Week 28: MELE KALIKIMAKA

Hey ya'll! 

First off, I hope you all are enjoying your Christmas! We went on a hike today and I guess as an early Christmas present Santa let us see a whale!! That's right. Spurting up water and everything. Pretty cool I'd say. Merry Christmas Elder Gleave. 

I guess I'll start off with a really cool experience this week.   My comp and I were done with dinner, and we had no appointments, so we decided to street contact all the way to Wal-Mart. Things weren't going too well. No one really wanted to talk, so I was like DANG this sucks. But I was still trying, still being diligent. Then something cool happened. When we were in line to check out at Wal-Mart, some guy came up to me and was like "Hey. My friend is a member of your Church, and she works at 24 Fitness. She was talking me this morning, and I wanted to meet up with you guys and ask you some questions." So we exchanged info, and then parted ways. So after a few phone calls during the week, I invited him to our Christmas party which was Saturday morning. He said that sounded good, and that we'd see him then. On Saturday, he showed up, and I was like "Oh cool! He actually showed up." He was super excited, so he went around and met all the people. He's really good at slack key guitar, so during the party he just got up on stage and started playing and singing Christmas songs! It was awesome. We then thought it would be a good idea to take him on a tour of the church building. When we went into the chapel, you could just feel the spirit. The party was all loud and lots of commotion going on, then in the chapel it was just completely still. I could tell he felt it. He even told me! After talking to him a little while, we went back into the gym and I shared a little bit about the restoration and the priesthood, and he completely understood. After the party, he came up to me with a big smile on his face and he pulled me aside and said, "Just between you and me, I want in. I want to be a part of this Church." I was so excited! So I invited him to be baptized, and he was like "Oh yeah! In 10 weeks though. Not 8. not 9. 10." The bad news is that he's not in my ward boundaries, so we explained that and then he went to the Manoa Ward's (the ward he's in) Christmas party that night! He absolutely loved it. The next day he came to Church, and the same thing, he was so excited. He caught the spark. The Manoa missionaries taught him a lesson yesterday, and committed him to baptism and he said, "Who would say no?" Then they committed him to the 10th of January and he was like "Can I be baptized sooner?" Anyway, just a heart-warming story. He has found the pearl of great price. 

We have a really awesome family we are working with. They always feed us on Thursday nights! The Dad is a lawyer, but a goofy, jokester lawyer, and the Mom is completely down to earth. The more and more we talk to him, the more and more he's seeing the Mormon Church is the true Church. They are going on a trip this week to California, and they told us they intend on reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover during that time. That sounds pretty promising yeah? They have 3 kids, the oldest being 13 and the youngest being 7. The Dad is really smart, so it's fun teaching him because he grasps concepts really well. At dinner, we played a make shift jeopardy game with the dad being Alex Trebek and we all chose our own categories. It was really fun! 

This week the gospel principles' teacher called me, and asked if I could teach gospel principles 10 minutes before Church started. And it was on the gathering of Israel. There's only so much you can talk about the gathering of Israel, especially with only sacrament meeting to prepare. But the members were nice and rolled with the punches, and participated a lot. 

Things are different here in Hawaii. Not too many decorations, so it doesn't really seem like Christmas! The only thing I have to keep the spirit in my heart is replays of Elf scenes in my mind. Sometimes I could just tell investigators, "You gotta keep your promises if you wanna keep your friends." --Turbo Man. I think that's a good way of helping them come to Church. 

So I'll email you next week and let you know about skyping, okay? I'll try to get a package for Christmas out today! Well, until next week! I love you all! Pray for Marcus btw, he hurt his knees and they're still swollen a week later. 

Much love! 

Elder Whale Watcher

Week 27--JOY TO DA WORLD!

Hello,

I wish I knew pigeon. It's such a funny language. When people are blessing the sacrament, they have to do it over because they say "O God, da eternal fada." I guess the gospel is in every language.

