...a family oriented people

July 8, 2013

Area: Hilo, Keaukaha Area
Companion: Elder Kellogg

Hey Hows everyone doing?  I'm doing pretty good, everything is going swell down here. This week was a pretty eventful week. Lets see.......We now have two investigators that are now with a date. Alex and "C", their both pretty solid.  Alex is just such an awesome guy and the Mortensen family did a really good job at fellow-shipping him. Alex said that he would be baptized and we set him with the 20th of of July, so that should be super good.

Elder Kellogg had the great opportunity to ride his bike straight into a pole. It was pretty funny seeing him and his bike come apart, we both look at each other and we just start laughing. Some hippies came over to see if he was ok, but we told them we were good. He ran into it because he had his head down because of the rain and wasn't really looking where he was going.

The people here in Hawaii are so nice, they are really family oriented. I feel like most of the ward is related in some way. We got called over by some complete strangers to come eat some food and they just load us up. Most of the people here are always chilling in there garage's, because its a lot cooler to chill out there. They always have tables and sometimes T.V's, beds, and couches in their garage. It's basically like their living room.  I think they are like that because like three generations ago All of the familys lived on the beach and they were always together.

Fourth of July was pretty sweet. We ended proselyting at like 5 o' clock I think. President Irvin of the Stake presidency invited us to a hotel called The Naniloa where he had rented out a suite for all the missionaries to watch the fireworks from Coconut Island. It was Pretty sweet!  The suite was super nice. There is a picture of me on the balcony of the suite. {the picture's didn't make it through email..sorry folks} The other pictures are of us on top of Mauna Loa watching the sunrise. We had to wake up at 2:30 in the morning to get there in time. .........And awe man, I had to sit in the back of the pick up truck and I was sooo cold. In the winter there is always snow on top of the mountain, but not this time. I'm pretty sure from the bottom of the mountain which is in the depths of the ocean to the top of the mountain is the highest mountain in the world. It was kinda hard to breath up there but it was pretty sweet. The cool thing is that you can see Haleakala from there which is sweet.

Today was Elder Packers last P-day so Elder Kellogg, Elder Hall, Elder Jensen, Elder Uisele, Elder Packer  and I all went out to dinner. I think it was called The Hilo Burger Joint.   We didnt know it but it was kinda like a bar so that was kinda funny. They kept on asking if we wanted beer and we were like no we are good. But we ended up winning 5 dollars from this trivia game thing. So that was pretty fun. So other then that..... I'm still alive so yea! Love you guys!

Elder Tanner Shoemaker