Week 30 - Aloha

Hey guys!

So this week's been another week of working hard and teaching lessons. It gets really frustrating at times, but that's why it's important to just keep moving forward. Like our investigator that's closest to baptism. He's been taught everything and comes to church every week, he's just waiting for his parents to come back from Arizona. But they've been denied a flight for two weeks in a row now because they're flying with buddy-passes and I guess everyone just wants to come to Hawaii or something. (can't imagine why, it's only paradise;) Or another girl, who we set with a baptismal date, then she randomly dropped off the face of the earth. She doesn't answer our calls and every time we stop by nobody's home.

The Marshallese people are really funny. We knocked on this one family's door and said "Aloha! It's the missionaries" then we heard footsteps running and the old ladies in the house saying in Marshallese to go to the back room. We kept knocking and finally someone cracked open the door and peeked out. Then my companion said "Iakwe! Na ij bar rimajol!" (Hi! I'm Marshallese too!) Then they lady replied "Oh....iakwe..."

I want to tell a cool story that we heard yesterday in church. There was this white couple that came to our congregation yesterday. Everybody noticed them because they stick out like a sore thumb in a chapel full of Marshallese. So we went and talked to them after sacrament and asked them what they were doing here. They told us that they were adopting a Marshallese baby, and that they could actually use help translating because they didn't know Marshallese at all, and the lady hardly knew English. So we went and helped them translate and work some of the details out. The guy told us the story about why they had decided to adopt this boy. He said that he had an experience where the spirit told him that he was supposed to adopt two boys and their names were Jacob and Joseph. The spirit said they were in Seattle and needed to be adopted, so him and his wife started the adoption process. Within a month, their attorney contacted them saying that he had a boy that they had found. He was a two year old Marshallese boy from Seattle and his name was Jacob. They knew right away that it was meant to be. (right now they're also working on adopting Jacob's cousin who hasn't been born yet that they plan to name Joseph) As he told this story, the spirit in the room was so strong that the couple, and Jacob's mom were all crying, even though the mom didn't know what was being said until after we translated it. They didn't find out until after they had already made the decision to adopt him that the mom had been baptized about two years ago. When they asked her what values she wanted them to be sure to instill in Jacob, she replied that she wanted him to grow up strong in the gospel, to serve a mission, and to become a leader in the church.

I'm not telling this story to say that kids need to be adopted, but rather that God has a purpose for everyone. I don't know what Jacob has in store, but I'm sure our Heavenly Father does. He sees our potential and does everything he can to help us reach it. We all have a purpose here, but can't always see it. Sometimes we get lost, or are put through hard things and wonder what the reason is for all of it. God know us, perfectly. Meaning that He knows exactly what needs to happen for us to fulfill our purpose. He won't always give other people visions of what they need to do to help us, but he has given us the Holy Ghost. Which in my opinion is better. And it's when we learn to heed the promptings of His Spirit that He can strengthen us and help us grow.

I hope we all strive to do what God needs us to do.

Aloooooooha!

Elder Merrill