Oahu Update

This week was good, kinda. I've been sick the past few days so the work wasn't..really work..more rest. I was prescribed Penicillin from the doctor and it made me feel a little sick so I called up the office nurse to see if I could take Motrin with it...she called up the doctor..then me...and I got 3 meds on top of it. So I took those, and it made me miserable. Didn't help with the cough either so I might be going back to see the doctor. It's..tough to say!! haha but, however, on top of a bad physical week..we had a really good week of teaching.


We taught ***, a new Tongan investigator who has some real interest in the lessons, so we are working with him :) We did a zone car wash Saturday and met ***, a guy on the marine base who is determined to come to church Sunday and learn about us. We got his info and are pursuing him :). We have a few others that we need to get in contact with through members and hopefully teach them.


Elder Standiford and I have really noticed a change in this area the past two months. We've found lots to teach, and we are seeing some success. We might not have a baptism for him before he goes home in a few weeks, but it's not about that. We are working hard!

Here's an interesting Hawaiian fact...if someone doesn't want something, whether it be an AC unit..fridge..TV..anything..they put it on the sidewalk for people to take/dump. We almost took an AC unit.
We had Stake conference yesterday where Spencer J. Condie of the Seventy spoke to us, which was really interesting!! He's hilarious for an old timer, and gave a really good talk!! President Peterson spoke to us as well..I will miss him!! It makes me so sad to see them go, but President Dalton will be good I'm sure. He actually led Prop 8 so I can tell he will be a good bold mission president full of love! I look forward to him, but will deeply miss President Peterson.
Yes, our pad was one of those cruddy ones. It's good, but bad. haha we recruit geckos to live here to take care of roaches, it gets really hot! But oh well, it was nice to have President come to our Pad. (yes home haha) I will truly deeply miss that man.


Love you all!! Write to me :)

Mother's Day 2010

The following post is being done by Elder Travis' mom to document his first family phone call home and his first birthday in the mission field.


The phones were lined up waiting for your call to come. I didn't want to chance a battery running out. I even had a cheat sheet of questions but I really didn't have to use it. Two pens available to jot notes on the paper.

We had to strain a little to hear but the speaker phone worked best. It made me smile when you talked to Jill and you said, "hi, stinky" and she responded with "hi, fatty!" It felt like you were right in the room with us!

We each tried to take turns talking to you individually and even Savannah said "Tav" for you but I don't think you could really hear her well.

Your sisters certainly enjoyed the call. They miss you so. We were glad Nicholas thought of the idea to call Brandon on the cell phone and put it up to our phone so you could talk to him for a minute. For some reason the army wouldn't let him come home from drill to talk to you, lol!

Dad took care of Bailee and we both couldn't help but think about you when you were this size and that this is the first birthday you've been away from us.....ever.

I hope it was a happy birthday for you. I know it was the best Mother's Day I've had in a really long time. I love you.

Hawaii Honolulu Mission Motto

The following is the mission motto taken from a devotional talk by President and Sister Peterson at BYU Hawaii. Elder Travis wanted me to share it with you on this blog.
"In the Hawaii Honolulu Mission we have a wonderful mission motto and it goes like this: We are grateful to be in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission--the Aloha Mission. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is our message, love of God and others is our motivation, and obedience to the commandments and mission rules is our strength. By sharing the gospel with others, we can give them the "ha" - the breath of life, even eternal life. Aloha."

The Week In Review

Well this week was a lot better, we found two new investigators. One is a 16-year-old who has a lot of potential...the other is...well...miracles can happen, haha she's not too solid. She is real set on the Bible and nothing more than that. So this will be tough, but it'll come down to sincere testimony and teaching from the Bible haha. We have a few more set up to teach this week and should find a few more investigators as well, things are really looking up here in Kailua!!! But the work that really surprises me is the Kaneohe **** Tongan Branch. They are working hard to get it to be a ward by the end of the year, and so they are bringing MANY people for us to teach Tuesday and what not, so things are really moving. They are so missionary-minded it's awesome. Kailua **** is a good ward, it's hard cuz a lot of leaders are leaving with deployment, but it should be a smooth transaction. We weren't able to baptize Stacey *** last week, but should next week. We are meeting up with her tonight to get plans set and a date set. We are hoping to teach Sean this week too. Might be hard since he's just barely coming back from West Virginia on Wednesday, but we'll see.


I loved the hat, yes I did take pictures, haha I sent my memory card home today so it should come real soon with pictures. (Elder Travis' mom here with a close up of the hat so you can read what I had sewn on it for fun. The picture he took was in a mirror and the wording was backwards but it says "Tsunami 2010 Survivor. Please ignore the Christmas wrapping paper.....I'm too cheap to buy anything different! Now back to Elder Travis).

I sent you PART of your mothers day gift, all I'll say is it's solar paneled so hold it out into the sun and watch what happens. I'll send the rest in a package after my B-day for whatever reason you told me haha. (Note from Elder Travis' mom: I'll explain why in another post after his birthday!).


