May 4th, 2015

Aloha,

      Well its been another great week for us! We had our zone conference this past Tuesday and that is always a great time and we enjoy seeing President and Sister Warner along with some of the other missionaries! This zone conference was a crazy one for me! Because it was my last one!!!!!!!! Cant believe that is came that fast! So for the last zone conference they have you give your dying (finishing) testimony, and then they have all of the missionaries that its their last one stand up in front and they sing Aloha Oe which is basically talking about last goodbye so that was pretty weird!! All in all it was a great conference and I'm sad that it is my last!! 

        Things with our investigators are going great! Still working with Alex towards May 16 for his baptism and he is doing great and almost ready! We are very excited for him and his family! Thank you all for the prayers form him I know that it has been helping them! 

     We had a really good week finding some new people to teach and that is always nice! There is so much work for us to do in our area and it keeps us busy! 

      We went on an exchange with our zone leaders this week and I was with Elder Bergstrom in his area. That day turned out to be a great day!! We had lots of success and ended up finding a new person that wants to get baptized for them! We committed the lady to be baptized and she accepted and then she said will you guys come with my family tonight for family night? So we said yes... well they ended up taking us laser tagging! It was so awesome of them and we had lots of fun! They had their 4 kids there and they paid for us to have unlimited and so we got to play with the kids for as long as we wanted! Really cool way to fellowship with their family! 

      Well things are going great for me here in Kalihi! Loving my mission and having a great time!! Thank you all so much for all you have done for me! hope you all have a great week!! 

Elder Gale

       

Aloha,

       This was a great week! Alex is still doing great and working towards his baptism! We spent our last Monday shopping for clothes for them! Their family doesn't have much so I decided that I wanted to get them some things. We finally have the 3 boys white shirts and ties and the oldest has pants. Still working on finding the younger boys pants. But they were so excited that we brought them clothes! This family is so awesome and I'm so glad that we have this chance to be with them! 

Our other investigators are doing great! Angela is still not sure what is stopping her from being baptized! We have challenged her to pray about it and she has many times but still feels that she isn't ready. We had a really good lesson with another less active family that their 9 year old daughter isn't baptized yet and so we are going to start teaching her!! 

       Thursday some other elders in our zone had 2 dinner appointments and lessons right after both so we said we could help them out and split with them. I was with Elder Mortensen and we went one of their dinners and then we went to our lesson. As we went to our lesson we were walking down the sidewalk in the housing and I saw Star.... Star is a very funny lady who yells at us every time we see her! She will tell us that we shouldn't be visiting people or just random funny things! Oh and she is most definitely on drugs.... One of my first transfers here she tried to spray us with her hose as she was watering.. Well this night we walked past and she was watering her lawn and side walk funny cause it was raining pretty hard... and I thought she might try and spray us so I walked off the sidewalk into the grass and didn't tell elder Mortensen.... I said hey Star and she quickly turned and said "I DON'T KNOW YOU!! HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME!!?!?" And then she sprayed elder Mortensen!! Elder Mortensen then realized that I was walking in the grass and he laughed and said you knew she would do that uh?? We got a really good laugh about that! Good thing she only got his ankle!

      

      Friday we were on exchanges with our zone leaders and I was with Elder Lee Chip Sao form Tahiti... We had some people in our area that I knew where from Tahiti and so I wanted to take him to see them. Well it worked out great! We got to see both of them and he ended up knowing their family! It turns out that one of them is a member!! She just didn't know what ward she was supposed to be in and where to go so now she knows! Pretty cool that we were only going to see them so he could talk to them in French and Tahitian and ended up finding out that they are members!! 

        We had a really good service project on Saturday all set up by the Just Serve program. It was at the Kakaako park where lots of homeless people live.. well we were all set to go and the night before a member called us and told us he had a lesson set for us at 9 am the next morning..... and the service started at 8 am.... He told us that this lesson was more important and that he couldn't reschedule it... We were pretty disappointed that we couldn't go but we ended up having a really good lesson and found another service project to do after.

       Things are going great her for us and having great success!! Thank you all so much for everything!! Hope you all have a great week! Hope to hear from you all soon!! 

