Goats, Cows, Bulls, Pigs, and Mosquitoes

Kaoha nui ia outou,

These past week has flown by like every other week over here. We spent a lot of time filling up water for our members as well as having lessons with friends of the church. In-between all of that we were dodging a lot of pigs, cows, goats, and horses. Almost took out a few pigs as they decided to dart out across the road in front of us. Later on in the week we honked at around 40 to 50 cows because they were in the middle of the road and they didn't want to let us pass, they just kept staring us down. I almost thought a few of the bulls were going to start charging the truck but luckily they didn't. There's been a whole lot of cars lately that haven't been on their side of the road even when they see us coming by which is kinda frustrating because they barely squeeze past you on the roads over here. 

Highlights:

- Filled up a lot of water for members

- Ate a lot of Lemon Chicken (All the members here know how much I love it and they make it on the weekly, sometimes multiple times a week.)

- We helped a Papi rake up his huge property after he weedwacked it and his thirty year old daughter was not having it with us and kept telling us we were doing a terrible job because we missed a few blade of grass. She proceeded to work on a 15ft by 15ft area for an hour while we raked up two acres in that same time. 

- We put all our mission funds together and pretty much bought food for the next month. Quick story, usually there is a ship which is half cruise ship, half cargo/container ship that comes exactly every two weeks. We'll they decided to do a trip to some other islands so the stores aren't going to get restocked till October. Pretty crazy September just started and the next ship with supplies won't be here for another five weeks. Sooooo me and Elder Hagen ended up buying so much food the day after the ship came in and good thing we did because everyone had the same idea and the stores were getting cleared out.

- Had zone conference and tried to go to the church building to use their wifi but none of the members knew the correct password so we ended up going back to our place and then walking over to our neighbors house and we ran the zoom from his place. During the zone conference we talked a whole lot about Christ like attributes and having love for our friends and our members. For us over here it is pretty easy to get close with our friends and members through service. Everyone is always looking for a helping hand and we always have the opportunity to do yard work in our white shirts and ties.

- Had an "american" breakfast. Which was removing the center in a piece of toast and then adding an egg inside. We then cooked up some bacon and burned it because our members were like "We wanna try the American bacon like in the movies, the stuff you can pick up and it doesn't move". One of the members loved the burnt bacon while the other guy thought it was terrible.

- A Papi was talking about his new granddaughter this past Sunday in front of the entire branch then got corrected five minutes later by the other grandpa of the baby because Papi was saying their granddaughters name wrong and didn't even notice.

- Took some pictures with goats Papi Hoka had at his place. He told us he had killed the mother and then had to bring the goats back down or else they would die up there. Also during the dinner his grandchildren and children were like, "Papi why does the goat taste weird" to which he responded "I know it taste weird, just put it in your mouth and eat fast". Me and Elder Hagen started to chuckle. 

- We were given some guava jelly and it tasted exactly like guava jelly from home.

- Made some haole brownies (butterscotch brownies) for our neighbor and had some Nutella/Orem filled mochi, we also ate way too much crepes with one family.

- One of our friends went to Tahiti for vacation and took a picture of him in a white shirt and wearing the tie I had given him. He even bore his testimony in sacrament meeting over there like whaaaat. And he also paid tithing over there. He did all this and he's still a friend of the church. #Miracles

Lowlights/Funny moments:

- Elder Hagen ate some really strong fafaru and the bathroom smelt sooo bad after. No matter how much he brushed his teeth the smell was still there. Luckily he ate it Sunday night and none of our friends had to smell the fermented fish.

- We were having lunch with our branch presidents family and the mosquitoes were going crazy. I had one go up my nose and two go in my mouth when I opened it to take a breath, it was crazy and made me start coughing like crazy. I was coughing so much that they ended up giving me some Chinese medicine.

Spiritual thought:

I was reading a talk and this one specific quote stuck out to me, "Heaven will not be Heaven for those who have chosen to not live Heavenly." 

How can we expect to live in such a lovely perfect place and have peace if the way we have acted or act doesn't allow us to be comfortable to be there. Choose to live on a higher plane than the rest. We can do this by practicing righteous habits. The purpose of practice is change, changing different aspects that will bring us more joy in this life and rest in the life to come.

"Vents favorables et mer suivants"

"Mata'i haumaru e moana mania"

"Fair winds and following seas"

Ua Here au ia outou,

Elder Ellis

Link to my Google Photo's album. Go check um, go check um, go!:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qErFS2eWV3pJGVEV7