Aloha

Aloha everyone,
First off I wanted to say thank you for all of your birthday gifts and letters and money and emails. I don't think any amount of money or any worldly gift could have brought more joy than the cards, letters and pictures I got from the family. I especially enjoyed Lisa's envelope full of big pictures of each member of the family with a letter from each on the back. Christian is huge! Where did those long legs come from???
I really enjoy are the letters from my brother in-laws as well as Sierra. For my birthday I got to confirm Kelly Machado in sacrament meeting and go to a baptism for our Ward Mission Leader's son after church.

We had four investigators at sacrament and it was a beautiful fast and testimony meeting. We taught 5 lessons after church and I got brownies with frosting, sprinkles and candles at dinner. They sang "happy birthday" (they didn't know it was my birthday until halfway through dinner). Elder Thomson, my companion, gave me a sweet paisley tie.
After nightly planning I sat there and indulged in all your letters and gifts that I had been collecting all week. The R.S. in our ward had an activity to decorate little fake Christmas trees to send to the 5 full time missionaries serving from our ward. They also made one for my companion and I so I put it on my desk and plugged in the lights and put all my little gifts and letters underneath it.
Mom: Tell Kay I say happy birthday, I miss her. Thank you mom, I called my last pad and was surprised when they said "yeah, I think we did see a charger... was it a lumix?". I will get it in a few weeks when we fly to Oahu for the mission tour. Thanks for telling me to ask around, I thought I brought it to Kauai but I guess not. Mom, I like the sound of having some business cards, can I get the ones with the Laie temple on them? Just put my home email address on there, It's mattprina@hotmail.com.
Dad: We have been teaching a less active Mexican guy named Paco, I think of you every time we see him. He lived in SLC for a long time where he joined the church. We played soccer with him for the last 2 P-days. Last Monday he made us dinner, really spicy enchiladas and "choco flan". I'm kinda sad because when I learned Tongan I lost all my Spanish speaking abilities. It's really cool to see how Paco has changed over the last few weeks. Before we would just teach his wife and he would just go in the kitchen and start making dinner, but now he enjoys us coming over and I felt the spirit when he told us his conversion story.
"San Diego, California. This is our home for 18 months, to 2 years. What you are about to see is real. The missionaries, members and investigators in this program are not actors." The San Diego mission is where the church filmed our mission training dvd's so that is exciting that theRileys are going there. Maybe they'll be in "The district 3... In 3D!".

Tell sis. Englund I love her and miss her. I remember the time we went to their house for family home evening and she showed us all her amazing art work. I remember Bro. Englund's firm handshake every Sunday morning as he stood at the door and passed out the programs. He was always smiling.

When I was growing up I never liked old people, I was impatient and immature. I love old people now. You can learn so much from them. They are usually nice & they are HILARIOUS! They generally have higher values so it's easy to connect with them. A big shout out to all you old people who had an impact on me! Ralph and Eleanor, Bro. Snow, Dee Mc Coy, all those old ladies dad home taught in Michigan, Mrs. Adams, all my grandparents, all general authorities, Lawrence Welch... okay I cant remember that many.
Rob: Was Kelly my third confirmation on my mission. Her uncle baptized her.
Mahalo nui loa (last weeks subject) means "thank you very much" in Hawaiian.
Yes, Brendan is Progressing, he got a little offended when we told him he couldn't watch the temple dedication but he got over it and will get baptized probably in February (because he is on probation). No, he is not the one that just randomly walked into church, that guy isn't returning our calls right now, he probably got anti-info.
About Mike: He plans on getting sealed to his wife in the Laie Hawaii temple this "winter". I think he said he went to Sydney and now he's on a cruse and then he'll be back in Australia in about a week or so. Sounds like a pretty great vacation! He'll call you when he gets there. He is 29 years old, he is tall and white with brown hair. He's a way cool guy.
I like it in The Book of Mormon when It says "and thus we see that..." Its basically like saying "so the moral of the story is...". I guess that's why they kept all those records, so that we could learn from their mistakes and not have to learn the hard way. So now when I come across "and thus we see that..." in the scriptures I listen up.

Love,
Elder Prina