pray that things will go well

Sounds like every one is doing great with School and what not.
Especially Scott on the mission!
Well, this week has been great. Sorry time is super short. I'll let
the pictures I sent tell the words.
I was sure I was gonna stay in b to die but transfers came and
I was so surprised to find that I'm going out to M for 2 weeks
before I die! So that's exciting! It's gonna be nice, it'll be pretty
hard to get trunky that way. We're praying hard that the trip will go
through, cause apparently they've been trying to get other elders out
to there for the past few weeks but things have kept happening. The
other elder that was gonna go out became district leader so that's
good for him, he also got a son. We've got 16 new missionaries that
just came in thursday. 12 more next transfer.
If you guys could pray that things will go well that would be great!
well thanks again!!!! love you!!!!!
Jared Seffker

Elder Scott Seffkers' Letter

Hey doods! The MTC is awesome its really productive and happy here. Although the language is hard to learn (like all languages) I love it, it's a fun language to speak and I'm learning it pretty fast, I can already pretty roughly pray and bear testimony. I'm pretty dang stoked to see jared here (hopefully)  , sometimes i'll just get these super happy moments here, this is definitely where i should be the mission is awesome anyway sorry this email is super short, but i gotta keep the media engaged so they don't get bored. love ya all ❤

Scott's farewell/ Kiribati construction

Wow! What a beautiful day Sunday was. Scott gave his farewell talk on Charity. Fantastic!! We had a wonderful farewell party at the house after! Thank you everyone that supported Scott! Scott's friends he grew up with took a reenactment photo from their primary class when they were five! This was great!  Later in the evening Johnny had his Eagle Court of Honor. It was nice having that special event before Scott left so he could be a part of it. Five Eagle Scout Brothers!! It was so kind of everyone to support Johnny in his special recognition. My heart was filled to the brim with gratitude and love for all the support. It was also filled with a bit of emotional sadness knowing Scott would be gone soon and I wouldn't be seeing him until 2020. Ahhh bitter sweet!!

Scott was able to spend time with all his loved ones before he left. It's such a sweet blessing for him to be able to do this. He wanted me to tell everyone Thank you!!

Tuesday night Scott became Elder Scott. He was set apart by President Reid. After the setting apart, we had a beautiful party at Olive Garden with some goodbye tears but mostly laughs! It truly is a celebration having a son serve the Lord on a mission. Elder Seffker (Scott) was super excited which made it a lot easier for me to say goodbye. Scott mentioned on the ride down to the MTC Wednesday that he was much more nervous to go work in Washington DC three months prior than he was going on a mission for two years! 

Scott sent his first email right after we dropped him off at the Provo MTC. He sounds great!

"Hey mom, I'm already writing my first email, man this place is super cool, I love you so much, thanks for helping me reach this point, it's still kinda strange to me, but then again its only been an hour since i got here i love you guys :) Elder Seffker"

We are still anxiously waiting to hear from him again. He will send his emails on his P-Days. We will find out all the details this week. Jared is doing really well. He will come home October 22nd. We can hardly wait!! He sent this email:

