Week 69 - A New Old Area

Alooooha friends and family!

I'm back in Kona! Back in the same zone I was in last time I was on Big Island, but on the other side of the island. Last time I was up at the very top, now I'm on like the bottom left side in Kailua-Kona, the main town. I love it here so far. We have a nice apartment, my companion Elder Langi is super cool, and the ward is just awesome. So many people in our ward are very missionary minded, and we had a meeting that helped with that even more.

On Friday we had mission tour with Elder Johnson of the Seventy. He came and talked to all the missionaries, ward mission leaders, and other auxiliary leaders from all of Big Island. He started off talking about Moses 1:39, how God's only work, out of everything that He's created and everything He has to do, is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Then Elder Johnson talked about what made Christ, Christ was His willingness to submit to all things that the Father commanded Him. Elder Johnson then related it to the fact that we need to become more like our savior, and align our will with our Father in Heaven's. So in reality, our work and our glory should be the exact same thing, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Elder Johnson had us split up into wards and had the missionaries teach a principle too all the ward members present. He told them to clear their mind and to not judge. But, he said, if they listened and payed attention to the spirit they felt during the lesson, at least one name would be given to them that the missionaries needed to teach. We were able to get lots of referrals from this one simple exercise, which we then repeated in ward council yesterday! I think a key element in this was not judging. Because God's ways aren't our ways and we never know who He is preparing. Elder Johnson talked about how there's often times when a name is given to us by the spirit, but we brush it off saying "oh he's not ready" or "we already tried her". He said how many times have we thought someone was perfect to receive the gospel. The way they were living lined them up to be the next bishop or stake president, but when they are asked to investigate the gospel they decline. He then said how many times have we seen someone come to church or be baptized who we thought was the last person we would see there. We really can't judge those people the Lord is preparing, and more importantly need to be in tune with the spirit so we can recognize those names that are prepared when they are given to us.

I wish I could put into words how spiritual the meeting was and the impact it left on everyone there to go out and do more. Its' effect was so influential that members took action almost immediately. Our 2nd counselor took us out to the Burger King drive thru after the meeting and while we were there asked for a He Is the Gift pass along card. We didn't really know why, but gave him one, and he proceeded to give it to the guy working at the drive thru window! I was sitting there like: this guy's more missionary minded than me! It never crossed my mind to pass cards out through a drive thru. And it was also incredibly easy. Nothing long or intimidating. He basically just asked the guy if he could give him a card to help him remember the reason for the season, then told him there's a link to a video on the back to help us remember Christ this Christmas season. 

Love you guys and remember that He is the gift!

Love,

Elder Merrill

Week 68 - BIGger Things

Alooooha everyone!

I hope you guys all had a great Thanksgiving full of stuffing and cranberry sauce and all those good things, because ours definitely wasn't. It was probably the most interesting Thanksgiving meal I've ever had. Turkey, rice, chop suey, and potato/macaroni salad. Our Thanksgiving day started off with a song practice for our musical fireside. We basically sounded terrible and hadn't gone all the way through the song and that was 4 days before the actual performance. So that was fun. Then after me and some other missionaries went to a member's house in the Samoan ward and played pool and ping pong. It was the most impossible game of ping pong because the table was outside. There was barely a gentle breeze, but the way the ping pong ball was going you would've thought we were playing in the middle of a hurricane. While we were there, one of the elders brought out some ghost chili peppers. I thought I was a seasoned vet when it came to spicy stuff because I grew up eating Korean food, but this pepper was something completely different. I ate it, and a few seconds later started to tear up. That's when I made the huge mistake of wiping the tears away with my chili pepper stained hands. As soon as I brought my hand down this elder gave me this look like I just told him I had cancer or something. I immediately realized what I did and ran inside to the missionaries' apartment on the side of the house and washed my eyes out with soap and water. Probably not the brightest idea because I also got soap in my eye which just increased the pain. After a while it all subsided, but a couple hours later we were getting ready for our branch Thanksgiving party and it felt like I was giving birth...to a porcupine. Apparently hot peppers aren't the best thing for your stomach because it felt like something was eating its way out of mine. But the pain went away and we had our killer Thanksgiving dinner and ice cream after! (no pie)

