Paradise, rain, connections

8/4/14

ALOHA OHANA!!!!

Kamusta po?

Sorry for the extended absence but as you might imagine when we got here Monday they didn't quite let us go off and have p-day :P haha! but week one has gone by now and I get to have my first p-day here in Hawaii! :D Whoohoo! Anyway, Thank you for the updates. That is very sad to hear about Sis. Romney. Please give the family my love and let them know I will be praying for them!

As for my updates… First off I had a revelation since I've been here and it's huge! After having been to "Adam-onhi-ahman" and now being here in Hawaii I've decided that the Garden of Eden was most definitely NOT in Missouri at all! It was here in Kaneohe Hawaii and the tree of knowledge of good and evil had Lilikoi on it! Because those most definitely are most desirable and delicious to the taste!!! hahaha! anyway, yeah if paradise were anywhere it would have been here! :)

Luke in front of the mission home (The Groberg's former home)

So anyway! Enough of my ridiculousness and back to general updates on everything that you guys have asking about! :) I got here monday and we spent the first few nights in the mission home which was really cool!! That home has such a cool spirit to it! I mean whoever lived there before must have been one SUPER AWESOME family! :) haha! So then after some orientation stuff we all got to open our own little "mission calls" from President telling us where and with who we'll be serving. I am serving right now in Kaneohe on the windward side of O'ahu in a small little area. :) Being the windward side of the island it rains literally at least once a day which is cool because it makes everything over here SUPER green!! but it's also a little inconvenient since we're in a walking only area. But on the bright side when it's raining we get soaked by the rain so nobody can tell how much we're sweating from the ridiculous humidity that also comes with being on the windward side of the island! haha! 

Luke meeting his first companion, Elder Basag

As for my companion. His name is Elder Basag. He's from straight out of the Philippines! (So be sure to let Paul know so he can tell Joseph next time they're together! :) haha) He's a pretty cool guy! He actually kind of reminds me of Ben Lopez in a lot of ways :P haha! (OH!!! BY THE WAY DID BEN GET HIS CALL YET?! WHERE IS HE GOING?!?! GUAHH!! I'M SO EXCITED FOR HIM! :D :D) But yeah, Elder Basag is cool! :) He's been trying to teach me Tagalog and I've been trying to teach him how to solve a Rubiks cube and I believe we are both sufficiently fascinated and frustrated so we'll see where things stand in a few weeks :P haha! He also made me try Balut! (I'll let you guys look that one up, or ask Joseph about it.) It wasn't terrible actually! It was mostly just disgusting thinking about it before and after eating it… and during eating it… but it didn't taste too bad! :) haha!

As for the work here in Kaneohe. It's been a little slow so far. Everyone here is SUPER nice. I mean the Aloha spirit is very real! We only have two real investigators, one is an old Hawaiian guy who's very catholic and flat out told us he doesn't want to change religions but is interested to hear what we have to say, and the other is a 9 year old kid who's being adopted by a member family but he can't get baptized until the adoption is final anyway so that will be a few months down the road still. We also just got a new family to start teaching which is WAY cool! We were just walking down the street and they were outside and we started talking to them and taught them a whole lesson and are going back today. They seem to be pretty interested but they do have just a few little issues…. just small things… like chain smoking, believing Christ was imperfect, and a general knowledge of anti-mormon material… but they're still very sincere in their desire to learn… so yeah that will be interesting! haha! As for the rest of our time it's spent almost entirely on working with less-actives. The ward we cover is actually pretty big… but at church yesterday there were MAYBE a little over a hundred people there and that includes a ton of family that was visiting for a baby blessing… so yeah there are A LOT of less-actives. But they're all still SUPER nice! In fact we've gotten more food from the less-active members than the active members so far! And since it's disrespectful to say no to anything we have a TON of food!! hahaha! But yeah they're all really cool people! :)

Oh I've also made a couple connections since we've been out here! Of course there's all the people that knew Elder Ormiston (who by the way I BARELY missed!! We were literally in the same room at one time but there were a ton of missionaries and it was hectic so I never actually got to see him! super sad!) but I also was talking with an Elder Moffitt (not Adam) who went to Mesa high and so he knew a lot of my friends from there! In fact apparently he was in Beauty and the Beast with Brie's older sister, they were the salt and pepper shakers :) haha! anyway, but he also knew someone from some ward he served in who apparently used to be "best friends with Elder Groberg's kids back when they were living here". Sorry I don't remember the name but it was still a pretty cool connection! :) There was also a family in our ward who I guess knew someone that said they used to nanny the younger Groberg kids back when you were here and wrote a book about it or something! haha! I also had accidentally let it slip with Elder Basag who my grandpa was and now he makes sure that EVERY SINGLE PERSON we talk to knows that my Grandpa is Kolipoki! :P haha! But it was funny because he was telling it to some other Elders in our District and he brings up "The Other Side of Heaven" and Elder Hathaway goes "oh yeah I know that movie! My second cousin was in it!" …..I'll let you guys figure that one out! hahaha! We also were talking with this LA family that we visit, the Si'ilata's and Bro. Si'ilata said that he served his mission in Samoa and just so happened to serve with a certain 7 foot Canadian that I know pretty well! haha! So yeah please let President Toone know that I met one of the missionaries he serve with in Samoa! :)

Well anyway, I've rambled on for much too long. But we're still just waiting for our laundry. Anyway, I'll talk to you guys soon! thank you so much for your love and support! I know you guys are praying for me and know that I am praying for you as well! I love and miss you all and will be sure to keep you updated on everything! :) But until then, Aloha Oe! Don't forget to be awesome! :)

-Elder Powell