Elder Gale

love doing Service

April 20th, 2015

Aloha,

    It's been another great week! 

So every Tuesday we have a correlation meeting with our ward mission leader and after we were done we went to our car and it had tape all over it! We didn't even have to think about who it was.... It was a sister in our ward that is always teasing us and playing jokes... Looks like we will have to get her back now;) 

    Our investigators are all doing great! Alex is doing great and still set for his baptism! It will be on May 16 so we are excited about that! 

We had a really good lesson with Angela and Sister Lupe was with us and she asked Angela.... What are you waiting for? Jus get baptized. We love how bold she is! Angela responded well I guess there is no reason for me to not to... So we left her with the challenge to pray about it! We are hoping and praying that she will feel she is ready! 

     So this Friday we had a pretty funny lesson... A less active member who is returning to church asked us to come teach his kids and a family friend of theirs. So we were excited and when we got to the lesson it ended up just being the family friend(Jimmy) and this brother.  We shared the Restoration with Jimmy and through the whole lesson the less active brother was trying so hard to help teach the lesson but he had no idea what he was saying. He kept saying very false things and so we had to fix those and that happened the whole lesson. Ha the funniest one he said was about the priesthood. He said there are different ranks and that he was at the priesthood rank right now and then he will go to the sacrament rank then to secretary and then Bishop.  We had to explain that we don't see the priesthood as ranks and that each priesthood calling is important and has its specific duties. Over all we felt like the spirit was there and helped Jimmy understand and hopefully not too confused. 

    Well things are going great here in Kalihi! I am loving my mission. I'm so grateful for my chance to serve and be a missionary! I hope we can all share the gospel and I know that we receive blessing for sharing! Thank you all so much for all you have done for me!! 

Elder Gale

Aloha, 

     This week was a great week for us. Transfers was Wednesday so now my companion is Elder Salazar. He is really awesome! Been out 6 months, from Alpine Utah. So far we have been great and doing good! We had a really awesome experience this past Friday, we taught the Legg family again and had a great lesson! So their 9 year old son Alex isn't baptized yet so we have been working towards that. Sister Legg was worried because Alex has ADHD and didn't know if he was ready for baptism. Well Elder Salazar shared with them that he too has ADHD and that they shouldn't worry about that. It was awesome to see the comfort that brought her! We invited them to set a baptism date for Alex and they accepted!!!! May 9th Alex will be baptized!! We are so excited for them and for their choice to have him baptized! 

    Our other investigators are doing pretty good. We finally got a hold of Robert so that was way nice and Angela is going to be less busy now that her kids don't have football. We are working with a couple families so we are pretty excited about that!! We are seeing so many awesome things happen here in Kalihi! 

       Saturday was pretty crazy!! We went from one service in the morning helping a family in our ward move and then straight to the preschool to do our regular service. At the preschool we have been fixing the playground equipment and that has been quite the process!! We finally have that done. We love being at the school and doing service for them!    

      Today for pday we went on a hike with our district, It's been too long since we have hiked! It was a cool hike and lead to a small waterfall. After we were done with the hike we came back to the chapel to play basketball with some of our members. 

    Well thank you all so much for everything! I am doing great and loving my mission! Cant wait to hear from you all soon!! 

Elder Gale

All my friends that left to go home this transfer

Elder Salazar & Elder Gale

Aloha,

      This week was a great week for us! We started teaching a family who has 2 unbaptized kids and they want them to get baptized! We are super excited for them! Our lessons with them are pretty funny! Alex is nine and he is all over the place and cant sit still, Matthew is 8 and really quiet so they are complete opposites! Their older brother Nephi was baptized a couple years ago and he really helps them understand the lessons! He remembers almost everything and so he can answer the questions we ask them. The last lesson we had with them they asked if we could cut hair, well my companion said oh yeah he can, he cut mine! So I ended up cutting all 3 of the boys hair. I guess it turned out pretty good, they were happy and told me I will have to cut it again before I leave!  Our other investigators are doing great, still haven't heard much from Robert and we are starting to think he is avoiding us but still praying for him and hoping that something will touch his heart! 

