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

Week 59 - Wai Not Now

Aloooooooha everyone!

I hope you all had a great week. Here was just another week in paradise.

We helped Jun Jun, one of the young men in the branch that I'm really close to, start his mission papers. His whole family is members, and he has two older brothers that are less-active now and never served missions. His parents and I know it would be an awesome opportunity so we've been working really hard on getting him excited to go on a mission. We take him out with us almost every day and he really seems like he's enjoying it. Plus working with him he has a lot of family and friends that we've been able to turn into new investigators and start teaching!

We've also been working really close with his brother in law Freddy. Freddy was baptized when he was 8, but great up active in a different church. I think New Hope, or Born Again Christian, or something like that. When he married Jun Jun's older sister he started coming to church again. We've been meeting with him and teaching him the missionary discussions all the way through. I used the excuse of "practicing" the lessons with my son because he's new. He said he's never read the Book of Mormon all the way through, but was really excited about doing it. He said that as long as we text him to remind him to read, he's going to read 5 chapters every day. But he said he'll only do it if we read with him so we can go over what he's been reading and help him understand even more. So looks like we'll be reading the Book of Mormon through in just over a month and a half. We're really excited for him. He loves the lessons and we're trying to prepare him to hopefully be sealed with his wife and daughter in a few months.

There was also a big Marshallese party for one of the islands, Mille, on Saturday. We were invited by some of the members, so we go to watch some baseball, eat, and meet plenty non-members at the park.

Mary and Catherine were also baptized yesterday! We had originally planned for Saturday, but because Mille Day was an all day thing, the branch president thought it would be best to just hold the baptism after church. The baptism went really well. However, there was one of the branch members who basically lectured these two little girls for 35 minutes on the Holy Ghost. He translated basically all the church materials into Marshallese: from the Book of Mormon, to the missionary pamphlets. So he knows a lot. And he basically unloaded on these poor little girls. But he meant well and the baptism went smooth so what more could we ask for.

At the beginning of this transfer I had all the missionaries in my district vote on a district name. The name that ended up winning was the 'Wai Not Now' district. Wai (pronounced why) is because we're in the Waipahu zone, but also means fresh water in Hawaiian. And wai not now was supposed to be like our motivation to not wait to commit people to baptism. If they're progressing, then why not now? And this name/motto has held true for my district this transfer.  As a district we've had great success so far this transfer, and have been able to set more people with a date than we've had in any of the previous transfers since I've been here!

So I guess that's my message for you guys is if you're waiting to do something, then wai not now? Sometimes we wait too long for things, and before we know it the opportunity is gone. Once we've had that confirmation from our Heavenly Father that's all we really need. It's ok to walk by faith and take a few steps in the dark, because a loving Father in Heaven has promised us He will never lead us astray. So if you're waiting on or for something, whatever it may be, Wai Not Now?

Love you guys and have a great week!

Iakwe nan indeeo, Elder Merrill

Week 58 - Aloha

Aloha everyone!

This week wasn't too eventful. One of my recent converts in this area, Bima, hasn't been to church in a while because their car has a really bad leak in the cooling system. We've been going up to his house once a week to work on the car, but haven't made much progress. The first week we went up, Bima's dad had told us he had tools so we didn't bring anything. We got up there, looked inside his bag of tools, and found half a socket set and a broken pair of needle-nose pliers. Needless to say, we didn't get much done. The second week, we brought a pair of pliers, succeeded in getting one of the hose clamps off that we needed to, but some motor genius put the second one on upside down in the most remote, inaccessible part of the engine imaginable. People driving by on the road probably get a kick out of missionaries laying spread eagle on an engine trying to reach down and get this clamp, then after a while, with a red face and scraped up arm, we finally give up and let another one try. But with enough faith anything is possible right? I definitely hope that the Lord said that in reference to auto-mechanics.

We also had a good lesson with Machat this past week. He said he talked to his girlfriend and they set a date to be married and baptized! The only problem is that date is 8 months away... I was wrestling with the question of whether we should try and push him to an earlier date, or if we should just let him do his thing and keep encouraging him until his date. I felt like he was ready now, so he should be baptized now. He's been investigating the church for about 4 years and is finally at the point where he wants to be baptized, so why wait. I took that question to the temple and I felt like that was the right thing to do after praying about it, but I wasn't sure how to bring it up. We were able to tour the Visitors' Center after and while we were looking at the temple I had the thought to invite Machat to go to the VC, and after he'd felt the spirit on the temple grounds, we could invite him to an earlier baptismal date, and have the date that he wants as his sealing date just over a year after they're married. I'm really hoping that it works out, because it's been a long road for him. He's at the point where he wants to be baptized, and realizes the importance of it, he just needs a friendly push:)

So that's just a little of what's going on here in Hawaii. Hope all is well back home.

Choke aloha,

Elder Merrill