Hows it? Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! It was a pretty good week. Sounds like it was a tough loss for both universities, but I am relieved to hear Utah only lost by 9 and it very well could have gone to OT. A member told me on Sunday that Utah got spanked by a bunch and that BYU got cheated out of their game.(typical fan) ;) It was def exciting to hear about the Grantsville game:) beating Morgan is always sweet.
I finally got the package you sent on Tuesday and opened it on the way to district meeting. It was great the cereal was a pleasant surprise. Over here box cereal is really expensive, and they have a very slim variety of malt-o-meal cereal so the cocoa krispies were especially a nice treat. I have been trying to ration the pop tarts, but they are great as well. Thanks for the ties, Hilo Zone is the unofficial paisley tie zone, so it is nice to have a few more than one to wear. :) Anyway Tuesday after district meeting we scheduled an exchange with the Kea'au elders, and I took Elder Lasitani, from Tonga home with me while Elder Wilson stayed with Elder Toki in Kea'au. We stopped in Pahala to visit Bill and Winona, and as Bill says "Shared the good word with them". They are so awesome they are progressing really slow, but they accepted our invitation to be baptized, but they said they need to get a few things settled 1st before they start coming to church. So hopefully that means sooner rather than later, but the point is they are really starting to make and keep commitments which is a positive. :) After that we did some tracting and taught a lesson with one of our potential investigators mom, which was kinda cool. we just happened to knock on her door and she had us in for a bit. For Dinner we ate with the Serrao family. They made us Chicken Katsu (my favorite) for dinner since they knew it was my birthday so that was a great way to end my 1st birthday on my mission. :) It was also nice to
Wednesday I still had Lasitani with me. We did our usual visits in Na'alehu and then the Moses family offered to take us to L&L for lunch. I got my usual Chicken Katsu, it never gets old, after that we went and visited a few less actives and set up a meeting on Saturday with the Ward Mission Leader. A cool story that happened was that we were supposed to take Pule with us on Wednesday. He ended up going to Hilo, but when we went to his house Tui's wife answered the door and wanted to chat with us about the church. It was AWESOME she told us that she has noticed the change that has come in Pule and wants to have that in her life too. It was so cool to see how just being a good example really can make a difference in someone else's life. We had Dinner with Naboa's as usual which is always good.
Thursday we got up and drove halfway to Kea'au to switch back companions. It was really cool to get to work with Lasitani for a few days. He is just one transfer ahead of me and he is a really hard worker, he is hilarious also so that was nice too :) We didn't really have any lessons planned though so just had a few less actives and did a lot of tracting until 5. At 5 we headed over to Ed and Tessa's house. They are the couple we met tracting last week. Ed ended up having to work and stay up in Waimea all week, but since they knew we needed to have a male in the house Tessa invited over a friend who had some "questions" as well. The lesson and dinner went pretty good the spirit was strong and Tessa seemed to feel it as well. She was grateful for the copy of the book of Mormon, and wanted us to come back when Ed was around. So to this point it sounds like a pretty good lesson, which it was, but then as we were leaving Tessa's friend pulled out a bunch of anti-mormon stuff which was sad. He at least waited until we were outside to try and bash. We just invited him to pray about what we had just taught and left, before he could say much.
Friday we had another just tracting day and then we had a great dinner appointment with a part member family. Brother Akana is starting to come around which is nice. We had a good lesson on the Book of Mormon, and Sister Akana bore a strong testimony about it to finish which was awesome too.
Saturday we did another free car wash in Hilo, which took up most of our day. It was a lot of fun and it sounded like there was lots of good that came from it. One of the Hilo companion ships set up about 4 lessons for this week which is awesome :) We got home around 6 in time to make our dinner and then have our meeting with the WML.
Sunday was church as usual. We didn't have to teach gospel principles which was nice. 2 weeks in a row of on the spot lessons was enough for me, although this week I had read over the lesson just in case the teacher didn't show up again. We didn't have any of our investigators at our ward, but Candice was at the Kilauea ward, and one of Kea'au elders investigators came to our ward. our Elders Quorum lesson was on Temples and Pule gave his testimony about going to the temple for the 1st time to do baptism's for his son and brother. He started out in Samoan, which Toafa translated, and then the Spirit just took over. about his 3rd sentence he just started to cry and started speaking in English incredibly clear. He didn't stumble or anything and the Spirit was so powerful. It was such a cool experience and for sure built my testimony of Temple work, and how the Spirit works.
So this week is the last full week of this transfer. Sunday we get the news of who is staying and who is going. I get the feeling I'm going to stay, but you may want to start sending letters to the mission office, to make sure I get them. Its crazy how fast time flies. it for sure doesn't feel like it has been 3 months. Thanks for all the letters and birthday wishes. I feel super blessed to have such great friends and family, and to have this opportunity to serve the Lord on a mission. I truly love the people of Hawaii, and I can't wait to go out and find more people to share the Gospel with. I Know the Church is True. I Love you all!
Aloha, Elder Tripp
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