July 13, 2014

Well it is great to hear from you guys and everyone back at home. Glad
to hear a bit about Stuarts trip and..... of course the one to
Switzerland. My goodness, my jaw dropped and man was I jealous....
That must have been a beautiful experience and a blast... Especially
those little coasters. Great to hear that the Eagle Project is
rolling, hope that gets taken care of because it's important. Also
Stuart remember to read the BoM. Seriously it is the best thing you
can do for your mission is getting familiar with it, give a good
study, before you know it the Book will be easy to read and
understand, and you will WANT to read it. Your testimony will grow
immensely as well. Also PMG is important as well make sure you go over
that to.

This week was as is every week in the mission field. We have had some
good things happen and some bad things of course. Starting with Kylee,
she unfortunately is no longer set. She seems to have lost her
motivation to learn as much as she wanted to last time and also with
coming to church. We had talked with some members and all ready
arranged a ride for her with us tagging along as well. We popped by
before church and she explained to us that she didn't feel like going.
Partly because she was very busy with family obligations and what not
but still she is lacking that motivation. We will still try next week
for sure. But that will mean about 3 weeks of trying to get her to
come to church. Her motivation with learning has kind of slackened was
well. Elder Rogers and I aren't to sure whats up. We think that it
could be the lack of felling the spirit in the lessons. Minding that
we haven't been able to sit down with her and have a member with us
since we first set her for baptism. We will be continuing to work with
her on that this week.

Fa is doing amazing. He has lots of member support so of course he is
doing fantastic. He was suppose to come to church this week. He
actually had a co-worker come up to and offer to take his place on
Sundays, however he chickened out at the last minute so Fa had to go
to work. He called us during our study time and apologized and
everything, we just reassured him that it is all ok and that things do
happen. Next week for sure. We met up with the Tuah'ho family that
evening and his girl friend explained to us how sad and disappointed
he was, Elder Rogers and I could certainly hear it on the phone. We
will be having another lesson with him this coming Thursday so it
should be awesome. The only other thing that could be challenging him
is the Word of Wisdom, he is trying hard with cutting the smokes,
coffee, and what not. We always encourage him to pray for strength and
look for things to keep him busy so he doesn't fall for the
temptation. I hope I get to see him baptized. There could be a chance
that I may get moved out before he is finally able to. Fa is doing
well though for sure.

Elder Rogers and I have found a few new people this week that have
invited us to come visit them. We have got to be careful, because
sometimes people don't really want to learn and simply invited us over
to get to know us, learn where we are from and don't real express an
honest desire to learn. There are only 2 things that we can do in a
situation like that. Either no longer visit them, or try to build
their desire. There is only so much you can do to build peoples
desires to learn about the gospel. Ultimately it comes down to them
planting that seed of faith and looking to see if it is a good seed.
They have to use there agency, we can't force them. If they can't do
that for us then they don't progress :/ Oh on an interesting note we
met someone who was a follower of John the Baptist :S I never seen
that, but will be likely returning to see how they feel about the BoM,
we just got to know them for a short time.

We have a few other people that we are trying to get progressing. If
you guys remember Howard form last week, well he didn't come to church
this week. So that was a bit of a bummer. We try to visit him at times
however working 16 hour shifts can make it very difficult to see
people. We tried popping in to see him before church but he
unfortunately wasn't home. We will keep trying, miracles do happen
just as they have happened in the past, and the adversary will try to
combat you! The best thing to do is keep a positive attitude no matter
what happens. That is a major key to missionary work.

Oh I got to meet President Balli this week! He is fantastic and a
wonderful president. We got to have interviews with him and also get
know a bit about them and their family. They are from Colorado in the
US. I think they may need to figure out the controls, but once they do
it will be full steam ahead! Nothing has really changed much other
than having a cell phone now. It has been a wonderful tool for
communicating with members, investigators and leaders.

I don't got much time, P-days are really just to short. But none the
less they are great! Glad to see that every one is doing ok back at
home. It is very cool having all my friends leaving on their missions,
I can't imagine what it will be like to come back and get together
again! The puppet show must have been fun! The sword fights are
intense even in a puppet show haha. We better have some good things
planned to go see as a family when I get back, I think you guys might
be having to much fun. haha it is all good though. Sorry for no picks
this week, my usb gots a virus so I am still trying to work that out.

Love you all take care,
-Elder Ward