Thursday, December 31, 2009

Feliz Navidad From Elder K

hey,
> so its not fair that you can make me cry at your whim. just wanted to get that out. =) so got a cool Christmas story that i want to share BUT got to explain something 1st. so at home Christmas is a time for families, movies, friends, and for a select few partying. here is the exact opposite....right down to the weather =) so here the people drink and party ALL DAY , and all night for that matter, and do everything and do everything that is associated with drinking. and when i say everyone i mean EVERYONE down to 4 yr olds drinking and grinding to the beat of the music. ok so even with out knowing all this the story is cool but with it-its nigh impossible to believe: so we have this 17yr old girl we have been teaching, has family in our ward so one would think it wouldn't be that bad. but she runs a small business where she does nails and her parents sell beer. of course she has a boyfriend and that which that implies. so we taught her about the Word of Wisdom a few days before the 25th and she understood, even asked the question " so its a process right?" we gave her 2 NE 28:8-9 to read , I think that's the right one, and she said she wouldn't drink. We went by on Christmas to try to teach (only taught 1 lesson that day, everyone wanted to feed us but not the best idea to eat the food...sad, very sad) her and her aunt. the aunt and uncle weren't there but she was. Check this, WITH A GATORADE IN HAND!! yeah!! she told us that she hadn't had anything to drink all day, and from the looks of the other people around i could tell she was being truthful. (they all looked at her like she was crazy for not drinking.) most of the day wasn't too great but talking with you guys and getting to see that made it all worth it.
OK,other funny thing, so our washer drains constantly if you forget to take the coins out of the pockets. so we took one out and put everything back or thought we did, and then we went and tried to wash some stuff. It started to leak. so i went and grabbed a piece of hose that was just laying around and siphened the water into a bucket-barrel-thingy.Then I hear in the words of Elder Greyson "DUDE Elder Ritter come here man, Elder K just did some magic trick with the water man!" i showed them ( the Zone Leaders) and they were like little kids for the rest of the day, using it to do everything. but on the plus side we now always have water pressure to wash dishes, never have to take true bucket showers anymore, and can rinse our clothes with out getting wet.
> ok other way awesome experience. so we have this one investigater, 25ish word of wisdom and chastity problems but has had good witnesses from the Spirit. She just doesn't want to do anything about it. (She doesn't want to make the committment to get baptized or to change her life ) We went to teach her about something i cant remember what because when Elder Cruz asked her if she had read she told us no, (3 weeks it took for her to read 1 chapter, and yes i know about the whole progression thing, but this girl was not even trying) she was at a members house when we went to check up on them because all of our appointments fell thru. It was the 26th and everyone was still hung over) so elder cruz my comp went and started to go off and tried to do it in a good way but, well he has had to deal with her for a while. So after about 5 mins he just turns to me and asks if i want to say anything. I have her open to D&C 122 and read it. i explained that Joseph smith went thru all of this for her, for me, for everyone because of what the book of mormon will do IF you will let it. I went thru and gave a super powerful testimony of it and what it has done in my life, Dad, Mom, how i know i will see kara and Michelle again because of it, and the love and peace she CAN have IF she chooses to take it. I LOVE THE SCRIPTUERS!!!! soooo awesomely amazingly perfect!
> but so yeah, the past couple of days were as crappy as the experiences were amazing.
> love you guys, a lot alot alot and know you love me, yes rene you know even you love me. =) and just so you know every time i read a letter or when i talked to you felt like you guys are SOO much more spiritual than me. but that's ok. hopefully i will grow a little, spiritually speaking but wouldn't mind physically too, hehehe.
>
> a mi Familia eterna (eso es todo de ustedes) ((to my eternal family and that means ALL of you))
> Elder Kekoolani.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing everyone a warm and merry Christmas! The cowboy in the picture is a little shout out for a certain sister/aunt of our's:) You know who you are:) Love you all and Ho Ho Ho. Hug Hug, Kiss Kiss.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Elder K's Pre-Christmas Letter

HEY all!
> and
> hey mommy (yes i do still love you even though i am not there.)
>
> i do gotta say i agree with uncle Bob now. right now she is probably the one praying for all of us. nice thought. and 40pnts. to Rene for the correction. dont worry about "dumping" it on me, before i would have considered this bad or sad or something there abouts. but its amazing to see the amount of change a little understanding of the plan of salvacion brings. and Wesely, dylan and grason if you can hear me from all the way down here, i love you guys. and i know that your Fathers, both of them, love you more. someone has A LOT of faith in each of you to give you this blessing now ,rather then when you are far from home(dont worry mom i am fine and will talk to you in a few days) and have people who love all around. just remember that even though your Mom, my aunt, isnt right next to you she doesnt love you any less. if anything i know it would be fair to say she loves you more. and you know it too. (thanks uncle Bob) and yes i am sorry that i will miss aunt cayrn, i dare you to name two other people who can cook as well as she does and make you fall over laughing at the same time. oh Mom it was fine for you to say no.... if i cant be trimnal someone else has to make up for it, right? Joey, i know you cant see me right now but i am giving you an air high-five, and super Bro-knucks, way to trounce fanazi!!! and yeah could be worse Mom if you could see some of the kids here and the energy they have-- some litterally do climb the walls, bare concrete walls... bit o' a sight ta' see. hey Rene welcome to the part of high school that sucks, the college stressings--though i think you would just as soon start stressing over that as i would do homework, so yeah.
> and sorry i wont bee there to see you graduate... but i dont think that that (que eso, espanol tiene mas logica in esto) bothers you. love Christopher, hes a dork but ya gotta love 'em. and why am i suprised that Dad did what he did? good thing we have D&C 84:33! so i will probably spend all of my time talking about stories but here is one more:
> so two weeks ago we bapt.ed this kid named cristofer. (sp spelling) and this past sunday we got to teach his father. i have NO IDEA why i have the privlige of being there but it was aboslutly astounding to watch him. as soon as we shared the 1st script from the book of mormon about why Christ was baptzd he was in tears, and continued to be until the end of the lesson. el espiritu fue FUERTE allĂ­! and then friday we had this one lady who not only had shown up to church the sunday before but when we went to teach the plan of salvation to her she had read and understood (or at the very least paid attention when she was reading) the folleto...uh pamphlet weird word in eng. but so the entire time we went through and explained taught and asked about the PoS she responed with real answers and questions of her own. and to me the coolest part was to the end when we had gone and ended my comp said something about how the oh wait need to add something. ok so she asked about bapt for the dead, we (my comp) explained how they are there because thy dont have bodies and we do, and how its because some dont/wont have the opprt. in this life to hear the Gospel, and bcause of His ;love for us they have this part. so then he read 1 cor 15:32, i think its 15:32, and explained that even the Bible talks about it but not clearly. now heres the cool part: so after saying that it isnt clear about it, she asked why it wasnt clear, I said that it was because it was trans lated a bunch, and she added " oh and because they didnt have the authority and guidance they got alittle wrong" --way awesome.
> ok gottaq go now.
> LOVE ALL OF YOU LOTS, talk soon
> Elder Kekoolani