Well, Scott's officially out there. I saw all the pictures you sent.
Looks like he's been getting older. He's got quite the defined jaw,
like dad. Then again grandpa also has a defined jaw. Anyway, not sure
where exactly he got it, probably from both. Johnny seems to be
getting a bit older as well.
I saw your guys kind of spring themed picture you sent of the family.
Very nice lighting, coloring. Cool picture. Hopefully Scott brought a
few family pictures. I use mine so often. Everyone always loves seeing
the family.
Well. This week has been good.
A lessons are going great still. She says she prays about it
everytime to know if our message is true. She says her answer is
probably on the way.
We've got an investigator named T who is also doing pretty good.
He's accepted baptism, just not a date yet. Very cool guy as well,
very receptive to the message.
Were starting to get some people who are really interested in the
lessons which is great. We've done plenty of tracting this transfer.
We've been working on going house to house, cause that's what it says
in D&C.
We had a service this week, which went great. We worked on someones
house. It's always cool to see kiribati people working on their
houses. Just because of where kiribati is located there are no
earthquakes, no powerful storms, tsunamis.... So their houses don't
need to be that sturdy. When we worked on the house we were just
disconnecting a house thing from a copper tent thing so that they
could both stand on their own and then we had 10 guys or so, we just
got on the sides of the house and moved it to the spot they wanted it
to. Kiribati construction is a pretty quick thing. They obviously can
build bigger structures as well which takes more time, but yeah.
We did two splits this week. One was with kids from an LDS school that
the principal set up. Another was with two guys that we've been
teaching english to. One is a recent convert. It was awesome. We
taught a few lessons and then got ice cream afterwards.
We had dinner last night with a very awesome couple. They spoke
english pretty much the whole time. They served missions in new
zealand and australia. In the kiribati culture people just don't talk
about how they dated and got married and stuff but they did, which I
realized as my companion and I were talking about it that night that
it was probably english culture they'd picked up.
We'll love you mom! Thanks also for the emails the family sent! have a
good week! - Elder SEffker

THe Spirit is what motivates people to do good

WEll, here's a basic run down of my week. Me and my comp have been
doing pretty good. THis week has been pretty good. WE didn't get as
many new people. SOme of our lessons have been falling through, not
all of our people are the most interested. But, we also had many
awesome things this week. Like one of the families we're teaching has
so much faith.WE taught a few lessons and they';re already doing great
with their commintments! THe husband is less active. THe wife is from
the catholic. Yet they both read from the book of mormon after we gave
it to them. The Spirit is very present in our lessons. WE love their
family a ton. They've also got two little kids. One is a new born.
Very great family, very humble as well. They seem pretty prepared.
WE've also been working to get some fellwoshippers so that's been
going pretty well as well. We didn't have any investigators at church.
We invited a few people but I guess they're just not quite ready yet
to come. But even then, there was a less active guy that came that we
were very happy to see there. THis guy, we walked into his store and
bought some stuff. WE knew he was lesson active, his son comes to
church regularly, we got talking about his store. It seems like he's
always there. But he said he would able to take a break from it to
come to church. We saw him on the road saturday, he said he'd see us
tomorrow and sure enough he was there! It's funny how we hardly did
anything but I guess that's the power of the Spirit. THe Spirit is
what motivates people to do good, it's the real force in missionary
work to bring about success, so I guess the guy was just ready and the
Spirit had long been working on him I suppose. Even then, the Lord
calls us to be a hand in His work and gives us opportunities to help
Him with it. That's kind of one of the things that stuck out to me in
a conference talk this week. That we have opportunities to help the
Lord in His work.
Any way, love you mom! Have a good week! Also the family! - ELder
SEffker

Heavenly Father really will prepare a way

Well, this week has been great. Hope you guys got some of the pictures
of the bootaki (parties) they had a roasted pig on a platter, which
you don't always see every day, so I had to get a picture.
Work here in bikenibeu is so great. Just like betio. so many houses.
so many good people. Even though there's some people who don't really
want to talk at all. THere's still a lot of good people. Some are
friendly, some are very prepared to hear the gospel and respond.
Working with Elder G is way awesome as well. It's like being
with family, cause he was trained by my MTC companion. I think we make
a pretty great team! We've seen a lot of cool blessings this week. We
accomplished one of our goals for our teaching pool, so that was cool.
Just like you and dad have always taught us about setting goals. now
I'm beginning to see the genius in it. And also how if we're really
committed to righteous goals Heavenly Father really will prepare a way
if it's His will for us to accomplish them.
We ran into a guy I saw in butaritari and even set up a time for
dinner with him, so that was cool. We learned a ton of stuff this week
in our tracting efforts. Definitely refined some of our tracting
techniques. Also church was way good yesterday! we had the chance to
talk in sacrament meeting which was awesome. And tons of people were
there! Which we think is on account of many reasons, especially
members going out and doing ministering lately to less actives. It
really works! Well, any way. I've kind of been studying some hymns
lately, memorizing them. Very useful. I reccomend it, it can help
stregthen us through the day. Well love you all! Have a good week.
Thanks for the prayers they're so helpful! They really do help tons!
WEll tia bo! - Elder SEffker

