Another Week Bites the Dust

Remember how last week I said time actually felt like it was slowing down? Yeah well this week made up for it and it felt about 5 minutes long. Here's the rundown.

Monday was a solid Pday, just relaxed in Hilo and played some board games with the Kea'au and Keaukaha Elders. After we went back to Ka'u and had dinner with the Kobzi's. It was a fun time and Ethan has been reading more of the Book of Mormon, now it's just a matter of getting him to church.

Not much happened on Tuesday but Wednesday we did some service at the Ocean View community center and had a super intense lesson with Myciah. She has been coming to church forever but is facing some opposition from family. We basically put all the cards on the table, we were super honest but loving and I think the message got through to her. Whatever happens from here is up to her.

We went to the infinite Kaawa house and met a less active named Candice Grimes who had a lot of questions for us. We answered them and told her that the best answers are in the Book of Mormon, she was excited to hear that and said she would read this week. We will be seeing her again this week. We saw Trineice as well this week and while we were teaching her mother also started asking questions so we started teaching her about the need for continuous revelation and why we have a prophet.

We also taught a quick lesson to Anne and Kurt Fraas (the couple whose cats tried to kill me a few transfers back) about the Book of Mormon and they were intrigued by the idea.

My Ka'u experiences this week were eating the meat off a fish (can't remember which kind) that still had all its bones while only almost choking twice, having to deal with a swarm of termites getting into our pad, and helping the Kaawa's move the guts and meat of a cow they just slaughtered. All in all fun stuff. My dear companion is a fantastic missionary but not the most comfortable with the above things so I think I was having a little more fun than him. Oh well.

Church was once again a party and we taught the youth Sunday school as well as a quick lesson to the primary in which I compared the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a Cheeseburger (you had to be there). After that we drove up to Hilo and participated in a stake musical fireside where all the missionaries in the stake sang I'm Trying to be Like Jesus. Super cool fireside in general with lots of cool musical numbers. Spirit was strong!

So yeah that's a summary of another week in Ka'u. Things are moving and I drafted up a 5 step plan last night for how we can be more involved with the ward. We will run it by Brother Galapir (the WML) tomorrow and see how it goes. Hope you are all finding ways to help the missionaries in your area, dinners are great but referrals are better!

Love you all!
Elder Smith

Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1500 S Beretania St. ste. 416
Honolulu HI 96826

1. Me after eating aforementioned fish (not sure how it was prepared but I dug it)
2. YW got a hold of my phone mid lesson
3. A few of the termites
4. Me and my main man King Kamehameha
5. Any service that requires machetes is a good service
6. Me and Ferrin
7. Digital District Meeting

Come Hear a Prophet's Voice

Aloha!

This felt like a really long week for some reason, at this point in my mission it's nice to not feel like time is flying from time to time.

After Pday last week we had a lesson with the Kabzi Obama which was pretty fun. We are trying to get Ethan (10 year old) to read the book of Mormon so we had to fund a way to get him interested. Elder Ferrin ended up telling him the story of Ammon which got him pretty pumped. Who doesn't want to hear about a missionary cutting off the arms of wicked men? We have him the chapters of the story and found out later that he had read them and others. Awesome moment!

Tuesday we ended up getting stuck in Hilo again because Firestone broke one of our bolts when we went last week. So we took the car up again and got it fixed, took most of the day so that was a bust.

Wednesday we went on exchanges with Kea'au and I went to their area with Elder Dorrough. It was a fun time and I found out their area is just about as backwoods and sketchy as ours. Also the water in their pad went out so they stayed the night at our place. We celebrated by having a pancake breakfast the next morning so it was fun.

We had a couple slow days that followed but finished strong during the weekend. Awhile back President Bekker felt prompted that we needed to check in on our recent converts who weren't coming to church. We only have one who isn't (Trineice) but after meeting with her this week she ended up coming to church and bringing her non member sister Nyssa. Hopefully we can start teaching her this week, pays to listen to an inspired man.

