Merry Christmas!

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka from your favorite Missionary serving in The Tongan Ward in Waipahu, Oahu, Hawaii!

Man, Christmas is right around the corner and blessings are flowing in this part of the world! The work is slow, as per usual, but it's getting progressively faster and faster with each passing week! The work of a District Leader is kinda difficult but only if you don't have the support of the elders in your district, luckily I have their support and so now I just have to focus on leading by example and keep the work rolling.

But hey in the interest of making sure that there will be plenty to talk about on Sunday, I'll just give the bare bones of my week.

Yes I got a Package from home with 3 wrapped presents (Which will stay wrapped until the phone call) and some memory cards, and data storage devices (which I assume is for storing the pictures after I'm done taking them in order to keep from buying memory card after memory card just for my camera) and a lot of stocking stuffers (I have managed to not open the pistachios yet... but Sunday they will be eaten). Thanks sooo much for those things, it really made my day:) Plus they were delivered Santa Style, left right outside our front door and we have no clue who dropped them off. Best.

This week I also got SOAKED when we went a week without our car during monsoon season haha. One of the old pairs of shoes (The ones that I swore I'd wear until they wore through the heel cause they were like 2 and a half years old) got ruined. But my other nice shoes (The ones we bought specifically for my mission) are great, so now I am wearing a brand new pair of shoes that actually have a sole. Beautiful:)

And I think all the other things I'll just save for Christmas:) I've got a lot of stories to share with you all that will be easier through the phone and I'm sure the same goes for you:)

I Love you all sooooo much and wish everybody a very Merry Christmas:)

Love Elder Brooksby

Bump Day - December 8th

Hello everybody! Howzit brah? How you stay? Stay? Stay cherry? Shoots then.

First things go first: No I cannot Skype, much to my chagrin. But I'm going to be calling you from our cell phone, so I'll just call you all and we'll talk right then and there. I'll probably call you around 5 or 6 your time. At least that's the plan as of now. I got your 6 month package with the Advent calendars and I LOVE them and I did get lunch with the card, thanks so much:) I'm sure the large package will make it through the mission office with no problems, they get it and send it back out the same day, so it's only delayed in getting to me by a day. I'm not going to be transferred for two reasons. 1. I'm still training Elder T. here in the Tongan Ward in Waipahu and reason 2. President called me to be a District Leader here. Sooo...

MORE RESPONSIBILITY. But yeah I'm excited to be training and a District Leader but kinda nervous. So I'll tell you how that's going haha.

Well Elder T. and I have a baptism coming up in a week so that's exciting! And I wish I had more to tell you about things going on here. Oh, one of my best friends out here Elder K. went home because his dad has cancer and that was super depressing.

Even more so because I was talking to President and he said that he won't be coming back out to Hawaii when he becomes a missionary again.

BUMMER. I really loved that Elder a lot. But c'est la vie. Life moves on and he said he'll keep in touch so that's good.

Sorry this is so short but hopefully I'll have more to tell you next time when next transfer begins. Until then I love you very much and I pray for you all daily. Give everybody my best.

I love you all sooo much!

Ofa Lahi Atu

Elder Jared Brooksby

Happy December

Hello Hello Hello! Yes I will reach my quarter mark on Thursday:) Take 4 Oreos. Eat One. There's still three more but for some strange reason you just cant stop yourself from eating the other 3 as fast as you can:) I'm sure that's how it's going to go with my mission too haha.

Christmas Phone call. Well I have church for an hour in the morning and dinner later that evening, but nothing in between those two things. I'll make the phone call to you guys after I get out of church since you all will be home and I will have no other obligations to attend to. So That call will happen anywhere from 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock your time. Hopefully you wont be doing anything too huge around then.

It sounds like it has been a typical start to the winter season. People getting sick, running around doing errands and of course going to the Victorian Stroll. I actually think that's one of the things that I miss the most about being home for the holidays. Reflecting on what they said during The First Presidency's Christmas Devotional (Yes I got to watch it) I'm glad that our family had so many wonderful traditions that focused on the family. Getting a tree, getting into random snowball fights, decorating the tree (well mostly Mom decorating and the rest of us small kine grumbling haha) and listening to the Carpenter's Christmas Portrait, making toffee, going to the Victorian Stroll (even if I was the only reason we went haha), caroling and making hot fudge sauce, cinnamon rolls on Christmas, reading the Christmas story from the New Testament, watching A Christmas Story and Mr. Kruegger's Christmas, getting ready for "Santa" haha, the advent calendar on the wall by the door, making fires, spending time together. I miss it very much, needless to say more so during the holiday seasons haha. But I'm sure they'll be just as sweet if not more so when I come back... in a year and a half haha.

The work here is going well. Training has it's ups and downs and it makes me learn a lot more about myself and what I can learn and work on. So it's going very well. We've got two baptisms coming in the next two weeks so that's exciting:)

Anyways I miss you all tons and I wish you all the best the season:) Take it Easy! Be Good, Work Hard, and Have Fun, cause I sure am:)

Love Always, Elder Brooksby

P.S. This week I was called by all of the following names in order of most often to least often: Brook, Brooks, Bruk, Broosley, Broosky, Brooksly, Brooksky, Pulukspi (Yes it was spelled that way...), Brock, and Brooksby (a few times haha). Just thought you'd get a kick out of that:)

Thanksgiving

Hello Hello Family!

It's good to hear from you all! I love getting emails:) I'm glad that you had a good Thanksgiving vacation. I wish I could have a small vacation too, but that's not in the game plan haha. Although Thanksgiving was kind of a day off which was nice:) We spent the evening with our high counselor Brother K. (who always reminds me a lot of my uncle, both in looks and actions so that was nice haha) and because there were so many people in their house, we weren't forced to eat choke (a lot in Hawaiian pidgin). So I didn't! I didn't even eat turkey, there was only a bunch of Kalua Pig there haha. And so Thanksgiving, I was thankful for not being super full after dinner!

Christmas is right around the corner... it will be interesting to see how the Holiday season goes work wise. Right now we're looking at 5 baptisms in December and all of those people are coming along well. Actually this past week was kinda junk as far as the work was concerned but it ended well:) At the beginning of the week we had set up 5 lessons with two of our most promising investigators and things kept popping up in their lives so that not a single one of those lessons we had planned went through. Can you say frustrating?

But like I said it all ended well this week so that's ok. We met a woman whose grand-daughter we are currently trying to work with. But the grandma keeps telling the mom not to let us baptize her daughter because the grandma doesn't want her to be Mormon. So we went over to meet with the grand-daughter and actually her grandma answers the door... and starts being super hostile towards us. But we were just trying to be diplomatic and work through the Spirit and it all worked out. She started to listen to us, then she actually admitted that she had been baptized a Mormon some years earlier but had fallen away. And by the end of our visit, she had requested a blessing, given us some cake, and said we were always welcome and that there was "A reason why you two were sent here tonight. Thank you." So it all worked out better than expected. Human nature can be changed through the spirit!

But not much else has happened as far as the work is concerned, but I'm alive and well and I'm working as hard as I can. So in other words I'm being good, working hard and having fun:)

I Love you all and miss you all so much!

Happy Holidays!

Love Elder Brooksby