Well this has been the first week of the new transfer and it has been a strange one. I still have the same comp but a lot of the missionaries I serve around have changed. I really like my new zone leader Elder Harmon and the new Kahalu'u elder seems pretty nice (Elder Anderl is his name). The big change this week was that we lost our car so it was back to hitting the streets and blistering my feet (ok just one blister). It was pretty hard the first few days but it's getting easier. It makes it hard to plan because we can only see so many people in a day now so sometimes we walk 30 minutes to someones house then they aren't home or don't want to see us. On the bright side I don't think I'll be gaining weight this transfer so yaaay. Walking makes it easier to talk to people on the streets and members see us out so we get a lot of honks and shakas. It makes me feel good if I'm ever down so it's a plus.
We had a really good lesson with the Cupchoy's this week. I can't remember if I've talked about them before but they are the next door neighbors of the Katsuno family in the ward and they agreed to taking the lessons awhile back, they are super busy and he asks a ton of questions but I love teaching them. Definitely the highlight of my week. Plus he's a movies junkie and is trying to get more into Star Wars so obviously he and I have a pretty close bond. Not to mention their son is adorable and he looooves me and Elder Boyd. I don't know if it will be me and Boyd that baptizes them, but it's going to happen eventually. I can feel it.
So I hope that everything is going well back home. Sorry to hear about Mace being in the hospital, she is always in my prayers. The same goes for the Scanlan's. I love you all so much and hope that the new year is going well for you all.
Ofa atu,
Elder Smith
* Sent a video to my mom that she will post on her Facebook page - check it out.
Dear Family,
This has been a pretty crazy week but transfer weeks always seem to be like that. So the big thing right off is that I have not been transferred, so I will be spending at least another 6 weeks here in Kaneohe (which will put me here for a total of 6 months). I will be staying with Elder Boyd so not a lot of change on our side. There are a good amount of Elders and Sisters in our zone being transferred so there will be new people to meet this next transfer. The one that might affect me the most is Elder Henderson being transferred to Kauai. First off he's become a good friend so it will be sad to see him go, but on top of that the new elder taking his place tomorrow will most likely have a drivers license which means that the Kahalu'u elders will probably be getting our car so I might be back to a walking area. We'll see. And yes in case you're wondering I am very happy to be staying in Kaneohe! As fun as I'm sure change will be I'm also excited to see this ward change. The work is still slow and there still aren't that many people to teach but I can see improvement, I don't know if me being here another 6 will yield any direct results but I think this ward needs some consistent missionaries to get the ball rolling, I'm just hoping I can play a part in that. I guess we'll see.
I got a pretty wicked cold but I keep on keeping on so hopefully it'll get better by tomorrow when I actually need to do work again.
So fun fact about Hawaii...New Years is insane. Literally there were fire works going as soon as the sun went down, then when midnight hit there were aerial fire works coming from every directions. These aren't stadiums or anything, this was just people in their front yards. And no this wasn't legal at all but literally everyone just does it, it's kinda hilarious. So yeah fireworks were going consistently for about an hour but I think they were still going for awhile after that just more sporadically. All in all a crazy experience. a little scary but mostly hilarious and cool to see so many fireworks and family gatherings. That's another thing I love about this place is how families always gather from near and far during these holidays, it's so cool to see so many members with all of their extended family in church and everything. Plus it gave me the chance to try way more local food at the family parties.
I think my new favorite Hawaiian dish is Lau lau. Basically it's pork cooked wrapped up in taro leaves then again in tea leaves. You take off the tea leaves but you eat the taro leaves and the pork. It looks gross but it tastes amazing. If by some weird chance you can try it I highly recommend.
This morning we went on a cool hike called Lanikai that took us to an abandoned military outpost so that was pretty cool. It's the last P-day with some of these guys so it's bittersweet but it was good to go on one last hike with them. Hope that your new years was awesome and that you are all still doing well. Love you guys!
Elder Smith
Pics are of me, Elder Boyd and 10 year old Saidee from her baptism last week. Such an amazing experience!
Elder Smith's mom here - it was SO great to talk to him over Face Time for Christmas day! A wonderful, long conversation and there were smiles all around. We sure love our Hawaii missionary. We miss him but we wouldn't want him to be anywhere else!
Look at that wide, genuinely happy smile! The light of Christ shines in him. Best Christmas gift ever!
Ayyyyy.
