Two more missionaries from Hawaii, Placido and Marsha Ballesteros, arrived in 1970. Progress was slow. “There were many times when just the four of us missionaries attended the meetings, held in our living room,” Placido recalled.

“From a human standpoint, Yap is just a speck of land on the globe, and the few thousand people who live here are insignificant compared with the billions of mankind,” Placido Ballesteros once said. “And yet Jehovah has these people in mind. When I first arrived, I did not dream that there would be a day when a monthly issue of The Watchtower would be published in Yapese and that we would be distributing books from door to door in the Yapese language.”

An amusing experience illustrates how thoroughly Jehovah’s name is being made known. One day, Placido met a tourist sitting by a river, miles from the nearest tourist spots and even a long walk from where the road ended. Asked if he was lost, the man replied: “No, I just wanted to get as far away as I could to find a peaceful place to think.” When the tourist asked why he was there, Placido explained that he was a missionary, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “Oh, no!” the tourist cried. “I’m from Brooklyn, not too far from your headquarters. I can’t get away from you people!”