 |
| Beautiful Sunset in Kauai |
Area: Kekaha, Kaua'i
Companion: Elder Fowles
Hey whats up everybody! This week has been a pretty good week. Just
full of all sorts of dakine.
Tuesday last week we met with this old
lady that we had found tracting. its kinda hard to get her to
understand a lot because she's from the Philippines and every time that
we tell her that she needs to be baptized shes like "I've already been
baptized in the Philippines." We're not sure if she has Alzheimer's or
what, but we keep goin' back hoping that she will understand. I
finally started to use a white board and wrote questions on it and she
would answer in turn. We straight up told her that her church didn't hold the correct keys (aka wrong!),
but nothing can get through to this lady.
We taught "R"
later that night. Taught him about the law of tithing. "R" said
that he's not sure if he will be able to stop drinking coffee and the
beers, so we were kinda bummed. The family is pretty poor to so its gonna be
hard to get them to live the law of tithing.
I went on exchanges
with Elder Bateman the next day who is our Zone Leader. That was pretty
fun, tracted a lot and met a guy named "R" then went back later and he told
us to leave, so that's that! Then the next day we had lunch with the
Mechams at Wranglers, I friggen got stuffed. We tried visiting members to
get referrals after that and then visited one of our investigators named
Brad and his girl friend, Wendi. We talked with them for a
while on their porch, set up a time for us to come back
Sunday
to have dinner and then we had to jet, cuz we had a basketball game planed
that night with some non members that were coming. "G" was
there and so was his son and some of "G's" friends. Even though Elder
Fowles ankle was pretty jacked up he was still able to win, it was
pretty fun, a good work out.
Then
Friday
morning I had to go to DLTM in Lihue and then after ward we went out
with a kid in our ward named Evan, he's going on his mission to Mexico and is leaving some time this week. While we were tracting -- it
was pretty funny -- we tracted into a girl that was wearing a bikini. We
said a prayer with her and she told us to come back later because she
was making pumpkin bread. Elder Fowles, Evan and I were joking about all that but when we went back -- the pumpkin bread wasn't done so we didn't push it. Later that night we had dinner with Brother Aipoalani
who is the second counselor in the Bishopric. We ended up eating out at
this place and another family from the ward the Karratti's showed up as
well! .....So it was pretty fun, I was friggen stuffed once again. I feel
like I'm always friggen stuffed. I like the Karratti's they saw that some
of my pant had holes in them and I show up to church this last Sunday
and they give me a new pair of pants. It was much needed. (
what the? I didn't realize it was this bad!)
Saturday
we noticed the J-dubs -- they seem to be scouring the entire town of
Kekaha. We left for a minute and we came back and they had put a
pamphlet in our door. So we were driving around and we found a J-dub car
and we put one of our pamphlets on there windshield! Then after that we
talked with a family called the "L's", they were a referral from his brother. We taught them and they said that they
believed that the Book of Mormon was true. So that's a definite start. We
went tracting afterwards in the low income housing in Kekaha and we
got a lot of swear words thrown at us from a crazy guy, it was actually
pretty fun.
Sometimes it's fun to suffer for the Lord, I believe there was a dude in
the Book of Mormon that said the same thing.
I was in dire need of a
hair cut after that, so we call Sister Nakaahiki (who is a nurse, but
doubles as a haricutter lady) and ask if she would cut our hair. We
went over and sat on her lawn as she cut our hair. The Nakaahikis are a
really nice and generous family. Went to dinner with Auntie K,
that same night and saw a crazy lady with a weird arm that was getting all
over us. She kept on talking about the numbers, how all men are
douche bags and that she had never been in a relationship for 17
years. She was really crazy, she told us that she inspired the movie
Underworld Awakening. She was crazy!! After that I had to go do a baptismal
interview for the Kalaheo Sisters in Ele'Ele that went well then we
drove home and "pow", the next day was
Sunday!
Sunday
was a really nice day. Woke up, went to ward council, gave everyone a
hug, then talked ward council business. It was Evan's (the missionary that is leaving this week to Mexico) farewell,
so a lot the ward members were pretty emotional, especially Brother
and Sister Wright (his parents). They asked me to give a missionary moment because he
was leaving on a mission. Over here they do this thing where they have a
missionary moment and you talk about whatever, instead of having to
give a talk. Everyone always says as they get asked to talk, "What an Opportunity!" {its kind of a joke}. When I stood up I said, "What an
opportunity I have to give this missionary moment" and right as I was
beginning to talk a cell phone goes off that is on the podium. So I look at
the phone and I turned to Brother Wright and said, "Oh Brother Wright you got a text message" and
everyone started laughing. Brother Wright was kinda lost because the Bishop
had to hurry and leave cuz the military base that is in Mana -- I guess the power
went down. That was the reason for the call. Bishop is the electrician over there. Oh yea, lot of
people in Kekaha work down at the military base as well. It's like a mini
community. Then we taught "L" and "D" during the second hour of church. They say that they want to be baptized but not until like the beginning
of next year. They want to start the year of right or something like
that. Their good people. Then during elders quorum the lesson was on missionary work, so they asked me and Elder Fowles to share some experiences from our mission. The spirit was very strong during that
lesson. I talked about how I was scared to actually leave on a mission
and how hard it was for me at the beginning. How much I have learned and progressed by being out here serving.
After church, I'm not gonna
lie.....we crashed, we were pretty tired. I feel kinda bad but
we were bushwhacked tired. After that we visited the Akana girls, they are
recent converts, then went to dinner at the "M" family. This lesson was
like a do or die lesson, so we pretty much pulled out the do not
procrastinate the day of your repentance scripture after we were done
eating dinner and asked what was holding them back? They
said that they just weren't ready. So all we can do for them is just keep
on loving them and pray for them. The spirit was strong during that lesson thought. Brad has
comes to church like every
Sunday
for like the past 7 months, I think he's ready so I'm not sure what's really
holding him back.
Went home slept. Woke up for p-day and we decided that we were
gonna go fishing. So we asked some members of the ward who are big
into fishing if they would take us and they did. We went down to Lihue
and fished off of the dock. The water was pretty rough as of lately its been really rainy and stormy on Kauai. I caught one fish! It was rainbow looking fish. That was
pretty fun. Went back to the Lihue Stake Center played some V-ball and
then we had to leave early because we had dinner with "R" and his family at
4:30.
I'm glad I went, because when we were there talking with "R" and
his family, "R" told us that he prayed that morning and he decided that
he was done with coffee and alcohol....... So that's super exciting news,
because that's bringing them so much closer to being baptized and their
baptism is
next Sunday!
So that's awesome.
 |
| Me with my little rainbow fish! |
 |
| "E's" baptism with Elder Griffith and his companion. |
I emailed you a picture of Elder Griffiths and his
current companion. I was surprised but they actually baptized this one
guy named "E" that Elder Griffiths and I had just started talking to
as we were walking through Keaukaha (On the Big Island). That's super exciting to me because we
just found him out of thin air, wasn't even a referral. We just started
talking to him as we were walking. We taught him a little bit and commit
him to be baptized but I never thought that it would really happen. So das way cool!!!! I cant really think of anything else to say and
my hands feel like there getting carpal tunnel. So see you guys whenevers.
Love, Elder Shoemaker
 |
| This is our church |
 |
| Some dude riding a horse through Kekaha | | |