We also had our musical fireside last night that I mentioned we practiced for. Our whole zone sang a couple songs, along with some solos and testimonies from other members and Mormon messages. It was a really spiritual fireside and we had way more people show up than we were planning on! I had a sore throat for a couple of days before the fireside and after singing I could barely talk. I had this raspy, squeaky voice and no matter how hard I tried, couldn't talk normal. Picture Golem as a chain smoker. So it's definitely been fun whispering to everyone I talk to.

The church is also pushing this new campaign in line with the Christmas season called "He Is the Gift". It's a short video that really helps re-center our thoughts on Christ this Christmas season. It talks about how He was the first Christmas gift, a gift of love from the Father. They gave our mission 35,000 pass along cards with the phrases: Discover the gift, Embrace the gift, Share the gift. They really want us to emphasize having everybody, members and non-members share this gift as much as possible on all social media, so that everyone has a chance to receive the gift. I'd encourage all of you to do the same!

I also got a call from my mission president telling me that I'm going back to Big Island. He told me Hilo, but apparently told an elder in Kona that I was going to be his new companion, so I guess you'll find out in my letter next week!

We also went to this Hawaiian history museum called Bishop Museum so here's some pics from that. Love you guys!

-Elder Merrill

Week 67

Ro jeiu im jatu, iakwe!

This week was a killer one full of interesting experiences. For starters, we went to this building that's pink to teach one of our investigators. Strangely enough, it's called pink building. While we were there this random guy walked up to us while we were talking to this group of kids. He kind of just shimmied his way in between us and the kids and started firing off questions about Joseph Smith. He showed us this video CNN did about Joseph Smith and asked questions like "did you know this?" and "what are you planning to do about this?". We directed him to some articles on LDS.org and I bore him my personal witness about Joseph Smith being an inspired prophet chosen of God. I find it very fascinating how true Moroni's words to Joseph were that his name would be had for good and evil among all people. Also that many of our church leaders chose to speak on this very subject just a couple of months before this video came out. There were talks about how gospel principles are eternally true and they completely apply to our situation right now. It's like we get to see prophecy coming true in front of our own eyes! After we answered this man's questions, he pronounced some kind of blessing on us to find the truth, how thoughtful and kind of him, and then left as quickly as he came.

We also ran into a guy that I taught when I was in McCully ward. His name is Ronno and apparently he's about to be baptized. He told me that since the time I left, he quit smoking, and is about to be married and baptized because he knows that this gospel is true! He told me how he attends church and plans to help and strengthen his fellow Micronesians. It was really cool to see and hear about how he continued to progress and the changes that he made once he found the truth of the gospel.

We continue to teach Miko the after baptism discussions and she is doing great. She still comes to church every week, reads her scriptures every day, and even shows up on saturdays to help clean the chapel. Plus she brings her sister with her who is now active in the church! It's awesome to see people accept the gospel, and even better when those people implement the gospel in their lives to help others!

Well hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Merrill

Week 66 - Aloha

Brothers and Sisters, Aloha.

This last week we had our first lesson with JR. We taught him the restoration and he accepted everything we taught him. I'm pretty sure he's about as golden as they come. The member we took with us, Takio, after the lesson told him and his girlfriend that they're going to get married. Then at church told him he's going to be baptized this next week, which actually works out perfectly because we're planning on committing them to marriage and baptism on Thanksgiving! That way we can have the entire branch show up to support them. So I'm not sure which color is associated with Thanksgiving, but hopefully for us it will be a white one!

We also committed another one of our investigators, Kaiya, with a date! At the end of the lesson we invited her to follow the Savior's example and be baptized, and she flat out told us no. So we explained to her the importance and significance of baptism, and after she said that she wanted to follow the Savior's example, we told her that baptism is the first step in following Him. She agreed, and set her own baptism date for December 31!

