Michelle + Hawaii: 2015

Transfer news and Zipling!...Not

Dear friends and family,

It doesn't feel like a whole week passed since I emailed like 5 days ago haha. Last week we had a ward Christmas party and it was hosted at a zipline place! But you know...as missionaries we can't do stuff like that because it could be dangerous :( It looked like a lot of fun though! On saturday we also had transfer news - to see if we're getting a new companion, if we're moving to a different pad (townhouse), if we're covering a new area. And guess what??? I'M GOING TO BE IN A TRIO! You'd think I'd be with my trainer for the next transfer because she's training me..but nope. Thankfully I'm not moving or switching areas, but we're actually covering three wards now instead of two. I'm really excited to serve with two new companions, Sister Castaneda(from El Salvador, raised in Washington DC) and Sister Yeung (from Hong Kong). And you know what else is cool? Sister Lee(Emily) is going to be training the new sister coming in tomorrow! Sister Lor :) Collin's friend!

So many new changes, but change is always exciting. There are some sisters that are going home from this mission that bore their testimonies yesterday. And Sister Na said something that really got me thinking. They were visiting a guy a few weeks ago, who was clearly drunk, and he said something like this, "You don't even understand our struggles! We have to worry about the mortgage and the prices are going up every year!" There are families that work sooo hard to provide for their kids, to make sure they can still live in their homes, rather than moving to the continental US despite it being cheaper there. We fortunately as missionaries don't worry about paying a mortgage because we ARE blessed that the church takes care of our living arrangements. That drunk guy was seeing the smaller picture, but we know that God has a plan for us, and that's the bigger picture. We know that the gospel helps changes lives, and it can help people overcome any trials they have in this life. So that story really helped me to understand how grateful I am to be living here, and only have to worry about missionary work, not about the roof over our heads. Because living here IS really expensive :(

As I did my personal study last week, I read a letter (more like a talk that's 20 pages long) where the narrator is speaking about his trainer's influence on him. Elder Ricciardi was his name and I learned that if we convert even one soul unto Jesus Christ, how great will His joy be. And that one soul is ourselves. If we consecrate ourselves as missionaries and are exactly obedient, we convert ourselves to Him, which I've never even thought of. A measure of a missionary's success is now how many baptisms you have, but planting the seeds of the gospel. Apparently (statistically) a person has to be introduced to the gospel several times before they actually decide to learn more. And as visitors center sisters, we do that every single day. We might not be converting many, but we're so blessed to introduce the gospel to hundreds throughout the week.

There are some days where I feel a little down because of one reason or another, but last week while we were studying, a package came! It seriously made my day. I think it's from the Churchville YSA Ward(or Toronto? not sure), and it included sweet notes of encouragement from recent converts :)

So huge thanks to you all! And Roni for sending it. And Sister Cheng(Leslie) sent both Sister Lee and I care packages too. I'm grateful for all of your love! :)

Scripture of the week: Joshua 1:9

"Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest"

We had to take a picture beside the beach :)

Package! :)

My new companions starting tomorrow! It's gonna be a party haha.

Sister Na (she's going home) and I doing silly faces

Sister Walker, Sister Ting and I on the tram from the PCC! These are our tram muumuus :)

Have a greeeeat week!

Love,
Sister Wu

5:10:00 PM
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Mission Tour!

Dear friends and family,

I can't believe we're almost 1/3 through December! My first winter without snow and I'm so grateful haha. Every day feels like a day and a week feels like a day too. And I just hit my 3 month mark two days ago, which means I'm 1/6 done my mission whhaaaat?! Last week we got a few new investigators from the tram tours! It's so fun when visitors are excited to learn more about what we believe in.

On Monday we had Mission Tour, where Elder James J. Hamula(from Quorum of the 70) came and spoke to all the missionaries serving on Oahu. It was an exciting day because the VC sisters got to see other missionaries they rarely get to see, and we get to hear from Elder Hamula. One of the things I loved about his address to us was that we needed to be "sober" missionaries. Of course we don't drink alcohol, but he meant sober in mind, spirit, heart. We need to use every spare minute we have to go do missionary work and not let the island culture here waste our time. Because the people here love talking, and our dinner appointments are often over an hour. Elder Hamula suggested that we need to show members that we have a sense of urgency, and we have work to do! Serving in this area is difficult! Because we want to help the members in any way possible, like serving them, or building their faith in the gospel, but they treat us as friends, spoil us with food, and think that our role as missionaries don't really affect them. I know that what Elder Hamula taught us is inspired for this specific mission. We can't let the culture here prevent us from fulfilling our potential as missionaries. That bothered me since I came here, but everyone seemed so used to the culture. But Mission Tour is such a good reminder that we are here for a purpose.