Sunday was super long because me and Elder Ferrin spoke in sacrament meeting, then we taught our gospel principles class, then we taught primary. We were darn near wiped by the end of church but we were still able to have a meeting with our investigator Candice Kaawa, it was a solid lesson. After we had the amazing pleasure to hear President Nelson and Elder Holland address the saints of Hawai'i from Laie. I was sad to not be able to be there in person but you could still feel the power of the spirit through these inspired men and their wives. They got very personal while talking about the role of a prophet and they covered a whole lot of topics: temples, fore-ordination, missionary work, ancestry, and more. The part that hit me the hardest was Elder Holland's talk on loneliness and how we are never truly alone. That hit me because sometimes it feels like we are in the middle of nowhere and have nothing going for us here, but I can't complain, I'm serving the Lord in a beautiful place and I know he is with me. Just gotta keep moving forward.

Anyway this email is probably way too long, so hope you all have an amazing week. Love you all!

Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission

1. I made a friend
2. We ain't sayin' we fat buuuut
3. Pancakes
4. A small kitten
5. Me and Ferrin cruisin'
6. Have a nice day
7. I see this every day

Moses Leads the Way

Aloha!

Well this has been a pretty exciting week. It started off pretty slow sadly with us only being able to see one or two people in a day. Planning on Friday was kinda depressing because we had legit nothing on our schedule so me and Elder Ferrin said a special prayer that despite this we could meet people while we were out and about. We went to visit Moses Simmons, the new Elders Quorum President, and he decided to take us around Ocean View and introduce us to a ton of less active and non members. If you don't remember, Ocean View has tons of people in it but it's super sketchy and people are not very happy to have Elders knocking on their door. So brother Simmons took us to all these people that gave us the stink eye until they saw him, once they did they were super chill with us because that's how things work in Hawaii. In the end we met about 10 less active we had previously been unable to locate, taught two people the restoration, and helped set up for a community event while also volunteering to come by weekly for other service opportunities. It was probably the most productive day I have had in this area and it was on a day where we had nothing going for us. Moral here is never give up regardless of how bleak things may be and members are the best way for missionary work to get done.

Saturday was a boring day, we had to go all the way to Hilo to get our car services and while we thought it would probably take a good chunk of the day it ended up taking 6 hours. The Shawshank Redemption played twice in the waiting room while we were there. Plus side was we talked to people in the waiting room and ended up teaching one guy about the Book of Mormon but aside from that we started going nuts towards the end. Plus they accidentally broke one of the bolts on our tire in the process so we have to go back to Hilo tomorrow to have that fixed. Yay for drive time.

Sunday was also fun, it dumped rain the first half of the day so we had a whopping 20 people at church. Naturally we had to cover some classes so me and Pinoy (one of the YSA) taught the Young Women while Elder Ferrin taught gospel principles class. My lesson was on teaching pure doctrine and I used that picture version of telephone to represent apostacy and restoration. It was pretty fun considering two of the Young women are our investigators, two birds one stone. After that me and Ferrin taught Elders Quorum the principles of missionary work and focused it on the acronym Aloha: Atonement, Love, Obedience, and HA (The Breath of life). The lesson went well and we were actually able to get some participation. All in all dope Sunday.

Pday today has been fun, the Elders from Kea'au and Keaukaha came down and so did the sisters from Kilauea. We took them all to south point and the Punalu'u bakery, everyone had a good time.

So as a wrap up we had a solid week and things might start turning around here. Looking forward to the future. Love you all!

Elder Smith

Hawai'i Honolulu Mission

1500 S Beretania St ste 416
Honolulu HI 96826

Pics: Nametag pic, Hour 5 of Firestone , Love the aina (land), Selfie while walkin'

Food: The Great Equalizer

Aloha!

Well another transfer has come and gone and I will be sticking around Ka'u another 6 weeks with Elder Ferrin. We are pretty pumped to get another crack at this place and look forward to what the Lord has planned for us.

This week had it's ups and it's downs per the norm, but we got to do some pretty fun services so that was a plus. We helped Loretta weed wack her yard, luckily the weather was nice so we got it done relatively quickly.

We stopped by the infinite Kaawa house (we call it that because we meet like 5 new people every time we go there) and they were making lau lau and asked if we wanted to help. We did and it was a lot of fun, and of course we shared some spiritual messages along the way. As a reward we got to keep some of the lau lau and it was delicious (one of my favorite Polynesian foods).