Okay sorry about that. Just kinda popped into my head. SO here's the deal.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! I know it's not Christmas but I just love it so much that I have to tell everyone that. Things are a little bit different here. I don't know if it is because everyone is Asian, or we are in the city, or it's a warm area but there's not many Christmas lights. Makes me sad. That's okay, the real Christmas spirit lies within your heart and not by how many decorations there are. But I do miss Christmas music. Good thing McDonalds plays it...

So here's the deal, this week has been a turn in my mission. I've always heard that the Lord has "prepared" people for the gospel, but I never really have seen it on my mission. And I have seen all these missionaries baptizing a lot of people, and I have never really seen that for me. I have been struggling to have a testimony that I could do missionary work. I knew missionary work was real and important, but I was struggling becuase I didn't thnk I could do it. Well anyway, they introduced something into the mission called QGC, or quality gospel conversations, and it is basically just a way to count how many people you've talked to in a day. And I really loved the idea. I knew right away this is what I needed. But it was hard to just talk to people on the street. We've been struggling to find even a single investigator, and we were only teaching maybe one lesson a week. But I really wanted to talk to everyone, I just couldn't find the courage to do it. 

But on Saturday, I went on exchanges with one of the zone leaders, and one of the AP's came with us, and we did 6 and a half hours of straight street contacting. We had been averaging 3 to 4 qgcs per companion, and on Saturday we three missionaries decided that wasn't enough. We were going to talk to everyone! We set a goal of 30 QGCs and placing 10 Books of Mormon. I was skeptical. That's a lot. But right away, when we went out, we were just being incredibly bold. Long story short, we reached our goal of getting 30 QGCs, and actually ended up getting 36. We placed all of the Books of Mormon we brought, and had one person even asking for one that we brought back the next day. We have 2 new incredibly solid investigators that want to meet up now and two new investigators that are going to be gone till after Christmas, but wanna talk with us, and a couple investigators for other areas. 

There was a lot of conversations with people that didn't go very well, and they weren't interested, but we found those few that were "prepared" by the Lord. We talked with two people in particular, who were smoking cigarettes. Two separate occasions. Usually I would never talk with people smoking because I just assumed they weren't interested, but I was being bold, and now that I think of it, they need it more than anyone else. Anyway, they were telling us how they have hard lives, and how much they didn't know what life was about, and after talking to them for a litte about Christ, you could see how much they wanted to know more. I found the key to missionary work TALK TO EVERYONE. I can't really explain how great that day was. Probably top 3 best days on the mission. The whole day I felt the spirit, and the whole day I was having so much fun. It felt almost like a dream. Incredibly stress free. I now know what it means to "get lost in the work".

Anyway, got to go! I love you all so much! Merry Christmas and keep in mind the true meaning of Christmas. May the Lord bless you all in your righteous endeavors. A Hui Ho and much Aloha

Elder Rednose Gleave

Week 26--SHALOHA

WHAT'S UP MY HOMIES!

I named this email Shaloha because there's this guy in our ward, who dresses up like a Jewish guy, and wears a yamaka and has a long beard and he is a temple recommend holder. Weirdest thing. But he bore his testimony and started by saying Shaloha, then started talking about how excited he is that Christmas and Hanukkah are so close together. Welcome to the city...

Things are getting better around here! It's not so intimidating living in the big city. I guess Will and I are meant to be in the same boat! If you have any problems big man, I know how you feel. Anyway, my comp needs to email soon, so I gotta be quick! But here's a recount of what's been happening lately.

