Jumping Out Of Our Seats With Excitement

Aloha!!

How are ya'll doing!!

We had such a great week. Kinda trying though. We were going to have a baptism last weekend, but we pushed it back a week to help them prepare!! It'll be a big crunch time this week because it's the last week of the month and our mission really would love to see 115 baptisms this month. (That'd be a record in the mission) but, we also have to make sure they are worthy strong converts to the church!!! We starting teaching Allisah, she is 11 years old and is so smart!!! She wants to get baptized this weekend, we just need her mothers approval. That might be tricky, but we'll see. Just pray for her :) haha. She really wants to and is super super smart!!!!

We started teaching a recent convert's new husband. At the end of July, Natalia was baptized with Jaeisha. She married Tim, and now we are teaching him. He is a super super humble guy, and is a wonderful guy!! He's been coming to church and we've really seen the spirit emulate in him. He's ready to go!! He just needs a date!! It was awesome, because we prayed this morning and asked Heavenly Father to help him be ready to be baptized this week if it's His will. Literally 30 seconds later, we received a phone call from Natalia and she said, "Tim wants to be baptized, it could happen in the next two weeks!" Elder Coffin and I jumped out of our seat and we were so excited!! We are pushing for 10 baptisms in Kauai, and we are ALMOST there, it'll take a miracle, but it can happen. Kauai hast had ten baptisms in a month for YEARS!! The mission is doing extremely well!!! We've had 66 baptisms so far, and we have 61 scheduled this weekend. We are really trying to hit 115 this month!! We're trying. But we are super super excited about Tim!! That is a super true miracle!!!

Otherwise, this is the last week of the transfer!! My last transfer starts next week. I am really praying to finish here on Kaua'i. That'd be cool to be "born" on this island and "die" here too. We'll find out on Sunday, and I'll find out who I finish my mission with!! It'd be cool to finish it with Elder Coffin, I'll just have to wait and see!!

I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!!!

For Time And All Eternity - The Jays

Aloooha!!

How are you all doing? I'm swell!! I must say, I love love this beautiful island of Kaua'i. This morning we did a hike, Powerline, and we had such a beautiful view from Ana Hoala to Poi Pu. This is the most beautiful spot on earth. I'm so thankful to be here, I hope I finish my mission here!!
Anyways, onto the missionary work!! Kaua'i is doing wonderful!! We have seen so many miracles this week. It's looking like this family is going to get baptized on Saturday, and we are so excited for that to happen!!! She reads and prays everyday with her kids now!! We'll see how this new week goes huh??

We also found some good potential for a baptism next week. We've had this little girl come to church the past few months, and we finally FINALLY was able to meet with her. We asked her if she wants to get baptized and she said yes!! So we set it for the 29th. That just might happen too!! We'll see how it goes :) Fingers crossed!!!

The mission is really pushing for 115 baptisms in October. We've had 45 so far in the month, and have 99 scheduled to finish off October. The Hawaii Honolulu mission record is 108 set in May 2010. So with the fall out rate, we could see 115 reached with these others. We need 70 wonderful converts to stay strong. We are so excited, but it's definitely crunch time in the mission!!!

Otherwise, things in Lihue are going very well. We are looking at maybe 5 baptisms over the next two weeks!!! We have a transfer coming up in 2 weeks, so I hope and pray to finish my mission here!!!!!

Also, about a year ago, was the baptism of Brother and Sister Jay. They just passed through the Laie Temple on Saturday (The 15th) and were sealed for time and all eternity. This is very special and important to me, because this is the ultimate goal for all our wonderful recent converts...is entering the temple. I wish so bad I could have been there, but I was on a different island. But nevertheless, it was special to hear from, and I know that generations will be blessed because of these two wonderful people who I consider my Ohana.

Well, I love you all, hope all is well and hope to hear from some of you soon!!!

"The Power of One" Continues To Grow

Alooooha!!

How are you all doing?! I am excellent!!!!


We had an excellent week. Joselyn, the lady who walked into the church looking for a Book of Mormon, came to church yesterday!! I taught her with Elder Rodriguez. She is super solid and is set to be baptized on the 14th. She is awesome!! Her fiancee so happens to be a member as well, so it makes our job A LOT easier. But she is looking forward to her baptism, and we are excited to see what can happen from that!!

We didn't have a chance to teach Jamie and Tiare, but we will this week. They got caught up in Easter services for the New Hope church, which is ok. We wanted them to come to the true church, but that's alright. Next week!! They are super nice though!!


It's not looking like Kiana's baptism will happen this week. Probably next if it does. Her father is a sticky situation, and we just have to take it slow and one day at a time ya know? We'll find out though, it'd be cool it it happened this week!! I'll let ya know next week.


We had stake correlation this week. This is our chance as Zone Leaders, to stand in front of the ward mission leaders, and the bishops, and stake president, and tell them what we need help with. It's very intimidating, and I know they are such busy men with so much on their plate. I feel bad putting more on it, but if the prophets #1 priority is missionary work, than it should be our's as well. It was crazy preparing for it. We are really trying to emphasize the Power of One. I found out recently that Elder Clayton is now enforcing this program and it's running in Laie. President Dalton and Elder Whiting, the area Seventy, is pushing it as well. It's kinda weird to think that Elder Infanger and I were the ones to come up with it, but we truly felt we received revelation. It was crazy, but it sure was good to hear that it's being used all in Hawaii.


I've been using the Mormon Messages DVD Mom sent me for dinner messages. I've seen the Elder Holland one on Easter quite a bit. It's so good and super powerful!! If you have a chance, watch it. It's so good.