Last night we attended an awesome musical fireside. They talked about the power and influence of music. The keynote speaker, Nela Otuafi, gave a great talk. He was running back and forth from the pulpit to the piano and having the entire congregation join in while singing songs. Something he talked about that really hit me was the amount of influence music can have in a person's life. He first asked what happens when you put the wrong beats with the wrong lyrics together? You get a number one hit. He gave an example of if a guy were to walk up to a girl on the street and tell her "I know you love me. I know you care. Just shout whenever, and I'll be there" she'd probably slap him in the face and walk away. But what happens when you put those bad lyrics with the wrong beat? You get the number one most downloaded song in history. He then gave a counter example of what can happen when you put the right lyrics with the right beats. He then led the entire congregation in singing Love Is Spoken Here. The spirit was so strong in that room, and his point was proven perfectly. Music is supposed to bring us closer to our Heavenly Father, and when the right music is listened to it does just that. As a missionary, I can definitely testify that when uplifting music is listened to, it strengthens our relationship with Christ. Hymn lyrics themselves are considered scripture. He then challenged everyone to go through their library on their ipods and take out anything that didn't uplift. He said it didn't have to be all MoTab, but if it doesn't uplift, or have the right lyrics and right tunes, to get rid of it.

I hope you guys all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Merrill

Week 65 - Talk About Prepared

Aloooooha friends and family!

We had a fun week packed with all kinds of fun and miracles.

Yesterday at church there was this kid in our branch, Aaron, who hadn't been to church in a few months. He showed up yesterday and brought his whole family, half of which are non-members. My companion and I were like heck yeah! Let's go talk to them so we can teach them, so we planned to run up to them as soon as sacrament meeting was over. But they must've slipped out during the closing prayer or something because when we got up to go talk to them they were gone. All this time I thought I was the one with the Asian ninja blood. Aaron and his non-member sister Lani stayed though! They went to all three hours of church and Lani said she'd start meeting with us!

Also after sacrament meeting, a member came up and introduced us to one of his friends to start teaching him. Honestly I thought this guy was already a member because he comes to church almost every week and wears a white shirt and tie. We found out from the member that he even pays his tithing. When the member asked him why he wasn't baptized yet, the guy (JR) said he didn't know. So the member invited him to start taking the lessons with the missionaries and he said yes! We're going to see him on Wednesday and are super excited because he already wants to be baptized and we haven't even taught him a lesson yet!

We also went to this big Marshallese first birthday party called a kemem. There were so many Marshallese people there, a lot of which were non-members. We talked to a few people and had an awesome time seeing how crazy some of our branch members get at parties.

We also had a lesson with Kaipo. Not sure if I've mentioned him before, but he's this kid whose story is really similar to Simba's, one of my recent converts. He started coming to church randomly with one of the families in our branch, and since then has come almost every sunday. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and committed him to a baptismal date on the 30th of this month. He didn't sound like he was super solid about being baptized on that date, but we're hoping for the best!

Our zone leaders told our whole zone that they set high goals for our zone to commit a lot of people to baptismal dates this past week. Even though we worked really hard, we still had trouble finding people to commit to a baptismal date, and even people to teach. It seemed like almost nobody was home when we tried to go see them. Compared to the past few weeks, it seemed like teaching lessons was a lot harder this week. I guess it's a prime example of Satan working his hardest when we are as well. But despite all of the seeming adversity, we were still able to teach a lot of people and set another investigator with a baptismal date!

Hope you guys remember to stick to it even though it's hard. Cause like the saying says: when the goin gets tough, the tough get goin! Love you!

-Elder Merrill

Week 64 - You Pushed Me

Yolohaaaaa everyone!

