So because we never call each other by our first names Elder Cowden and I just realized yesterday that we are Zack and Cody. Throwback to the Dsiney Channel days. Anyway this week was a bit of a long one, definitely had it's ups and downs but there lessons to be learned in all of it.
We did service on the USS Missouri once again which I have not been able to do in quite a while. This was my 10th time going on the ship so I was given one of the "USS Missouri Volunteer" shirts. It's been a long time coming, crazy to think that will be my last time on the ship.
We had some pretty cool moments early and late in the week. We had a meeting with Darren and Sandy (The Pohnepeian couple) and Sandy told us she wants to get baptized she just knows she has to get married first. So we are currently working out the details on that.
Saturday was quite the day, we decided to dedicate the whole day to finding new investigators and we felt pretty good about it. Problem is as the day went on it was just one rejection after another. People weren't home, people shot us down, we got dropped by a few investigators, it just wasn't a pretty sight. We started to get a little down but we kept trucking regardless. At the end of the day though as we were heading back to our car a Samoan man named Otto struck up a conversation with us, as we talked we found out he was a less active member who hadn't attended church in 10 years. He told us to come back this week to share a message with him and his family (all not members). After that me and Elder Cowden both felt a confirmation that the work we had put in was worth it. I've preached this before but I'll say it again, when you do God's work miracles happen daily, just rarely the ones you are expecting.
Sunday was a good day as well, my aunt and uncle and cousins from back in California were vacationing in Hawai'i and came to the Palehua ward to say hi to me after sacrament meeting! During the meeting though Elder Cowden and I noticed a man sitting by himself that neither of us knew. When the meeting ended I slipped right past my family and talked to him, turns out his name was Adam and when we asked him what brought him there he just said he saw a church and decided to check it out. We asked if he was down to learn more and he said he wouldn't mind it so we grabbed his info and are meeting with him this coming week. Kinda felt bad just brushing my family aside but duty calls. I talked to my family after of course, seeing how big my cousins are now made me realize just how long I've been away.
That night though we went to a stake activity at the chapel in Waianae where we conducted a chapel tour but decorated different rooms to look like different parts of the Plan of Salvation. Elder Cowden and I were able to teach the tour groups about the pre-mortal life and aside from a couple Seventh Day Adventists walking out because of what we said it went pretty well. Lots of people learned a lot and lots of investigators from the Waianae and Nanakuli areas came. All in all good times.
That's all to report from this week, all I can say is I'm glad the Lord still has lessons for me to learn in my last month out here. I can't wait to see what these next 4 weeks hold. Love you all. Aloha!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1. I was inducted into the Pierce's wall of fame for eating a habanero
2. The mighty mo
3. Reppin' the home state
Aloha!
Well we are finally here in the last transfer of my mission, pretty nuts to think about to be honest, but I think it's going to be a good one. Like I said before I now cover the Makakilo and Palehua Wards which has been a bit of a shake up. Palehua Ward is pretty dope and seems like it has some really cool members in it, I'm sad that I won't have much time to get to know them. We have all three members of the Stake Presidency in our ward so that is pretty dope, they are all pretty great member missionaries so we are working on doing a lot of work through them.
We were able to meet a woman thus week named Sandy who is from Pohnpei (I think I'm spelling that right, it's a Micronesian island) and was being taught by missionaries before. We will be meeting with her (and hopefully her family) tonight so we'll see how that goes.
4th of July was pretty alright, Hawaiians don't really go too crazy when it comes to independence day so there wasn't much going on. We had a breakfast at the chapel in the morning then went to President Mafi's house (in the stake presidency) for a barbecue at night with the Nanakuli Elders. There weren't any fireworks but we did grab some sparklers. Gotta rep the mainland somehow.
We helped our investigator Aaron move from his house at the top of Makakilo Drive to a new house at the bottom and that was quite the experience. We moved every piece of furniture to a moving truck and just when we thought we were done he remembered we had to grab the washing machine. I'm no mathematician but I think it was about a million pounds and the fact that we were able to lift it into his truck was a miracle in itself. Thankfully we had the Kalaeloa Elders and Waianae Sisters helping us out with the move (Though they all dipped out when we had to move the washer).
Funny story for the week was on Saturday when me and Elder Cowden, the Kapolei Elders, Nanakuli Elders, and Waianae Sisters were all at the stake center for a meeting and afterwards went to check out a graduation party (graduation is huuuge in Hawaii) that was happening in the cultural hall. About five minutes into being there President Bekker walks in. Turns out he was invited to the party and came, so naturally all of the Elders that were there pulled him into the photo booth and took a picture. It was legendary, I'll attach it.
But yeah it's been a pretty good week, I love my new comp Elder Cowden. He's from Riverside, California and has been out about 9 months. He's a great missionary but still knows how to have a good time, definitely one of my funnier companions.
Hope you guys are still always finding ways to make someone else's day better. Love you all, keep the faith!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1500 S. Beretania St. ste. 416
Honolulu, HI 96826
1. Murica tie
2. Picture of a picture of the Makakingdom with President Bekker
Aloha everyone!
