Brother and sisters aloooha.
Well this is it, my two years as a full time missionary have come to a close. Sometimes it feels like it was an eternity and other times it feels like its only been a few days. I have had plenty of hard days but so so many good days.
Whether it was in the jungles of Kaneohe, the sketchy alleys of Honolulu, the suburbs of Waipio, the beach houses of Kealakekua, the countryside of Ka'u or the desert hill of Makakilo the Lord had lessons for me to learn and lives that he needed me to bless. Despite my mission being to help and serve others I know that the biggest change has been in myself. I am nowhere near perfect and I know that I made mistakes every day, but at the same time I know that I have become more like the man that Heavenly Father expects me to be.
I have made so many lifelong friends in the people I have taught alongside and those I have had the privilege to bare witness to. My companions have each changed my life and taught me valuable lessons. I have been blessed to see miracles and be a part of thus great work.
One such miracle I was able to be a part of this week was one that will have a lasting impact on me. As I mentioned a few weeks ago I recently ran into Leslie Niumata and her family that I taught in Honolulu over a year ago. As it happens my companion at the time (Elder Lewis) had been transferred back into that same area around the same time I saw them again. Leslie told us that she didn't think it was a coincidence that she ran into both of us in such a short amount of time. She started taking the lessons more seriously after that and just this Saturday was baptized. Because of the special circumstance and it being my last week in the field I was given permission to go back to Honolulu and perform the baptism. Her son John and neice Palagi were also baptized. I have felt joy many times on my mission but I can't think of a more perfect way to end my two years on these islands than seeing my good friends follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. It is a moment I will never forget.
To all of you that have seen me through this journey, thank you for your support me and praying for me, it has helped me through so much. I know I still have a long way to go, but I know that the journey is possible through Christ. I love you all and look forward to serving alongside all of you as we keep the missionary work alive, wherever it is that we may be. So for the last time...
Aloha!!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1. Aloha Oe from the Makakilo and Palehua Wards
2. Me with Leslie, John, and Palagi
3. The baptism
Aloha! This was a week of lasts for me and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Honestly this was probably the fastest week of my mission so I'm really trying to remember what even happened.
The big things were my last interview with President Bekker and my last zone conference. Interviews were pretty crazy as President Bekker and I went over some of the highlights of my mission and lessons that I learned. He gave me advice about school, work, and dating but more than anything he focused on the basic principles of staying active after the mission: Praying daily, studying the scriptures, serving others, and going to the temple. He also told me that the full time mission isn't even the real mission, it's more like boot camp and setting you on the right path. The real mission is going to be about moving forward in the gospel after real life starts. Should be fun.
Zone Conference was also pretty crazy, the focus was on finding new people and we all threw around different things we could do to help build our teaching pools. Since it was my last ZC I was able to go up in front of everyone and bare my testimony of the gospel. It was pretty surreal but it gave me the spiritual boost I needed to get through this last little bit. After all of us that are going home got up front and everyone else sang us Aloha 'Oe which was rough to be sure haha. I was able to be there with my MTC companion Elder Johnson who I haven't seen in over a year so that was pretty awesome.
Aside from that we were able to use some of the training at zone conference to help find new people, we think we have some real potential with some families we met and hopefully we will see the work in these wards continue to move forward.
I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone that has been through this journey with me, I know I have been pretty trash at responding to some of your emails or letters but they really do me the world to me. You guys have been amazing and I can't thank you enough. One week left to go and I'm gonna make it count! Love you all.
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
1500 S. Beretania St. ste. 416
Honolulu, HI 96826
3. Me with Elders Cowden, Blackmore, Pututau, Anderson, and Gunderson.
4-6. Some zone conference pics
The updated Wall of Legends now includes Elder Cowden
The birthday boy Elder Cowden
Me with Elders Cowden, Blackmore, Pututau, Anderson, and Gunderson.
Some zone conference pics
Well here we have had yet another week in the desert paradise of Makakilo. After taking a good hard look at our area book app Elder Cowden and I have discovered that the records in our two wards are pretty out of whack. So we spent a good amount of time drafting up some lists of people who had talked with missionaries before and knock on all their doors systematically. It took awhile to throw the list together (and sort through records that were incomplete) but now we have a basic plan for what we're going to be doing these next two weeks (so basically the rest of my mission). We have already seen some success come from this and look forward to seeing what happens next.
Honestly I think the real difference between a good and great missionary is whether or not they remember to put contact information in the area book.
Thursday was a bust of a day, we got all ready to go only to find out a guy was coming to paint our ceiling after some water damage last transfer. He said it would only take a little bit but a little bit to him apparently means 10 hours because thats how long it took. So yeah we basically lost an entire day. Not how I'd like to spend one of my last days but I guess that's part of the job.
Sunday was fun and were able to help teach again in some of the church classes, but let me tell you 7 hours of church is definitely not my cup of tea so I'm really glad I didn't end up in a mission where you cover a million different wards. Also that night we went to a musical fireside put on by the Tongan Branch. If you guys have never heard Tongans sing it's quite the experience, they just tell everything and somehow it still sounds good. Also ran into the Van Wagenen family from back home in Clovis visiting the Palehua ward. There were here on vacation and it was fun to see them. I went almost two years not running in to people back home and now in the last month all these people just start showing up, guess it's a sign my days are numbered.
Finally as a funny story the whole zone (there's only 10 of us) went bowling this morning and there were a bunch of Australian tourists there who were just straight hammered. One was dressed like a hula girl and challenged Elder Cowden to an arm wrestle. He accepted and lost but we all had a good laugh over it.
Anyway that's the summary of this week, looking forward to these last couple weeks and honestly can't believe that I am near the end of this journey. Thanks to everyone that got me this far. Love you all!
Elder Smith
Hawai'i Honolulu Mission
candid pic visiting with some of the Van Wagenen family...
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
