now picked up a few Baptists, some
Seventh-Day Advertisements, and an agnostic (I never thought I'd
actually meet one of those...). It has been really good to switch
things up a little bit in order to fit the needs and questions of
different groups.
A little about this agnostic: he's an aset (Kosraean for anybody
white) but definitely European. We still don't really know why he's
here, but he is. We knocked on his door, and he came and told us that
it was a bad time, and then started telling us how he thought that
Joseph Smith was a complete fraud. After about three minutes on his
doorstep, he asked us if we wanted to come in. So we said ok. He told
us all about how he is reading the Book of Mormon and thinks it is a
fake, and how the Pearl of Great Price is fraud. Up until this point,
God hadn't even made it into the conversation. He was describing his
great love of the Bible. Then I had to ask him if he believed it was
true. And he said no. He told us that he can't prove God doesn't exist
(actually, he said he believes that God is a god of chaos. So he
technically isn't agnostic, but that was about as close a label as I
could pin on him. You know how we in the church love labeling
people...). Anyway, he got to the point where he said that God doesn't
love him. And I surprised myself by tearing up. That kind of surprised
him a little bit too, but he kept talking after that. The odd thing
is, I like him. He gave us a sample of one of his prayers, and it was
the most blasphemous prayer I have ever heard uttered in my life. And
I like him and have high hopes for him. I think that the only two
things that we agreed on was that the Bible was a good book, and that
Harry Reed is an idiot.

We are teaching a surprising amount of baptists right now. I'm not
allowed to say that I don't like that religion, so...
However, the people can be some of the nicest people I've ever met.
Noah is a super good guy who lets us come over whenever we want. He is
pretty good with the baptist bible and is always trying to bring up
verses that challenge our teachings, but we have always been able to
come up with the contradicting verse that knocks him on his heels a
bit. We actually got him to admit that there are contradicting
verses--some that support his view, and some that support ours. So we
had a really nice discussion on prayer and the Holy Ghost. We'll see
what comes of that.

The road is covered with crab. It was the day before the full moon, so
all the crabs were out in force, and my crab kill count is
skyrocketing. It does smell pretty bad, though.

I'm doing really well. I am healthy and happy. I love you all very
much. And no, I don't need the charger for the MP3 player. Thank you
so much for getting that ready:)

Love,
Elder Gerber