April 19, 2017

We didn't hear from Matthew on April 16.  Hopefully this coming week. We'll see.

April 2 & 9 2017

April 9

Alright this week has been good, And guess what!!! I have like no time again!

Transfers! andnndndndndnddnd....  I'm still in the same area! with Elder Kiapen! So its been 7 something months here with Elder Kiapen which is a new record in the mission for longest companionship! and with the way that things are going it is possible that I could be here with Elder Kiapen for the next 3 transfers until he ends his mission in August. But i dunno cuz of the new mission president coming in. (Matthew's new mission president who wiil arrive in June is from Hawaii ~ he was born and raised in New Jersey.)

There is a a lot of stuff that i wish i could say and tell y'all about but time does not permit, so y'all will have to wait until I get home, or letters get to you.. Anyways thank you for all all that you do for me! REMEMBER i like letters...

Oh we also may be hatching baby turtles.......

April 2

Check out those shoes ~ they wear clogs because it is so wet.

I have little time left but one thing that I really want to talk a little about is our Lord, Prophet, Priest and King Jises Kraist. This week I finish Jesus The Christ and the next day was Fast Sunday and literally the combination was just a spritual mindbomb! And it was AWESOME. 

What a gift we have to be able to study our Lord's life and be able to follow his teachings and ways in this modern day. Such a gift our Heavenly Father has given us for an example for us to follow. And let us all remember what He has done for us this Easter season, that we may also rise again and become perfect like Him through his atoning sacrifice.

Thanks my peeps, time is short so I'll talk to y'all next week maybe i dunno... 

Love, Elder Zebley

March 27, 2017

This week was a good one! Nothing too abstract from normal life happened. 

This week I got Elder Kiapen's sickness or some other sickness and it was bad. I pretty much just had a headache and my throat was killing me and what have you but its gone now and it's all good. 

This week though I did go on an exchange to Wichap where a bunch of crazy stuff happens but those will be stories for after the mission... any way Wichap is super pretty but I couldn't take any pictures cuz it wasnt P-day, but I'm gonna head back up there next week so I can take a bunch of pics and what not and send them to y'all. 

On top of the mountain there are some bunkers and caves and some huge guns left by the Japanese that are super cool. There is a ton of history here from WW2 and it's super cool. There is just random stuff that you find in the jungle like a crashed plane, caves, guns or what have you. I'm definitely going to spend a P-day just going around exploring. I just wish I could go diving here cuz there are 64 sunken Japanese ships here and they are super cool! We talked to some people that have dove down there and told us about it.

Haha thats weird that Jack is in Lehighton, I keep on forgetting.  And yea you guys are getting closer to my kinda weather. In the jungle right next to our house there is something like spring peepers, and ah I love that sound. 

Oh and this isn't an immediate thing but I kinda want to try my hand at wood carving... there are some really cool things that come out of Chuuk that I will send home but I kinda wanna try some on my own if ya know what I mean. So if there is a kit or something of the sort for my b-day or something like that, that would be pretty cool ;)

With all the Love,

Elder Zebley

March 20 letter

 This week was swell! very very uplifting week!  and yea my companion got better, but then he passed it on to me. It only really effected the work though on Saturday where I stayed in during the morning and then went back out later. 

I made the Chicken a'la king recipe a couple times and everyone LOVES it. For some reason everyone wants to come on exchanges with me:)....  I've picked up a couple other recipes and it's a real nice change compared to canned food and ramen.  But the actual local food is delicious though. (If anyone has good recipes, please send them.)

What the heck is snow?!?!? that world is all but unfamiliar to me right now. I really want to go skiing right now though.

This week was awesome as always.

Monday ~ was still P-Day

Tuesday ~ Was regular proselyting which was good like normal.

Wednesday ~  President came to our island and we interviewed with him and it was good as always! The MGM mission is a little different cuz you don't get to see your mission president all that much unless he comes to your island for a couple days every few months. That's what you get for being the biggest mission area wise in the world! We may have the biggest but we also have the smallest areas in the world. Look up Fono or Fonoton and that right there is the literal smallest area in the world. Then some of our other islands are #2 and #3.

Thursday ~ Zone Meeting! So for the past 2 weeks president has challenged us to memorize 2 Nephi 31. The training was based off of that chapter and how we can use the teachings of Nephi in our everyday lessons. It's really cool to do something like this because when you memorize it and become so familiar with it the doctrines make themselves so present in your mind that they just jump right out when you are teaching.

I mean have you ever wanted to speak with like the Prophets? Then just memorize Scripture! and then boom! You're automatically speaking with the spirit and power in your voice.It has been a blessing in my teaching as I've been on my mission and the same goes for just knowing the references. So kids stay in seminary and LEARN THOSE SCRIPTURE MASTERIES!!!! We also had a barbecue, which as always, was marvelous.