Since this area is pretty slow, and pretty hard to work in, I spend a lot of time in my thoughts and in the books. I have been a reading fiend! When I wake up in the morning, I always read the Ensign to wake me up (cuz let's be honest, at 6:30 am, the scriptures will put me to sleep).  I have been pondering about our Divine potential lately, and how each one of us has specific talents and specific traits that make us, US. The Lord shapes us into who he needs us to be, so we shouldn't strive to be someone different than we are. We should just be ourselves, and be comfortable with ourselves. The Lord isn't ashamed of who were are, and we shouldn't be either. If you are nerdy, MORE POWER TO YA! That's awesome! If you are a big goofball, keep that good sence of humor. If you are on the reserved side, don't push yourself to who your aren't suppose to be. The Lord has a specific plan for all of us, and he needs us to be us. As long as we are relying on the Lord, and putting Heavenly Father first, before everything, I know things will work out. Maybe someone will need a friend who is reserved, or nerdy, or whatever it may be, and Heavenly Father will put you in a place to personally minister to that person with your Divine talents. Anyway, back to the Ensign, I was reading an article that discussed this and I believe this pretty much sums it up (with a little missionary emphasis too), "As Latter-day Saints we are blessed to be living in this time when the Lord is hastening His work. Because God has a purpose in placing us on earth at this time, we have the capacity to do more than we think we can." I just love that. We have the capacity to do more than we think we can. What a privilege it is to be here on the Earth during such a special time.

A couple cool things have happened this week. I called Jacob! We live pretty close to each other, so I plan on seeing him soon.  It was such a brightener to my day!

Turkey Day came and passed. I couldn't stop thinking about home and cold and football. But we had a good one! We ate on the 9th floor of a apartment building, that had a pool there. It was with a bunch of young couples in the ward, so it was nice to eat with them. They all are in their mid to late 20's, so I kinda relate to them. One couple is really funny. They both grew up in NC, but the husband is a Duke fan and the wife is a UNC fan. Its like those "Sports is Crazy" ESPN commercial. But the husband is pretty hyped about Jabari.

Things have been pretty humbling of late. That's okay, the Lord just loves to teach me patience. But who can complain? I'M IN HAWAII!!

Christmas time is here.... I love it! As usual. Kinda makes me homesick though. I wish I could just sit next to a warm fire watching movies. NAME THE MOVIE: "YOU'RE NOT SANTA, YOU SMELL LIKE BEEF AND CHEESE"

Gotta go though! Hope you are all feel the Christmas spirit in my honor. The Church is true, the Lord lives.  I'm a witness.

BYE

ELDER TOPELF GLEAVE

Week 25--Elder Gleave and the Adventures of Downtown Honolulu

What"s up everyone! I believe one of the greatest things about serving a mission is all the challenges that you are presented with, and watching the Lord work through you to accomplish things that you would never accomplish by yourself.

 So if you all didn't know, I got transferred this week! I went from straight country, to complete town (that's what they call city here). I'm literally in downtown Honolulu! I went from 14,000 people in the space of 20 miles, to 548937583490257398 people in space of a few miles. Things are very, very different. It was rare to find a 3-story building in Waialua, and now I'm surrounded by 20 to 30-story apartments. Buildings are EVERYWHERE! It's literally the concrete jungle. I live next to an on-ramp for the H-1, which is the main highway here. There's lots of lots of noise! I live in like a triplex structure, and my neighbors smoke all da time. So sometimes it seeps into our place and I'm walking which is fun. Kinda...at least I'll be skinny! We probably walk like 10 miles a day, which isn't too bad. It's very overwhelming. I've been in mostly small town/country areas my whole mission, so it's definitely an adjustment! Things are for sure a struggle at first. The area I was in just had two baptisms, which was awesome, but now we aren't teaching many people. We kinda have been just walking around everywhere, knocking on people's doors, but no one is home. Things are looking up though! I saw a homeless man doing shadow puppets in the park, so that made my day a little bit better! Plus there's a 7-11 near by, so I guess you could say unlimited slurrrrrppppiiieeesssss.

On a good note, I have an awesome district! And zone! There's lots of really, really funny people here in Honolulu. There's also a lot of pressure. We see the AP's a lot, and the president is just down the road, so we gotta make sure we're on point! The first night here, we were watching a movie with our ward, and it is the "Silent Night" movie about the making of the song. Anyway, it said they were in Austria in the film, and my comp turns to me and says, "That doesn't look like Australia..." hahahaha speaking of which! My companion is really cool. He's from an island called Sipan, which is just above Guam. He speaks English really well, because they speak English there hahaha. He's really mellow and quiet, but when he says stuff, he's a funny guy! He's the only member of his family, so he's got quite the strong testimony. He's only been out 3 months, so we are still learning together.

