Second to Last E-mail

We got our email from Jared on Tuesday this week.  He had a Mission Leadership Conference on Monday, so P-Day was moved to Tuesday.  He started his email by saying:  "Well...  This is my 2nd to last email as a missionary.  That's pretty freaking weird.  Not quite sure how to handle that.  I'll probably just do what I've always done haha."

Jared said that he'd had a good week.  He did a lot of tracting and taught a bunch of lessons to potential investigators.  On Wednesday night they asked a recent convert to speak at a cottage meeting.  Jared is so impressed with how "solid" (Jared's words) he is and his desire to know and understand more about the gospel and his responsibilities in it.

Jared said he and his companion are beginning a program with the zone to help them get fired up for missionary work in the month of June. The missionaries in the zone are trying to be as exactly obedient as they can be for the whole week, then continuing through the month.  He said he knows the Lord will bless them for their efforts.

Jared also said that they had an investigator who said he'd read the Book of Mormon, prayed about it and knew it was true and wanted to be baptized.  He was really excited about that.

They also had a baptism Friday night and said it went perfectly. 


Jared said he ended the week with a ward Lu'au, which was wonderful.

I think Jared's done really well at staying focused on missionary work, and not on how many days he has left - but when he ended his letter with "T-minus 10..." I knew he really was keeping track.

We can hardly wait until a week from this Friday - he arrives at the Albany airport at 7:22pm on a Delta flight from Detroit.  I'm sure he'd love to see any of you at the airport if you're interested in coming.

A Great Week with a Trip to the Temple

In Jared's email he told us that the assistants to the mission president had come to their district meeting and decided to go on exchanges with some of the missionaries in the district.  He said that he had dinner with a recent convert who is orginally from Rotterdam, NY.  Apparently he used to work in an Italian restaurant in Johnstown and so the dinner was amazing.

He also had the opportunity to do service at Pearl Harbor for most of the day on Wednesday.  He said that it's always good to do service.

Jared said that he and his companion went on splits (where Jared and his companion each go with one of another companionship) with two of the Elders in his zone.  I'm sure that's interesting if only because it's different.

Jared also got to go to the Laie LDS temple for the last time on his mission on Monday.

He also said that he has a baptism this coming Friday night that is "100% solid".  He said he was "pumped" about that.

He ended by thanking us for our love and support throughout his whole mission.  I can't believe that we'll see him in two weeks!

Mother's Day Phone Call

We got to talk to Jared on Mother's Day for a little over an hour.  It was awesome.  He is doing well and trying to stay focused and working until he comes home.

He sent me an altered book for Mother's Day which was VERY FUNNY!  I loved it!

Other than that there wasn't much to say in emails that didn't get said in the phone call the day before.

Jared comes home on Friday, June 7th at 7:22pm.  If you're interested in being there let us know and we'll give you specific flight information.

What a great week!

Howzit!

Well this week was insanely long.  I have these gnarly bags under my eyes.  It's awesome.  I've actually heard that it's blood pooling under your eyes that does that.  Fun Fact.

Anywho, here is a picture from Justin B's (from Rotterdam, NY!!!!) baptism.  It was perfect, it went off without a hitch.  He bore his testimony at the end too.  AMAZING!  This guy is so elect it blows my mind.  He'll be ordained to the office of priest next Sunday.

 

So you all (it's weird I've gotten into this habit of saying y'all... I don't really know where that came from) are caught up to this last week Tuesday I think, so I'll start on Wednesday.

Wednesday:  We went on splits! Our ward is catching the wave of missionary work (thanks Elder Nelson) so we're pretty pumped about that.  Then we did a lot of tracting, had some accounting phone calls with President (always FUN!) got some baptismal suits for the Tongans and then called it a day.

Thursday:  We went tracting and visiting formers a lot!  Had a very good lesson with the PMLA family I've talked about.  They say we're the winning pair, so we want to get them active and baptized before I leave.  It was a good lesson, but the wife still struggles with the scriptures because she's had no religious background prior to this.  Starting from the ground up is new for me but it's a good experience.  Then we went on splits with a recent convert.  Also another good time.

Friday: He had a lesson with Justin B., and he got his interview.  Easily the quickest interview I've ever seen.  He and the missionary left, and were back within two minutes easy.  Awesome.  Then we went over some specifics for his baptism and who was going to baptize him( the Bishop's son did that.  He just returned from his mission 6 months ago... he's staying in the water haha!) what he needed to wear etc.  Good visit.  Then we went and typed up his program and went out Waianae side. The Tongan ward out there had a papi (Tongan for baptism) for a family of 5 and another guy.  6 person papi + Tongan feast afterward = pretty gnarly.

Saturday:  We took Matt M. out to a lesson with a potential investigator.  She wasn't super receptive so that was a bummer, but that's missionary work huh?  Then we had a lesson with a different part member family, and committed the husband to come back to church, so it was a good visit.  Then we had some investigators drop us, went tracting and set up for the baptism.  That went awesome.  

Sunday:  Justin was confirmed, we taught Elder's Quorum, and it must've gone well cause we got some referrals and a couple offers to go on splits out of it.  Always worth it.  Other than that it was a regular day and then we had to do numbers.  Yay.  We didn't get to bed until 11pm, but that was because of some other problems with that we've been trying to settle.  Hopefully we'll get everything smoothed out today.  We'll see!

