Seasons

It's weird to think that it's September... and that September is almost over already!  I'm starting to really miss the seasons... perpetual summer... it's not that fantastic.  Sometimes you're just too hot. Oh well, no point griping about it now haha.

I'm sorry but yet again, not much interesting has happened this week.  It's kinda like a lull in my mission right now, we're trying hard and doing everything right (I hope...)  but still nothing huge happens.  

I guess two kinda exciting things happened, one was that we contacted a referral that we got in the mail we went to his house and first thing we see is a huge gate, slightly open, but an equally formidable Rottweiler standing guard behind it.  Not wanting to put ourselves any closer to the dog than necessary we do the local thing (you call out "Hui!"  kinda like hoowee, but in your falsetto) and a kid comes to the window.  I start off "Hey we're looking for Mark is he around?"  The kid looks at me funny and says, "No there's no Mark around here... sorry" and he starts to go away, and my companion nudges me, "The name of the referral was Wayne, not Mark."  So quickly before he heads away I call out "Actually we're looking for Wayne, do you know Wayne?"  The kid comes out and asks if we are Mormons, we told him we are, joked about calling him the wrong name, taught him a lesson and set up a new appointment with him.  So we got a new investigator, which is nice.

Then we had dinner at a family who I had never formally met, which is weird since I've been in this ward for 6 months haha.  We had an awesome dinner and they were a really cool family, all converts and they said that they really liked us a lot (the husband and I really hit it off)  we left with a nice spiritual message, and they gave us referrals!!!  We haven't gotten member referrals in forever!  Later I was talking to the man's sister (who's in another ward) about our dinner and she said that we should feel blessed and that there must be something special about us because they haven't had the missionaries over to dinner in 7 years!  So I guess that's my cool little bit for this week :)

Things are going well with my companion and I and things are great!

I love you all and next week you'll know about transfers!

OK Chutes then;)  Elder Brooksby

Pololu Look-out

Howzit everybody?

Well this has been another interesting week.  We tried hard to get stuff done and do what we were supposed to do and for the most we saw some success.

Elder Moore and I have been working very hard, but I dont think I have very many cool stories this week.

I did interview a woman in the Sisters' ward for baptism the other day.  She was awesome, she was an older woman and just so sweet, so ready for the gospel in her life and I was excited to do the interview with her.  She had only been learning about the church for 4 weeks and she already had the testimony of someone who had been in the church for years.  It was a pleasure to meet with her and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it.

We get along really well with the people in the ward, so we have good ward trust.  We're really trying to utilize the members because we have a lot of potential investigators right now and I think if we get the members involved the conversion process can progress more quickly.

Thanks for everything you guys do for me, I love you all soooooo much and hope all is well.

Aloha Nui Loa and A Hui Hou!

Elder Brooksby

Yeah I hiked it in Slippahs;)

These pictures are from the Pololu Look-out

and Valley up in Hawi (pronounced Hahvee) last P-day.

Loads of fun and a good hike :)

Interviews

Well things are going well.  It just took some time to get back into the swing of things.  You know what they say, the greater the anticipation the greater the let-down right?  So now I'm on the rebound, and we had a pretty good week.  No baptisms, but a good week all the same. 

We had President interviews the other day, which went well.  I always love interviewing with President Dalton, some missionaries don't like them as much, but my idea is that if you've got nothing to hide from him, then you can have a great interview and leave it more motivated to work. 

Then something weird happened... Sister Dalton talked to me about making sure I had all of my school stuff in line.  WOW.  That was unexpected...  I guess the enrollment for classes is coming up but that was a weird conversation to have.  It makes me feel like I've been out for a long time.  She gave me permission to go onto my BYU profile anytime to make sure I was up on what is going on with my standing and everything like that, so today for a couple minutes I just cruised through my profile again and just re-familiarized myself with everything. THAT was weird... the next step is actually choosing classes that I'm going to take.

Anyways I think that's all that's gone on this week.  Just a lot of work.  Having two areas is nuts haha.

Well I love you all and thanks so much for all the support:)

Love you all!  Elder Brooksby 

Our area is HUGE!

Hello Family,

I'm jealous that you guys went to yet another band performance without me.  I'm dying here from the lack of music choice haha.  I mean you know I like classical and you know I like MOTAB  but after the fourth time of "This is the Christ" album and the fifth time around on the "Tchaikovsky" album... you start to get a little sick of it.  The mission president said that until he can establish a standard for our music, we have to abide perfectly by the missionary handbook rules, which knocks out everything except for the Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and MOTAB albums I have... oh well.

Anyways to answer your questions from the beginning of your email, Elder Moore and I get along well which is good.  However, we don't have too many promising investigators anymore which, again, is frustrating especially with covering two areas.  We have the Kealakekua Ward.  But we are also in chrge of the Ke'ei Ward because they took missionaries out of that ward.  So now (if you were to Google Map it) our area covers everything South and East of Henry street in Kailua all the way down to Milalii.  It's HUGE!  And it keeps us busy.

I got your package the other day, thanks so much Mom:)  I liked the tie a lot, enjoyed munching on some gummy bears, pistachios, and Cap'n Crunch (not at the same time don't worry) and enjoyed your card.  Thanks.  It felt nice to get a package.  

Well I think that's about all I've got for this week.  Hopefully some good things happen and I'll have more to report next time.

I love you all so much and thanks for all your prayers.

Love, Elder Brooksby