Friday ~ We had Zone Conference! (Like Zone MTG, just no president) and that was also super duper good, and then after that we FINALLY got to listen and watch Elder Holland's address from when he visited the mission. It was SUPERB beyond belief!! Its always awesome to hear from an Apostle of the Lord and it's cool to see the Apostles in a different light because Elder Holland was real funny, a real man with real, real, real, real, real testimony of our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ. 

One line that i took away from his talk is that "The path of Salvation always goes through Gethsemane." It's just like if you want to gain eternal salvation we have to go through our own personal Gethsemane, and suffer for the truth like the Lord did for our sins. He also talked about Shadrack, Meshach and Abendnago (I totally butchered those names) and how they were with the Lord in the furnace. If we want to be with our Lord we must go into the furnace, we must go through our trials and suffer for the Lord and for the Gospel. That is where He is. Anyway, I can go on about this forever but i have no time soooooo I'm gonna skip Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway thank you for everything yall do for me! I'm going to try to send out some more letters this week to people

Love,

Elder Zebley 

March 13 Letter

I have little time again so I'm sorry but I'll give you a little synopsis of my week.

Monday - P-day and it rained all day so we just played and did stuff in the rain like little children and it was awesome.

Tuesday - District meeting, and Elder Kiapen got sick so we stayed in.

Wednesday - Elder Kiapen still sick.

Thursday - some guy got shot with a filipin near us so I took a pic for you all to see what happens here pretty much 24/8 (sorry if your squeemish or whatevs;)

Friday - Lots of indoors stuff cuz weekly planning, Elder Kiapen didn't feel well, inspections blah, blah, blah

Saturday - JM got Baptized! We have been teaching him for awhile and he is the Bomb diggity! He fits perfectly in with the youth here which are awesome.

Sunday - Pretty quiet Sunday for Chuuk standards...

This entire week I've been reading Jesus the Christ  and it is MIND-BLOWING. It gives you a whole and more complete picture of our Brother, Savior, and Messiah in such a way that cannot be explained. SO READ IT RIGHT NOW. No choice. 

Right now. I promise you that you will come to know Him better that ever before in such an awesome way as our Teacher and Mediator in this life.

Anyway, thank you for everything and everyone write me letters! It's a lot easier to respond when i can sit down and just write.

Livin' the life in the awesomest place in the world,

Elder Zebley​

March 5, 2017 letter

Alrighty so this week!

So I can't really really remember what happened this week cuz I don't carry around my journal everywhere i go but it rained a lot this week so we got soaked A LOT. 

The work went very well once again this week... we hopefully will have a baptism this week. This is where I really wish I had some sort of technology so I could just write daily and then compile it all together and then send it on Monday, cuz when the time comes to email I LITERALLY FORGET EVERYTHING.   Right until I finish emailing and then it all comes back to me.

The local food is delicious, the people can be crazy at times

I promise the following weeks will be better with my emails. but I'm sending a poo ton of photos so that should make up for it.

Thank you for everything!​

February 26, 2107 Letter

Ran Allim amil,

With a new baptism, his companion and the branch president.

So this week was superb again! Its still more than impossible to explain what Chuuk is like unless you come to the islands of awesomeness themselves. and I would like to address the fact that I AM NOT IN GUAM!! or on an island off of Guam. I am in a different country (The Federated States of Micronesia) is one of the states there in Chuuk.

Anyway, this week Monday p-day, I already told you guys some of what happened but nothing really happened other than we had Family home evening with all of Mwan branch again and it was really good. 

P-days are awesome with our new schedule cuz they are a lot longer now, and we can actually do pretty much whatever we want and its awesome. We always play volleyball and basketball and pretty just go out adventuring, and do what ever we want and I LOVE IT. If we want to we can take a boat and go to the other islands and just hang out, but yeah, p-days are the BOMB

Tuesday- No Idea....

Wed- went on an exchange with Elder Boucher in his area (My district leader) he lives in my house though so nothing special other than just working in his area for the day. But he knows really good chuukese and it was another great learning opportunity for me.

Thurs- So Elder Holland came to our mission!! buuuttt us being on the islands in the middle of the ocean, he just stayed in Guam... so all the missionaries in Chuuk came in to watch the broadcast over the internet, but that didn't work either because it's Chuuk... soo we didnt get to listen to him:( We are now waiting for the broadcast just to get here by USB. But My Zone Leader got called to be Assistant to the President so he left for Guam that night and it was sad but super cool to see him have that opportunity.  

Fri- cant really remember...

Sat- not enough time...

Sun- Church, and Transfers! and I'm staying in Neuo with Elder Kiapen!

Matthew has a poster of a scene just like
this on his bedroom wall that we placed
there 5 years before his mission.

Matthew just had to be in the water to watch this
baptism up close. Yeah, right!

Anyway I'm sorry this is so short blah blah blah, no time cuz I'm in Chuuk...

With all the Love

Elder Zebley