Week 12: September 19, 2016

This week has been yet another awesome week out here in the mission! My new companion is a super awesome Elder. Elder Elsbury (or Asipeli in the Tongan program) is from Virginia, near the DC area. He has been serving in the Tongan program and has been out for about 9 months now. I am learning a lot from him everyday. 

We have an investigator named Jewel who is progressing super well and we have set a baptismal date with her. This week, she almost came to church but some things came up. We will continue to hope and pray and work with her. She really wanted to go to church and said that she is going to be bringing her two little sisters (9 and 6ish). It will be such an amazing experience to see this family start to come to church and hopefully be baptized. 

The parents are okay with us teaching and baptizing her but they haven't expressed any interest. Maybe through the example of their daughters, they'll show more interest!

We talked to a homeless man named Chris. Unfortunately, he wasn't all there but we shared a bit of our message with him before dinner. For dinner, our member gave us a pizza and since she didn't have a male member with her, we took it to go. Elder Elsbury had the idea to share it with Chris. We found him again and sat down and talked and ate. He started to really calm down and was a super awesome guy. We shared another spiritual thought with him as well as our testimonies. Not sure if he'll remember the experience but hopefully this has touched his life in some way. I know it has touched mine.

I am constantly learning more and more from each of my companions as well as the other members of the district. Today, we have our zone "nerf war" and we just set up a bunch of barricades (tables) in the culture hall so I'm pretty excited about that.

I am super blessed with all of the miracles and blessings that I see each day here on my mission. I know that I have been called here for a very specific reason and purpose. With each person that I speak to and teach, I feel my own testimony growing stronger and stronger. The time is absolutely flying by. As always, thank you all for your examples and testimonies and prayers. I love you all! Until next week,

Elder Kaitoku

PS: Elder Elsbury is brand new to the bike life. He made the mistake of slamming on the front brakes and flew over his handlebars. Will I ever find a companion that can ride a bike?