Teaching, Singing and Recovering....

The Filipino Magic.  Yes there is a human in there.

August 18, 2014

Aloha my mainland peeps! (except Curtis),

This week has been full of weird stuff. First let me tell you about V-- a man who can only speak Hawaiian Pidgin, all I can do is just nod my head and say "yeah". He is all like "OOOO luke iz da tags!" which means "OOOO look it's the missionaries". I don't even...

Also this week my whole district and the ZLs have been fighting off this sickness that has been going around, honestly we don't even know what it is but we know that it stinks to get it. We had to pull out the every medical tool that our 19-20 year old minds had to fight it. In the end we had to retreat to some "Filipino Magic" (as our Filipino ZL calls it) basically you get a big pot and line the inside with Vicks then you fill it with water and bring it to a boil. Then you take that and put it at the feet of the sick person (who is sitting in a chair) then you pile blanket after blanket on top of them and they sweat it out. If I had to describe what it is like I would call it "A one way ticket to an asylum if you are in there for more then 10 minutes".

We had a bummer this week. so we found this guy (J--) while tracting and we set up a lesson for Sunday and we went to his house and no one was there. We are going to stop by again this Sunday. 

R-- has basically dropped of the face of the planet, we went to his house to try and set up a lesson time with him and when we asked "Do you know where R-- is?" We were told, "No one knows where Reno is! I only see him for 30 seconds in the morning and 30 seconds at night!"

So my district (and some of the ?Marshalles? Elders) got an assignment dropped on us on Friday that we need to do some sort of entertainment for this big ward dinner thing that was being held because yesterday was ward conference. The ward conference was on Saturday....my mission has a motto that some elders put to music a few years ago and we listen to it in the car so we are like "Lets sing that!" so that is what we did. There is a video floating around somewhere of us singing it but I still need to find it.

Lessons with some other investigators are...interesting. The wife has grown more and more oppositional to what we are sharing, the husband is on the edge of his seat every time we are over there and is listening to everything we say, but he won't pray about it. Prayer is so important to understanding the will of God. I think that he is scared to get a confirmation because he knows that he won't be able to deny it. Oh well, only time will tell.

Last night we had this great conference with all the missionaries on O'ahu in Laie, and the person who spoke was Vai Sikahema he is super funny and spiritual and has a load of stories. Also not the mention that afterwards was a big get together where I got to see Elders Schnell, Birch, and Nagtuvi. who were all in my district in the MTC!

Anywho I got to go.

From,

Elder Reinhold

Preparing for the Hurricane....

August 11, 2014

This week was...different. We did a lot of service this week in preparation for the hurricanes for members and non-members alike. So last Monday was boring because the mission pres had us prepare for the storms, which was a bummer because we were going to go fishing. Oh well! So we boarded up things and put tape on windows at member's homes and our pad during the day. I am pretty sure that I have the best 72 hour kit in the whole mission cause it was provided almost entirely by members. It is one of those army backpacks, not like a rucksack, but still pretty big and it is filled with ?packets? of emergency water (the only way I can describe them is that they are big 1'x1/2' ketchup packets that are filled with purified water, but it fells like they are more of a gel. It's just a big old mystery), it also has like 5 MRE's, which are the things that they give to soldiers when they are going to be in a battle for days. MRE's are the coolest things! We opened one at the members and they cook themselves when you open them! Anywho, we are ultra prepared for anything. This one member gave us a field first-aid kit,which is what they give to the medics for battle, and a flash bang! I don't know if he is allowed to have that or not but we declined to take the flash bang. Oh I should probably explain why I am getting so much military stuff. So my area is right next to Pearl Harbor and like 50% of my ward works for the military and they can just buy these things at the base (well maybe not the flash bang).

So a lot of our investigators just left this week...they didn't want anything to do with approaching hurricanes (or they just needed a reason for a vacation :P) so we did a lot of finding Monday-Wednesday with almost no results. It was just one unanswered door after the next, I guess everyone else had the same idea as my investigators, which is understandable because my area is right on the coast and only protected by like 2 feet of rocks.

