Aloha Everyone!

We have had a great week! Our investigators are all doing great! This week at church we had lots of investigators there.... Also we had recent converts and less actives that came! When the people we are working with come to church it makes things a lot easier and lets us know that our hard work is paying off! We had a guy that just randomly showed up and said that he had been taught on the main land by elders and would like us to come over. Found the church and just came on his own. 

The highlight of our week was our baptism that we had on Friday. Loren Natividad got baptized! His baptism was so great! Our ward was great to come out and support him. His wife's family are all from Molokai and all came over to support him so that was really cool. He had a really good friend that is a bishop from another ward that came and baptized him and his wife's father confirmed him.... it was great to see it all work out that way and that he had that much support. 

Today for p-day we did so much! We did a waterfall hike early in the morning and it was way cool! A 200 ft waterfall and it was strait up and strait down the whole way! We were at the waterfall by 7:30am and then we went to another waterfall at 9 ish! We did 4 different waterfall hikes and then we meet up with some of the other missionaries and we did the 'Iao valley hike to the needle and that was way fun! The needle is a very high look out point and you are right in the middle of a huge valley. Super fun! We did so many things in a short amount of time. Had a great p-day. 

Well I hope things are going good for all of you! I love and miss you all! Thank you so much for everything you have done for me! Hope you have a great week!

I will send all the pictures to my mom and then she can put them on the blog so you can all see them! Thanks

Love,

Elder Gale

Aloha Everyone,

This has been a great week! Our investigators are all doing great and we are working hard to help them the best we can! We had 5 investigators who came to church with us so that was really good! Getting them to church is the hardest part! But our members are doing great to help us and keep the missionary work going!

Brother Natividad is getting baptized this Friday! I love when our investigators are the ones that are pushing to get baptized! He committed himself to baptism and set his own date and all that stuff! Super solid investigator! We got a text today that said, "Hi Elders. It's Loren Natividad. I want to be baptized this coming Friday. Let me know if that is possible." That made our day! Cant wait for Friday now! 

For p-day today we tried to do lots of stuff! We left up country pretty early and went to eat at Denny's... Well a guy working at Denny's said they were closed for a 1/2 more cause they were on break so we tried I-hop, it was closed too! So we ended up driving around till Denny's was open.. We ate breakfast there and then we drove to where we wanted to do a hike.... well we got all the way there and the hike we wanted to do is closed down..... So we went to the next hike thinking that one would work but no luck there either! So we decided that we would just come home and chill for the day guess we weren't supposed to hike today.... Better luck next week!!  

Well things are going great here! Maui is still awesome as ever and I'm loving it here! I hope you are all having a great day. Thank you so much for everything. I love you and hope the best for you.

Elder Gale

Aloha everyone

Wow we had a great week! Our investigators are so awesome! We now have a baptism coming up! Bro. Natividad is getting baptized! We are very excited for him and for his choice to progress in this gospel. We don't have a specific date picked out cause he works a lot and his schedule is crazy. But he wants to finish his lessons all at once and then the next available date he is getting baptized.

Our other investigators are good still working on getting them to church, which seems to be really hard for people! But they are going good and we are loving teaching them.

So yesterday for fast Sunday we had a ward fast for missionary work.... it went really well and with that we went around to each auxiliary and gave them a challenge... we handed them all a referral card and challenged them to put a name on it right then. When we received them all back we counted 53 referrals that our ward has given us. The point of the referral card wasn't for us to gain lots and lots of new people to teach....the point was to get the members thinking of their friends and how they can share the gospel with them. Now we have their friends names and we can follow up on what they are doing to share the gospel with those friends. I want to challenge all of you right now to think of a name of anyone who can use the gospel in their life and start sharing it with them. Don't be the friend that doesn't share with them. I know if you will all do this it will help the missionary work in your area and help the missionaries. I'm sure the missionaries would love you.

Today was the best p-day ever! A member in our ward invited us to go hunting with them! We couldn't be the ones to pull the trigger but we can help them pack it.... We had so much fun... We left at 4 am and started hiking in around 6. The member had invited a non member couple to join us and they came. The son of our member shot a really nice goat! He made a 400 yd shot, through both lungs and dropped it! (And he is only 13) We helped clean it and then pack it out! We were hunting on a REALLY steep mountain and when he shot the goat we were about to the bottom! We packed it back to the top cause it was the only way to get it out.... While we were packing it out I was walking a long side the wife of the couple that came with us and she was asking me questions about the church.... with all of her questions I am pretty sure that I taught her all the lessons. (haha) And while I was teaching her Greene was talking to the husband!! They are awesome people and are already living and sharing the gospel!

