Week 41--False Alarm

Hi,

Fun fact of the day:  Spam has a mascot. His name is Spammy! It's a minature pig. How do I know this? Because I love spam. Plus I ate it this week.

 

Okay so this week has been pretty great! Just a few stories to touch upon. The other day I was on exchanges with some Elders in my district. We were driving down the road, and one of the Elders was like, "Oooohhh...Looky at we got here!" And it was a Lambo! Just driving around like it was no big deal. I don't know if the driver saw me take a picture, or people are always staring at him, but when we drove up next to him, he just gave us a casual wave without even looking at us. It was awesome though. Then, like ten minutes later, we were driving around the mean subburbs of Ewa Beach, and the litttle Philipino Elder I was with was like, "Oh my gosh. I just saw an eagle! I just saw an Eagle!" And his companion was like, "No way. There's not even eagles in Hawaii..." And so we turned around to go see what it was, we drove up to find out it was a peacock just running around on top of people's houses! A peacock! I don't where it came from, or how it got there, but all I can tell you is the Philipino Elder really wanted to eat him. He even got out and tried catching him. "It's like a big chicken!" He kept yelling. I secretly wish he caught the bird, but such a majestic creature deserves its freedom. False Alarm, not an eagle.

 

We were walking around on the road the other day, and these two Samoan boys were sitting outside. We went up and started talking to them, and one of them was like, "Oh I've never talked to missionaries before. I'm really interested in what you believe." Great! They were two 19 year old guys, who want to learn about the Church! So we start teaching them, and we told them we'd come back. We were extra excited, because the other boy had six kids that lived in the house, and the parents were members. We just assumed they were less-active. We were all excited that we could start teaching a family of eight. So we went back and started talking to the kid, and he was like, "Oh yeah. We are all members. We go to the Samoan Ward." False Alarm. But the one kid who said he's never talked to missionaries wasn't a member, so we are excited to teach him!

 

I guess the best story of the week is this one: Darryl was baptized last Sunday, so that means he needed to be confirmed this Sunday. We were really excited all week, but halfway through the week his phone got shut off because he ran out of minutes. We had no way of contacting him. We went by around 8:45 am on Sunday to see if he needed a ride, but no one answered. We were thinking to ourselves, "Oh crap. He has no ride to Church and he has no phone." But something inside of me just told me to keep having faith; to not give up on him. Church starts at 10:30 am, so that didn't give him much time. In my mind, I secretly hoped his fellowshipper arranged some sort of ride to get him to church, but that was a stretch. We got to Church at 10, and no Darryl. His fellowshipper walked in, no Darryl. Things were not looking good. About 10 minutes before Church starts, my companion looks out the door and says, "Nooo way. THAT'S DARRYL!" False Alarm. Darryl had walked the two and half miles to church so he could be confirmed. He left at 8:30 am, so we just missed him, but he had enough faith and deisre to walk the 2.3 miles to the chapel. I'm not even sure if most members would do that, and he was only baptized a week earlier. He was so excited to be there. After the confirmation, he sat down next to me, and told me, "That was amazing. My hands are shaking that was so amazing." Darryl is truly an amazing man. He is literally walking proof that if you sumbit your will to the Lord, he will bless your life more than you can imagine. I feel blessed to witness such an amazing soul come unto Christ.

 

That day, we were in the chappel, and my companion and I heard a voice behind us say, "Don't mess with rock and roll." I thought for sure Elvis Presselly had been ressurected early and come to the Ewa  Beach 2nd Ward to greet me. False Alarm. It was our down syndrome friend who comes to all our church meetings and baptisms. He's really awesome and loves doing Hulk Hogan and Elvis impressions during sacrament meeting.

 

But as for now folks, "You don't want to be around, when Hulk Hogan comes around".

Elder "Mad for March" Gleave