Monday, May 5, 2014

Who is a Womporong?

Dear Fams and friends,

Omasado tipis (pronounced OH-MA-SADO TEE-PEES and means "forgive me") for not writing for a couple of weeks the internet is down and I haven't had a chance to go and hit the post office.  Well Sounds like everything is going good back home, I was excited to hear about Tristan Thompson being baptized and what is more exciting is they can all now be sealed  as an eternal
family and enjoy all the blessings and comforts that this brings.

wish Chuuk had a temple closer than the Philippines but if us missionaries work hard we could put in a request for a temple in Guam NEXT YEAR!!!!!!!!!!! THATS CRAZY! but first Chuuk Needs to become a stake and that will make the necessary 3 stakes for temple requirement
it would be super cool to see that happen... OHHH and that reminds me tell Uncle Rus that Pohnpei, a couple of weeks ago, became a stake he will be super excited about that.

Well I can honestly say that I have no information on mothers day except that we will probably call this Wednesday or Thursday to set up something and please pray that the internet is working because I would rather Skype than just call but we will see what happens.

Well on to things here in Chuuk, I am still in Wichap with Elder Peck and we are seeing some crazy huge miracles happen this transfer, so a little back story, the Wichap Branch isn't exactly a very strong branch but this could all change with a few people... One: our recent convert, Apar, is going to be super solid and we are thinking he could be a counselor for our Branch President. Second we started teaching a Wamporong (pronounced WOMP-O-RONG and don't forget to roll the r) or sort of like the equivalent of a Stake President.  So here in Chuuk it goes like this, you join a church and you stay faithful and read the bible and do everything your supposed to and you kind of earn these titles of sorts.  I am not sure on all of them, but it goes 'church goer', Sopatek,  then Womporong. Again I might be missing some but got off subject... So Womporong is super high up in Church here and means you have been a member basically your whole life and you would do almost anything for your church.  So we kind of taught This Womporong's, Aron, daughter. Aron really liked us and always had a question or two for us, so we gave him a Book of Mormon. Then he kind of fell off the face of the Earth for a month and a half, then we ran into him on the road last week and first thing he apologizes for not seeing us because he was sick and his family was super busy. Then he asks if we remember giving him "that book" and we were like "yeah" then what he said next startled us. He said he was almost done with it! So we asked if we could come meet and he said Tuesday. So we go in expecting to have a good discussion about Ewe Puken Mormon but the first thing he says after the prayer is, "I am want to be baptized." Elder Peck and I were absolutely flabbergasted. We really had no idea what to say so we said. "met?" which is "what" in Chuukese and so he said "I want to be baptized into the true church of God." So we recover from our initial shock and commence in telling him some of the requirements that we have for baptism. Just the things like, you have to come to church 3 times and a little on the word of wisdom stuff like that. He is all in for it so we are going to teach him a bunch these next weeks. Super huge miracle and all from a book translated by a farm kid in New York.
Crazy.

Well I will wrap up with a testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon that it can touch and change the lives of even leaders of other faiths if they are honest seekers of truth and are humble enough to accept things they learn are true.  It will change their lives and then they can affect the lives of those they have come in contact with before.  I love to see people love the Book of Mormon and apply the teachings contained in it. The power is incredible and it is real and will bless our lives.

Well I love you guys and hope the best for all of you.

Love,
Elder Jeff Payne

Here a a few more pictures from the SD card Jeff sent.  Some sort of service project - we never heard what they were filling sand bags for...








No comments:

Post a Comment