A Week of Goodbyes

June 30th 2014

Hello, and happy almost July! Man, it’s kind of rough when there are 5 Mondays in a month because you run out of money and miles! We have to drive like 25 miles round trip to get to the library and we are only supposed to drive about 40 miles a day, so it puts a cramp in our miles! Anyways, that was just the topic of our conversation on the way here!

This week was slower than last, but it was good!

We had a specialized training on Wednesday with the Weavers to say goodbye to them, it was really neat and we basically just had a testimony meeting! Their last day was on Thursday, so it was kind of sad saying goodbye to them, but I will see them soon enough! On the other end of the stick, President and Sister Blatter landed on Thursday and he is officially our new mission president! We had a conference call with him last night and I can just tell he is going to be so good for this mission! We are having another specialized training this week, basically just too officially meet them! So that will be fun!

This week we have been over to Brigida, Eva, Joan, and Maria's home everyday to teach them and prepare them for their baptism! On Friday when we went over there it was our last day with Maria there. She flew back to Pohnpei on Saturday to live there. She liked it here, but it’s just not home to her, so she is back home! We didn't get to talk to Maria a lot because of the language barrier, but she faithfully sat in on all of our lessons and she even said the closing prayer a few times in her language! It was really neat to "get to know her a little bit" with few words! But I love her and her few words! we said goodbye on Friday and she gave us each a hug and then she just held tightly to our hands and looked at us with tears in her eyes and was able to extract the few words she does know In English and she said "Thank you, I love you" it was such a tender moment and I know that she will talk to missionaries again one day, and that she will actually be able to talk with them in her language! She has felt the spirit of the gospel, now she just needs to hear it!

Other than that, we had to push back Brigida, Joan and Eva's baptism because Brigida is so set on fully living the word of wisdom that she wants to live it for 10 days before her baptism instead of just the required 5. So she and her family will be baptizedon July 12th. What a wonderful birthday weekend it will be :]

Yesterday at church we had a little miracle! We got a voicemail in the middle of church and it was a guy names tom, he said he was on his way to church and bringing his kids. He said he met with the elders a while ago and has been meaning to come back to church for a long time and that was the day he did it! So he showed up and took his kids to primary and nursery and we talked with him, he said he was baptized at 8 but was ex communicated. He wants to come back and have us meet with his girlfriend also, and he really just wants his kids to be brought up correctly and with good standards! So that was awesome! We will meet with them this week! :] 

I love you all!

Love, Sister Falkner!

1. I have this theory and I had to get a picture to prove it. My theory is that Washington is just a whole bunch of Christmas tree farms gone wrong, there are Christmas tree farms EVERYWHERE!!! and not all of the tree's are purchased, so they just let them keep growing and this is what you get, see the different layers of trees? yupp..

2. Just a lovely photo..