Thursday was tiring though. As we were getting ready for the day at like 9am (at this point the first storm was getting a lot stronger then they thought it was going to be) our bishop called and was like "Soooo...a lot of our ward is unprepared for the storm  so we are going to need some help getting them to the stake center or somewhere safe" We were like "Shoots! We didn't have any set lessons today anyway". So all day we just helped people get to a safer place all day. Oh also during morning basketball I got a black eye.

So on Friday we had to stay in my pad all day because the mission president had us. Why? because the storm hit on Friday and it was so....LAME!!! It just rained a ton and was kind of windy, but they still had us stay in our pad. It was sooooo boring, but we did have the rest of our district and some others in my pad in case of flooding, because it is the only pad in the zone that is on the second story.

Saturday was uneventful also except that we had a lesson with C & A. It was ok. We will see how that ends up. That day our ZL calls us up and is like "Hey there is a sister in the Tongan ward that needs a musical number for her farewell." Guess who got to do it? The Wiapahu Zone!!! We practiced it.

So Sunday rolls around and we sang the song we practiced.  The song is Oh Lord my Redeemer by Toa, super cool song. All the members said they loved it but they may have just have been being nice to us because we are missionaries...Going to a Tongan ward was cool because they all were speaking Tongan but then they would just switch randomly to English, and they are all super swaggin' singers. The hymns almost brought a tear to my eye.

#Ewa4ever

From,

Elder Reinhold

***We got an email from the Mission Secretary telling us their emergency plan and how prepared they are.  As a Mormon, I didn't have to worry about under-preparation.  It is against our religion. :)  Incidentally, they reported that the worst thing that happened was temporary boredom as they were waiting things out in their locations.

 

New Companion and Trainer...

August 4, 2014

Aloha!

So today is my 2 month mark. It seems like yesterday I walked into the MTC but now 1/12 of my mission is gone! What?!? That's crazy!

So this week was transfers and I got a new trainer. His name is Elder H--. He is from Mesa, Arizona. He seems like a cool guy. In my district now 50% of the missionaries are currently being trained (including me).

Really not that much went on this week besides transfers, just a lot of final visits for Elder P-- and a lot of introduction visits for Elder H--. this week we don't have that many lessons lined up so you know what that means....TRACTING HOORAY (Not really though) 

So this week I have been having lot of people who assume that faith can't really have a physical impact on their lives.  Well just look at Moses 7:13 .

From,

Elder Reinhold

A Baptism! Temple Visit and Other Good News and Things....

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July 28,2014

This week has been super busy and really inconsistent. First Elder Peterson got sick on Tuesday so I basically did nothing,which was super lame!

On Wednesday we had our first lesson with T--. Her situation is interesting. She is very firm in her faith and is willing to listen to everything that we have to say but she has, what she describes as "a wall" as to why the Book of Mormon exists like what is it's purpose. So we will figure out that whole thing tomorrow when we go back. For her we do have this awesome couple as fellowshippers, The K--'s, They are musicians and they both have super awesome testimonies!

Waipahu.  My whole zone at the temple.

Thursday we got to go to the temple. We get to go four times a year (If you are on one of the two islands that has a temple.) When we got back we got to teach J-- a lesson. That was the first time that he has actually let us in, usually we just talk at the door. It was a big Q&A session because he wants to clarify somethings that he has heard about us before he will investigate the church officially.

Friday we didn't get a whole lot of missionary work done but we got a ton of stuff done. We had to take our car to the body shop, and we went on a hike with the same less-active person as the other hike, and guess what he was at church last Sunday! Heck yeah! The hike was super sick! It was a hike up to some old WW2 pillboxes that would look out over the ocean and watch for planes. 

Elder Kichero and I.

Elder Gleave and I.

Also found out that day that my comp is getting transferred. So I get to have two trainers on my mission. We also did a finding activity at the park. Every night at the park there is like 50 people that play basketball so instead of trying to bug people on Friday night and get shut down every time, my district went and played basketball with our tags on. And ya know what our district got two new investigators that night!

