Second Week in Hawaii

So my week was pretty good, better than my first one I'd say. Not gonna lie, doing missionary work here is hard. Everyone here is too content with life so nobody sees the need for church, me and Elder Zollinger do our best to share what we can but we just get people telling us no basically everywhere we go. Sometimes it feels like there's no reason for me to be out here, but then I remember that even Jesus was turned away by many and if I only bring one soul to Christ in the two years that I'm here then that's ok with me. I'll aim high and as long as I stick to that then it will all be worth it. The members here are great, always willing to help out and feed us, so far the amount of walking we do has prevented me from gaining too much weight but that could change once I get transferred to a driving area. Probably gonna gain 40 pounds while I'm here. Haven't had the chance to eat any Hawaiian food yet, nothing weird at least but plenty of rice. I'll let you know when they feed me raw fish or something else hecka sketch.

In terms of my day here is an average example. We wake up at 5:30 and get picked up by the Kahalu'u elders (another ward in our building) because they have a member in their ward that owns a gym. We work out in the gym for close to an hour and then we head back to our pad and shower/eat. After that we have an hour of personal study followed by an hour of companion study. We mostly study out of Preach my Gospel and The Scriptures but I also like to read from Our Heritage and True to the Faith. After that we sometimes do 12 week because I'm a new missionary (it's like basic training type stuff) and then we try to visit or tract people. Usually by then it's lunch time, we either eat leftovers or fast food but we eat pretty quick. 1-6 is our heavy time for preaching and teaching, we try to have a few appointments and visit people who have been taught in the past or less active members. We only have a couple people that we teach regularly and that's usually weekly. After that we have dinner at a member's house and then we try to preach or tract for another hour or so before we head back to the pad. Most people are unresponsive after the sun goes down (around 6:30) so we don't get much luck unless it's a scheduled appointment. After we get back we take the time to total up our key indicators (quality gospel conversations, lessons taught, member presents, etc.). After that we plan who we are going to see the next day and by then it's usually around 10. We get ready for bed, go to sleep, then wake up the next morning at 5:30.

Glad to hear about everything back home, especially Poppi and Brother Scanlan are both doing better. Not sure how much computer time I'm going to have so I'm going to end it here. Hope everyone has a great week.

Love you all,

Elder Smith