Welp that about rounds out my week here.  Hope you all enjoy the pics and have a great rest of your week!

Ofa Lahi Atu,

Elder Brooksby

A guy from Rotterdam, NY - What?

We got a great letter from Jared today.  It's always fun to hear from him.

He said that he was fully recovered from the food poisoning he had the previous week and was feeling MUCH better.  He said that everyone in the congregation where he is serving heard he had been sick and was asking him how he was doing.  He said he just wanted to stand at the pulpit and say:   "It was bad Laulau everyone.  Bad Laulau."  He said that then they'd all understand what he meant.  I looked up laulau in the Pidgin English dictionary and it said that laulau meant traditional Hawaiian dish that consists of salted pork, chicken or fish wrapped in ti or banana leaves and steamed or baked.

Jared said that his week was pretty interesting as a whole.  He said P-day was spent driving around.  They had to go to Honolulu West stake to pick up an air mattress, then they went to Honolulu to pick up some commissary (not sure what that means - maybe they got some stuff from a member at the military base), and then went back to Kapolei.  He said the zone was supposed to go bowling but after following an elder (who swore he knew where the bowling alley was) for 30 minutes, they decided just to go to the stake center and play basketball.  

On Tuesday he had a district meeting in Waianae, which is a 40 minute drive away from where Jared lives. Since is was the last district meeting of the transfer they played the traditional game of jeopardy.  He said it was fun, and that he found out that he really knows his Old Testament and Doctrine & Covenants material.  After the meeting he and his companion had a baptismal interview for the Kalaeloa ward missionaries in Nanakuli.  When they got there only one of the kids was there for the interview.  So Jared's companion interviewed him while the other elders went to find the other kid.  Along the way the other elder's car broke down and Jared had to go wait there until a tow truck came.  Then they ended up driving the other elders to an appointment they had in Kapolei and were lucky enough to have dinner with a very nice family.

Jared said that he's been able to spend time with their bishop's son, who recently returned from a mission and that that was enjoyable.  He said they spent a lot of time contacting part-member families and tracting.

Being a zone leader involves a lot of paperwork and administrative things which tend to keep Jared and his companion busy.  He said they spent quite awhile doing some paperwork for the stake about names and numbers and that it took a long time.  But that the stake leaders really appreciate it.

Jared said that he's really trying to "finish strong" and trying to do as much good as he can for the zone so that when he leaves it will be a good zone for someone else to take over.  He said that two talks have been really motivating to him.  One entitled "Jesus the Perfect Leader" by Spencer W. Kimball and the other entitled "My Mission" by Jeffrey R. Holland.  He said that they've probably changed his life and his outlook on things.  With that kind of recommendation I guess I'll have to read them both.

He has eight new investigators, two of whom have dates to be baptized.  And he told about a great experience he had. He said:  "And then a miracle happened.  A girl that just moved into the ward brought her boyfriend with her and he had been meeting with the missionaries in Hon-west, received 3 lessons and had a baptismal date set.  He said that he wanted to finish the lessons and get baptized! BLEW MY FREAKING MIND!  Heavenly Father certainly blessed us with that one.  And guess where he's from?  NY!  Guess where in NY?  ROTTERDAM!  So cool!  I'm hoping that my last convert in the mission will be someone from my home-stake:)"

It's always great to hear from Jared!

Food Poisoning

Sadly Jared said that he and his companion got food poisoning and spent several days this past week just trying to recover. He had the same problem he had when he was in Kona, throwing up blood when vomiting. But this time he knew what was happening and wasn't so freaked out by it. Sadly it happened three times - no fun!

He did tell a couple of experiences he had this week. One was where he went tracting and was preached at by two girls for half an hour. They told he and his companion that they didn't know what they believe and that they don't preach about Christ. Then after that experience they got yelled at by some random guy. He said they were really tempted to just go home, that it was 8:00 o'clock already and people start getting grumpy about them knocking at that time, and they'd had a really long day/week so they really just wanted to go home, plan, and sleep. But instead they decided to stay out and wound up contacting a part member less active family they had been trying to get a hold of for a long time. The man set up an appointment for them to teach his wife and child. Jared said they got back in the car, started driving and were so happy they'd knocked on that door in the last 40 minutes of their Friday night.

Here's a picture of Jared's zone p-day hike last week which was on a steep ridge right off of Lahilahi street in Waianae. He said it was actually a tricky climb, but fun.

General Conference

Jared had a busy week.  On his p-day he got to play basketball. 

On Tuesday he got to go to Honolulu.  His companion had lost his wallet and had to get new identification. 

On Wednesday they tracted and visited part member families the whole day. 

He said Thursday was more of the same. 

On Friday they had a great district leader training meeting. 

On Saturday Jared and his companion were able to watch General Conference, which he thought was awesome.  He said the first session starts at 6:00am until 8:00am.  Then the afternoon session for they is from 10:00am through noon.  He said after conference they went to an awesome meeting with a man.  He said it was the most spiritual lesson he'd had in a long time.  They went to the Priesthood session of conference Saturday night. 

Then they attended conference again on Sunday.  After conference on Sunday he said they had bookend meetings with members of the stake presidency and the high counselor over missionary work in the stake.  He said it was an awesome meeting, but that they were really tired when they finally got home.