Sunday was such a relief! I love the ward here. TONS of young couples, and they all like to talk about sports. Which is awesome. I don't think I have ever looked forward to Sunday so much. Something familiar. We have one girl, Nui, who is the girlfriend of a returned missionary that we will be teaching, so I guess there will be a baptism soon! Anyway, all in all, it's just a completely different experience. Not a bad one, just different. And I know that with the help of the Lord, I will have wonderful experiences here. I already am! I miss home a lot! especially when I got sick last week and now when things are pretty hard. I kinda wish I could just be home drinking hot chocolate doing a puzzle. BUT THE WORK MUST GO ON. He who puts his hand to the plough and looks back isn't fit for the Kingdom of God. I just wish it would change seasons....Everyone's like, oh the weather there is so nice! And I'm like where's the cold.... That's okay! I love the mission, and I love the Lord.

 I hope everyone has a good turkey day! There's so much to be thankful for here. I'm thankful for My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For the example of enduring to the end. For the persecution and the struggles he went through everyday just to put his gospel on this Earth. He went through so much for me, I know that I can walk a few more miles for him. I'm thankful for my Father in Heaven. For his loving hand he always bestows in my life. For his continued help and mercy to someone as simple as me. I know he lives, and loves me everyday. Without these two I know I would be lost! I would be nothing. I'm thankful for Joseph Smith, and the persecution and the rage he went through to establish Christ's true church on the Earth again, and the fact that I could be a part of it. I am also thankful for you all. I love you guys so much. I'm thankful for the love and support I get each day, and the prayers you send my way! This is by far the hardest thing I've done, but it is easily the most rewarding. Anyway, I'm in the Makiki ward, which is not the ward the mission president is in (thankful).

I hope Annie gets better! Try some natural antibiotics until you know what it is!

I'm sad the donkeys lost, but it's a little bit easier being on a mission to not care as much!

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of research about the second coming and Heavenly Father. Cool stuff! Should be interesting when it happens.

Anyway, I love saying anyway, but I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving! Shout out to all my Waialua homies--you guys are missed!

KEEP STRONG IN THE GOSPEL.

The gobble king.
Elder Gleave

Week 24--Hey Mainlanders!

Hey Mainlanders!

Kinda of a crazy, mixed up, jumbled week. It's hard to describe a mission, but I guess one easy way to describe is--it is one big adventure. So many different things happen each week, it's hard to describe.  It is just something you have to experience! 

So after I emailed you last week, we went to a pizza party at a member's house for dinner. We were playing football with their kids, and one of the elders ripped his pants right in the area where the sun don't shine and you use it to sit down. It was pretty funny if you ask me, but he seemed a little sheepish about it. I guess that's what happens when you eat too much ice cream. and pizza. 

The next day we literally painted this guy's whole house--like the whole outside of his house. It was fun, but really, really tiring. The mission has a lot of firsts, and I guess I can check painting a house off my list!  Then, we went over to this girl's house after for some more service. They want to build a chicken coop, so we were taking apart wooden pallets by prying them apart. It was pretty strenuous labor stuff, so that plus the house meant I was pretty beat! My whole body was sore after that! 

That day was really cool too. The waves were ginormis! It was the biggest since I've been here. I didn't get to see too many of the waves, but I caught glimpses. They were like 30 FEET! That's like a 3-story building of waves! In case you didn't know how big a three-story building was...It was sad, though because a mormon dude was trying to surf at a spot near the pipeline, and I guess he crashed and they never found his body. So they've been spending all week looking for it, but he never turned up so please pray for his family and friends! I didn't know him, I think he was more on Laie side of the Island. 

The next day we played volleyball with our ward and it was DA BEST. It's funny because its like a whole bunch of Polys, the browns, and us playing. Polys are really, REALLY good at volleyball. They're really funny though, because whenever someone messes up, everyone just starts busting up! Including the person who messed up, so it's all in good spirits. 