Had a grand 'ole time serving the Lord this past week! Topping off our week was Miko's baptism on saturday! You can probably read back on my emails from a long time ago and see that we've been working with Miko for a long time, ever since I got here. I think she was the investigator I've been working with the longest, so it made it that much better to see her be baptized! It's really amazing the transformation she's undergone in her conversion process. She started out as this trouble kid always getting into trouble at school and with the cops. She started to change her life by keeping the commitments we gave her, but after a while her adopted mom she was living with wouldn't allow her to be baptized or come to church. We still tried to see her, but eventually she moved away and we lost track of her. We found her almost by a miracle, started teaching her, and the Lord provided a way for her to be baptized by having her move back with her birth parents. As we taught her she attended church regularly and brought her inactive sister along with her every week. Both of her inactive parents, who I think were sealed in the temple, attended her baptism. They used to be very active back in the Marshall Islands, her dad was even a young men's president in one of the branches, but I think when they moved here they fell away. We made sure we scheduled her baptism on a day that her parents could attend, and they showed up! I guess the spirit must've worked on them because they said they felt something and told their daughters they're going to come back to church! They showed up yesterday to see Miko be confirmed and we hope they continue to come and raise their family in the gospel!

Halloween for me wasn't very eventful. Our mission president said the only costume allowed was to switch name tags with your companion, so that took most of the Halloween spirit away. Plus in Hawaii trick-or-treating isn't really a big thing. We saw probably a total of 5 families out on the streets the whole night. Even the elementary kids we saw getting out of school, hardly any of them were dressed up. Apparently the big party's in Waikiki, basically the one place we're not allowed to go, so for our Halloween we got together with a couple other missionaries and played Monopoly. Try not to be too jealous.

But we did have a trunk-or-treat at our branch night on Thursday. That seemed like an even bigger deal than the actual Halloween night was. I don't think it will ever cease to amaze me how fast you can make friends with little kids when you have candy. My companion and I were the coolest kids on the block! That is, until we ran out of candy.

We also had a really good lesson with Machat yesterday. He's been reading from the Book of Mormon and really understands the importance of baptism. We read Mosiah 18 with him this week to try and get him to commit to an earlier baptismal date. After we read he said that he felt like he should be baptized sooner, but would have to pray about it first.

Overall, just a great week. Love you guys!

-Elder Merrill

Week 63 - Mom I touched the Net

Aloooooha everyone!

This past week was full of all kinds of surprises. The first of these was we were surprised with a new investigator! Her name is Sarah. She's the grand daughter of our branch mission leader, and one day when we went to pick up a member that lives in the same house, he mentioned that Sarah wasn't a member. She comes to church almost every week so we hadn't even thought to ask if she was a member or not. She accepted our invitation to start taking the missionary lessons and seems pretty excited about learning more!

One of the more sad surprises we got came from Miko's sister Tiko. She's 17 years old and told us that she has lung cancer. She's not sure exactly how bad it is, but seems to be dealing with it pretty well. If I received that news I'd be crushed, but she's just playing it off like it's no big deal and carrying on with life as usual. I felt bad because when she told us the story neither of us really knew what to say at first. I think we were dealing with the initial shock of someone that young having cancer without ever having smoked or done anything damaging to her lungs. After a period of silence, I told her that, although we don't really know how she feels, because we haven't been in that situation, we're here to help in any way and with anything that she needs.

A few days after that meeting, we were teaching Miko and Tiko again and they invited us back to play volleyball that night with a bunch of Marshallese people. That was really interesting. It was funny because the average height of the people there, excluding my companion and I, was probably 5'3. They'd set on the second hit almost all the way back in the court, then someone else would do this weird spike from way below the net that basically rainbowed over. When they saw my companion and I (both around 6'1) I think they were terrified. Especially once we started spiking. I thought we were playing for fun, but these little brown people were serious. They called us out every time we accidentally nicked the net. Like what is this the NVA? But we had lots of fun and got to meet a lot of new Marshallese people. They're surprisingly good for people half the height of the net.

