Time to write all my best buddies.Actions speak louder than words. Obviously you can get pretty loud with words, but I've found the old cliche saying to be true. This week there are a few stories to accent this principle. #1: Our 83 year-old investigator Jean called us up Wednesday and told us she needed help building a desk for her small apartment. Always looking for an opportunity to hang out with Jean, we gladly took it. So this is how things panned out. We get there, she tells us how jealous she is of our bikes (not surprised), we sit on her couch, and she tells us to teach her. So we taught her the restoration, she loved it, great. Committed her to baptism, she accepted, great. Then we spent a few hours putting together her desk. You could tell that the more work we put into the desk, the more she really could feel how much we cared for her. And we do! We love Jean. And instead of dipping out right after that, we thought, "Hey she's 83 and just moved here and doesn't have many friends, let's be a friend." So she invited us to have dinner with her, so we ate dinner, talked, and had a good time! She was incredibly persistent on having us watch her favorite semi-opera singers in concert. I say semi-opera because it was like a boy band mixed with opera. Their name is il Divo. So we watched a few of their songs and it really sent her into her early years. She was really grateful when we left. I know that her life was changed, if only a little bit, by us building her a table and watching boy opera with her.
Lesson of the week:
#2: A part-member family has two little girls who are into hula, and so last sunday we went to go do service for them and we helped them shave off the stems of leaves to make Hula skirts. Anyway, this week we got the approval to go to their hula compitition in downtown Honolulu. After multiple tries coordinating rides to and from there, we finally got everything worked out, and on Friday night we were able to see our two favorite little youngesters dance their hearts out! I was so mad that I forgot my camera. Anyway, after we were done, the girls we excited to see us and the Dad (who isn't a member) was really excited to see us! He was really glad. The girls looked so cute in their hula outfits. I was glad we were able to do that for him, and even though we didn't teach him anything in terms of us telling him about our church, I think just the fact that we were willing to go all the way to downtown Honolulu just to support them speaks enough as it is.
"Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but acorrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Matthew 7:16-20
In all that we do, we should be aware of the impact it has on the other around us. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. I love you all! Miss you so much.
Elder "I just built that!" Gleave
1) Pearl Harbor Props
2) The desk me and my comp built with Jean
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