So on Saturday morning J-- got baptized! It was a re-baptism but it still counts! And it is official! I am staying in Ewa Beach for the next transfer (big surprise) but the next transfer is only 4 weeks for some reason.

So Elder Gleave, Peterson, and Morgan are leaving our district, and two of the new guys are going to be fresh off the plane.

Eating balut....
Part of the experience, is the cultural experience.

1/12 Done! Time Flies!

July 21, 2014

I just realized something. My mission is almost 1/12 done. I JUST GOT HERE!!! I guess that time flies when you are doing good in the world.

This email is going to be really, really short this week because we have to write a long report for the mission pres concerning an emergency transfer that I was involved in. (Don't worry. I am all good.) 

So basically my week has been tracting, tracting, tracting again, but this week we decided that the members need to start helping us so we can teach some people. So now we are teaching this guy (R--) that has taken the lessons before but the missionaries didn't keep any records of his teaching so when two Elders whitewashed in they had no idea he even existed. But now he is good friends with our Ward mission leader and we are teaching him again and keeps telling us that "we teach too slow and that he needs to know more now!"

Also I felt inspired that we should visit some of the former investigators in our area book and we found another investigator that was forgotten about due to poor record keeping, all that we had to go off of was a name and a street, but we found her and she said that she wanted to have a lesson right now but she had to go to work in like ten minutes. It turns out that she was taught everything that was needed to get baptized and was just working over some hurdles with the WoW that she now has under control, but once again the record of her lessons weren't kept, and the Elders that whitewashed in just overlooked her.

So things are very slowly progressing in Ewa Beach.

Love,

Elder Reinhold

Walking Through the Desert....

July 14, 2014

So this week we haven't gotten any new investigators, well there are a few that are new to me. R-- is one of them and his wife is LDS but I guess he has been taking the lessons for like two months or something. Anyways he is super into it so we will see where that goes.

So the stars aligned and every one of my investigators were out of town, so this week has been finding, finding, and more finding. We don't have any "official" new investigators, but I have handed out tons of BoMs and pamphlets so hopefully our efforts with bare some fruits.

This week has been tough physically because I have been sick all week but I can't stop just because I feel under the weather a little bit. 

This week my comp hit his one year mark so we burnt a shirt! We did it at "The spot" so it was super cool (sorry no pics, my camera is still broken)

I did a ton of service this week. It totaled up to 9 hours. So on Thursday, we helped move out a house and after we saw these kids throwing rocks and stuff into a tree so naturally we checked it out. turns out that it was a massive mango tree! so we knocked some off and got to eat mangos right off the tree.

Sorry for the short letter but I don't have a lot of time today.

From

Elder Reinhold

***This boy has always been crazy about mangos.  So the mango tree was probably pretty exciting! 

Lots of Tracting!

June 7, 2014

Aloha!

 

Well this week was not easy. I didn't teach a single lesson and I didn't get any new investigators. Also my camera is broken.

 

This email isn't going to be as long as the others.

 

So this week has been pretty much the same everyday except for a few times. It has mostly been just tracting and finding, but I did get to drop off a missionary (Elder Humphreys) at the airport because the mission president was busy all day. It was an interesting experience sending a missionary home when I have only been out a month.

 

On the 4th of July we had a "P-Day" after 5pm because in the past there has been an unusual amount of freak accidents involving missionaries on the 4th of July, and our mission president doesn't want us trying to teach during a holiday.  Apparently we get a ton of space concerning holidays. Like on Halloween we spend all night in the stake center and we play games and I have heard rumors that on Christmas instead of teaching and annoying people that day (cause they are with their families) we get to have an extra p-day and we get to watch a movie!  Last year it was How to Train your Dragon. So, we went up to this stake center that is on a hill and played volleyball and we could see the fireworks from there too. But they have placed super strict bans on fireworks here so it was kind of lame.

 

This Wednesday I got a "mini-missionary" which is when someone who is preparing for a mission spends like 3 or 4 days with a companionship. Sometimes we'd look around and he was gone.  Nice guy, but we dropped him off yesterday.

 

This church is true, and I know that it blesses families and us individually.

That is all for now.

 

From,

Elder Reinhold #3 :P