Happy Memorial Day

Aloha nui loa ohana!  Malama Pono:)

So it sounds like you guys have had yet another eventful week on the home front, we had a Memorial Day BBQ yesterday with a really nice family yesterday and they pulled out all the stops.  HUGE burgers, sliced up prepared baked potatoes, fruit out the wazoo, and (this made my day) root beer floats!!!  YES.  So we basically ate ourselves sick yesterday haha.

I'm not going to lie I'm pretty jealous of the seasons right about now, perpetual summer is not all it's choked up to be... it's getting VERY hot and humid now, and our apartment (more like a teeny studio...) doesn't have AC.  I guess I might've been spoiled up to this point, but the past few nights of sleep have been MISERABLE.  You know me, I like to sleep cold, I'll keep my fan in till November if I can...  so this kind of heat that just stays and never goes has been pretty hard to endure, but I'm sure I'm getting no sympathy from Mom on this one since her mission was probably hotter than mine haha.

We had some interesting tracting experiences this week.  We ran into some very angry Born Again Christians who really didn't like us and said some pretty mean things about us.  I always laugh when that happens because I'm like "wow congratulations sir you just spent a couple moments of your life cussing out some twenty year old kids... do you feel good about yourself?"  Whatever makes him sleep at night I guess.

THEN as we were walking back to our car an interesting thing happened.  So a little background - on the way up the hill we stopped by a house and the man was on the phone.  So we asked if we could stop back on the way back down the hill and he said sure. 

I have with me a knife that some members gave me on Molokai... just a substantial pocket knife (maybe 3.5 inches) but I just keep it in my pocket.  

So we're walking back down the hill and we're talking about some funny Polynesian missionary stories and we talked about some Tongans that we knew that got dogs sent after them by some disgruntled locals.  So we're talking about these stories and discussing what we would do in that situation.

Then we start to approach the same house as earlier and then we noticed something that wasn't there the first time around... the man had sent out his big blue nosed pit bull to keep us away. And it wasn't tied up.  So it growls really throaty like, it's hackles go up and it's tail is not wagging, and it slowly walks up to us.  We stop moving and the first thing I do is flick my knife open thinking oh my gosh is this really about to happen???  

Then I get this feeling and a scripture pops into my head and one phrase stuck out to me... Alma 31:5 And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God. 

So I put my knife away, folded my arms, closed my eyes and said a prayer.  Then when I finished I looked down and the pit bull was just sniffing, sniffing, sniffing away at me, then we went and did the same to my companion, then came back to sniffing me then peed right by my foot, went back, peed right by my companion's foot, then trotted away.  

We slowly walk to the car and the whole way the dogs is just string at us growling then we get in and drive away.  But not before we shouted an aloha out the window to the uncle who sent out his dog.

So yeah.  That pretty much sums up this week. Well I gotta go mis amigos.

I love you all so much, thanks for all your support!

Ofa lahi atu:), Elder Brooksby

Mission Tour

Howzit ohana?  Sounds like you guys have been having fun!

There's been pretty little happening here in Kealakekua... like at all.  I guess the only big thing that happened was mission tour which happened last Tuesday and so we got to hear from Elder Larry Wilson of the Second Quorum of the Seventy for the better part of 6 hours.  It was pretty intense, but he was the nicest guy, and he really knew his stuff about the gospel.  

And his wife spoke for a little while and she was talking about the meaning of "Christ" or anointed one and his authority.  And I felt awesome because since I've been studying the Old Testament I knew a lot of what she was talking about!  And since she was talking a lot about examples of the Lord's anointed falling into temptation, or abusing their authority I knew all the examples she was talking about from the old testament like Saul, David, Samson, Gehazi, Balaam etc etc. 

So that was great.  I recorded the whole conference on my recorder so somehow I'll have to get it to you guys so you can listen as well.  

The ward is good here haha.  The people are great.  

I think I told you all that in my last area an Investigator that I'd been working with got baptized a couple weeks ago... actually the week that I left she got baptized, so I'm way excited for her:)

But I hope all is well with you guys at home, I miss you all so much and I actually had a really trunky dream last night about it haha, I dreamt I was home and I was on the phone with one of my friends asking me when I was going to come over and hang out and then I went downstairs into my box in the basement and got my iPod out, got into the car and started listening to music, headed towards her house, and then I woke up haha.  Funny how mission dreams are sometimes, no matter how hard you focus on the work, somehow or another those thoughts of home never ever leave.

