Dear Family,
It has indeed been quite the exciting week! First off I am very glad to hear that all is well back in Arizona. As well I cannot even come close to expressing how incredibly happy I am for Ben!! I seriously could have never imagined something as tiny as humming a primary song in our hotel room in Texas would lead to well, all of this! But I guess it just goes to show you how important it is to "stand as a witness of Christ AT ALL TIMES!!"
 |
At the Family History Fair by our display |
I guess that was kind of the theme of this week. Over all this week was honestly pretty terrible when it comes to things like lessons and numbers, but when it comes to Missionary work it was GREAT!! We're still making an effort to visit as many active members as we can and get them a little more excited and involved in the work. We had MANY service projects this week. One especially was great.
 |
At the USS Missouri after doing service there a couple weeks ago |
As you might imagine being such a small chain of islands there's not really any "extra space" to just throw trash, so recycling here is a BIG thing!! So our whole Zone got together on Saturday and helped with this community non-profit group (founded by singer Jack Johnson) that gathered literally TONS of scrap metal, paper, bottles, glass, plastic, old-computers, printers, ect. and sorted them all out so they could then be taken to the different recycling companies and taken care of! :) It was fun having all of us there because with the whole 20+ missionaries we made up well more than 3/4th of the work force and a good part of the other 1/4th were members in the area as well! haha! It was great! I especially just felt amazing knowing that I could do something to help take care of this BEAUTIFUL world the Lord has given us and especially the beauty of the islands out here! :)
 |
Kolipoki's grandson meets Feki's grandson |
Anyway, we also had another service the other day at one of our Part Members houses toiling in their tea leave garden :) And of course there was the other service we were doing at Kanoa Kanahele's house just before going to lunch with Feki and then service right after at a Tongan families house in the Zone Leaders ward (hence the raggedy service cloths in the picture instead of the normal pros clothing). So yeah overall a lot of AMAZING opportunities to get out and literally GET TO WORK!
Which was a huge deal especially for me this week because I made the mistake of thinking I could give myself one night this week to just relax and think about home and all the games and friends and music and whatever else I left behind. I was pretty stressed and thought maybe if I just let my mind wander to all the things of the past that I would find comfort but well... as you might imagine it was quite the opposite. While they are all good things and I still do think of you all and you are always in my prayers I allowed myself to lose sight a bit of what I was there for and what I was doing and the result was a very slow and groggy day the next day. Anyway, so I guess the biggest lesson I learned this week (and one I've learned in the past but keep getting re-taught through experience) is simple as Pres. Hinckley's father said to "Forget yourself and go to work!" Anyway, of course the result of all the work and sun exposure is that my brain in completely fried which is why this e-mail is rather void of any wit or continuity at all. So I do apologize for that but hopefully there is something you can take from it. :P haha
 |
Sister Kahea Tani is a missionary mom whose son is serving with Luke's second cousin, Jennison Smith, in Tacoma Washington. She set up the get together with Luke and Feki, the grandson of Luke's grandpa Groberg's mission companion (also named Feki) in Tonga many years ago. |
Well thank you again for all you do! I love you all so much and miss you! keep on doing what you do and as always don't forget to be awesome!! :D
-Elder Powell
No comments:
Post a Comment