Great Eating Week Again

Hey family, 

Things are good over here. The meeting was great, but one day was
plenty for me in the city. It is just so crazy over there. Things went
smooth though. It was nice to see lots of old missionary friends.
Sounds like the eclipse was pretty fun. Had to drive a ways to get
there though. Hope your trip to Hawaii is smooth mom. Lots of good
memories this week it seems like. Lets see what I can remember.

So 

Monday we just played some wiffle ball and what not. We had singles
fhe for dinner which was lots of fun. One of the girls brought has
been bringing her friend to church the past 2 weeks, and she told us
Monday night she wanted to take the lessons, so our Ward Mission
Leader who had the lesson changed up his plans and taught about the
Apostasy and Restoration. It went great I thought because there were
lots of people there so it wasn't just like it was a lesson to teach
star, but we all learned from it. After we played mad gab which was
lots of fun. 

Tuesday night we had our typical district meeting. After lunch we had
to drop off Elder Maughan at the Airport for a doctors appointment in
Oahu. So that left us with Elder Turina, his companion for the day. We
went and visited our boy Chad. He is doing good. He read the whole 1st
part of the Book of Mormon, all of the testimonies and things. He had
lots of questions, but they were sincere so it is a lot easier to
answer instead of arguing. Lots of questions like where did the
Nephites live, and where are all the exact ruins of the Book of Mormon
etc. we resolved them with explaining lots we have to leave up the
faith and the Church has never made an official statement. Anyway
after that we taught him about the 1st vision and I know he was
touched with the spirit. We committed him to keep reading and to apply
the teachings to his life and see how they go. He also agreed to be
baptized if he came to know it was true. Pretty positive lesson I
thought. We finished the night off with a good old ward activity of
Tennis. It was fun to play. 

Wednesday we got up around 5:30 for a 7 O'clock flight. We flew over
with lots of ward members who were going for the day to do various
chores I guess. We got to Honolulu around 7:30. The traffic was
terrible I guess so it took our ride til about 8:10 to pick us up. It
was Elder Halle and Lasitani, who were both with me and Elder Robbins
in Hilo so that was a fun reunion. It was such a culture shock to be
around so many cars and people and so much traffic etc. I'm too used
to being out in the sticks cruising out with da country folk. Anyway
the meeting was for Honolulu, Hon West and Waipahu, ass well as us. I
saw lots of good friends from my Hilo days and Elder Toone from
Grantsville as well. I realized that I don't know very many Eldersbecause I have been off Oahu my whole mission, but I seem to be known
around the mission( For good reasons) one is that I haven't served on
O'ahu. Hope that continues. Elder Wilson talked a lot about the Book
Of Mormon. He encouraged us to make it a huge part of our
investigators lives. I thought that was good council. For lunch, the
Honolulu steak made lunch. It was Kalua pig and orange chicken. I
thought we got fed well. After lunch we had some more training on the
Holy Ghost and having good attitudes. After we got back in the car and
headed back to the Airport. We got in around 6 and headed for dinner.
Dinner was a surf and turf dinner of ribs, chicken and shrimp. It was
excellent. 

Thursday we did our weekly planning in the morning and then did
service for 3 different people. The main one was we helped set up for
a big graduation party for the Pico family. Sister Pico is sister
Apuna'a sister and has a non member husband so it was great to help
them and talk a little story and build a relationship with him. Our
main duty was stringing deer meat and vegetables on kabobs for the
pupu (appetizer bar) we also went out and got some gravel for a
"smores bar" We taught a lesson or 2 after with some investigators
before calling it a night.

Friday we made our rounds and did some tracting. We met with Star
again and had another good lesson. 

Friday night was the big Party.It
was the 1st one of the year since Graduation was Saturday. They went
all out. We helped serve food which in the main line was huli huli
chicken, kinda a rotisserie style, meatballs, noodles and kalua pig.
There were lots of desserts including make your own smore which was my
favorite. They planned on feeding 1500 and I think the plate count was
1250 so a pretty big party. It was a fun time for sure. 

Saturday we played flag football with the Young Men and then did lots
of tracting. The afternoon wasn't too successful since everyone is
family here so everybody was at the graduation supporting some
relative. Lots of people set up Lei stands to sell for last minute
leis. 

Sunday we taught primary and EQ. lessons went well. The stake
Presidency came to speak, they did well. 

Today we got up at 5:30 to try our hand at fishing again. We had great
success. We went out to the West side and found some good rocks. We
were doing lots of popping and pretty quickly caught two Papio, not
sure what the English word is, but it is like a small Ulua and great
eating fish. It was fun that we both caught one within 3 casts of each
other. We also caught a few rock fish and I caught a small fish with
really sharp teeth that as soon as I pulled the hook out of its mouth
It grabbed it again. We came home and Brother Wade showed us how to
cook the papio in Shoyu and green onions. Mine was about 4 lbs and
Elder Robbins just a little smaller. It fed all 3 of us and was great.
It was lots of fun and we are thinking we will try again next week. I
love you all thanks for all your support. Can't wait to hear from you!
Love, Elder Tripp