Well I hope you all have a great week! I love you all and wish the best for you! Thank you so much for all you do for me! 

Elder Gale

Aloha everyone,

    Our week was busy so that was nice! Our investigators are doing great! Brother Natividad is our most solid investigator he is married to a member and he is wanting to get baptized so we are super excited for him. Things are going great here upcountry. We are still having problems with investigators coming to church. That is the biggest thing holding most of them back.

      

    Today for p-day we went to our elders quorum BBQ! That was really fun we played volleyball with the youth from the ward and the Pukalani elders came with us too. It was torture just standing feet away from the sand and not being able to walk on it and get in the water but we still had fun! We had a huge feast!! Everyone just brought so much food. We had a couple of our investigators come so that was really good so our ward could fellowship them. We had a good time just hanging out. 

    Well I hope everyone has a great week. Sorry the email was kind of short this week but not much has changed. Thank you all for everything and I love each and everyone of you. 

Elder Gale

Aloha Everyone,

   Well this week is transfers and I am staying! I am very glad that I get to stay at least one more... This transfer is a 7 week transfer so that will be great! Our investigators are all doing great! We had an investigator tell us on Tuesday that she wants to be baptized. That is always nice when investigators invite them selves to be baptized. Then we had a lesson with a part member family and he isn't a member.... yet! (haha) He told us that he has seen a lot of elders but never took the lessons till us. He asked us how many lessons before he can be baptized so that was awesome! He comes to church each week even if is wife is working and that shows that he is ready and willing.

    

    Zone conference was this week.... it is always good to get together and see some of the other missionaries and to have President and Sister Warner with us. It was a really good  conference and president told us that our mission will be getting Ipads by October so that will be interesting.

     Today for pday we did a lot of stuff! We ate at the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and then went and hung out with some of the other missionaries for a while.. then we decided to go to the blowhole again.. Well it was really great other than we were standing close to the shore on lava rock and the waves came up and drenched us! Elder Lee and I were the closest and the waves knocked us over into the rocks! My camera got drenched and ya its history now! Good thing I just switched memory cards so all mu pictures are safe! Guess its time for a new one! Then after we left the blowhole we went to Lahaina and went to see some of the things there.. We had a really fun pday! 

    Well things are going great here. Hope you all have a great week. Thank you so much for everything you do for me.

Elder Gale

Aloha Everyone

Another great week! We had a very busy week but that is how we like it. We had choke appointments and we were able to see so many people. Even on days that we didn't have anything set we still ended up having lots of lessons. It feels great when this happens. So the investigators are doing good.... we counted 13 people that are so so close to being baptized. We have two families and then a couple other investigators that just need to commit to a date.

So today for p-day our whole zone went to Hana together... it was fun but we did all the same things last week. There was a couple different spots we stopped at but for the most part it was all the same. We had lots of fun being with our very small zone of only 10 missionaries... We did a hike together that was on a different churches property but it ended up over top of Hana and it had a great view. 

Well Maui is great and my companion Elder Greene is Awesome. I am loving my mission and am very grateful for my chance to serve. I hope you all have a great week and I love you all so much!

Thanks

Elder Gale

Aloha everyone

Well this was a very crazy week! The big news.... We had 2 hurricanes hit the Hawaiian islands! Everyone we going crazy preparing for them and then nothing really happened.. Guess its better to be safe then sorry. We as missionaries all got together as a zone and slept at our chapel so that was really fun. We got lots of rain and high winds but nothing else... There were lots of down trees and the roads were shut off. We worked till 6 pm on Thursday and then we didn't work at all on Friday.. Just safety precautions. 

The next thing KAWIKA GOT BAPTIZED! He was baptized this past Saturday and confirmed on Sunday. Very awesome to see how prepared he was. His baptism went great and the whole ward did a great job of coming out to fellowship him. 

So today for p-day we had a really fun time. We left our pad at 5 am and we had a whole list of places we wanted to see. We drove the road to Hana and made stops along the way,  went on hikes, look outs, and beach parks. We had a really fun time and that was most of our day. It took us from 5 am till 5 pm to get go all the way around (with making stops)! 

Most of what we saw today was just torture to us! They were all waterfall hikes and the pools were so nice! It was a very hot day so we wanted to get in everyone we saw! It ended up being a good day! We ran into some members from Salt Lake and they ended up following us around to most of the sights cause they didn't know where to go so that was fun. Their son just got done with his mission serving in Washington D.C mission. Really cool family! We ate at this Tahitian place and the owner of it is the Hana branch president! He gave our food to us for free... which was very nice of him! We were very grateful for him!

