Everything was pretty good this week. We have just been trying to visit everyone. Nothing really interesting happened until yesterday. Yesterday we went to a wedding on the beach. That will probably be the only time that I will touch the beach on my mission. So that was good. 

On the beach?  Yes, for a wedding.

We also had a baptism!  It was really good. M looked so happy the whole time, and he was so good. He walks up to us at church, all clean shaven, and gives us an Aloha Kiss* (which he has never done before), and he also bore his testimony at sacrament meeting. We cried. It was awesome!  And then we baptized him. I bore my testimony because there was a lot of non-members there, and I cried...It was really cool and I was really happy for him.

Amy and the new convert

The Baptism

 The next week is going to be pretty hard because we will be preparing for Sister Marshall to leave so we will be saying goodbye to everyone. They did her Aloha 'oe yesterday, and it was depressing. I had to leave the room. I also have no idea what is happening with transfers.

 But I really do not have anything to complain about. We have a few really good investigators, and I am really starting to love the ward. In church yesterday I looked at everyone and truly realized how much I love them. We also had a really cool experience with our less active member. He is going to the Catholic church right now, but we always go and visit his non-member mom, hoping that he will sit in. This time he did. He told us that he has cancer and that he is really scared, and he just kept talking about how great our church is and how terrible his is. We shared a message and prayed, and the spirit was really strong, and we got him to church!!! It was way cool. You could tell that he misses the church. 

Today we went fishing, and I caught  the first fish. It gave me a pretty good fight, so that was a lot of fun. Oh yeah, and on Saturday we did service. We painted for these people, and it was a lot of fun. They think that I am a really good singer, and that is funny. A lot of locals just blast the radio all the time so we hear a lot of normal music...way too distracting...They played it at the service, so that is how we heard my singing. Oh Hawaiians, and them not following rules .Mission rules are that "regular" radio-type music is off limits because it is distracting and may bring thoughts of experiences better left behind.  The members they are with are supposed to make sure they follow this rule by not having it on while they're around. It is so funny how laid-back it is here. Everyone just goes with the flow. 

Well I miss you all. 

Love You all.

Love,

Sister Hoskins

*The honi is a Polynesian greeting in which two people greet each other by pressing noses and inhaling at the same time. This is a very honorific as this represents the exchange of ha--the breath of life, and mana--spiritual power between two people.