11/17/2008

Aloha from rainy Kaua'i
I had to open my big mouth to one of my zone leaders last friday and say that it hadn't rained much since I had gotten to Kaua'i.... and now it has been raining for three days straight. Oh well, I guess it is winter, and Kaua'i needs the rain...
Anyway, last Monday was a lot of fun. We went fishing, and I managed to catch a fish (it almost looked like a really small baracudda(sp?)), and then I was also able to see a sea turtle as it popped above the water for a quick breath. Apparently two others had appeared before that, but I missed them both. Anyway, fishing wasn't very productive, so we are thinking of trying again today.
That night we went to a FHE held at a ward member's house (who is also on the high council) and had a couple of investigators there as well. One was Ty, the cousin of our very effeminent ward missionary. The lesson was all about enduring to the end, and she bore a cool testimony about how her sister was giving her grief over investigating the church, but her mother had told her she was proud of her for doing something she wanted to do. Her mother is a less-active member, and had never before told her that she was proud of her, so Ty was feeling pretty good about the church.
Tuesday was veterans day, which seemed to throw a lot of things off. Ever possible vacation in Hawaii gets taken, so a lot was closed on Tuesday, meaning mail came late, people weren't home, etc. In most missions days without school are good for catching families home... on Kaua'i, days off are good for not catching families home because they are all at the beach. So we went and did
service for a lady in our ward. We cleaned up her yard. When I say yard some might think something small... No, this lady owns more land than either my companion or I know, so we cleaned up her front yard area, cleaned out her gutters, etc. It looked really nice when we left. We were able to have a lesson with Ty, and commited her for baptism and asked her to pray about a date.
Wednesday was another interesting day. Or rather the night was interesting. We had set up another lesson with Sandy (the lady whose daughter committed suicide). When we got there, Sandy's boyfriend Jack (whose house it is) and his son were there. We were going to teach the plan of salvation, but ended up teaching a really long restoration lesson because they had A LOT of questions. We answered them all, and he said it felt right and good. He is going through
some hard times right now, so we are trying to simply fellowship him and help him all we can in hopes of helping him come to church and all those other good mormony things.
Then after that (at about 9:20) the first councilor in the bishoprich (who was with us at the lesson) asked us to go give a blessing with him to his new grandchild. Well, we got permission, drove down to another town about 15 minutes away, gave the blessing, drove home, and got home at about 10:20. Yet we were being completely obedient the entire time.
Thursday was really slow. No one was home, no one wanted to talk to us, etc., so we spent a bit of time trying to organize our area book and write out our ward members by street so they would be easier to find and visit. We are still working on that project, but we were able to do that for a while. Then I left to go on exchanges with one of the Zone leaders the next day.
So Friday I spent the day in Lihue (lee-who-e) with one of the Zone leaders. Our zone is so small that we don't have district leaders. We had a good day, and I got to see quite a bit more of the island because he had to do a baptisimal interview. We taught a cool lesson, visited some ward members, had some delicious salmon for dinner, and then I went back home, where I found out
that Ty had chosen a date for her baptism! Hurray!
Saturday is once again a very bad day to find people in Kaua'i as everyone goes out. We had designed a cool finding activity for out on a path by the beach, but that is when it started raining, so that fell through. We spent most of the day visiting members and teaching them, while it rained, and rained, and rained....
Yesterday it rained even more. We live off of the church, and there are three buildings to the church. There is the chapel, the gym, and then all the classrooms and other rooms. The middle of the last building is an open courtyard. For me it was a little strange to be rained on while I was technically inside the building, but what are you going to do?
Always remember our Lord loves us and does everything he can for us. He strengthens us in our times of need, and even our times of strenght if we are willing to look and learn. We do have troubles and hardships, but as Ty experienced, the Lord is always watching, ready to give us a little boost when we need it. I love you all. Have a good week!
Elder Kidd