Tuesday Oct 16, 2018

We had a district meeting today for a couple of hours with the Elders in our District, super young men!
We later, had the Bowen family over to dinner, forgot to take a picture of them. Then we went over toTurtle Bay and Elder Sanft blessed Diego's new home.  After we arrived home, Leilani brought over some unique fruit and two Papaya for us...such good people.  (I'm guarding these new papaya!)

These are called Tava, look like limes but aren't

Slimy fruit with large seed inside, a little sweet

Monday

Fun FHE tonight....19 people in attendance!  Love these young adults!

Broke my toe today but since that is a yearly occurrence I'm not surprised nor worried, I'm in flip flop country, so all is well.

Sunday night

I think I'm going to slow down on posting almost everything we do as it is getting pretty repetitive.  Plus, I really just want to note the really highlights of this mission.  I'm sorry I didn't do it earlier but we still have 15 months left.

Today, though, was a very spiritual day, we met some new people and talked a lot about conference.  It seems to be the consensus that the message about our two hour block now is to make our home a religious center.  In the world today where parents are starting to homeschool or be super picky about where there children are educated, then shouldn't they too step up and start being more focused on teaching religious values in the home.  We've seen it where parents expect the schools to teach our children and churches to teach moral values.  It is time for parents to increase their level of teaching in the home the things they believe about the gospel.  I wish more than anything I could do it all over again, knowing what I know now and how important it is.  I constantly feel like such a failure.

We heard a high councilman speak today and he said the two most important meetings in the church were Sacrament meeting and Family Home Evening.  I thought it was wise how we were told we don't have to have them (FHE) strictly on Mondays any more, we can be flexible as long as we hold FHE.  We are starting again our Family Home Evenings in our Family Branch and we will hold one in their homes and provide the lesson, the activity, and the dessert for those who sign up...we are excited to start this up here in Hawaii.

Friday

We had a Zone Conference all day today...long day.  We were excited though because after it was over we were going to a concert in town of Marie Osmond, her brothers, and Alex Boye.  But when we got about  half there the sky opened up and it rained like it only does here in buckets.  You couldn't see the road and down the mountain were rivers of muddy water.  We crawled along and finally gave up, turned around and came back.  They close the roads for hours when the flooding is bad and we didn't want to get caught on the other side and not be able to get home after the concert.
Wouldn't you know it, as we drove into Laie it started slowing down and stopped.  But there are still advisories out on the roads so we are glad we changed our minds, although it looks okay here now at 7:00.

We were tired after a full day of sitting and listening at Zone conference.  We sat through about 30 something missionaries testimonies, either the new ones just arrived or the old ones leaving in November.  All were enlightening and spiritual but after a couple of hours you get tired.  I took a quick shot of Elder Collins, our Zone leader and missionary here we are close to.  He bore his testimony and then we left about 3:30.  We are going to miss this young spiritual giant! Like I said he reminds me of my son Adam...

Elder Brayden Collins

I just talked to a new couple that have moved in our Sunset Family branch.  They sound really nice and know some Sanft's from New Zealand.  We will meet them on Sunday.  Always nice to have more people in our branch!

Thursday

I had a meeting with the Sisters and Michele our YSA Relief Society President.  We spent time going over the inactives in our ward and potential new members.  There seems to be quite a few that don't attend church. Michele is such a great leader.  I really admire her.  These two Sisters, Sister Mandajar and Sister Presler  are just great too.  Both strong women who have good strong testimonies.  Sister Mandajar is from the Philippines and already has a University degree, she hopes to go to BYU and get a masters in broadcasting.  Sister Presler is from a small town in Northern Utah and has attended BYU.  She is a accomplished pianist and plays the organ as well.  And she has curly beautiful red hair, she won me over!

We had the Elders and Sisters to dinner tonight with no investigator.  It was a nice chance to get to know them better and ask personal questions.  Elder Collins is being released in 3 weeks, he reminds me of my son Adam.  Elder Chandler was very tired tonight so was a bit subdued for him.  I cooked them a pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, broccoli, lettuce salad, watermelon and pineapple, they appreciated a home cooked meal, said it reminded them of home, at least the three from the Rocky  mountains said that!

Wednesday

 A good morning getting the laundry done and some clean up.  Then we went into pick up Lorraine and Eliu for our afternoon at Kualoa Ranch and the movie tour.  We boarded this old bus but all the windows were out and it was very cool driving around for an hour and a half!  The rain didn't hinder us at all.  We learned a lot about horticulture and Hawaii and some what about cows and pigs!

Ramon and Eliu by the King  (Kamehameha)

Jurassic monster and the boys...

Kong!

Now we finally board the bus for the movie tour...

View from bus

Watch out!!

Valley, imagine dinosaurs galloping over those hills above...
ready to eat you!
Then after it was all over we made a stop for dinner at 7 Brothers..where else?

Tuesday

Today finished with too many trips back and forth between Laie and home...busy day, tired of driving, mostly my fault....

We started by going into Elder and Sister Allen's house for our Senior Couple's meeting at 8:00.  We discuss things pertinent to us and our responsibilities.  Then we went back at 10:30 to our District meeting with the Elders at 10:30.  I wondered why we were in their District but Sister Allen explained it to me and it makes sense, and we thoroughly enjoyed our meeting.  These young Elders are amazing and really fun to be around...I was the only female and just felt a little weird.

Then we ran back home after noon to get ready to meet up with friends the Matangis to go to Kualoa Ranch to go on the Movie tour at 3:00.  We drove all the way to their place, picked them up and then
drove to Kualoa.  This is about an hour drive on windy roads.  We arrived only to find out our reservation was made for Wednesday and not Tuesday,  my fault, I made it!  The young people taking reservations were really sweet and tried to find if they could fit us in but they couldn't so we go back tomorrow.  We ended up back at Lorraine and Eliu's house and just sat outside and visited a bit.  Here's a couple of pictures...I love this location.

Front of their place

Then we drove back, and on the way our Elders called and

asked if we could bring cookies to their Book of Mormon class 

tonight and then also do a split with Elder Collins at 4:45.

So we ran home, baked two pans of cookies, changed clothes and ran back

into Laie to pick up Elder Collins.  Elder Chandler was on a split with an

Institute teacher and the young lady they were teaching only wanted 
two Elders there and she wanted her teacher to be one of them.  We went 
over to the VC to kill an hour because we didn't know where else to take 
him in such a short time.  While there we visited with a couple from Utah
 and a group of Chinese people.

We dropped Elder Collins back at the Chapel to meet Elder Chandler, 
gave them cookies and told them we were too tired to attend the 8:00 meeting.  
Ran by McDonalds for a quick dinner and home by 7:00.  Tiring day.  But
tomorrow is the tour at the Kualoa Ranch and in the morning we are meeting 
with the Drummondos.  Should be a good day.