Every Member a Missionary

Aloha!

So this week has been a pretty average one, not a lot to report which is itself not good. The work is moving really slow in this ward, we're keeping a good attitude about it and everything but it can be frustrating when we really want to be busy and just can't find things to do. I know I've already harped on this before but I can't express how important it is for members to talk to their friends about the gospel, as a missionaries it is our job to teach, but it's pretty sad when people take one look at you and already know that they don't want to hear anything you have to say. I have no doubt that if they would hear us out for 5 minutes that they would want to know what it is that we represented and the happiness we want them to have. This week they adjusted our accounting so that now we're only keeping track of how many New Investigators and Member Present lessons we have, so clearly they want to move our efforts towards member involvement in missionary work. Members always say they want to help us so me and Elder Z are just being more bold with them, we're giving them commitments like we would to investigators, hopefully this all starts to work out and we can increase our teaching pool.

So here's something cool, if I'm still in this area next transfer then I might need to also start covering the Kaneohe 5th Branch which is the Tongan branch (as if I wasn't already getting fed enough). If that ends up happening then I'll go to church twice every Sunday and basically have no idea what's going on for half of that unless I decide to learn Tongan. So far all I know is "kaike mate" which means "eat until you die." Should be enough to get me through the first few weeks.

So since P-day and Halloween fell on the same day we basically get a whole day off (since on a usual Halloween you take the evening off anyway) and so all the missionaries in the zone that are available are heading to Elder and Sister Burnside's house (the senior couple in our zone) for a party. I bought a White Power Ranger mask to wear at the party so you know it's going to be poppin'.

Pday will be on Tuesday next week so we can go to the Hawaii temple in Honolulu. Definitely looking forward to that.

But yeah that's basically all I have to report at this point, work is slow but if all goes well it should be picking up in the next couple of weeks. Every member a missionary!

Love you guys!
Elder Smith