So this has been a fairly hectic week, not to say that we had more lessons sadly but we did do a lot of things. First things first we had mission tour, what that means is that all the missionaries on the island of Oahu got together and heard from Elder Curtis of the Seventy (he gave a talk last conference about the religious freeze in Ghana). His talk was amazing and focused on having faith. He was so cool and the spirit was so strong, it really did show me that we need to have faith at all times, whether our situation is good, bad, or hopeless. Faith leads to actions and that's how miracles happen. After that we helped a recent convert make a 12 days of Christmas video that has apparently gone viral in Hawaii so I'm basically famous. The next day we did Pearl Harbor and so me and some of the other missionaries did service on the USS Missouri. It was nice I got to know some of the Elders and Sisters that I haven't had the chance to get to know since they got here. Then we got to take a tour of the ship. Always a blast! But yeah so for the rest of the week we did our usual thing and went on some splits with other Elders in the zone so I got to work a day with Elder Mitchell and a day with Elder Villanueva both of which were great. I love those guys. Also yesterday we had a meeting with a lot of the ward auxiliaries and basically laid down what we expect from the ward. It was really nerve racking because I feel weird telling adults how to do their calling but I definitely think it was necessary. They all seem on board with our plans so hopefully we will start to see an increase in productivity. Elder Boyd and I are excited to be busy. Also excited for our baptism this Christmas Eve. Hope Christmas is going well for everyone and that you keep on lighting the world. Mele Kalikimaka!
Attaching pics. You're welcome!
Can't wait to talk to the fam on Christmas!
Love you all,
Elder Smith
Pearl Harbor
The MTC roomies together again
Japan and California!
Dearest Ohana,
Hey! Glad to hear that things are altogether good on the mainland. Things are continuing to be slower than we would like here in Kaneohe, on the plus side we did get a new ward missionary who is pumped to help us get the ward more focused on missionary work. Basically we have exhausted our options in terms of what we can do on our own so were are pretty dependent on members for finding new people.
We did meet with Sadie this week and it went well, she is solid and I'm looking forward to her baptism on Christmas Eve. We also had a pretty good meeting with the Cupchoy family, he is going to be a tough nut to crack because he asks a lot of existential questions and is a deep thinker (really nice though) so we'll see where things go with him. I think his wife is a lot more open to it though, she said that she felt something good inside last time we were there so we're getting somewhere. Fingers crossed we don't mess this up.
So one night this past week my companion was feeling awful (he has a lot of health issues) and so we decided to call the mission nurse, she set up an appointment for us to see a doctor the next morning. She gave us the address at 8:45 or so and we didn't recognize the street and figured it was in another ward's boundaries so we drove down to the Zone Leaders pad and got their GPS. We entered the address and turns out it was in Honolulu. So at that point the appointment was in 30 minutes and so we raced down the freeway at the whopping speed of 45 mph (the speed limit here on the island) and eventually got lost in the ghetto part of Honolulu. Very sketchy place. But yeah eventually we found this hole in the wall doctors office and everything was taken care of but what a morning. Also later that week I got lost on a marine base and accidentally drove into an airfield. That was fun. Terrifying, but fun.
Anyway I think that that is all I have to update you on. I took some pics but left my camera at home. I'll try to send them later today.
Love you guys!
Mele Kalikimaka!
Elder Smith
What up fam?
So here's how it's all been. This week in the mission field was pretty mediocre. Lots of cancellations and not enough lessons. We had a sit down with mission president (who just showed up at our pad, I thought that only happened in The Best Two Years movie) and he advised us on some ways that we could work more with the ward council so we will be trying to work with them and hopefully we will see some improvement. Prayers are always nice though :)
So is Moana taking over the mainland like it is here in Hawaii? I've heard a bit of the music just from members listening to it and whatnot and it sounds pretty solid. I would expect nothing less from Hamilton himself.
I definitely do not and will not pick up all of Hawaii Pidgin, you basically have to be born and raised here in order to speak it (and sometimes even understand it) but there are some really common terms that I have picked up. For example Pau means finished or done, Kapuno means senior citizen, and Pordague means someone that really likes to talk (we use that last one a lot with some of the Kapunos around here). But yeah I'd say more than anything my pronunciation some words has changed a bit. Hearing the way people on the mainland say Ukulele just sounds weird to me now. I will always be a haole but I at least don't want to sound like a tourist.
Elder Boyd is pretty cool. He's from some small town outside of Mesa, Arizona and is the third of six boys. He's a good missionary and we get along great but he sure as heck is different than Zollinger. We still don't quite have teaching together down to a science but we are getting better at it. We'll get there once we have had more practice.
So yeah some good stuff did happen this week, the best of which being that we got another commitment to baptism! We started teaching Sadie (the non member daughter of the Sunday school president) and she agreed to be baptized on Christmas eve so heck yes. That's probably the best way to spend the holidays that I can think of. I'm so excited!
Speaking of Christmas if anyone hasn't looked at the Light the World initiative yet you need to do that now. It is such a great idea and will bring a lot of souls to Christ. I can feel it. Christmas is just such a great time of year, especially being a missionary is awesome cause now I can focus just on Christ without all the presents and Christmas sales getting in the way. I hope everyone can remember why this is such an amazing time of year. I love it so much. I love my life and my family and this great gospel. It's all just so great.
So there's this Christmas thing that I'm making a commitment to do for the rest of my life. Every December I'm going to read a chapter of Luke every day because there are 24 chapters in Luke and it gives a really good beginning to end of Jesus's life and it will end up at the end of his ministry on Christmas eve. I'm going to do it out here and probably make it a tradition for every December.
Mele Kalikimaka!
Elder Smith