A bit after that we went by Candice and Gary Kaawa for a lesson but found out they didn't have time for us because they had to make a ton of sausage for a client. So we offered to help them out and they said yeah. I never realized how much work went in to making these things, I have a new found respect for hot dogs. Basically food is what unites people here, if you love their food they love you. It's why I get along with most polys but also why I'm now fat, sacrifice is key.

We have been asking our ward council for referrals for awhile without much luck, but we found out this week that putting things on paper really helps motivate people. We spent 5 minutes making referral slips on Sunday for members to fill out. We handed them out to the ward council and we got 5 referrals before church was over. The illusion of professionalism is the key to success. Also lots of less active came to church today which awesome!

Aside from that we are going about our business, checking in on people and visiting others. Josh is still solid and our after baptism classes with him on Sunday during second hour have slowly changed into a gospel principles class (Which our ward doesn't have) so we think we are just going to start one of those up for less active or new members. Thanks for all of your support and hope you guys keep me in your prayers, I need'em.

Love you!
Elder Smith

Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1500 S Beretania St. ste. 416
Honolulu Hawai'i 96826

(Pretty sure these pics send in a complete different order than I attach them but it's whatevs)
1. Most people find a dead fly in their sink, I found a dead scorpion
2. Making sausage with the Kaawa's
3. Lil' blue bugger
4. Ocean View Estates in one picture
5. Two birds that chill on our car all the time. I'd think it was cute if they didn't poop on it while they were there.
6. I'm sad to announce that Oreo the dog was hit by a car and killed this week. However Oreo the sheep has taken his place as the cutest pet in Ka'u. You will be remembered Oreo #1.

Mountain of the Lord

Well. That general conference just happened. At zone conference a week ago President Bekker told all of us that he had on good authority conference would be one to remember. I thought it was just a line but man President Nelson really showed us all that this church is the Church of Jesus Christ, some of the changes seem a little crazy but I know that this is all in the name of bringing people closer to Christ and improving our personal relationship with Him.

We had some pretty solid contacts with our investigators this week and I gained a testimony of the power of testimony (testimonyception). I won't go into the details but something kinda sketchy happened to me and Elder Ferrin early in the week. We're ok and it's all taken care of but the message was clear, something out there really doesn't want us to testify of this church. So naturally we did the smart thing and started doing it more. We had meetings with the Kaawa ohana and Kaleohano ohana (both of which haven't been progressing) and on top of sharing lessons we put a focus on bearing personal witness that we know this is true and that it is our source of happiness. We also took the time to tell them we cared about them and that God sent us to Ka'u for them. That seemed to resonate with them and I think they are going to start heading in the right direction.

We also did service for a woman named Loretta in Ocean View which was pretty chill, we are finishing up tomorrow and hopefully we can also share a lesson with her. We had a ward party/lasagna night and we were able to have a solid get to know you session with our new gator Mandy. I think she has a TON of potential it's just a matter of whether or not we are allowed to teach her. Another cool thing was that we were able to set up an appointment with the Uckers, a newer part member family that we have really come to like. Things are starting to look up despite some of our setbacks. Choosing positivity!

P-day was an exciting adventure, after weeks of failed attempts me, Elder Ferrin, and the Kea'au Elders went to the top of Mauna Kea (largest mountain in Hawai'i) and had a look around. It was really cool to see all the observatories up there but we didn't stay too long because it was flipping cold. I'm not talking fake "I haven't experienced winter in 2 years" cold I'm talking legit cold. It was 32° and snowing with high speed wind blowing right to your bones. Me being the genius I am was just sitting there in my t-shirt and pj pants (warmest things I had). After nearly dying of frostbite we went back down to regular altitudes and recovered. Fun and memorable experience, good ideas as to what Rexburg will feel like in the fall.

But that was my week, transfer news comes this coming week and I'd say it's a pretty split 50/50 as to whether I will stay or go. Either way I'm giving my all this next week, love you guys!

Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission

1500 S Beretania St. ste 416
Honolulu Hawai'i 96826

1. Observatory on Mauna Kea
2. Me trying to look like I'm not dying in the cold
3. Elder Ferrin during service 🇺🇸
4. Me showing Elder Dorrough the Punalu'u black sand beach on exchanges
5. A lizard. Because why not
6. Our tags in the snow
(We took some better pics at Mauna Kea I just don't have them yet)

More pics and a video received by his mom: