MEXICO Is Pretty Cool! I'm Having Success!

Helping last weekend with a baptism.
We took out all the water in the baptismal font BY HAND...TWICE!
DON'T ASK...

April 25, 2016

WEEK 25

MEXICO is pretty cool! I’m having success! We aren’t having transfers until next week so I’m pretty happy because we are having a BAPTISM this weekend as well as the weekend after that. I’m pretty happy. Finally! My companion and I are having success in this area. I mean I’m not joking. I really don’t want to be transferred just before we start having our baptisms…lol. But we'll see. God has the greater plan in all of this.

In our Zone, we are doing really well. We just had five baptisms this last weekend, so it was really nice watching people taking the steps of baptism. We got our investigators to go to the baptisms which helped them have this excitement to take the same steps! I’m so happy about everything right now.

Well, every day I am learning, working, talking, but in one of our lessons this week, I learned the importance of listening. Our investigator is amazing.  She was living with another guy and she decided for herself to follow Christ. So she moved in with her brother in another house and she is very excited about baptism. But this last week, we were in her new house and we were listening to her tell us how happy she was and everything but for some reason, I knew it wasn’t true. I knew she had doubts about everything. And so I was listening to her and what popped into my head was just to bare my testimony and tell her that her father (who had passed away many years before) was happy that she is taking these steps. And then she started crying. And of course, we didn’t know why. But then she told us that the previous week, she had a dream of her father and he told her that he was happy at what she was doing. She didn’t understand it until I said those exact words and then she told us that she could feel her father. I KNOW that the plan of Salvation is real. And that people on the other side are waiting and wishing for their sons or daughters to take these steps.

The Gospel is true! I love you guys so much!

And YES, Lyndi told me about her mission call. She’ll be amazing!

- Elder Pukahi

I'm King of the selfies! lol

Happy Birthday Elder Adams!

Elder Adams, Elder Pukahi, Elder Turner
Happy Birthday to Elder Adams (April 17th)

April 18, 2016

WEEK 24

Dear mi familia y amigos,

Okay, so on Sports day, there was a lot of people—pretty much everyone in the mission that could come. So I saw everyone! Wooah, it was pretty cool. And tell Grandma that Elder Eskeran and I use to see each other a lot but now he got transferred to another place where he can’t come to the offices every Monday. But he’s cool. We talked about Cody for a little bit and we always talk about the good kind grindz in Hawaii. lol.

These are all the Elders that live in the same house.
Elder Cruz, Elder ?, Elder Pukahi, Elder Adams,
Elder Turner, Elder Baker

The priesthood is crazy cool. I never realized how cool it is and HOW MUCH OF A RESPONSIBILITY it is. I feel so inadequate a lot of the time. For example… How can I be PREACHING the gospel? How can I be telling this person to REPENT? But then the Spirit comes into the room and gives me the strength and courage to use it. Dad, thank you for always being there, worthy to have the priesthood. I never realized how much you’ve done for me. Well—both of you. Thank you!

This week was pretty good. We have found some awesome people. Well, they seem to be awesome right now... but I will let you know how they progress. Most of the time, our investigators are awesome at first but then something happens and they become the opposite. But I know this won’t be the case.

There’s something I have realized. And I ask forgiveness to all my teachers who have asked, “does anyone have questions?” and not one of us replies back. Because I have realized that if people are asking questions, they are learning. If they are not…then... We just have to ask them the right questions, so they give us the information we need-- the life of the mission.

Another goofy picture with the birthday boy.

Well, I’m still working on a lot of the things which I could do better. But this week I’ve learned a lot. It’s funny... because during the days I don’t realize necessary that I’ve learned anything. But as I'm sitting here thinking about the week, everything just comes flooding back to my mind, and I realize how much I HAVE learned.

What I learned is... sometimes the person you want to help isn’t the person you NEED to help. And the only way we will know is if we rely on the Spirit, so the Spirit can lead us in the way we must go. This week we had two people to visit at the same hour. And this week we ran out of money on our phone. These investigators live on two opposite points of our area, and we had no idea what to do. We really wanted to go and teach one of our investigators who was progressing really nicely and everything. But we didn’t know for sure if that’s what we should do, so we prayed. We felt that we needed to go with the other person. The other person was just a contact, which means we talked with them and asked them if we could come again another day, and we set up an appointment for another day and hour. But our other investigator was actually more important because they were progressing and we’ve never taught the other guys. But we felt confirmed with what we needed to do. And as we went and knocked on their door, they gladly let us in and we had a very strong lesson. We found out later that night that our other investigator wasn’t even home. If we didn’t go to our now NEW investigators house, they wouldn’t have let us come back again. They came to church this week. So we’ll see how things go!

I love you!! Thank you for everything you do and the blessings you have given me!

Elder Pukahi

Spring Break - This Week Was Awesome!

Me and Elder Adams

April 11, 2016

WEEK 23

Dear Family & Friends,

I’m glad you got some things accomplished during Spring Break. I can just picture everything that you guys did this week like it was yesterday. And Jess, I know you’ll do great this summer in whatever internship you get. You always do! 

