Hey everybody,
How's it? I guess the big news this week was we got transfer plans yesterday night. Elder Wilson and I will be staying down south for the next transfer and Elder Toki will still be our district leader, but he will be receiving a new companion. Missionaries don't usually stay more than 3 transfers in an area, and usually you get one or two with a companion, but there are lots different situations. It sounds like 3 of the 7 companionships in Hilo zone will be training, plus me and Elder Brinkerhoff are only one transfer in so that means we should have a pretty young zone. That makes it nice for making friends with Elders who will come home close to when I do. Sadly Elder Fisher, one of the zone leaders, is being released and sent back to Oahu. He is leaving in 6 weeks so its just easier for him to leave from Oahu, but I'm for sure gonna miss him. We really hit it off while he was here.
So this week started off like any other week, but we hit a few stumbling blocks mid-week. I'll get to those later. Overall it was still a good week.
Monday we headed into Hilo and just hung out and played basketball for P-day. We headed back and ate shrimp and steak with the Tayamen family. They treat us so well every Monday night! I think its always the perfect end to P-day.
Tuesday we had district meeting and then headed back to Pahala to visit Bill and Winona. They are still doing well. Winona is reading the book of Mormon regularly. She expressed some concern about Nephi killing Laban, but when we explained to her that it was better for one man to fall than a whole nation dwindle in unbelief she understood the reason behind it. Bill still just kinda reads the Bible, but he loves when we teach from the Book of Mormon, so hopefully he will start reading it himself. We visited a few less actives and recent converts and then headed back home for dinner. Mom's letter and pictures came Tuesday night. That was nice to read and the pictures help gain trust with investigators for sure, and show that we are normal people with families just like them haha. We met up with the zone leaders Tuesday night for exchanges. Elder Wilson ended up getting the car stuck in a mud hole while trying to get off the road to park and wait for the zone leaders. While I was on the side of the car looking at how stuck we were, Elder Wilson stepped on the gas covering me with mud (I'm sending home pictures on Friday). Anyway, eventually we got pulled out by some nice people with a truck and Elder Fisher and I headed back to Ka'u
Wednesday we headed down to the farmers market to get our backs adjusted by the brother Cohen the Chiropractor. As usual he left us feeling better than we arrived. After, we had a referral to contact from a former investigator. She owns a Christian book store in town. We stepped in and she seemed like a really nice lady. Sadly, after one minute all she wanted to do was bash with us and tell us how there was no possible way we could believe in anything we believe. It was the first time anyone has ever really wanted to fight with me while I've been in Hawaii. Sadly, it would not be the last of the day or week. Anyway we agreed to do a movie swap next week, she wanted to give us a movie and we are going to give her a movie of the restoration. After lunch we had a great lesson with Candice. Her only problem is she needs to be married and her boy friend isn't really excited to do anything right now which is sad. She is really trying her best though so hopefully Gary will come around. Next we decided to go knock some doors. We knocked about 5 with nobody answering. The 1st person to finally answer was an atheist, he was quite the guy and it was really sad he believed what he believed, hopefully one day his heart will be softened. So at this point Elder Fisher and I were having a pretty rough day haha. We kept going though Elder Fisher pointed out that we told Heavenly Father we would be on this street at this time, and we need to have faith there was someone put in our path that we needed to talk to. We kept going and found some nice people who let us drop off a pamphlet or share a quick message. The last house was the best however. We found Matt who was a Jehovah Witness. He mentioned the little he knew of us sounded like stuff he was interested in. We talked about families and the plan of salvation. He had a few misconceptions of Mormons which we quickly cleared up. At the end he accepted a Book of Mormon and we marked 2 nephi 31 to read. Its my favorite chapter and it pretty much explains the need for baptism and the atonement. That was definitely a testimony top me, that even though we have trials Heavenly Father hasn't forgotten about us and will still provide success.
Friday we did some service in the morning, and then went around teaching a few lessons. We taught Alona who is set to be baptized this Saturday, He is progressing great and it should be a spiritual experience. We taught Bollo and Jessica again. They were nice and Jessica is still reading but Bollo
Saturday we had another Car wash, this time in Pahoa which is 15 miles from Hilo. That was a good time and we got a referral for down here so that was nice. We just got her answering machine so we will have to go visit this week. We got back mid-afternoon and knocked some more doors then had dinner and a meeting with the ward mission leader to get on the same page with him.
Sunday we had church and went with Brother Simmons around to some less actives and part member families. It was good to meet them and start fellowshipping them. It was nice to talk Sports with one of the part-member families. It was good to keep caught up with whats going on in the NFL NBA and MLB. It sounds like the NFL free agent market is up for grabs and the Giants are still holding on, although I did here from Rollie through Natalie that the Reds swept the Giants so that no good. :( haha Sunday night we called in our numbers around 8 and at 9 the Zone Leaders called to let us know what was up so that was exciting. :)
I love it down here in Ka'u and I was telling Elder Fisher I wish I would have been called to the Ka'u, Big Island of Hawaii mission, so I could stay here for 2 years, although I'm excited to see all the Islands and meet lots of good people, I'm sure there are lots of great people and Elders outside of Ka'u although it has been a huge blessing to start out here.
I love you all and hope you are doing great. I love hearing about home and whats going on there. It sounds like you had a great week! Hope it stays as good there as it is here :) ALOHA
Love, Elder Benjamin Tripp
P.S. I just realized today I have been out for 2 months. Honestly it feels like yesterday I came to Hawaii and I entered the MTC like a week ago. It truly has been two of the best months of my life so far. I have grown so much and have been blessed so much. I hope the last 22 months are as good as the first 2 :)
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