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Henry's Letter of the Week

ok so before i write anything else and forget--phonecall.
> ok so here is how it works i call you from a prearranged time and tell you the number to call, you call back. use the phone card if you want. and yeah. as for the 30mins-- might i quote my zone leaders and the apostel they quoted: "you are sealed to your family, you are not however sealed to your calling". i was asking them about the call and the response i got was more or less a "well, it is possible to only go the 30mins and no more--in a perfect world, which we dont live in. and besides that i dont know about you but if i only talked 30mins everytime and tried to go back either I or the mission president would have to watch our backs." i was basiclly worried about trying to be obediant and wanting to talk, felt much better after. so here is what i think we are going to try: about noon Christmas day, 12:00pm dec 25, 2009. ok now that i am done with that. (but even with a little more time rene would have to cut it short) they did tell me that the reason that the time is so short is because a lot of missionaries get "trunky" when they talk to their families. i dont know why the best part of my week is when i get to read your letters for some reason i am always super pumped to work afer i read them.
>
> tell lucas hi for me and send me his email address por favor. oh joey congrats you have now inherited my "driving privaliges" i am sure you are soooo happy. but hey at least you are walking everywhere! it gets really old really fast. oh and dont borther stressing over , well, anything. it really isnt worth it, just enjoy everything and work hard and everything will be ok. dont even think about worrying about career or college until 1/2 way thru junior year you can start thinking about worrying then. oh and good call waiting for gradma to be able to come... you wouldnt want her to pray for you =) good to know that you havent changed Dad. though the stories always will. (oh mom tree or no tree its still Christmas, as long as Dad sleeps in) my comp is pretty good from what i can tell as far as things are concerned. i still only understand about half of what he says. and yes i know that we dont have a lot but we share what we have, even if that means giving the house to someone else =) but seriously thanks for teachign me how to share and why we do it.
>
> ok story time: so so far we are 3 for 3, 3 bapts in 3 weeks, and have ones planned for the rest of our sats until the end of the transfer. but this past weekend we were only panning on having 1 and were at the bishops house telling him about it when one of the guys we had been teaching called. hes 15 and freaking awsome! he calls us and says "hey i want to be baptized this week... is that possible?" of course we were like DUH! but so way glad that we live with the ZLs bc it makes interviews so much easier. i was also very proud of my self bc i got to stay in the area and lead the way to the appointments. but so the ZL interviews him and comes out and just says" dang, i dont know how you are this lucky man." i also got to baptize him on Saturday. it is and was VERY humbling to think that i preformed an ordenance for him that will last for all eternity and marks the start of his journey back to our heavenly Father. to say i was grateful isnt enough. ok and so in one of my personal studies i thought of this and wanted to share it with you guys. ok i was trying to think of something that would help me be a better missionary and would still be good for after. this is what i came up with.
> remember the who's, what's, when's, where's, and why's.
> who: are you/ do you represent/ are you family/ is counting on you to work today/ has been waiting for you to bring hope/ are you as_____
>
> what: do you want to do/ does you heavenly Father want you to do/ does it mean to be a repersentitive/ have you been given/have you been taught/ would your savior do to help this brother or sister/ is important___
>
> when: are you going to return/ are you going to share your blessings/ are you going to help those around
>
> where: are you/ do you want to be...after the mission, in this life, in the one after/ is the best place for me right now/ is your savoir right now?
>
> why? .... in your favorite phrase why not? why not be obediant? why not help everyone? why not show love in everything you do? why not be the child He wants me to be? why not share my blessings?
> obviously why is the one that compliments all the others and adds more meaning to them. the cool thing about this is with everything on the surface they were all superficial but with 10 seconds of thought they are all significantly deeper than what i wrote.
>
> love is a wierd thing, yet i gots it fer all o' ya. thanks for everything you guys do, that is to say i am glad that i dont have to worry about you guys doing anything too dumb, other than eating a hamburger/talking on the phone and drinking a soda all while driving a giant yellow truck pulling covered white trailer 70+ miles an hour down I-75 in rush hour traffic. but know one we know does that. but seriously be careful watch out for one another and know that i love you even though you cant see me.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Frosty



Hi All! Friday we were invited to meet Frosty (Kara's Gift). This is a very pretty horse. Thanks for inviting us Mary and Thom.
Here are a few pictures for those of you who didn't make it.