Thursday, July 23, 2015

Update July 13, 2015: Baptisms, Blooming, and Big Boats

Weeks 73

Aloha Everyone!

I hope you have all had a beautiful week! It has been so miserable here! Record setting heat and the humidity has been so thick, with no Trade winds to relieve the mugginess. There is absolutely no escape either. The thing about Hawaii is no one has central air. Aka most houses don’t even has A/C at all. So when its super humid and no wind is blowing there is no escape. But other than that it has been an incredible week!!!!! We had a BAPTISM!!!! More to come on that.J

This week!

Monday- for P-day we started off we moved a bunch of stuff to our new pad. Then we went hiking up the trail where I cut my thumb and I finally got to see the top! We then went to PCC, all the Elders except me have never been so we went and watched most of the shows and did the Canoe tour. That was new for me!

            Tuesday- we spent the morning cleaning our old pad. Hawaii is ridiculous. Everything rusts or rots. In the window jamb I vacuumed out a good ½ in layer of salt… then about half way through Bishop Touli called me and told me that instead of Isaiah being baptized in December on his birthday he would be baptized this Saturday!!!! We were so excited! So we went to the ward camp that night for the Luau and set everything up!!

            Wednesday- we had Pearl Harbor service, which went well! Love it every time! Then we hit up Costco for lunch before going to the Mission office to take care of something and get a new phone then we headed back up to Laie side and Elder Doloroso wasn’t feeling well so he crashed and I went to Isaiah’s with Elder Liavaa to make sure everything was good for Saturday!

            Thursday- we had district meeting. Now there is only 2 districts in Laie instead of 3 so now our district is the size of a normal zone. 2 elders, 14 sisters, and a senior couple. Its kind of nuts! Then we helped out Guy at his property we are making a lot of progress over there. Then Elder Overdyn who is in charge of the apartments for the mission came up with the Silverado and we spent the rest of the day cleaning out and deep cleaning the 2 pads we are closing. And we still didn’t finish!

            Friday- was a slow day didn’t do anything really crazy. Elder Doloroso still wasn’t feeling well so he rested most of the day.

Saturday- was awesome! We went to Isaiah’s first thing for last minute stuff then about noon we went to the chapel to clean and fill the font and make sure everything was set up. Isaiah’s Baptism was so awesome! His dad baptized him. Then we had a huge eating afterwards. There was like 30 people which isn’t a lot but we had 40 Costco pizzas… it was ridiculous. And more soda than I could drink in a year not including the cotton candy and ice cream… Their family does party rentals so I guess what can you expect?  Then we had an awesome dinner at the Prescotts!

Sunday- was really cool! First in the Samoan ward Isaiah was confirmed then in the English ward a woman approached us and said she wants to be baptized! So we scheduled an appointment for Wednesday to meet with here and get to know her! We then had dinner and our weekly Family Home Evening with the Fuluvakas!

It is amazing how Heavenly Father works he really does work in Mysterious ways but it is always the right way. And his timing. We just have to be prepared for what may come our way!

My thoughts for today turn to our Zone theme this transfer. The sister came up with “Bloom where you are Planted” s to make it a little more manly we made it “KaBloom! Where you are planted”! But it has the same meaning and I made planner covers for the zone and I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to put on the back so I wrote a little bit about what I thought encompasses our theme;

As Elders and Sisters we must be deeply rooted in the Gospel, drinking from the words of the scriptures, pushing through the rock of adversity, and soaking in the light of our Savior. If we work hand-in-hand with our gardener, Heavenly Father, and are diligent in doing all we can to fulfill our purpose as missionaries to do his work in our part of the garden, we can bloom where we are planted.


This is geared towards missionaries but I think if we change it can apply to all of us. Really the message is the same. It does not matter he soil we are planted in but how we chose to adapt. The gospel is what will help us grow.  I have a strong testimony that attitude and will are everything. The quote I used on the front is from Vince Lombardi but I thought it applied well;


“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I Know Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us. We are who we are where we are and facing what we are facing for a reason. It is our Choice to Bloom or to wilt.

Love,
Elder Shoaf

Inline image 1Inline image 2
Front and Back of the Planner cover

No comments:

Post a Comment