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| Beautiful Sunset in Kauai |
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.
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| Me with my little rainbow fish! |
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| "E's" baptism with Elder Griffith and his companion. |
Love, Elder Shoemaker
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| This is our church |
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| Some dude riding a horse through Kekaha |
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