Since Christmas season is here, we've had more visitors come into the VC! I love sharing my testimony about why Jesus Christ is so important to me, and how He was born for every single one of us. We watched the General Presidency's Christmas Devotional on Sunday afternoon and I loved the story President Uchtdorf shared. He spoke of a man that couldn't move his legs or walk for his whole life that went to a wheelchair event. The man rode on a wheelchair and was so joyous and couldn't believe it when they told him that wheelchair was his to keep. He cried. And I cried listening to this haha. Jesus Christ is the most precious gift given to man, and instead of thinking about what you'll get this Christmas, what can you give others? I know that this Christmas means more to me than any other one because I'm choosing to serve the Lord and I'm able to share my testimony with so many visitors.

Yesterday Sister Buday was feeling really frustrated because of the island culture here and we had a super long talk about what Elder Hamula taught us and how we can be lifted because we can only control what we can do, not what others around us do. I know that we're assigned each other's companions because we can support and uplift each other. I definitely think my capacity to be patient and loving has increased so much more on my mission :)

Scripture of the week:

1 Nephi 1:20 "But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he has chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."

Me, Sister Buday, Sister Ozaki at Mission Tour (S.Ozaki trained S.Buday)

A cute little boy wrote this and it just melted my heart...

The MacDonald family invited us over for a "Bethlehem" themed Christmas dinner and we took a group picture :)

After VC Training yesterday, all the sisters sang happy birthday to us because our birthdays are coming up! Crazy.

A morning sunrise picture as we were walking to the temple :)

Have an awesome week! And good luck with finals if you're studying for that :)

Love,

Sister Wu

7:23:00 PM
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Litt Up!

10:03:00 PM
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Exchanges and Temple Trip

9:47:00 PM
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Mahalo Nui Loa

Mahalo Nui Loa means thank you very much in Hawaiian

Dear friends and family,

This week literally went by so quickly! Being a visitors' center (VC) sister is so differently from full-proselyting. Half our day is spent in the VC or on tram tours from the Polynesian Cultural Center(PCC) and the other half is when we can proselyte in our areas. But in reality, that half a day is cut in half because of our studying time. So we only have like 2 hours to visit members or tract in our area... and since we're new to the two wards we cover, we're still trying to get to know the members.

When we're on tram tour shift, we lead guests from the PCC to the VC every hour interval, but sometimes there aren't any guests at the time, so we just go by ourselves. The PCC is also sponsored by the church and I had no idea it was so popular until I came here! The best part is giving the tour when there are people that really are curious about the "Mormon" temple or BYU Hawaii. I've given a few tours inside the VC to Chinese people from China and that was really fun! A few are interested and wanted to read the Book of Mormon so we gave them that, but some unfortunately don't even come inside the VC. They literally just spend time taking a million pictures outside, because it is really beautiful. It makes me sad that some visitors that come in tour buses are told by their tour guides not to come inside the VC, or if they do, they tell us not to talk about our religion (which makes no sense..).

One of the many things I love about Laie is the spirit of Aloha. One Auntie told us that practically everyone, at least the Polynesians, are related one way or another in this community. There are so many members here that whenever we're walking on the street, almost every person we cross by will say, "Hey Sisters!" Haha.The downside with such a strong Mormon community is that the non-members here have seen missionaries around for probably many years, and aren't interested in the church for a reason. I think we just want to focus on re-activating less active members in the wards and getting new investigators in the Visitors Center (these numbers don't count towards our area numbers).

I think the week before last week, the Church announced that children of same-sex couples can't be baptized into our church until they're at least 18 yrs old, but they still can still participate in everything else at church. When we get out online chat time at the VC, we had a few people that wanted to remove their church records because they think that the church is being "hateful" towards those children. Honestly, we support and sustain our prophet, Thomas S. Monson, because I know this decision was made to prevent any conflict within those families. Why would a gay couple want their child to be baptized into a church that doesn't support their lifestyle anyway?? The family is central to God's plan for His children, so if they want to get baptized as an adult, they can!

