Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Greetings
Greetings family!
This week has gone by so fast! I can barely remember what has happened. First off We got our car back! Not having it has really made me appreciate how necessary it is for our area.
Things have still be slow, mostly because it's fall break down here. I had a chance to give my first baptism interview. It went really well. The kid's name is David wood he is 17
His family were all baptized last year. He is ready to live the gospel and he understood the sacrifices he would have to make to do it. It was awesome seeing someone still in high school have a desire to make that kind of change in their life!
Speaking about baptisms, me and my comp are having a baptism next weekend. There are 2 kids we are baptizing, me and my comp were each asked to baptize 1. I am super excited to see this happen we have been working with the family since I got here. It's been a long journey their family has been through a lot. But I have seen changes in them as they learn more/ live the gospel! (I will send photos of the baptism when I get them).
Being a district leader is a really fun job, I will be giving a training tomorrow which I am nervous/excited about. I will let you know how it goes.
Love you guys I appreciate your letters, I read them all!
Elder Esplin
*Oha ! .............10/2018
Kirk now has a dog, that's awesome, and his name is Koa? Koa here is a very rare wood worth thousands of dollars, it was only reserved for royalty, so I think that is a perfect name for a dog. So dad you got kicked by a cow again. I had a saying back home, which I think I have shared with y'all: "we don't go home till dad bleeds, (or gets hurt)." I think that is a true lesson on work ethics.
I will share what happened here this week:
Things have been fun, if fun means work...My companion and I have more work to do than we can handle, we have met 13 potential people to teach this week. 7 of them came from a clothing drive the Kaleiloa ward put on for a homeless center. We also had a lady call, who wanted to know when our church started. Turns out she is not a member but her boyfriend is. They are having us over for dinner this Friday, so we will get to go back and teach them. We also got several referrals that are very promising. The Lord has really blessed us this week. My companion and I have been praying hard that we would have work to do, Especially in our Samoan ward, and he has answered. We now have plenty of appointments. At least 1 a day and at most 3 a day. I feel the Lord has been providing me opportunities to improve my teaching skills.
My favorite thing that has happened was when we participated in the ward clothing drive at the homeless shelter.
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| Bronco and his family (recently Baptized member) |
We met a variety of people who had various reasons of being at the shelter. I talked with an old man named Bob. Bob wasn't homeless, he was just staying at the center for a few weeks. He was having chemo at the local hospital. He was very nice, and talked fondly of Mormons, he said he never felt judged by Mormons. I talked to him for quite some time about his religious beliefs and his life.
It was good getting to know Bob. It helped show me there is more to people than we see. He was an avid skier back in his day. On Sundays when he wouldn't go to church he would go sit in the temple grounds. He said he had been to the visitors center so many times that he knew it like the back of his hand.
He was quite a character and he was a fighter . He told me what it is like getting treated for cancer. I never knew how bad it was. He said he had survived more doses than many people do, he said he wasn't going to give up without a fight. I wish I had a picture of him because he's like 80!
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| Bronco with companion |
One last thing I know dad asked, what it was like being a DL (district leader). So....tomorrow I will be giving my first training. But what makes our zone interesting is we have two district leaders. Because each district is too small to function by itself so we are unofficially combined. So me and the other DL will each take half of the training to cover what we feel needs to be said. In a way we are like oxen yoked by the same calling and now we have to pull together equally as hard if we are going to succeed in going the direction we want to go. I'm glad the other district lead is easy to get along with, so I am excited for the future!
Love you all so much! Stay safe, I will keep you in my prayers!
*Greetings Family
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| I took this just after I got my District Leader call. |
Greetings family. This has been an exciting week. I Remember looking at my calendar and thinking this is the day KC and Savannah are getting married. KC I am so proud of you!!! I will try and send a letter when I can find some time to congratulate you both on your new marriage.
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| We found this cave on our way to the nature reserve. |
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| Sea Urchins...we ate some of their eggs. |
On my end I got some news to share. Both me and my companion are staying! President also felt that I needed some extra responsibility (LoL) so I am now a district leader. My district only included me, my comp and the zone leaders. So it is a very small zone. But I am grateful for this opportunity because it will make me stretch myself (plus it will help make sure I stay out of trouble. LoL)
The topic I thought about sharing this week is on family. I've been thinking a lot about family, especially about how I would want to raise my family. As I look about how prosperous our family has been, with the future birth of Ammon and the marriage of KC and Savannah and close behind the marriage of Matt. I can see how blessed our family is. Many families in Hawaii are part member or have less active kids. Because the parents went less active during their kids childhood. I can see how much a difference it makes to have the gospel in a family. I can see how much of a difference it makes. Especially when it's not just going through the motions. I am grateful for the childhood I had and being taught the gospel and I can see how it has blessed our family. Even if it is just the Esplin name In general I met 3 families that knew the Esplin name one old man said that the Esplin he knew radiated the love of Christ. That comment had a profound impact on me, it made me think: we are asked to teach that "The gospel blesses families" but I feel our family is an example of how it does bless our lives. This is the way I want to raise my kids.
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| Hiking the nature reserve trail |
I have one more thing to share real quick. We taught the youth camp again this Sunday and we decided to do it a little differently. We decided to split the class into boys and girls. I taught the girls and my comp taught the Boys. We taught them the ten commandments and hand signs to remember them. Then I had a discussion with the girls on how the commandments applied to our lives. I invited them to each share what was a commandment that they wanted to do better at. They were excited to share but at that time the class recombined to continue the lesson. They were disappointed they did not have the chance to share so I promised we would split back up so we could finish. When we finally got together again they all shared a commandment they were going to do better on (there was a lot of #7s mentioned). It was awesome seeing them take such an interest in wanting to obey the commandments. So many people see them as a restriction. They were eager to try to improve their lives and come closer to God one step at a time.
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ALOHA
But it stuns me that another week has gone by fast! It feels like it was yesterday that I last wrote. This has been a slower week for me and my companion, mainly because I was sick. So for about 3 days I was stuck inside recovering. I have not been that sick in a long time, I even lost my voice! But now I am recovering and should be back to normal soon.
I probably should mention that I am still having neck pain. It hasn't stopped me but it has become a nuisance that needs to be taken care of. I have one more chiropractor appointment scheduled but I have a suspicion it is not my back that's the direct cause. On Sunday it was causing so much trouble I started doing some research and I found that TMJ can cause neck pain along with jaw pain and ringing in ears (which 2 things I had trouble with pre-mission). If I am right my back is not the cause. I plan on talking to the mission nurse to get her opinion so you might get a call later this week with more information.
My stomach has been doing great and hasn't been causing me much trouble.
Besides health, I am doing great, when I was sick I took some time to improve my handwriting in print and cursive and also developing a workout/yoga plan which I am excited to incorporate in the future. I feel I used the sick time productively.
The moment that stuck out to me the most this week was teaching at the National Guard reform school. The facility finally gave us a room to teach in and we got a great turnout. The class was filled to capacity.
What makes a challenge as well is we have an hour to teach and with that large of a teaching pool, we have to get creative in order to teach such a simple lesson in such a long time.
One thing we did to fill time was when talking about the atonement we used an analogy, we took 3 of the strongest youth and asked then to do five pushups foe everybody in the room, and we had the students each say either something they have done or an example of a sin or pain. We only got to about half the class but it was an awesome object lesson. We related this to the atonement of Christ, how he took our sins (them telling us a sin) and he paid the price for them (doing the push ups). The moral of that activity seemed to really sink in with them. They keep coming back so that is a good sign! This week has gone by so fast!
Love you all
-Elder Esplin
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