Aloha Ohana and Haoaloha,
Well since I emailed so late last week I only have to catch up since Wednesday! Today I'm super tired - too many days getting up at 5 in the morning, which is sad because I did that throughout high school. I really love my sleep.
Highlights- Thursday: We had received a referral from some of the Elders on Oahu and contacted the referral and then were able to meet with him, Pono, on Thursday. Um.. he is so good. His cousin had taught him the first lesson about Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon and Pono had loved it and then his cousin asked Pono if he wanted to be baptized and he had said YES! So we go in and start teaching and he is so good. We read Alma 32 and Pono loved it and was finding all sorts of insight and how those scriptures related to him and he was so excited to read more of the Book of Mormon. As we left we gave him a chapter to read and he looked at the card that I had wrote it on and he says, "Is that it?" So we gave him a few more of our favorite chapters to read. Sadly he didn't make it to conference but we do have another "circle sitting lesson thing" (his words) for tomorrow!
Later that night we stopped by a Marshallese family that has recently joined the church. When we got there, I asked the dad if there is anything we can do and he says yes - go upstairs and bring down the chicken and cook it. Um.... OK so I go upstairs and bring the chicken down and then he really wants me to cook it because I had helped another person make dinner and he had tried what we had made and he wanted me to make it again. I have no idea what I had made for the other member. We decided to reschedule dinner to this Thursday - so we will make them dinner and then have a lesson with them too. It was just one of those moments where I think, "Is this really happening?" and then I laugh and say, "I love my life!"
Friday: another miracle - I was not emergency transferred! One of the Hanalei Sisters was transferred off Kauai because there was another sister that is allergic to the vog on Oahu so they wanted to move her as far away from it as possible. Oh and vog is Volcanic smog. So we had to be at the airport at 6 because that is when the Kauai sister was leaving and we needed to be with Sister Haws for 3 hours so she wasn't companion-less. It was sad to say goodbye. Us 3 ended up going out to breakfast and it was yummy and fun because I was able to talk with Sister Haws about all the people that I had left in her care when I had left Palehua. The new sister is Sister Fonua and she seems good - I'll find out more about her tomorrow because that is when we are doing exchanges.
That evening we made an egg casserole thing and then a french toast casserole, to help motivate people to wake up bright and early for conference that starts at6am here.
Saturday: we arrive at the church at
6am (when conference starts) and no one is there. We walk in and get all of our food in. (We had made an egg casserole thing and a french toast thing for our investigators and less active members that said they were going to come). Go look in the chapel because we were a bit early and nothing is set up... Um that is a problem! We start making phone calls and no one is answering because they are all asleep, recording conference and watching it later. One of our less active families come and so we try and get conference up on one of the church's computers and we can't get the sound to work. We recall a few people and finally get a hold of the 2nd counselor. We ended up missing the 1st hour of the Saturday morning session and watching the rest at our 2nd counselor's house. Then during the break we go back to the church to set up conference and have breakfast with our less active family, Antoinette, and then another less active who hasn't come to church in months. It was awesome because we brought him to the chapel and he hesitated at the door, but then we helped him come in and you could see that he knew this is where he needed to be. We watched the 2nd Saturday session with Antoinette and our less active family and it was great :)
Sunday: conference went a lot smoother with everything being set up. The people that we had invited didn't make it :( But we made panikeke (a Samoan doughnut!) and Samoan coco and it was so yummy. It was the first time i had made it myself and it turned out really good.
The 2nd session- a kid named Jorge came. I had met him a few times - he is friends with 2 of the members and I have talked with him and invited him to take the lessons and he has said yes but then never kept the appointments. Well I turn around in conference and he is sitting on the back row by himself. During the middle song we go and talk with him. He tells us that he is loving conference and new that it was going to be small - he then tells us about how the talk on Obedience by Hales was so true and he wanted to apply that to his life. We invite him to come sit with us and he does for the rest of conference.
After conference we ask Jorge if he would like to stay for the baptism. We were able to have a lesson with him about the Restoration. He had been given a Book of Mormon and had already started reading it. It was great because one of our new members was with us and as we talked with Jorge about how his reading was going he said he struggles reading and then understanding at the same time. Our new member chimes in and says, "Me too, I cant read and know what it is saying." then proceeds to tell him that if you get the Book of Mormon on your phone and then scroll to the bottom of the page you can listen to it. It was good that they were able to have that little connection which is hard because I'm awful at technology. We talked about baptism as well and how it gives a new start and Jorge loved that and wants to be baptized but told us that he wants to talk with his mom. Then he stayed for the baptism and loved it! He is so good. As he was leaving he told us that he really wants us to meet his family! We are working out a time for this week!
Perez's baptism! It was so amazing! We had it after conference! Perez was so excited, Dennis another Marshallese man, preparing for a mission, baptized him. Laura, 5 years old, conducted the music and was so excited! It all went smoothly and there was a good balance of ward members and Marshallese people to show their support! It was really good and I just felt so happy! I love baptisms and conference :)
Well, I think that was it for this past week! I'm super tired but I love the work! I loved conference! I love you all! Alofa iate oe! Ofa atu! Poake poake yuk! Aishiteru! Yokwe yuk! Aloha wau ia oe!
Love Always,
Sister Cassidy Lang
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