On Saturday, we did this thing called a "district flood." It's basically where our whole district (6 companionships + our district leaders) go to one proselyting area and tract (knock on doors or talk to people we see) for 2 hours. We had so much fun because that area had more non-members than our area. We talked to a guy named Eddie and he just told us his life story haha. He used to box professionally but stopped because his mom didn't support it and he made some really bad decisions, which led to some jail time. He's looking for a job now and getting back into boxing after about 10 years but we had the best conversation about God and religion. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read because it can help him have direction in his life and we reminded him that God loves him and has a plan for him. We ended with a prayer and he agreed for the sisters to visit him in the future. I was sad he's not in our area, but it's talking to people like him, who are open and ready to learn the gospel, that makes missionary work so worth it! He also mentioned that as we talked to him, he felt peace and was uplifted. We pointed out that was the Spirit's presence!

I wish we had more time to proselyte in our areas, but I do have a lot of fun giving tours in the VC. Even if people of other religions aren't interested in joining our church, it's nice to see the similarities between our religions, and talk about why the Book of Mormon and temples are so important to us. I'm so grateful to serve on such sacred grounds and feel the Spirit every day.
Fun fact: the street leading up to the temple is named "Hale La'a" which means "house sacred," built in honor of the temple after it was completed in 1919.

Scripture of the week: Alma 31:38

"And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith."

Pictures:

This was just a good picture of the wind in my hair haha, at the Polynesian Cultural Center! I'm not wearing my name tag because we're not allowed to proselyte inside the PCC.

The little "picnic" we had inside the big pad (they call our homes pads, not sure why) because it was raining outside. It's so fun serving with other sisters haha. Fun fact: Sister Na (the one with the fork) lived in the same residence building I did first year at BYU, but on different floors! That's why she said I looked familiar.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Wu

9:39:00 PM
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First week in Hawaii!

Dear friends and family,

So my preparation day this transfer (next 6 weeks) is actually on Tuesday, sorry! We arrived in Honolulu last Wednesday afternoon! The flight was like 6 hours long but thankfully Delta had audio music so I listened to The Piano Guys. When we landed, the Mission President, President Warner, his wife, and a few other elders greeted us. There is seriously so much vegetation here! And palm trees and just really hot in general. For the next day we just stayed at the mission president's home to do training. In the morning, Sister Warner led us on a jog/walk up to a place called Diamond Head and we saw the beautiful sunrise! It's gorgeous here in Hawaii and I'm so grateful to be here!

On Thursday I finally met my trainer! Her name is Sister Buday. She's from Hurricane, Utah and she's been out on her mission for about 10 months now. She's taught me so much about visitor's center work and going on tram tours. We pretty much half either tram tour shifts or VC shifts half day every day (except for Sundays and Pdays). It's sooo different from full proselyting. I've learned that in Laie, where we are, there's like 90% members so it's super hard finding new investigators in the area. And guess what? We cover two wards! And they're huuuugee! There are so many families and their children/youth.

This week was super fun because on Saturday, it was the 150th Anniversary of the Church in Laie! Some fun facts about the Laie community:

- Laie was purchased in 1865 as a gathering place for the church members in the Pacific Islands

- The Laie Temple is the 5th oldest temple. First one built outside of US.

- 92% of the people living here are LDS.

- Members feed us dinner pretty much every single day! (if we're at the VC, they just do a dinner drop off)

The missionaries helped out with the parade Saturday morning and it was so fun being able to watch it! I didn't feel like a missionary because we were just having fun haha. And in the evening,

we were able to watch the celebration performance, which had like 7-8 acts of music and dance interpretation of the history of the church in Laie. It was breathtaking and I wish I could've recorded the whole thing or taken more pictures..but my camera was dying.

Being at a visitors center is super fun because we're so close to the Laie Temple and we get to meet people visiting from all over. I've been fortunate to guide two Mandarin tours...and it was scary. But I really need to do language study now that I have the time to, and practice teaching in Mandarin. Because there's still so much I don't know how to say yet, but I know that the Spirit can be felt through all languages. It's so exciting to teach people about Jesus Christ when they have questions about the gospel or about our church!

We only have an hour and a half to email (it was 2 hours back in the Canada Toronto Mission)...so I'm sorry if I don't get back to you this week!). And groceries here are soooo expensive! But at least we really only need food for breakfast because members feed us so well. I love wearing muu muus and sandals though! Haha.

Scripture of the week: Alma 13: 28-29

"28 But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord,and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and long-suffering;

29 Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest."

All the trainers(top) and the new sisters!

Sister Buday and I in our muumuus (dress)

The 150th Year Celebration of Laie performance in the evening. It was so amazing! More than 700 youth participated and I can't even imagine how many hours were sacrificed to perfect this celebration.