We also met with Mary and Catherine again. We actually went to see Maria, who lives in the same house, but she was sleeping. So we walked back to our car and as we were driving away we saw Mary. She waved to us as we drove away on our way to another appointment. I had this feeling that we should turn around a teach her, so I asked my companion if he wanted to go back. He said "why not?" so we flipped around and taught them the Restoration. I was really impressed at how much they remembered, considering they're 8 and 9 years old. The only thing they didn't really remember was the apostasy, but they remembered all of Christ's earthly ministry and the whole Joseph Smith story.

I hope you guys all have a great week and, like Tiko, make the best of it no matter what comes your way. Love you all!

-Elder Merrill

Week 62 - Aloha

Aloha everyone!

Well first things first we had another "hurricane" this past week. It really just rained pretty hard for a couple days. The scariest thing that happened during it was one of the elder's umbrella broke. That's about it though, pretty uneventful.

This week we had a really great lesson with Miko. She opened up to us and let us know some of that stuff that's going on with her and her family. I think it's a sign that she really trusts us because she's willing to tell us stuff she hasn't really told anyone else. We were able to help her see that even though things seem hard, and although to her it may seem that God's not there, He always is and He knows our struggles and trials. We also told her that it is to Him and our Savior that she can always turn. He is always there, waiting to help, even when it seems like nobody else is. It gave her a lot of hope.

We also met Matlynn. She is the sister of one of the members of our branch. The member set up an appointment and came with us to see her. She was baptized a long time ago, but has since then married a husband who's a set Catholic, and has been taking her kids to Protestant church. She told her brother that she wanted to change and she felt like something has been missing in her life, thankfully the member was bold enough to tell her what she was missing was the truths of the gospel, and that by meeting with us, the missionaries, she could change her life. In our lesson with her and some of her kids, she told us that she wants to change, but is scared because of the lack of support from her husband. We told her that our Father in Heaven is her ultimate source of support of support and she can always turn to Him.

We also had our ministering night, where the stake presidency came out with us and other members of our branch. I was with the second counselor and my companion went with a different member. President Farris and I went to a sketchy part of town called the Poops. (1. because all the streets start with "Pupu" 2. because is kinda smells down there) We visited a less-active member named Carmen. She told us she works on sundays, but it working on getting them off so she can come to church. We were able to have a really good discussion with her about the importance of church attendance and lovingly invite her back to church.

Hope all is well and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Merrill

Week 61

Hellooooooooha everyone!

Everything continues to go well here in Waipahu. We took a member out with us a few days this past week and he introduced us to a lot of new people. I think we had 4 new investigators and 10+ potentials just from the few hours that he was with us! A couple that he introduced us to was Donny and Maria. Donny is an inactive member and his girlfriend Maria is a non-member. We invited them to take the missionary discussions and they accepted, so the next day we went back to teach the Restoration. As we said amen to the opening prayer, I opened my eyes with my head still bowed, and saw a huge dead centipede on the ground right between my feet. This wasn't one of those tiny, inch long centipedes we have in Utah, this thing was at least 7 inches long and had bright red legs. For those of you who don't know, centipedes bite, and people here have told stories that it's more painful than kidney stones or child birth. Don't know if that's true, but bottom line is it hurts a lot. So I tried to stifle a scream, so I ended up making this weird squealing noise which unfortunately got everyone's attention, but I played it off. Then later in the lesson, as Maria was reading a scripture about the apostasy, I saw a smaller centipede crawl up onto my companion's scriptures and I guess it decided that his handle was a good place to chill. I nudged Elder Neff and pointed to his scriptures, trying to warn him, but he thought I was motioning for him to get his scriptures and help her read. So he reached for them and put his hand right on top of the centipede. I yelled "don't grab your scriptures!" and with reflexes I didn't know I had, smacked his arm and got him to let go. Fortunately I smacked my companion before he got bit. Unfortunately I got even weirder looks than I did from the squeal. Don't worry though, the lesson turned out great and spirit was strong, regardless of the influence of Satan's centipedes.

