Read the Email and Answer the Question

Howdy my weekly subscribers 

      What's good in the neighbor hood? How's y'all doing? I hope everyone's staying healthy & sick free. Shout out to all y'all who send me updates & little emails each week. Thanks for doing that. I really to feel all the loves & prayers that are headed my way. All I can say is MAHALO NUI!! I really do appreciate each of y'all who take the time to think of me in their busy lives  Week 72!!!!! It was another fast one. My weeks feel fast while my days feel long. Okay sometimes haha but you get the point. I love the people that we are working with. They're all so awesome & we just need to get them all baptized & the world would be such a wonderful place haha. This past week, we had interviews with President Whitney & a "special" meeting with the Zone. We were trained on the importance of asking someone to be baptized & totally following the Spirit when doing so. It was really good! We watched a video of missionaries asking their investigator to be baptized & when the missionaries did this, the investigator responded with, "you know, I was waiting for someone to tell me something like that my whole life." That really hit me. We as missionaries have such a sacred & special calling. We get to invite people to come unto Christ. We get to help people who've been literally waiting their entire life's & don't realize it until they are asked, until they are invited to act. How great is our calling? Doesn't it make you feel motivated? I know for me, it definitely helped me to keep in mind the eternal perspective. 

Our crazy zone!

      We got to teach Payton this week. We reviewed the Law of Chastity & Word of Wisdom with her. It was really cool because, she knows that our bodies are temples & that if we think about temples, we want to keep them beautiful & pure so we have to do the same thing with our body's. Maintaining good health & putting in good things into our bodies. She basically was teaching us. We also got to teach Jomeo & Jospehine the same lesson. It's amazing because, all 3 of them, along with the rest of our investigators, have a desire to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ & that desire is so inspiring to me. That will have to be one of my favorite things about missionary, seeing the desire that our investigators have & the willingness that they have to act on the things that they feel as they're being taught. It's motivating & it strengthens my own testimony for sure. Oh good news, Jomeo & Josephine made it to church this week!!!  That was literally their only obstacle & when we asked them how they liked it they simply said, "it was amazing!" We are so happy to see them progress in the gospel. Their doing so great. Another investigator that we have is Ronnie. He is a character. We taught him about Heavenly Fathers wonderful plan, The Plan of Salvation (learn more on Mormon.org). When we first met with him, it felt a little awkward & I was kind of hesitant. Let me remind y'all, Heavenly Father knows his children. He knows when they're ready & when they're not. As soon as we started teaching him, that hesitation left & was replaced with peace from the Spirit. No one could deny the feelings that were felt as we shared this wonderful plan of happiness. It was awesome!!!! 

Payton!

Sister Whitney!

      Shout out to all you people who bend over backwards to fulfill your church callings. For those of you who aren't familiar with LDS services, all of our callings in the church including going on a mission, are all voluntary work. No one gets paid for the service they give in the church. Most of us have full time jobs or have to set it aside for a time, & choose to still have to fulfill our duty to the Lord. This week was just wonderful. Some of our ward members literally bend over backwards to go on exchanges with us & to make sure that we are taken cared of here on our missions. I will be honest, let me remind y'all, change is scary for me, as it is for most of us. Being taken from my comfort zone & being thrown into my uncomfortable zone is not fun for me. That's why I try to live by the saying, "there is no comfort in the growth zone & no growth in the comfort zone."  Something that I've really been trying to study lately is obedience, sacrifice & trust. With the help from scriptures, praying & guidance from my 'ohana, I came to a realization that, sometimes, we don't understand why things happen & that's because we can not see the bigger picture. Our view gets blocked by the day to day struggles & tasks. Heavenly Father always sees the bigger picture. His view is eternal. Sometimes when we feel like we don't understand the "why", that's when we need to trust him the most! It seems impossible to do, but once we put our trust in him, the most greatest blessing will come. I see this happening in this transfer so far. I did not understand why the Lord was sending me down to an unknown area, with only 12 weeks left in my mission. I didn't understand why he was throwing me in the unknown. I didn't want to understand. I just let the natural man take over cause I wanted to do what I was comfortable with. I've really tried to humbled myself & plead with the Lord for understanding. I think I was expecting to receive this big answer to the why, but instead I got a simple sense of peace that came over me. I simply heard the words, "trust me." As I've trusted him, I have seen why the Lord needs me here at this very moment & at this very point in my mission. 

Made some dinner for us!

How I feel when no one answer the door!

Literally how I feel at the end of every day!

      I wanna leave y'all with my simple testimony that sacrifice really does bring forth the blessings of Heaven & so does obedience. As we sacrifice what we want to do & do what the Lord wants us to do, blessings from Heaven do come. No it's not easy, but it is worth it! Remember that! We have such a loving Father in Heaven who allowed his only begotten son, Jesus Christ to come down to earth & be that ultimate sacrifice who would save all mankind. Do you think it was easy for God to allow this to happen? Do you think it was easy for Jesus to accept such a big responsibility? It was easy because he understood the eternal perspective. He was tempted, but he gave no heed to it. He paid no attention to temptation. There was & there is no other man like him. He truly was no ordinary man. He is helping us fight the good fight. He is guiding us & he set that perfect example for us. I love that word strive which means, to make great efforts to achieve or maintain something. Let us make great efforts to successfully bring out our Heavenly Fathers plan for us. After all, his whole plan is to bring to pass the immortality & eternally life of man. Let's help him accomplish his plan by being more willing to align our will with his, by being more obedient. It's a lot easier to follow his commands. They bring us so much joy & not just temporary joy, but eternal joy. How awesome is that? I don't know about y'all, but I sure would love to be happy for a period that lasted forever. Wouldn't that be amazing? I know that we can all receive this. Let us humble our selves & strive to be a little better then we were yesterday. Let's be more willing to act & more bold to trust in our Heavenly Father, even when we don't always fully understand the why to things. He knows the bigger picture & only he knows what's best. Man, I love this gospel so very much. It's the very core of who I am & who I want to become. Let the gospel change your life. Love y'all so much family!!!! If you have the time & if you read my emails, answer this question for me, I want to know this, how has Jesus Christ changed your life? I would love to read your answers to this. Please know that I appreciate each of y'all. I hope y'all have a great week ahead. Choose the right! Until next week 

Our lovely district!

Beautiful Temple, Texas sunset!

Hurrah for Israel! 

Shout out to my Hoewa'a 'ohana!! One more family was made eternal this weekend 

With love, 

Sister Kawa'a