We are seeing many great things starting to happen now, and Elder Standiford and I are working really hard. The Lord is blessing us for our obedience and diligence. Anyways, I gotta go I love you all dearly and can't wait to hear from you :)

Dorie (Think Finding Nemo)

Disclaimer: This is Elder Travis' mom. I changed the name of the lady in the following story Elder Travis sent to Dorie after Dorie the blue fish in "Finding Nemo" with the short-term memory loss. The rest of the story is told in his own words as transcribed below.


So here's a funny story: A lady, we'll call her Dorie, who is a member, has short-term memory.

We visited her and she's like, "you're not going to convert me to the Mormonism!" and her caretaker was like, "no Dorie you're already a Mormon." She was like, "oh...ok, I'll live with that." It was hilarious!

Anyway, this week was better. We finally found a new investigator!! His name is Jim and he's super solid! We have potential this week too.

Tuesday I had to go on an "emergency" split with my DL to a girl who was thinkin' of backin' out on her baptism. We had a way spiritual lesson and she was baptized yesterday.

We hopefully have a miracle baptism happening Saturday.

Here's an interesting fact. In Hawaii, you know when you fill up on gas there's that lever to keep it pumping so you don't have to hold it? Pretty sure it's illegal here, no gas pumps anywhere have it.

I love ya'll & I'm grateful for all your support!! It means the world! Five months is quick isn't it? I love you all dearly and can't wait to hear from ya!

Mail Lady

We had to go to the mission office to grab some things in Honolulu, and I met the lady who does the mail and she's like are you Elder T. ***? I was like yup that's me...and she's like ohhhh so you're the one who gets all the mail!! haha it made me proud so keep it up :) :)


I love the Tongans out here so so much!! They are the most giving people I've ever met! If we stop by they feed us on the spot, and A LOT!! It's good too haha mostly chicken and veggies. They have a choir, and man do they love to sing!!!! They sound good though!! We sing Tongan hymns in the hymn book it's pretty cool!!! I've learned a little bit, I know Hello how are you, good, and yes!! Molulele, Fafaeoki, Ci Pae, Eo!! (spelling might be wrong haha) but it's fun so far in that sense!!

Transfer to Oahu

Elder Travis was just transferred to Oahu. We didn't know where he was from the time he boarded the plane on Wednesday until Monday when we finally got a letter. Here's an update in his own words.

"Oahu actually isn't Big Island, they call Big Island Hawaii, it's the biggest one and the most east. It's the one with the two big volcanoes on it. One active. Oahu is just east of Kauai, not too far away.Well the work here in Kailua is a little slower. Less people to teach. It's a little more tough, but it's starting to go. We found a lot of potential so far, and the Tongans, we rely heavily on members for Tongans to teach.

My first night here my comp was telling me about Blue centipedes and how if you get stung by one of those you have to go to the ER cuz the venom is so strong...haha.Guess what...first night there we were having dinner...and in walked a blue centipede!! It was a monster, haha but we finally killed it. We sprayed the place down pretty good. It was his first time actually seeing one haha."

Note from Elder Travis' mom: I measured my Book of Mormon and this blue centipede must have been 6" to 7" long! ICK!

Mama Cane

NOTE: This is a story Travis sent in an email.


"Another intereseting thing which EVERYONE will want to know about :) Thursday night we came into the pad for dinner. I started boiling water for Mac and Cheese...when Elder Major starts running away and saying HUGE SPIDER! I've seen a few spiders here that were big but not scary so I wasn't too scared...Elder Major is a pyro and grabbed his lighter and spray and went to torch it. So, I looked at where he was pointing and there was this HUGE FREAKIN MONGOOSE of a spider that was chilling by the fridge. He missed it when he went to torch it so we had to pull the fridge out and fish it out. Now when I say HUGE, I mean...HUUUUUGE!! It was SICK! haha. So anyways, she was living literally UNDER our fridge and we fished her out, SHE came out from under and ran after me so I screamed like a little girl. We cornered her and torched her. She was a monster to torch though, she kept moving after she was torched for a long time. So we finally got her dead, I took a few videos of it. Man it was HUGE. We later came to find out...it was a "Mama Cane" spider as the locals call it, but in mainland terms it is a WOLF SPIDER. It was disgusting!!!! I got plenty of pics. If you wanna know how big she was, put your hand stretched out,...ya about that big. Maybe the size of dad's.

Signs

I thought it would be fun to post some of the signs that Elder Travis has taken pictures of while he's been on his mission. You have to love the Pidgin language some of them speak!

Love this one!

I think every state and every store needs one of these.

Not sure what to think about this one.

I prefer our $5.00 price for a foot-long here but actually this is pretty cheap for Kauai compared to some other prices of food (milk about $7.00 a gallon, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese about $4.00 a box, etc.).

This is my most favorite sign to date!

Earthquake in Hawaii Yesterday, March 8, 2010

(CNN) -- A 4.4-magnitude earthquake struck Hawaii on Monday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.


The quake struck about 6:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m. ET) and was 19.3 miles (31.1 km) deep. The epicenter was 13 miles (20 km) southwest of the coastal region of Laupahoehoe and 189 miles (304 km) east of Honolulu, the USGS said.


There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.