That night though was ROUGH. I woke up and my body was all in pain. I could barely stand. There was a member baptizing their kid that morning, and we were suppose to be there, but showed up half an hour late. Oops...hahahaha but it was okay. I WAS SICK I HAD A GOOD EXCUSE OKAY? We went to his house after the batpism, and the APs were there, and one of them told me that I was being transfered. So not only was I so sick I could barely stand, I found out I was leaving a place I loved so much. So you could say-- I'm the awkward kid crying at the party! So I just went home and crashed. Turns out I had like a 101.5 degree fever. Who knew? I think it's like the flu. But I got a blessing, and I woke up the next morning pretty much completely fine! Good thing the priesthood is so awesome. It's such a blessing to have in my life. 

So we had Stake Conference  yesterday, and since it's like 20 minutes away, our bishop rented a bus! SO WE RODE A SCHOOL BUS TO STAKE CONFERENCE! It was probably the best thing ever. Plus stake conference was cool, it was like a recording of these general authorities in Utah dedicated to Hawaii people. Elder Uchtdorf was funny, he got up and said, "Aloha brothers and sisters!" and we all did the "Aloha" thing, and he was like, "let's try this again with a little more gusto, Aloha brother and sister!" It was funny. It was like he was actually there. He said something cool though. He was talking about looking at the good of situations and said (paraphrased by me) "When it rains, don't be bitter about it. Pull out an umbrella, and jump in the puddles like we did when we were younger. Besides, only after enduring the rain do we get rainbows." And I liked that, especially now. I'm sad that Im leaving, but as long as I have a good perpective, everything will be great! A member was talking to me, and he said on his mission he was in an area where he loved it, and he never wanted to leave, and then he got transfered and his next area was his favorite area. so he just said, as long as you think that this next area is your favorite area, with awesome people. and an awesome, and it very well might be. And I believe that to be true! 

So on a more secular note, glad the Broncos won! Me and Elder Horsley were riding around on our bikes, and we rode past a house and there was people watching the game outside and I was like, "Hey, what do you go say we go "tract" into him?" I dont think he found it very amusing. That's okay. GO DONKS!

Well, next week I will be in a different place. So I will let you know then! But as for now, know this: I love you all so very much! You all are an inspiration to me. Keep up the good work!

Much love,

The Gleavester

Week 23--Temple Tuesday

Hello,

So, I'm sure all of you are freaking out because you're probably like, "He's not emailing me.  I think he doesn't like us...wait a minute, what's this--an email on Tuesday? HE'S EMAILING ON TUESDAY? That's not allowed. Our son is so disobedient." Well rest assure, neither is true. Today we went to the temple as a zone, and since it isn't open on Monday, our Tuesday got made into an automatic pday. So I wasn't really being disobedient...And I still love you! 

Man I've really missed the temple. So much awesomeness there. The Laie Temple is so pretty. Even though it's like a square, it's one of the prettiest squares I think I've ever laid my eyes on.  Plus, the temple is such a sacred and holy place and it was nice just to forget about the world outside and focus my time on the Lord. I definitely felt the spirit there. Just an amazing spiritual recharge. 

So bad news, I think I'm gaining weight. Good news, I've eatten a lot of candy since Halloween. I've been recovering from a candy high, so I've had lots of interesting swings of lots of energy to completely crashing. I guess the struggles of missionary work are real. And while we are on the weight thing, I think I've finally figured out why it's happening. So here's what I think. I could be wrong, but I think that whenever we go to dinner, the families are like, "Oh so you say you like being skinny? Well good because we made a meat dish with lots of white rice and butter and for dessert we bought chocolate cake and ice cream! If your love handles don't love this, I don't know what will!!" Im sure glad we decided to get those bigger pants and shirts. I feel like Im in "honey I shrunk the kids", but more like "honey I shrunk my clothes". That's okay, I'd rather be found dead with a friend chicken wing in my hand than a head of lettuce! 

This week has been very rainy. Which is awesome both for missionary work and for my plants! It's awesome being on bikes in the rain. You knock on someone's door and they feel too bad to make you go back out in the rain so they are kinda forced to talk to you. Plus I love hitting the big puddles and imaging I'm riding on the surface just like Christ walked on water. My white shirts aren't too happy about it though. They've seen theyre better days. 

