My first place to serve is on the island of Lanai. The 3rd smallest island with 3 thousand people that live here and about 80 members in our branch with 30 active. There is work to be done here and I am so excited to start. Lanai used to be a pineapple plantation, most of the people here are Filipino (Rachel, I need some Tagalog church words :)) My companion is Sister Duke and she has been out for about a year. We are the first sisters here since the 1970s and we are the only missionaries on the island. I do not know why I have been sent here because I am just fresh but if the Lord has faith in me that I can do this, then I must be here for a reason. I know already that I have so much that I can learn from Sister Duke. She is awesome at the work, she talks to people so easily and always has great questions to ask people. I am trying to follow her lead and learn all of her strengths and incorporate them in to how I am teaching. We are white-washing the area, which means that both of us are new here and so we are in a sense starting from scratch with a few helpful notes from the previous missionaries that were here.
In this mission we use what they call the Prayer Approach. We go and knock on doors and ask if we can leave the Savior's blessing with them and ask to pray with individuals or families. We have had a lot of success with this because most people think that another prayer won't hurt them. Then after we ask them about what they felt or if prayer has played a role in their lives or other inspired questions that help them recognize the Holy Ghost in their lives. Then if we can we ask them if they will follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. At first I thought that was super quick but that is why we are here: to simply invite others to come unto Christ through baptism. It is still up to them to choose but this way they know exactly why we are here. We have met some amazing people this way. One is Alex, who is a single mom with 2 kids and was baptized into the Catholic church but has never really thought about it for her kids so she said that she would like to look into it for her kids but she has to talk to their father. We are going to meet with her again this week!
Then there is Wesley, he is so nice and funny! He was at his sister's house in the garage and when we knocked on the door he said, "No one is home" but then told us to come to the garage and we chatted with him and found out that his brother-in-law was in the hospital so things weren't too great in his family life at the moment. We were able to pray for him and his family and then we asked if he minded if we could come back and teach him more about the gospel and he said yes so we are meeting with him on Wednesday!
Then there is a family that are members with 5 kids, Brooklyn, Breta, Brit, Brynlee, and Briel and they are great! They are so fun and live down the street from us and come running to us yelling, "Sisters sisters!!" whenever we walk by their house. They are so welcoming and just fun. The oldest one is 12 and then the youngest is 3. They always ask if we have food to eat and if we are warm enough. We are always welcome with them and they just adopt the missionaries as part of their family which is so great because sometimes I feel that people think missionaries aren't real people but we like to have fun, laugh, and play silly games still. Yes we are here doing the Lord's work but since when does that mean that we can't have fun at the same time.
Well, that is about it for my few days that I have been here. I am excited for the week to come! Love you all and am praying for you.
Love Always,
Sister Cassidy Jean Lang
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