Well we are now at the final stretch, my last transfer has begun. First off as far as transfer news I am staying in Makakilo Ward but will now also be covering the Palehua Ward as well. My new (and final) companion will be Elder Cowden from Riverside, California. I've already spent a good around him so I think this is going to be a good time.
As for what else went down thus week, we did a whole lot of service. We helped the Gilbert family move a piano, fixed up the yard of the Nunes family, cleaned the chapel, painted a fence for brother Tillman, and painted a house for our investigator named Aaron. All were very grateful and we were happy to do them. Sadly in terms of actual lesson teaching we are a little lacking, still talking to just about everyone we can but success is hit and miss. Attitudes are good and hope is high though, so can't complain too much.
In other news my favorite sole Elder Fanene was called this week to be the new AP, we are all super pumped for him, only thing is he had to be moved in the office mid way through the week so his companion Elder Blackmore came and was in a trio with us for the back end of the week. It was a little difficult getting everything done that needed to be done in both areas but we had a fun time all in all.
There isn't much else to report than that, sorry I'm a little rushed in writing this one. It's been an amazing ride so far, can't wait to see what the Lord has prepared for me these last 6 weeks.
Aloha! (Pics may or may not come later)
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
Well it's been quite the week. Here's the rundown.
So Monday I was able to check one thing off my mission bucket list and that was to eat balut. The Pierces (Same family that gave us habeñeros last week) heard of my "I'll eat anything once" philosophy so they got me some balut to try. For those who don't know its basically a hard boiled egg except the chicken embryo is already developed partially. Still basically tastes like a hard boiled egg just with little bones, veins, and feathers. No big deal. Elder Lambert didn't want to do it with me so Sister Pierce was a homie and we did it together. That's how you build member trust my friends.
On a more spiritual note we had a cool opportunity to go with our RS President to the Laie temple visitors center. She brought a bunch of less actives or people who were working towards the temple and it was an awesome experience. AlohaLyn, the aunty we live with who us a recent convert, came and she absolutely loved it. She is pretty excited to work towards getting to the temple. Also while we were there I ran into the Chandler Ohana from waaaaay back in my Kaneohe days almost 2 years ago, surprisingly they still remembered me so I grabbed some pics with them. Funny thing is their daughter is actually serving in this mission because of some medical issues she has and I've served with her a couple times.
Friday I had my second to last zone conference which was so weird. Seeing these missionaries that I have known for so long give their dying testimonies was so crazy. Hard to believe that will be me in another transfer, but I plan on making my remaining time out here count. The theme of the conference was recognizing the spirit, something that I have come to learn much more about in my time here in Hawai'i. I'm so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost and the blessings that go along with it.
For the weekend we spent a good chunk of Saturday helping our investigator Aaron tear up tile in his new house with those big scrapers. It was pretty nuts, we got the Kapolei elders to help us out but by the end all of us were just dead. He was very grateful for the help though so it was all worth it.
Sunday was a good day at church, I was able to give a talk in sacrament about following the prompting of the Holy Ghost which fit in nicely with what we talked about at zone conference.
All in all it was a good week, we had some teaching opportunities and lots of chances to serve, can't ask for much more than that. Love you guys and hope you are all finding ways to spread the Gospel in your own lives.
Aloha!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1500 S. Beretania St. ste. 416
Honolulu, HI 96826
Me and the Chandler Ohana
Me with Sister Chandler (their daughter) and Sister Hilton at ZC
Me and Elder Lewis
Me and Elder Moody
Me and Sister Thompson
Me and Elders Taka, Mawby, and Porter (from my batch)
Temple Squad
AlohaLyn at the VC
Balut pics
Me and Sister Pierce
Aloha!
Sorry for the late email, I actually have no excuse I just straight up forgot to send an email until now. Whoops.
Not a whole lot to report this week, no real sit down lessons just some doorway conversation and service. Still little successes here and there but a lot of people have been dropping us or just losing interest. All in all we are looking to reboot the area and just find a ton of different people, we have some fun ideas planed to get the ward involved because that really is the key here. Members don't always realize the power that they have in missionary work, we are aiming to show them that power.
We went on two exchanges this week and I took over the area both times. The first was with my favorite sole Elder Fanene where we ended up getting challenged by some members to eat a super spicy pepper. We have a pretty funny video of it that I'm trying to send but email is being difficult. The second exchange was with Elder Chandler and we were able to make a cool video about how to use Facebook effectively in missionary work. All in all both were fun and informative.
The highlight of the week came Sunday night, after a week of pretty much nothing I was getting a little down on myself. Slow weeks aren't fun to have when you only have 9 weeks left, so I had a heart to heart with God for some kind of confirmation that my time here is well spent. On our way home from street contacting at night a random kid ran up to me and said "Elder Smith is that you?" I looked at him and realized it was John and his mom Leslie, two people I taught while I was in Honolulu about a year ago. I ended up taking some time to catch up with them and found out that missionaries recently started going by again and they are going to be baptized next month. Apparently ever since me and Elder Lewis taught him about baptism all that time ago he has been wanting to do it like crazy but because that ward got whitewashed 4 times I about 8 months he and his mom sorta slipped through the cracks. But they are all in now and they started thanking us for what we taught them, a lesson I hadn't even thought about for months.