 

Well I love you guys all more than I can express properly in email haha, but be sure to Take it Easy!

Love, Eleta Puipui:)

 

 My comp got DESTROYED by a wave.

 Cool Wave pictures

 This is my companion.

 Geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

 HUGE SHAKA!!!!!!

(Wikipedia says:   The shaka sign is a common greeting gesture. It is often associated with Hawaii and Southend. It consists of extending the thumb and smallest finger while keeping the three middle fingers curled, and raising the hand as in salutation with the back of the hand facing the person that is being greeted; sometimes the hand is rotated back and forth to emphasize the sign.
The "shaka sign" has its roots in the Hawaiian custom of holding a lei (a necklace made of flowers) for the purpose of placement over the head on the shoulders of another in an Aloha greeting. The three middle fingers grasp the lei from over the top while the thumb and small finger rest under the lei thus spreading the 'necklace' open.)

Sometimes members feed us a LOT.  That was our dessert... after a huge meal.

Phone Call

Hello everybody!

Yurp email is pretty much the thing that keeps me sane out here haha.  Sometimes there's so much drama and it's all I can do to wait till Monday and get an email.

And the phone call went well.  I would've liked to talk to all of you guys longer, but oh well, c'est le vie. 

Well mission traditions for certain "marks" on your mission mostly just include burning articles of clothing. A tie at 6 months, shirt at a year, pants at 18 months, and a full suit right before you go home.  But I don't think I'll do any of that.

Welp thanks for the email, sorry not much new has happened in the past 19 hours so I don't have a whole lot to say but thanks for the fun call (I felt jipped, my companion talked with his family for nearly 2 hours!) 

But have a good week and be sure to Take it Easy!

Love you all so much:)

Elder Brooksby

One More Week...

Hello Hello everybody!

 

Yup! One more week.  I was getting too excited last week and I thought that the 6th was Mother's Day... it took me till Wednesday last week to figure out that I was wrong...  But really now, only one more week till I get to call home.  For the second of four phone calls home.  That fourth one is going to be weird. 

 

Sooo it sounds like another busy week for you guys, I would really like to see the Arnold Arboretum again, that was a fun place and full of beautiful flowers too haha.

 

My testimony is doing great.  I can tell that I need to be doing a little bit better in my studies but they're doing pretty well.  To make the Old Testament a little more exciting, I've been reading W. Cleon Skousen's books (So far I'm through with the "First Two Thousand Years, which covers from Adam to Moses, [talk about deep doctrine!] and the "Third Thousand Years"  which covers Joshua to Saul, and Now [yup you guessed it] I'm in the "Fourth Thousand Years"  Which covers from David to Christ.).  They're each about 700 pages so I'm pleasantly surprised at how fast I'm burning through them.  So after I'm through with this last one I'll finish reading the Old Testament and then it'll be onto the New Testament, which will be a lot more exciting.  

 

And yes Dad, there is a lot of good to be had in Romans.  I like the one that says "And not only thus, but we glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience, experience and experience, hope."  I think it goes like that...  Romans 5?  

 

Anyways, I'm excited to get out of the Old Testament, but I think after this book, I'm going to take a break and read this thing that we have called the Atonement Packet (a packet filled with talks of the atonement by apostles and prophets.)

 

The work and my companion are good, and I'm making the most of the time I have here.

 

Well my time is just about up here, so I've gotta get going.  

 

Love you all SOOOOOOO MUCH, and can't wait to call home:)

 

Take it easy!  Elder Brooksby

Happy May Day!

Hello Everyone,

My companion is Elder A. and he is from Orem Utah, and he's good.  We already have pictures together.  We get along well, I was his District Leader three transfers ago:)  

I sent you one of the only pictures I had with Elder C. last week. Sorry that I didn't get one of just he and I.

Puipui is the way some of the Tongans said Brooksby.  Eleta Puipui is Elder Brooksby.  Funny yeah?

Hey sorry for a multi-plethora of reasons, I don't have long left in my time on the computer but I'll make up for it on the Mother's Day phone call I swear.

I took a bunch of videos, but they're all over 25MB so I'll have to send them on an SD card in the mail or something like that  but they're all of Kona and they're really cool so look forward to that!

Sorry again it's so short, but I'll call you 2pm on Sunday:)

Love you all soooo much!

Elder Brooksby