Well it has been an exciting and crazy week! Hope you all have had a good week! Thank you so much for all you do for me!

Love,

Elder Gale

Aloha Everyone!

This was a very busy and interesting week!  So to start off transfers was this past Wednesday... Elder Hatch left but on Tuesday night we got home a little late from saying bye to members and he stayed up packing most of the night and I was helping him... Well when we finally got him packed it was around 3:30 am and he needed to be at the air port at 5:45 am!! So we weren't going to sleep but decided to anyways... Well that wasn't such a great idea!! Ha our phone hasn't been working all that great and so when the alarm went off it didn't make any sound so we slept in... Hatch missed his first flight and ended up not getting on a plane till around 12 pm!! My new companion was supposed to fly in at 9:30 am but he missed his flight as well and didn't fly in till 1 pm!! Ha so for most of the day I was stuck at the airport with no companion!! It was very different but kind of nice!! 

My new comp is Elder Greene from Salt Lake City Utah... He is way cool and super funny!! We have quite a bit in common so that is nice!! So far everything is going great with us!!

So Kawika is getting BAPTIZED this Saturday!! We are way excited for him! He is so awesome and ready for this in his life!! He has been taking the missionary lessons for 3 years and told us that he has been taught every lesson 5 times!! We are way excited that we can be apart of his baptism!! He is having a really good friend that is a member baptize him and another confirm him... 

Last night we went to Brother Harris's House for dinner.... and we had a pancake eating contest!! He has done this with the Elders a lot and the record for most eaten was 6 sourdough pancakes.... The pancakes were huge but very good!! So Elder Lee Chip Sao ate 6, Elder Speakman ate 2 1/2(ha only been out 2 months.. he will get better), Elder Greene and I both ate 7!!!!! Ha so yeah we broke the record!! We were so full after but then he brought out deer sausage and well I couldn't pass that up!!  

Well it has been a really good week for us and Maui is still great! I am loving it here!! Thank you all so much for everything!! I hope you have a great week!!

Elder Gale

Elder Greene & Elder Gale

Aloha everyone

This has been another great week! Our investigators are all doing great. We have two families we are teaching, that one is a member and one is not. They are not married so we are working with them on that. Our bishop was teasing us cause all of our solid investigators are ones that have to get married first. We just had one get married so he can get baptized. He is getting baptized on Aug. 9th. 

So elder Hatch is being transferred to Oahu, and I kind of feel bad for him. He has been on Maui for the first 6 months of his mission and now has to go to Oahu. (Maui is so much better) It will be a good change. I am not sure who my companion will be yet they haven't told us yet. We do know that our zone is being split. We will now be the Maui and Maui west zones. It will be very different cause there will only be 10 missionaries in our whole zone. 

This morning for p-day we went to Haleakala to watch the sunrise. We had to leave at 3:30 am to get there in time and beat all the tourists there! It was a awesome sunrise! The last time we went it was way foggy and so we couldn't see a whole lot but this time it was really clear. Our zone is getting together later on today for a hike and a picnic together so that will be fun!

Well things here are going great. I am loving my mission and loving Maui. Thank you all for everything you do for me. Hope you all have a great week.

Elder Gale

Haleakala

Elders and Brother Anderson
 (a member in their ward)

Maui Zone Hike

Sunrise at Haleakala

Aloha everyone

This was a great week. So at church we had 4 investigators show up. Which is like a record for us. The investigators are all doing great.... We have Kawika's baptism coming up on Aug. 2.

So today for p-day we had a crazy day. We have been having a big tropical storm and so we weren't sure if we would be able to do anything. But it turned out pretty good. We played tennis with some members in the morning and then we traveled clear to the other side of the island with 8 of us missionaries and we went to a blow hole. It was a short little hike in to it but the drive there was the crazy part. The road is a one lane road the whole way and it is twisting back and forth so it is very dangerous and we had to go really slow. It took us about one hour to get there. When we did get there it was way worth it! It was a perfect day, it was overcast so it wasn't hot! We had a great time while we were there!

We had the chance of having a mini-missionary and it was very interesting. He was pretty cool and helped us out a lot... but after he left we realized that he had taken stuff from our pad. He took some small things nothing major and about $12! That's OK maybe he needed it. He was a big Tongan boy so he "HELPED" us finish off what was left in our fridge. Over all it was a great experience for us. Just got to remember to put the things we don't want taken away next time!

Well things are still going great here in Maui and I love it! Thank you all so much for all you do for me. Hope you all have a great week.

Elder Gale

Elder Gale, mini-missionary, Elder Hatch