See You All Soon

What a crazy busy week! Our wedding/baptism for Tikler fell through last minute. The family of the bride wanted them to get married by a Protestant Minister and I guess that takes a little more time. He is on track for this next Saturday though along with MJ (a little girl) and Sydney (a young man). Sister Ma'a and Sister Havea will have to send me pictures.

Yesterday was my last Sunday in Pohnpei and I was flooded with hugs and kisses. Sapwalap Branch will be doing a potluck for me Wednesday and I get to go to a family home evening in the Kirinese village tonight in the Kolonia area. Everything is winding down so fast. It will be sad to say goodbye but soo good to see you all again. Don't worry Papa, I'll be working hard 'til the very end.

Congratulations to Jared on his new calling. Now he gets to discuss all sorts of deep doctrine with the high priests every week! 

I poakepoake kumwail,

Sister Beutler

Our baptism this week was wonderful. It was a man named Reagan who has been taught for over 8 years. He has had a lot of setbacks but this time he was truly ready and he finally got baptized. It was one of the happiest baptisms I've seen. He is so excited to do his own missionary work now. He wants to start going around with one of the returned missionaries and find peolpe to teach. :)

Things are still going well. We have another baptism and wedding set for this next Saturday. Tikler, the man getting baptized, is so prepared. He is one of those miracle stories where they are found, come to church 3 times in a row, and get baptized. There is a lot of opposition in his family but he doesn't care. He knows what is right and he is ready to do whatever the Lord asks. 

 

We just got news this week that is has been approved for Pohnpei to becaome a Stake! Everyone is so excited and I know it is going to move the work forward even faster. The dedication will take place on March 16 so I'm going to miss it by just a couple weeks. It is okay though; I'm just glad it is going to happen. 

Mom and Dad I'm so happy for you two that you get to be temple workers. What an amazing experiance that will be!

Happy Valentines

We had another wedding and two baptisms this week. The wedding took place right before the baptism and then the woman needed to be interviewed before she got baptized. It was the most chaotic baptism I have ever attended. There were over 200 people there and probably 50 more who were playing volleyball and basket-ball outside. Everything started late and there were the usual little glitches of people forgetting this and such, but we pulled it all off. We even had the rings, made a wedding cake, and she had a white dress to wear. Amongst the confusion we didn't really have time for many pictures. I did get the groom to stand still for long enough to get one good picture of him and the bride.

The other baptism was a cute girl named Erleen. The rest of her family is already baptized.

We also had our zone conference and it was so good. All the stress and anxious feelings I'd been having about going home are all gone now and I'm super pumped to sprint it to the end. We have lots of baptisms coming up so it will be easy to stay busy and focused.

One of our recent converts has a daughter who is disabled. The daughter just passed away last Monday morning so we spent a lot of our Tuesday at the funeral. It was an interesting experience. Last Sunday evening we went to see them and we could tell the daughter was going to die soon. We asked some of the priesthood men to give her a blessing so they went Monday morning and she passed away within minutes after the blessing. 

I pray you all have a miracle filled week!

Sister Beutler

A February Full of Miracles

Happy Groundhogs Day to all of you. It came and went here and I completely forgot Feb. 2 was a holiday. 

It is good to hear from all of you. Sounds like Stake Conference was really good. It should be a lot of fun to be in a smaller stake.

This past week has been awesome. As a three-some we have been working hard to teach thought by thought so that no one person takes over the lesson and we all have a chance to say whatever the spirit prompts. It has been working well and the Lord has really been leading us to prepared people. There have been a few times this week where we have talked to people on our way to a lesson and although we didn't have a member with us, we felt prompted to teach them right then and there. I've felt the spirit witness to them that what we have taught is true and we have several people who are working towards getting baptized by the end of this month. 

Our baptism this past Saturday for Erleen didn't happen. She is a 12-year-old and her whole family is baptised. She told our district leader that she hasn't repented yet because she still hates some classmates at school. I guess at least she's honest with herself. :) She's looking to be baptized this next week. 

One of the boys we taught this week (Sydney) said he had been sitting in many lessons in the past and he knew that our church was true for a long time. When we invited him to be baptized he pretty much told us that he thought we would never ask and he happily accepted a date for the 22nd of this month. 

I had a request to expound more on the story of the lady with 13 babies inside of her so here it goes. She said she got really sick until she couldn't walk any more and her belly got really really big. She finally went to the hospital. They did an ultra-sound and the doctor said she would die if they didn't take out her uterus. So, they took it out and inside were 13 babies. She said some looked like baby lizards (those were supposedly girls), some looked like the mangrove fish (the boys) and the others looked like turtles without their shells (those ones were the supposed demons inside). There you have it Deborah. See if you can figure that one out.

Love you all very very much,

Sister Beutler