10-1-17 We are all the Lord&#39;s seles

Kaise hei, hamaar julum parivaar!

The all-day P-day activity was postponed to next week. I'll try to keep this one a little shorter so I have time to send all the photos I've been slacking on sending over the last few weeks. Sorry, small kine ma'a already for no send pictures haha. But yeah, this last week was good!

We had the Sigatoka Elders in our area on Tuesday, which was a HUGE help. When you have two pairs of missionaries sweeping through an area at once, it's called a blitz. We blitzed the back-roads of a "gray" part of our area on Tuesday and were able to find HEAPS of people! We look forward to following up with them all tomorrow.

We visit Nasau them every Wednesday and Saturday. On Wednesday we had an awesome lesson on tithing and fast offering. They understood and accepted everything, saying it all made perfect sense. They like the whole unpaid-ministry thing. On Saturday, we had a bit more of a difficult visit. Teaching the Law of Chastity is always way awkward, especially when the audience is between the ages of 7 and 36. Something I did notice about teaching that particular commandment though, over the course of my mission, is that you eventually stop caring about trying to sugar coat important things. The Law of Chastity is SO important, so there needs to be a crystal clear understanding of what it entails and what blessings come with obeying it. In the end, we were able to explain everything clearly and boldly for all the age groups to understand. They really liked it and committed to living it!

Unfortunately, and for a reason we haven't been able to address yet, Nasau and her family weren't in church yesterday. We'll be reiterating CPR (Church, Pray, Read) on Wednesday. Remember when I told yous about the family members Nasau invited to our first sit-down with them? We've been teaching them with Nasau, and they all agreed to be baptized with Nasau them on October 21st. GOLDEN family, SO excited to work with them!

Set I'm running out of time, those were some highlights from the week! Before I close to post pictures I'll just share an insight from Elder Jackson (our district leader) from district meeting:

We're often told that we're to be instruments in the Lord's hand that we might be able to carry out his work effectively. Elder Jackson likened that analogy to a sele. We are all the Lord's seles, but we can't be dull seles, otherwise we won't be as productive as we could be. The sharpening process is a timely and often difficult one. One thing I was never ever a fan of when working with a sele was whacking through some thick bush and accidentally wrecking my blade on an unseen tangle of wire or metal bar sticking out of the ground. Things that like will happen every day, but we need to know how to A. be able to bounce back quickly and B. Use those experiences as sharpening tools. Often times in the work we're kind of just grinding by, just frustratingly whacking at the ground; using our tools but not being productive with it. In which case, we need to change our "angle", or perspective. Have the idea of "Okay, this didn't go as planned/this is terrible, how will this benefit me?" As we keep in mind the fact that every trial is a growing opportunity, it'll be easier to adopt and use those experiences for our betterment; and as we use those experiences as sharpening tools, the work of the Lord will increase as will the ease by which we get it done.

Thank yous SO MUCH for the extra support! It really did help significantly, Elder Tui'one is beyond grateful.

You don't even know how hyped I am hearing about all the Chuukese members coming out of the shadows! I never even heard of Chuuk until I came here and met a sister missionary from Chuuk. She finished almost a year ago, and she was wayy funny, so I'm way excited to meet these Chuuk members! Being the teacher for the Hindi Sunday school class in our ward, I've been able to see firsthand how much a blessing it is for people to hear the gospel in their own tongue. Like I said, these things are all so important, and there needs to be as clear an understanding of the doctrine as possible in order for us to live it to the best of our ability. Keep finding those Chuukese and bringing them in, what an incredible blessing it is for our ward to be able to pioneer something like that! I see a great future for the LDS Chuukese community in Hawaii because of the hard work of our members. Tell them I said u tongeok!

Also give my aloha and thanks to Elder Dushku and Elder Roberts for their great work! Number one in the Honolulu, Hawaii Mission! WOW!

I'm way excited for conference this weekend, I heard it's really good!

I died seeing your pictures dad, I just see 'Io aye haha! They capture your personality as a young missionary so perfectly, and it looks like you killed the work and just had heaps of fun doing it. That's what I aspire for!

Thank you so much for the pictures U'i! MAN Talia is getting huge! And Fia has so much teeth! I watched my letter opening earlier and almost cried watching Jeremias cover the camera and hearing his squeaky little baby voice.

I miss yous all so much, OKAY I'll send the pictures now!
I love yous so much, have an incredible and blessed week!

Khyaal rakna,

Elder Ishibashi