Solid Week in Kaneohe

Aloha fam,

So this week has been a pretty solid one, some laughs, some frustrations, some "danggit Smith"s. So all in all an average week in Kaneohe. Oh yeah and obs since I'm emailing you right now my p-day is today. I believe the first week of November my p-day is on Tuesday because we have a temple trip that day, definitely looking forward to seeing the Laie temple. That'll be a great experience. We spend a lot of time in the car either driving to different neighborhoods or playing taxi driver for Elders Henderson and Villanueva which also gives us plenty of time to listen to virtually every talk Elder Holland has ever given. An Elder who went home this last transfer (Elder Kang) gave us his flash drive that had all of them on it, even BYU devotionals and times before he was a General Authority (the funny thing is if you listen to those you start to notice that he cracks the same jokes every couple years. Classic.).

Awesome spiritual experience this week that I gotta share. So you remember Malia right? The teen that we were making progress with but then was going to move. Well she's actually moving this week (not to Lanai thankfully so she'll still have strong church support wherever she goes) and we wanted to get one last lesson in with her before she left so that we could pass her along to her local elders. But then when we told this to the Ward Council they advised us to just invite her to be baptized before she moves, be bold. So we had a lesson with her in Bishop Pasikala's office and we taught her about commandments. After that I started to ease in to the question of baptism and established that she still wanted to be baptized, she said she did but wasn't sure if she was ready. I wasn't really sure how to proceed from there but before I could say anything Bishop just says "Malia. You are ready." Then he bore his testimony about how now is the time for her to be baptized so that she can move forward and improve her life. Her Mom was there also and so was Sister Alameda (one of the RS counselors), all of them were a huge help and in the end Malia agreed to be baptized the week after next (it's after she moves but her records will still be with us so our ward can put it on). I'm honestly so dang excited for this, she needs this so badly. She's made some mistakes but I know that she is heading in the right direction towards correcting those mistakes and coming unto Christ. I've learned that you need to let people know that they don't need to be perfect to be baptized, they just need the desire. I've also learned that it always helps having a bold Tongan with you when you need to extend extreme commitments. So yeah unless something crazy happens she should be my first baptism (not that I'm counting or anything :P).

Someone asked me if it rains much. Does it rain? Yes. Yes it does. It's basically sporadic drizzles and downpours all the time. There's not really a pattern to it either, you're gonna get some water no matter what. I've just learned to always have my umbrella. For some reason Elder Z is always forgetting to bring his. And they call me the greenie.

The polyester ties are holding up as are the rest of the clothing but being out here has made me realize that my collection of ties is severely lacking when compared to other elders. I imagine I'll pick some up here and their over the next two years so you don't need to send me any. Missionaries that are close to leaving have like 30 to 40 ties.

Mom was wondering how I communicate with the mission pres. Aside from my first couple days in Hawaii I haven't seen much of President and Sister Bekker. The missionaries all send him an email every week and he tries his best to email us all back but I think he focuses a lot on missionaries that are having problems. Needless to say he hasn't emailed me much aside from some encouraging words. I really like him though, he talked to me a bit at Zone Conference a few weeks ago to be sure all was going well. Sister Bekker is about the nicest person you'll ever meet, you can tell that she honestly loves each and every missionary.

I think that my favorite new food that I've tried so far is the time I had Filipino food with the Okimoto family (he's Japanese, she's Filipino). Not the nasty weird Filipino food though, I believe it was called Chicken Adobo and Minudo. Don't trust my spelling though, I could be wrong. Thus far no street vendors, there aren't a lot of those here though.

News from the kitchen, not many people signed up for our wards Chili Cook-off so elder Z and I decided to inspire everyone by signing up. We bought ingredients today and have no idea what we're doing. Should be an adventure

Hope everything is good on the homefront. Miss you all. Church is true.

Love,
Elder Smith