Aloha

Brothers and sisters Aloha!
It's funny like half of our Sunday attendance is tourists every week. Thank you all for your emails! Brother and Sister Stobbe, thanks for sending me all of Scoty's emails! This morning my companion, Elder Gray, and I, and two other Elders drove up to the north shore of Kauai. There is a tiny town up there called Hana lei. It was probably the most beautiful drive I've been on in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Oahu is nice, Maui is very pretty, but Kauai is by far the most beautiful island. We drove up to one of the beach parks and just sat and watched the waves come in and listened to church music for 15 minutes. It was very peaceful, we were talking about how amazing God's creations are, how no camera or any device could ever record that scene as well as our eyes. As I looked out and saw the waves and heard them crashing on the sand and felt the warm sun on my skin and smelled the nature all around me and breathed in that fresh Hawaiian air, I could feel how much my heavenly father loved me. Just like when we make Mom a mothers day card, and we want to make it really nice and pretty to show her how much we love her. God wanted to make this earth as beautiful as he could to show his love for us and so we could feel joy. I felt full of joy and peace as we drove back to Lihue. My mission has been the best experience of my life, and the Lord has blessed me a hundredfold for whatever small sacrifices I have made to come here, I wouldn't trade it for the kingdoms of the earth.
Madison Long got baptized last Saturday, E. Gray baptized her and I gave a talk about baptism. I'm starting to get so I don't have to look down as much when I speak. Everything seemed to go perfectly. Sometimes baptisms are very stressful just making sure that everything goes right, but this one went so smoothly and I don't think it could have been any better. Madison is ten years old, she was given the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday and her dad who has not come to church for many years came and watched. Her Mom, Sam, will be baptized next Saturday (the 9th). Our investigator Nolan came to church again yesterday. He cut his hair and is looking a lot better, he is already making friends with people in the ward and one family invited him over for dinner with us. His baptismal date is Oct. 23 so we will see if that will still be possible after we teach him the word of wisdom tomorrow. We also invited Branden Williams to get baptized on Oct. 30th. Branden is 20 yrs. old. He is in the hospital right now recovering from a blood infection but he should be out in a week. He's kind of a crazy kid and he always yells at the nurses but were starting to read the Book of Mormon with him and he's really liking it. One thing that I've really learned on my mission is that it's impossible for someone to come to "full faith" in this gospel and to find lasting peace in "these our times"(E.Holland's: Safety for the soul) without a burning testimony of The Book of Mormon. I really battled within my self to gain a firm testimony at the beginning of my mission and it was a thought that rarely left my mind but through sincere prayer and diligent seeking I have gained an everlasting witness from the power of the Holy Ghost that I cannot deny and that is "woven into the very fibers and sinews of my body"(Gospel Principals Ch.8). So we told Branden to read the B.O.M. until he gets out of the hospital so he can gain a testimony of it and then we'll baptize him. It's hard in Hawaii because very few people can read competently, so we have to read with them a lot of the time, so that they understand. E. Gray and I both have a love for the scriptures and our favorite thing to do in lessons is just to tell the stories in the scriptures and expound on them.
Last week we got to drive over to the South West side of the island and while we were over there we could see Ni'ihau (the island that only Hawaiian people can live on and you need an invitation to go over there). Ni'ihau is the Westernmost island of Hawaii. So, now I can say that I have seen all of the 7 major islands of Hawaii. I have served on Oahu, the main island, Maui, where I could see Lanai, Molokai, and big island, and now I'm on Kauai where I can see Ni'ihau.
Mom: Thanks for the shirts, I will keep them nice so I can wear them when I get home.
Dad: I heard about BYU, everyone sounds real optimistic and says that they're improving despite the losses. There was a High Counselor that spoke in our ward yesterday from Monticello, Utah, after words I asked him if he knew Jason Ramsay, He said "yes I knew Jason and his brothers well, I could throw a rock into their back yard from my house." His name was Brother Barber, he was a really good speaker.
Rob: There are not as many Tongans here as Maui but there is more than Pearl City. I think we have about 6 Tongan families in our ward. One of them is the 2nd counselor to the bishop. Yesterday at church one gave the opening prayer in Tongan. It made me so trunky for the Tongan wards, I cried.
For the Ice cream Sundae lesson you give them a bowl of vanilla Ice Cream and blind fold them. Then you give them a little taste of some chocolate syrup on a spoon and ask them if they want some, you tell them your putting it on but instead you pour on some hot sauce. You repeat the process with caramel and mustard, nuts and bacon bits, a cherry and an olive, etc. You don't have to use those things those are just suggestions. Then you can share a scripture like Isaiah 58 or the one from D&C about keeping the sabbath day holy. You relate the good toppings to things like going to church on Sunday, reading your scriptures, or writing in a journal. You relate the mustard and stuff to things like surfing, working, and playing sports on Sunday. Then you could tell a cool story about an athlete who turned down a big contract so that he didn't have to play on Sunday or something like that.
Well this is getting really long. I was wondering if Eric ever served here on Kauai, if someone could please ask him for me, Thanks.
Love,
Elder Prina