     So we were at one of our members houses and we received a call from our mission president but we missed it... He left us a voice mail and told us he had a referral for us! A member talked to him and said he has been praying for someone to share the gospel with and finally received the name of the person.... well this member already invited this friend to listen to the missionaries and that just so happened to be us! We are setting up a time to meet with him this week! Super excited to see what will happen! 

      Thursday we did our service project for the preschool... did it then instead of Saturday because of General conference. We did our regular things and then Aunttie Annette asked me to tell her what we should eat for lunch that day and the first thing I thought of was Navajo Tacos. Not even sure why. She had never heard of them so she said give me a list of what you need and then you can make it.... so she bought the ingredients and then I cooked it for the missionaries and for her family.... I was worried that they wouldn't like it but there was none left! Everyone liked it, they kinda thought it was weird but good.

     General conference was so awesome! For the Saturday morning session we watched it at our steak center. For the Saturday afternoon session we watched it with a member and after they made us hamburgers!! Sunday morning was awesome!! We watched both sessions with a Samoan member in our ward and she made us so much food!! Seemed like that was all we did Sunday was eat! Eat before the session, during the session and after! It is always so great to hear from our Prophet and Apostles! Always feels like they are speaking directly to you and their messages always teach us things that we should work on but at the same time bring so much hope to our lives that it doesn't matter as long as we have the hope and use the atonement! I loved Elder Bednars talk on Fear.... I love how he takes things that we think we know pretty good and puts it in a brand new way! He is so knowledgeable of the gospel and very strong speaker!

       Well I guess I will tell you (mom) what you have been waiting for... transfers are this week.....My companion will be leaving and I will be staying... Sad to see my companion leave after only a short time together but I know that our Heavenly father has a plan for us! My new companion will be Elder Salazar. Haven't heard too much about him and he is pretty new in the mission. I'm excited for this transfer and for the chance to get to know my new comp!

Thank you all so much for all you have done for me! Hope you have a great week! 

Elder Gale

Aloha,

     This week was a big learning experience for me and one I will never forget! We saw so many miracles happen this week and it made me realize the love our father in heaven has for each and everyone of us no matter what we have done he still loves us and wants to bless us! 

      Wednesday was our Pearl Harbor service as a zone... Always fun to go and do service on the Battle ship. We had a really great service and then the guy that helps us when we are there(Kevin) took us to the Utah memorial site, really cool to see what is left of the ship.. cant see much other than the top sticking out of the water. After our service was over we had a very busy day planned! We got ready and went strait to meet up with one of our members. We went around in one of the housing areas with this member and visited 5 families......  These families were families we have been trying to see for quite a while and we have never been able to catch them home... well turns out that we got to see all 5! I realized how much we need the members to be involved in missionary work! We tried to visit these families on our own but for other reasons could not get in. But when this member was with us she was able to be super bold and tell them things that we as missionaries cant! Because of the member we got 3 new investigators and 4 return appointments! I know that this is the way our father in heaven wants us to do his missionary work! Members and missionaries together. 

       Our investigators are all doing pretty good. We weren't able to see Robert this week and we haven't  been able to contact him. We are hoping that things are still going good with him and maybe he just needed some time. We are still working with Pua, Angela and Alia on working towards their baptisms. We are really focusing on the 2 new families that we are starting to teach. They both have 2 unbaptized children and they want them baptized! Things are picking up here in our ward and area and we are getting lots of help from our ward! They are now getting on board with investigators and wanting to help them! We are getting calls almost daily from members asking if they can go out with us! 

       Well I am loving my mission and learning so much about myself and about this gospel! I truly know that this gospel is true and that our savior Jesus Christ is our loving brother and that our father in heaven loves us more than we can know! I am so grateful to be a missionary and for my chance to learn and to grow spiritually. Thank you all so much for all your love and support I really do appreciate all you have done for me! 

Elder Gale 

       

Aloha, 

      It's been another great week!! This past Tuesday we went to the Temple as a zone. Always great to have a good Temple trip! And after the Temple we always eat at North Shore Tacos!! Best place ever! 