I want to testify to you guys that when you open your mouth about the gospel you are making a difference, even if we don't see it in the moment someone will be touched by it, I promise you. I'm so grateful that my heavenly father gave me this tender mercy.
But that's all for this week, love you all and hope that you all find a way to serve your neighbor this week. Be bold, God is with you!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1. The moment before the pain set in
2. Me with Leslie and John
(Not a lot of pics this week)
Holy cow it's hot here. Just saying.
Anyway this week has been a fun one, lots and lots of biking and lots and lots of sweating. Honestly I don't know what I'm going to do when July and August roll around, I might just melt. Despite the heat we were still able to get some solid work done, we did a couple service projects for people in the ward and held a couple lessons.
We have been working with some of our investigators like Cody, Casey, and the Newhouse family who are all making progress it's just slow progress haha. We decided that we need to focus more of our energy on finding new people to teach so we will take one day a week to just walk and talk to everyone that we know, we did that this week and had a good time but we accidentally picked the hottest day of the week. Met some cool people, some less than cool people, and some bashers so all in all an average day in missionary land.
Today though we had the awesome opportunity to go as a zone to the temple in Laie. As usual it was an amazing experience and really made me appreciate how blessed we are to have the miracle of modern day temples. Never take them for granted.
Wish I could write more but we still have lots of P-day things to do and not a lot of time to do them so love you all and hope you have an awesome week, promise next week's email will be better. Aloha!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
Makakiloooo!
District Meeting selfie
The Laie Temple
Makakilo Zone: Elders Taka, me, Gunderson, Lambert, Fanene, Furner, Andrus, Blackmore, Cowden, and Chandler with Sisters Chappel and Fifita
Early in the week someone asked me how I'm liking the Makakilo Ward so far and I responded with the above title. It's a pretty accurate sum up of this week.
We had a pretty fun Pday last Monday, we hiked to Kaena Point then after met up with the Kapolei, Kalaeloa, and Palehua elders to have a nerf war. Turned out to be really fun!
Some of the highlights of this week were our lessons, we taught a Samoan lady named Mona the plan of salvation while eating at a McDonald's, she was a little skeptical of it but loved the concept of family history and temple work so we will see what we can do about that. We taught the law of tithing to Sebastian and he thought it was awesome and said it totally made sense (honestly this guy is straight golden). My favorite lesson of the week was with the Newhouse family. All day leading up to the lesson we were texting members to see who would be able to come and no one answered, finally about 30 minutes before the lesson Sister Kaumaitotoya said she felt like she needed to go. We had dinner with the family and Sister Kaumaitotoya started talking to Ilisha (the mother of the family), turns out Ilisha is an online college professor who teaches through Louisiana State, the same college that Sister K (I can only type out her name so many times) is starting up online courses for soon. The coincidence was pretty nuts but I think everyone in the room knew that it wasn't a coincidence. One of our main focuses with the Newhouses has been to try to find them some friends in the ward and that was just too perfect, miracles can be simple and impactful. After the dinner we had a super solid lesson about listening to the prompting of the spirit and they revommitted to reading the Book of Mormon daily, I know that as long as they keep that commitment they will be baptized very soon, all we can do is pray and guide though.
With the good also comes the bad though Haha, we had a not so solid lesson with Mexican woman named MariElayna which was pretty comedic. She told us that she had a dream the night before that two well dressed young men had come to her covered in light and offered to help her. We thought that was pretty dope but apparently she severely misinterpreted the dream and was convinced that it meant she was supposed to teach us about God hahaha. We tried to have a conversation with her but she was a stubborn one, kinda hard to teach someone who believes in God but doesn't believe in scripture/doesn't believe in anything you preach out of scripture. Oh well, win some and lose some, we'll try her again in the distant future.
Aside from that we did a lot of service this week, chapel cleaning, weed wacking, rock moving, more weed wacking. It was a good time. That combined with all the hill biking we have had to do has pretty much wiped me out completely. I'm getting too old for this kind of stuff.
But yeah that's thus weeks summary, the ward is awesome, the work is good, my companion keeps me in line, and the church is still true (I know, crazy right?). Love you all and hope your week is awesome! Aloha!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
Servin'
They wouldn't take our BoM but we took their magazine
Me and Lambchop
My leg five 60 seconds into weed wacking
Gnarly yard we got to clean up
Reunited with my old friend Sister Iino from back in my original district #DaKingdom
Waiting to get picked up for church (spoiler alert: our ride never came)
Us and Sebastian
Most of the zone at a baptism in Kapolei ft. guest appearances from Elder Orihuela and AP Porter