But all in all, we have a big week ahead of us, and hopefully we will see more happen this week. We keep working hard, and hopefully we can continue to find those who are ready to receive the gospel!!

Thanks for all your support and HAPPY EASTER!!!

A Pretty Decent Week

Note from Elder Travis' mom: The above picture was found on a Facebook page by Trav's sister Brianna. It's a typical goofy Trav face so I decided to post it here!

We had a pretty decent week in Kaneohe!! We went to start knocking doors on Wednesday, and the very first door we knocked, a bigger Hawaiian guy opened the door. He welcomed us right in to teach him. It's nice, cuz that never happens. We usually get "another day" or "get out of here". We taught him about Prophets and the need of prophets, and than re-scheduled an appointment to teach about Joseph Smith. He's a super friendly guy, and I think he has great potential. He lives right by the church too, so he's not too far away!! haha.


Our branch mission leader in the YSA branch, had a friend here from California. We taught her at a dinner and she seemed interested so we went back! We taught her twice and she just flew back to Hollywood. But it was cool to teach her, cuz she had a lot of questions about religion, about the Plan of Salvation, and she said that, "She has a lot of questions she thinks we can't answer." We answered every single one of them and hopefully cleared her understanding. She was nice and sincere and we planted a seed. Hopefully she'll nourish it with other missionaries. We invited her to keep meeting with missionaries in California!


We saw the J***'s again. Jagyr was sustained as a Deacon and will be ordained soon. His father *** will be ordaining him. That is something special to see, we are excited and he is too. Jagyr unfortunately had surgery to correct something in his leg. He has some disease, and his one leg is off by a few CM and it has been throwing his hips and back out. Poor kid...but we got him a get well raccoon (I found one in Walgreen's!!) and talked to Taylor about baptism!! We are having her pray about being baptized on the 26 of March. So we'll see what happens there :)


Anyways, it was a great week, with more to come. We have Zone Conference this week, and I am excited to see that happen!!!


Much love and Aloha and thanks for your support!!!

Teaching By The Spirit

Aloha!!

Wow what the week we had. I did service in Pearl Harbor again, which I told you about in a letter. That was pretty awesome!! We had a lot of fun doing that!!

We found a new solid person to teach. Her name is S***. Her friend, Tamara, who is a recent convert and was baptized in May, called us up (I was with Elder Jaramillo on exchanges) and she told us to come over quickly cuz her friend was asking questions and she was about to leave. So we booked it over to her house and went in with complete faith. We could tell her friend did not want to meet with us. It made it awkward. But we applied the trainings we had on those new fundamental principles and it changed the whole attitude of the lesson. We committed he to baptism without a set date. She didn't seem too sure, but she accepted. We than got into the restoration after talking about Christ on the earth, and as we talked about the first vision, the spirit just filled the room. It was so strong in their, and she started to cry. She couldn't describe how she felt, and Tamara helped her to recognize..it was the Holy Ghost. We set a date for baptism with her and she knew she had to be baptized than. She is set for the 25 of December (yes Christmas haha). She was so prepared, but I know these new trainings are so important and are inspired of the Lord. It opened that lesson right up. It was the best lesson I've ever taught as a missionary, and it was so awesome. It helped her open up to us even though she didn't want to meet with us at first, and now she wants to be baptized. Did she do a 180? Yes! haha
Anyways, the rest is in a letter so I won't ruin that for you :)

Love you and write me letters!!!

Trav

Missionary Moments and Miracles

We taught a lady named Cathy ***. At first I was very intimidated by her because she KNOWS the Bible back and front and needed a lot of biblical scriptures to back up everything we taught her. But she's a very sweet lady. When we first met her she was intrigued about the Book of Mormon and another testament, which went along with the Bible. She never really knew much about the LDS church so she invited us back to teach her. The first lesson went ok, which I thought meant we weren't going to get very far with her. But than on Thursday we taught her the Plan of Salvation, and she just loved it!! She loved the idea of premortal existence, and kept saying "I never thought of pre-existence of Humans!, that's so cool!" and we shared a lot of Bible and Book of Mormon scriptures. Usually teaching about Adam and Eve is the worst because a lot of people think it was a "big mistake" in Gods plan,and He didn't know it was coming. Anyways, everything we taught her she said, "ya I believe that" so it was perfect!! We than committed her to baptism and when we did it we mentioned being baptized by authority. She was like "oh I don't think I've done that yet, yes I'll do that!" So she is extremely solid and I've grown to love her sweet spirit she has! (Don't worry ma, she's 50!) But she called us Saturday to reschedule the appointment we set up with her because she had something come up, and she basically testified about Joseph Smith being a prophet to me.



She bought a book from Borders about how the church was first established, and she kept saying "I can't believe they went through so much persecution!! Why?? That's so sad!!" So this Tuesday (tomorrow) I'm sharing the story of Enoch Bartlett Tripp and Elder Major is going to talk about his ancestors. This was a real testimony to me how perfectly hand in hand the Book of Mormon actually goes with the Bible. She kept saying about the scripture in Peter how she wondered how there had to be more about preaching the gospel to the spirits who were dead, and couldn't ever find an answer. So we talked about the scripture in Alma 34 and it worked perfect.We've also had some members from NY join us (they have a time share in Poi Pu) and they have been perfect fellowshippers for her! I've grown a testimony of how important having members at lessons are too. They've helped her understand things I probably couldn't have made her understand due to my lack of inexperience. Needless to say, this is nothing short of a miracle.