     We got to see some people this week that we haven't been able to see for a while so that was awesome!! We found a less active family that has been lost for a while and their kids were talking to us and that's how we found them! One of the kids is baptized and then the other 3 aren't yet!! Hoping that we can start teaching them!! 

      Our investigator Angela is doing great, got to see her for the first time in a couple weeks and had a really great lesson with her! She has had 13 sets of missionaries! She wants to know everything before she gets baptized and no matter how many times we tell her she will never know everything she still wants to wait and learn more! So we keep praying for her and hope that Heavenly Father will tell her when it's time! 

     Robert is doing great!! We have a awesome time teaching him!! He makes our job so easy! He asked us if we can do 2 lessons a week instead of 1 and if it is alright if he brings friends!! Love when they do that!! We have a cottage meeting tonight, he asked if he could go with us and if he could speak! A cottage meeting is where recent converts give their testimonies and we bring investigators! He already wants to speak!! So excited for him and where he will go with the gospel!! 

         Our Saturday service project was really fun! Spent the day doing shingles on a roof for one of our member's! We got all the old ones off and then it decided to rain! We were soaked cause we stayed out in the rain to get the felt paper down so the rain wouldn't go through.... Then we covered the tools and got off the roof just in time for the rain to stop again!  So back up we went and got all the roof done except we were one bundle of shingles sort to finish the last part so we had to cover it with tarps till he can buy some more! Had a good time helping out and had fun! Got to talk to a less active member that was helping to so that was cool! 

      Last night we had a awesome dinner with a Tongan family in our ward the Finau's! They invited lots of people to eat with us! None member families, part member families and less actives. Was really neat to see how many people came and got to meet lots of potential people to teach! One of their tenants is a family who is interested in meeting with us and they were there at the dinner. We got to meet them and talk shortly with them. Awesome to see how much desire to share the gospel this family has!! I'm sure the missionaries in your ward/area would love that too!! Please try and find someone to invite! Makes missionary work so much easier! 

        I am loving my mission and am so very grateful for my chance to serve our father in heaven and the people here in Hawaii! It has been a blessing for me! Thank you all for everything you have done for me!! I love each and everyone of you! Hope you all have a great week! And please remember to share your missionary experiences with me!! 

Elder Gale

March 16th, 2015

Aloha,

     Well this was a great week for us! So the highlight of this week, we had a great lesson with Robert! We taught him the plan of salvation and at the first of the lesson he was struggling with someone trying to push him away from meeting with us but as we went through the lesson the spirit was so strong and he felt it. He told us that he has no doubt that it's true now!! When we talked about being able to live with our families forever he got tears in his eye and said I knew there was more and it just makes sense! He lost his father a couple years back and not on good terms so he was so happy now that he knows he can see him again! At the end of our lesson he told us that he has 1 cigarette left and he isn't buying anymore! We can see a big change in him already and we are so luck to have the opportunity to be with him! So excited to see where he will go with the gospel!

       On another side Aunty Pua had a less exciting lesson. She is pretty attainment that she isn't coming to church and that she probably won't me be getting baptized anytime soon. We are doing all we can to help her but we just can't seem to get through to her. She keeps telling us I know what you teach is true and I will get baptized. But the when is what she doesn't know and Is scared for. Please pray for her we know that our father in heaven will guide her to baptism when the time is right! Our other investigators are doing pretty good still working with them and helping them progress!

        Well Saturday was a very busy day for us! We had the service at the preschool in the morning. We did the yard, painted and all sorts of stuff! I found myself in a tree trimming it! Then Aunty Annette asked if I could help her cut potatoes but when we got to the kitchen she said oh yeah do you know how to take out my old oven?? Ha so instead of cutting the potatoes for lunch another Elder and I took out her old oven and put the new one in...wasn't as easy as we thought It would be! We had to build a complete new part in her cabinet just so it would fit... Then we got that done and found out that the old oven was just a little wider than this one so there was a gap on both sides. Fixed that problem and got it all on and wired and it worked! Ha always love that feeling when you make something work.... Didn't want it to not work!! That would of been embarrassing! So as soon as we were done at the preschool we went strait to one of our members house to help them move stuff in to storage so that they can remodel. They feed us dinner after and so we ended up not getting done at their house till around 8 ha! From 8am to 8pm doing service! We were exhausted but it was well worth it! 