I can’t believe to hear some of your news. Emily Peay is GETTING MARRIED—that’s just so weird! And Maddie Brousseau… is GOING ON A MISSION! I’m sooo happy. Jealous ‘cause it’s the Scotland/Ireland mission but so happy for her. I can’t express how awesome it is to see my friends go on missions! It’s one of the best things in the world. And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TANIA and ADRIAN!

Okay... sadly we still have no idea about which Apostle will come. I will tell you, though, when I get the info! I think it will be when my mission president leaves or right before. OH, YEAH…. Sorry, my mission president leaves in July so I will be getting a new one. Wooah! This will be fun!

Manuel is doing a lot better. Everything went back to normal. The doctor said he had a small weird stroke or something that made it so his circulation of the blood in his body was bad. His wife is still an interesting bugger, the Lord will soften her heart eventually. 

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME. It was a very good week. We had lessons after lessons after lessons. So yeah... it was pretty good. We have a lot of investigators that are progressing so I will keep you updated on what happens. We just have to divorce and marry some people…LOL… so I will let you know how that goes.

But this last month I’ve been thinking A LOT. How can we have success? I was thinking a lot about working smarter, not harder. The first couple months in the area we worked and worked and worked and didn’t really have the success we wanted. And so I was thinking on what we needed to change in order to have success. What can we do smarter to better our results? 

This week I did just that. What I’m going to relay to you is just one of the things I changed. This one was more individual but we found success by doing it. It was CHARITY.

In Moroni 7:46-48 it explains charity really well. It speaks how we need to ask for it from the Lord with all our heart. And if we do so... we will receive something great. So this last week, I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed, asking God to give just a sliver of this great LOVE that our Savior has for us. I don’t know... most of my life I’ve always wanted to show Love instead of Hate. I have never ever wanted someone to think that I hated them. I still don’t want it, but that change that I felt for my investigators even the people I didn’t even know was crazy. I cannot even explain it. It was like the love that I would feel if I could see Josh again. If I could just hug him. It was that kind of love. In the mission, we are helping people change but I’m learning before we can help someone else, WE first have to change. And this week God has allowed me to change, just a tad bit better. 

I hope I can keep this love. This is love for my investigators, for the drunk guys on the street, and most of all for you guys!  I love you so much, you have not even a single idea.

Stay safe!  Talk to you next week!

LOVE!

- Elder Pukahi

HAPPY GENERAL CONFERENCE! GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS PURE GOLD!!

April 4, 2016

WEEK 22

Dear Family & Friends,

I have FIVE MONTHS in the mission. Now that is weird. weird. weird. weird. You are right, mommy. Time is going by sooo fast. Everything is going crazy fast. It’s funny how we both realized the same thing this week. I just realized it in a different way. EVERY SINGLE thing we give can come back except for one thing—TIME.

So it got me thinking of what am I am doing with my time. Am I spending it selfishly? Or am I giving it to the Lord? I find myself, even though I’m on a mission, still being selfish with my time. And what I need to do is give everything to the Lord. In Matthew 10:39 it says, “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake will find it.” To do what the Lord is telling us in this scripture is that we need to give all of our time to the Lord. And I think that is what the Lord has been preparing me to do. He’s prepared me throughout all the trials I’ve gone through and still going through. Especially through the death of Josh, which I now find was a blessing. God works in mysterious ways. 

I ran into my old companion, Elder Mullins

But today we had SPORTS DAY! So that’s pretty cool! We had the missionaries of Reynosa and Rio Bravo at the Mission Office and we played volleyball, ultimate Frisbee, but most of all…SOCCER!  YES!  I love to play my soccer, so that was fun! Other people have pictures of that, so if I can get some pictures from them, I will send you some. 

Sports Day

So this week was pretty good…the reason why...GENERAL CONFERENCE!!

I’ve never ever, ever, ever, ever been so excited for General Conference in my life. I love it! The mission changes you… for the better. But can I just say… that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true and the only true church in the world today. I really never understood that until I came here on the mission. I knew it was true because I had a testimony but as I have learned more, I have learned that this church REALLY is the true church and I guess I NEVER realized how much of a blessing it was to be born into this church. I don’t think a lot of people do.

But let me get back to Conference… I can’t remember right now which talk I was going to talk about BECAUSE THEY WERE ALL SO GOOD! I think every woman needs to go watch the Priesthood session because they literally told us what we need to be doing as priesthood holders and as men. So if your son, your husband, your dad isn’t doing what they ask—PLANCH THEM! (I don’t if Jess knows this word but ask her if she does.... it’s a mission word.) 

I don’t know what else to talk about. Everything has been good. The days are still harder, harder than ever, but the weeks are sweet. I just love you all and I thank God for every moment that I’ve had the opportunity to be with you. ALL I can say is that we are a part of the TRUE CHURCH OF GOD.

- Elder Pukahi