I also exchanged with one of our zone leaders, Elder Downey (like the laundry detergent). We went to contact one of our former investigators who had moved, Miko, because he visited her before when he was on exchanges with my old companion. But that was only once, so we got really lost looking for where she lived. It was one of those "turn right. Wait maybe left. No I think it's right. But straight looks so familiar too" situations. We decided to pray when we were stopped at a stoplight for Heavenly Father to lead us to her, and upon closing the prayer both felt pretty strongly that we should turn left. So we turned left, and drove a few miles down this road to a dead end. We were pretty crushed as we turned around and drove back. He was telling me that he was sure that was the turn because he remembers turning by this big building with a lot of windows. As vague of a description as that was, I saw in my mind a building like that that we had driven by just one street before, so we decided to try this last turn before we went home, having confidence that Heavenly Father wouldn't lead us astray. We turned, onto a road that was leading us the wrong way. We decided we'd just keep going, because this road took us back to our apartment. As we got to an intersection, Elder Downey recognized it as the one we had been looking for! He said "see! It's just like I said. There's four stop signs and a railroad track!" Elder Downey isn't the best at giving directions... But we turned and followed the road and found the place where Miko lives! It wasn't until we found it that Elder Downey told me the other piece of bad news, the building is locked and the only way in is if a resident lets you inside. That kind of killed my high, but determined to find her we parked the car. As we were walking toward the building, I saw her dad standing right outside the door. I asked him if Miko was there and he told us she was coming right now and to just wait, then we could study with her. Sure enough, no more than 10 seconds later, out walks Miko. She was super excited to see us and told us she'd really been wanting us to come over and teach her because she wants to be baptized really soon! We've since gone back to teach her and she has a baptismal date for October 30th!

It's incredible what kind of miracles the Lord can accomplish in our behalf as long as we're willing to do His will!

Love you and hope all is well.

-Elder Merrill

Week 60 - Aloha

Great week at conference! I hope you all got to watch it because every talk was amazing and seemed to highlight different aspects of the gospel. That's one of the amazing things about conference is that they're not assigned topics, but always seem to talk about what the church members need to hear most. Which just goes to show that these talks truly are revealed, which makes it even more important for us to heed, ponder, and apply their messages.

I really liked the talks from Elder Christofferson and Elder Bednar talking about gospel truths. They highlighted some great aspects about how essential it is for us to not only apply these truths in our lives, but share them with others.

This theme of truth was what we shared with Machat in our lesson with him this week. He watched conference with his family which was great, and he said that Elder Bednar's talk was his favorite. Which I thought was perfect because Elder Bednar was specifically addressing non-members in that talk. So we chose to elaborate more on it. We read the account of Enos, which Elder Bednar briefly read from, and talked about the importance of gospel truths and the joy that comes when we apply these truths in our lives. Many of us may start off searching, wandering, or like Enos with a hungering soul. But when we apply these gospel truths and the gift of the Atonement in our lives, there truly is no greater joy, as is demonstrated in the case of Enos.

This week we also took a member out with us to see this less-active/part member family, the Sylvester family who we had that experience with in branch council just a few weeks ago. They have three girls, which I actually worked with while I was in McCully ward in my first area. We'd tried to get into their house several times, but with no avail. We took this member with us and he got in right away. We set up for a return appointment this next week and are going back to teach their two unbaptized girls again on Thursday! Their family has a lot of struggles. Their only son, and oldest child, is in jail in Arizona, and the mom suffered a huge stroke a few years ago leaving her only able to move half of her body. But they used to be strong members in the church, and we hope to get them back.

We also met this girl named Rako. She came here from the Marshall Islands to deliver her second child, and she's only 17... But she has a great desire to learn about the gospel and change her life. She doesn't speak a word of English, so it's been a great experience for me and my son to work on our Marshallese. She's also living with her cousin who just recently got baptized so we're really excited to teach her. The only set back is she's going back to the Marshall Islands for a month to get everything worked out for her to move back here permanently. But she says she can't wait to come back and be baptized!

So just a few exciting things happening for us here in Hawaii. Hope all is well with you.

Love you guys!

-Elder Merrill