We had a really good sacrament meeting this Sunday. Had a returned missionary from our ward speak.... Made me realize that would be me in a little while! Then I quickly stopped thinking about that! I still have a year left right?! He was awesome to listen to and brought the sport for sure! 

        Well thank you all for all your love and support! I always look forward to hearing from you and hearing missionary experiences?? Still haven't gotten too many of them?? I hope you all have a great week! Love you all very much!!

Elder Gale

March 9th, 2015


Aloha, 

     Another great week as usual! I am loving it here in Kalihi and my companion is so awesome!! I love working with him and learning from him for sure! He has already taught me so much and helped me in my mission! We have had a great week! Our investigator Robert is doing great! Finally got to teach him his first lesson on Tuesday morning and it was awesome! We shared the restoration with him and he loved it! After the lesson was over he asked us "so do I need to stop drinking and smoking before I can get baptized?" After we told him yes he told us that he can give them up easy! We set a quit date for him for April 5th! Then he will set his baptism date. We are so excited for him and to be able to help him! 

     Other cool and exciting things that happened this week. Well we did service for a member of our ward on her boat! She lives at the Keehi boat harbor on her boat! She asked us to come take some boxes to her storage unit for her so we got to go on to the boat for just a second! 

      So we were trying to visit a less active member and we were walking down the road where she lives and she had just got out of her car with groceries... We offered to help her carry her things to the door and right when we did, this crazy old aunty started yelling at us saying that Mormons are bad and only talk to women, that we should talk to her husband and leave her alone. She was saying some pretty funny things and then our member said oh shut up they are from my church! The lady didn't know what to say back to that and just went back inside.... These experiences have made my mission not just because it's a funny story cause it is, but because it shows that even though our member doesn't come to church she is still willing to stand up for the church. It showed me that she still believes and has faith! I hope we can all say the same for ourselves! When we are in though situations, are we going to just turn away and not say anything or are we going to be like this member and protect the gospel and show how much it means to us.

Today for pday we have a BBQ planned with the other missionaries in our zone... going to go to a beach park and play sports and eat food!! Always great to get together and see the other  missionaries.  So I bet you all remember the He is the Gift video right?? Well the church is coming out with another set of videos similar to that... It is called "Because He Lives". Videos won't be available till later this month but I want to challenge you all right now to start thinking of who you can share this with! Then when it comes time you will be ready. 

     Thank you all so much for everything you have done for me! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Hope to hear from you all soon!

Elder Gale

Aloha, 

  

    Well this week was so great! We had great success this week and got to see all of our investigators! They are all doing great! So we were referred to a new investigator by a member.... She was cleaning his house for him and, is always inviting everyone she runs into! He said yes to meeting with us! His name is Robert, we had a lesson with him and he told us he had been searching for something that has been missing for a while, that's what made him say yes to meeting us. We talked about our purpose as missionaries and what he expected from meeting with us. Told him that we would be inviting him to do little things, he was excited and asked when church is! Without even sharing a actual lesson he felt the spirit and he is ready! Yesterday at church he was there with us and it was amazing! Our ward was awesome to reach out to him and make him feel welcomed! He told us in between sacrament meeting that it felt right being there with us! President Auna of the 70 was there, in 3rd hour he spoke to us and it was about missionary work and Robert cried! We are so excited to be with him and to help him! Pretty sure he is getting baptized soon!

     The rest of our week was great! Had 2 service projects on Saturday and they both feed us choke food! Had a baptism Saturday night for Leia! She is a funny girl and love the missionaries! She has been telling us for a month that we can't miss her baptism and that she wants us there!

     Today for pday we went on a hike to a water fall..... Half way to the water fall there was a cool bridge thing with a pill box at the end super fun and awesome waterfall! Always great to be able to hike! 

    Well thank you all so much for everything! I love and miss each one of you! Keep sharing the gospel with your friends! Have a great week!

Elder Gale