So I witnessed one of the most earnest prayers ever the other day. You've never really witnessed earnest prayers until youve heard a 4 year-old pray. It went a little something like this, "Heavenly Father, please help us be nice to Jesus. Please help us not turn into monsters. Please help us like our teachers, and please help us not steal. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." You could tell the sincerity in his voice. I mean who WANTS to turn into monsters? I know that this little kid didn't want to. And what's better, at that same dinner, the opening prayer included, "Please help the missionaries like my mom's cooking." So we are guaranteed to like her food!! No wonder I'm getting fat!!! 

My comp just bought a ukelele from Costco, so now I get to experience the joys of hymns on ukeleles every down time we get. 

In better news theres ant's everywhere in our house. I put a piece of chicken down on the floor to time how long it'd take for the ants to find it. Those suckers were there within 10 minutes!! 

On the missionary work side of things, everything's going well. Just kinda the same old same old. Working hard, and such. 

Transfers are next week, so I will find out if I am staying or not the next time I email. Hope I am staying!

And last but not least, I found out that Ether is a really good book in BOM. Maybe my favorite. The Brother of Jared is a stud. I wish I could be more like him! 

And for all you Star Wars and Mulan nerds out there, I know you will appreciate this at District meeting, we played Jeopardy, and our team name was the "Mushu-Binks" after Mushu in Mulan and Jar-Jar Binks in Star Wars. It was us vs the Thunder Thighs! It was a really close one. I think they won, but who is really counting? 

Well, I hope all is well in the normal part of the states! I heard it's cold. That stinks. It was around 70 here and so people started pulling out sweats and jackets. I imagine its much different than home! 

Love you all! Pray for you every night,

Elder G-Unit

Dumpster Diving

Laie Temple

Week 22: Elder "Big Kahuna" Ga-LEAVE

Hey family!

Good to hear from ya'll.

This email might be a little shorter because I spent some much needed time answering individual emails. Plus not too too much has changed since last time we spoke! 

Some updates in the mission world: We are getting Ipad minis in Jan!  So if you were planning on sending me one for Christmas maybe you should reconsider.  My mission president just asked all the missionaries to seek for a baptism every other week, so i will probs take him up on that.

I wish I could describe to you how much I love it here. I will try to use some words and see what happens. I love it as much as: cake, puppies, watching puppies eat cake, those toe shoes, haircuts, back massages, all de orphans in de whole world, the word platypuses, actual platypuses, pizza, flippers, the show rocketpower, climbing big trees, top hats, supersmash bros, and longboarding. And probably basketball. If that doesn't show you how awesome it is, then I don't know what will. 

--photo added by mom--

Missionary work is taking off in Waialua! The other companionship had a baptism this week. The lady was so amazing. When she got into the water, before she was baptized, she bore her testimony and called this church a "no brainer". She told us how much it has changed her life, and has given her direction, and how she is so sure of her future now. It's this reason I'm out here--to see people's lives changed. There wasn't a dry eye in that place. I wish everyone could feel of the joy that comes through the gospel! 

On Wednesday, we had our ward Halloween party! There was a ton of non members and we did a chili cook off/trunk or treat deal. On Halloween we went to our bishop's house and had a bon fire with the whole zone! It was such a fun time. We played catch phrase and I may or may not have gotten really into it. There was a lot of non-member kids there which made me very happy! 

This week should be an awesome week. I don't know why. Probably cause I'm serving the Lord and he loves me and I love him, so nothing could be bettter right? RIGHT. There's a family were really trying to work with and we hung out with one of the daughters for like 3 hours on Sunday. It was also AWESOME. 

Okay well I love you all!  KEeP StROng in the CHURCH. It's the reason why we are here. Remember we are here "to prepare to meet God", everything else is secondary. 

I keep you in my prayers every night! Much love from the surfing capital of the world.

Elder "Big Kahuna" Ga-LEAVE