CHurch here is 3 hours, 1 or 2 on outer islands

Dear Mom,
that's way good to hear that you got the pictures!!!
I sent some more so hopefully you get them! That's good to hear that
it's going pretty good with the family and with church and stuff. Man
that's lots of responsibilities at church but I'm sure you'll be
blessed and I'm sure you'll have lots of growth as you fulfill them
through His help! Man way to go with the dog, haha, nice example of
perserverance.
Everyone's pictures look way good! Scott's hair is pretty cool, and
outfit. Everyone's looking sharp. Johnny seems to be gaining a bit of
height. Everyone is very picturesque.
Well, I'm running a bit short on time again sorry, but some stuff that
happened this week: I transfered to bikenibeu 2nd west and so we had a
baptism this saturday. It was a really good experience. The old lady
has a son on a mission which is awesome so now she's baptized. There
are some pictures of bootakis. Sorry I don;'t have much time but I'll
let the pictures tell the stories sorry!!! General authority came.
CHurch here is 3 hours, 1 or 2 on outer islands love yoU!!!!

The conference went awesome. I had the opportunity to translate

Mauri O kaain te utu!!!!
Everything has been good this week! It's been pretty cool. We've had
mission tour coming up so we've had elders coming in from the outer
islands. Us 8 packed in our house. They came in from Tab North. That's
where I worked as my second area. It was cool to be able to see those
elders and catch up about how everyone is doing in tab north. Sounds
like everything has been doing pretty good up there. The branch
presidents are doing great. The work is going good. The ward members
are doing great.
SO we had stake conference this week. It was pretty awesome. We had
the temple president, his wife, and the area seventy come. They came
from fiji and tahiti. The conference went awesome. I had the
opportunity to translate. It was pretty awesome. It's a bit of a
challenge cause you want to listen to yourself to see how your english
sentences are going but you can't or you'll miss what's being said in
kiribati. You kind of just have to focus really hard on the gilbertese
being spoken and then you just say what they're saying in english but
you can't say it too loud or you won't be able to hear what's being
said in kiribati. All in all it was a success I'd say. It was pretty
awesome. I'm sure I'll get better at it even with practise. It kind of
takes a different mindset, you can't think about it too much. Any way,
we wore the headset and translated for senior couples who had
earphones. We don't get much opportunity to do it, so it was cool to
be able to do it.
So I'm transfering to the area jsut west of me, still in the same
ward. SO that's awesome. I get to meet the other half of the ward.
We've heard some really good talks and stuff and examples of
ministering. I'm pretty excited to be able to serve in our awesome
area. Exspecially cause my new companion is way awesome as well. We're
pretty similar. he reminds me a lot of myself when I first came. He's
also seems wayyyyy willing to just work as hard as he can and be the
best missionary he can, so I'm really excited for that as well. His
name is elder G. He also is with the marines. He's on an 8 year
contract with the marines or something like that. However he explain
that a generel authority talk about how not to define yourself as
anything, a marine, whatever, but as a child of God. Which is a really
good lesson. It's way true. We're all children of God. And we need to
make sure that's what really defines us. Cause having that kind of
perspective is a more eternal perspective.
We've had some really good lessons this week and stuff going on. Heard
some good stories, testimonies. I'm gonna be sending some more
pictures as well. I'll share the folder with you. Well thanks again
for everything! Love you mom! Love you family! You guys are all
looking way sharp in the pictures! Congratulations emmie on being
baptized! The Holy Ghost is the greatest gift in this life! Your
definitely blessed to be able to have it's companionship as you strive
to be worthy throughout your life. It will help you with everything
and will strengthen you everyday as you follow Jesus Christ!
Well, love you all! - ELder SEffker