Sometimes We Go To Santa Cruz on PDay!

Aloha everyone! :)

I hope everyone's week was great! This week was great! Sis. Esikia and I hit the ground running with missionary work this week and everything is going great! The people we are teaching are great! The area is great! The food we're eating is great! 

We've had some really great lessons this week and I have such a testimony that the Adversary really works hard to make things difficult. We had a lesson last week with one of our investigators. She is one of my favorite people ever and she is about 90 years old. She is preparing for baptismal and accepts just about everything we teach her. I may have mentioned her story a little bit before but she used to watch this TV program, which from her description sounds like Music and the Spoken Word, on Sundays and so she says, a  lot of the things we are teaching her she's already learned from that program. Totally golden! Anyway, we head to go and teach her about the Word of Wisdom and for the first time ever she offers us tea. We politely declined and she asked if it was a religious thing and we explained to her that it was and she felt so terrible about it. 

Oh, it just broke my heart. We told her she didn't know and that it wasn't her fault because she wasn't aware and that Heavenly Father loves her so much but she was just wasn't the same. It was heart wrenching. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and she sat there intently listening the whole time and went through every part and then said, "Well the only thing is the tea, I don't do everything else but it's okay I'll just find something to substitute it with." How amazing is that? From a little of what she was mentioning earlier it sounded like she grew up drinking tea and now she was willing to give it up after all those years just so she is in line with what Heavenly Father wants her to do? Wow. It was so so amazing! She is just great. I feel so blessed to be able to get to know her. You really are never too old to change! 

Ah, another amazing week ahead. I love being a missionary and I love getting the blessings that come from participating in this work. The Lord is seriously just great! I hope everyone has a great week this week! Yesterday our zone went to Santa Cruz! We had lots of fun! I ate a Seared Ahi Sandwich on the wharf! So ono! Well, have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

Jamba Juice for DAYS!

Aloha everyone! :)

This week was another great one! Full of hilarious-ness, Sourdough bread, and smoothies! Sis. Esikia got her wisdoms pulled this week and so we were down for a few days. We spent time in the apartment and I scavenged our house and found quite a number of church DVDs. I think I almost memorized The Testaments. Haha! It's been great though. We had so many people come and bring us food and Sis. Esikia smoothies. From the members to missionaries everyone was bringing us smoothies. It was just hilarious!

By the end of the week, we finally were able to get back to doing missionary work and I felt like somebody had fired the gun for a race! I was so excited! We were behind on numbers because we were at home for most of the week and we had no idea how we were going to catch up to really anything and so we prayed and had a plan all in place. Then we went to bed and woke up the next day and of course as things all to often happen, almost all our plans fell through. But, we were determined. I knew the Lord was going to help us out. I had felt that He would the night before. So we went contacting in Los Gatos after church to try to talk to more people and there was none other than a Farmer's Market with tons of people for us to talk to! In our mission we count the number of people we contact because we don't tract and Sis. Esikia and I talked with over 80 people. It was a miracle if I ever saw one! Seriously. Contacting 80 people in a day doesn't happen. It was a huge blessing and set both of our hearts at ease. 

I know the Lord will provide when we put in our best effort. Even though we tried really hard to plan all kinds of different things and nothing really worked out, the Lord had a plan and really took care of us. I hope you all have a really great week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

P.S. A picture of Sis. Esikia and I. Don't mind my weird poof in my hair. I couldn't tell you what was going on with that. Needless to say... I fixed it.

Welcome to Silicon Valley...Finally!

Alooooha! :)

Well everyone, finally actually close to the mission office. Haha! Both Pleasanton and Hollister were kind of out in the middle of nowhere but now I'm kind of in the heart of it all! It's crazy and so much fun! My companion is Sis. Esikia and she is a Tongan Temple Square Missionary from America Samoa. :) Haha. Two polynesians together. :) It's been lots of fun.

As we drove away from the mission office I'm pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head on Tuesday, I was telling Sis. Esikia that driving to Hollister the 101 turns from like four lanes to three lanes to a two lane highway into the Highway 25, a one lane highway, to the point where there's actually a Stop sign. Anyways, I started freaking out when the highway went from four lanes to like six and then had like 3 on-ramp/off-ramps at the same time. Haha! So, to say the least, it's pretty different! 

In this area, my companion and I co-cover three wards each with a set of Elders. We cover the Campbell Ward, the Saratoga Ward, and the Los Gatos Ward. We've been going all over the place meeting lots of new people and the people here are seriously just great! The work here is really moving forward and we have two investigators with a baptismal date. One is a lady that we taught today is 90 years old and she is just the best! We came and taught her and she gave us a review of all that we had taught her previously! Talk about golden! I was blown away! I told her how amazed I was and she chuckled and said, "Eh, pretty good from 90, huh?" No, no pretty good for anyone! It was so great! 

Well, other than that, things are going great! I'm excited to be here in this new area and I am so excited for my little investigator in Hollister to get baptized on the 14th and I can't wait for our two investigators here! I am seriously so blessed.

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! Sorry I don't have pictures today! I'll attach one of me and my new companion next week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

(Here's her current address: 501 Hacienda Avenue, Apt. D30 Campbell, CA 95008. Mahalo for all the love and support! Love, Anela)

I'm Getting Transferred?

Holla from Hollister!!! (For the last time.)

Haha. Hi everyone! I hope your week was as great as mine! Sis. Young and I had an exceptionally wonderful week which all culminated to peanut butter shakes and baptismal date! :)

(Oh.. haha. I wasn't intending that to rhyme.)

Anyways, this week was great! The little boy that we teach is going to get baptized and I am so excited! It's going to be in a few weeks and I can't wait to see him get baptized. He is such a special son of our Heavenly Father and the changes in him have been amazing! He's been the only one so far that I've been able to go through all of the Preach My Gospel lessons with and I am so proud and excited for him. He is going to do such great things!

Everything else this week kind of pales in comparison to that but this week was really great! We were able to teach a bunch of people and eat a lot of Tri Tip. I guess it really is BBQ weather because I don't think I've eaten so much steak in a really long time. It was so so great! 

I also got a transfer call. So I have no idea where I'm heading but I'll know on Tuesday! Haha! It's really bittersweet to have to leave. I've come to love all of the people here so much and it breaks my heart to leave my two little investigators at such crucial moments but I know the Lord will take care of them and that he'll send a really great missionary here to help them. My heart is so heavy but I was talking to Sis. Young about this and I feel like it was hardest to leave my first area because I didn't think my heart would open again. I left thinking there is NO way I come come to love all these new people but yet, I really did! And now, even though I'm so sad to leave here, I know it'll be okay and wherever  I get sent, I know my heart will open again to the wonderful people I get the chance to meet there!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

(Aloha Gang - Please be sure to send any letters to the Mission Home until we get her new address.  Mahalo for all your love & support! Love, Anela)
California San Jose Mission
3975 McLaughlin Avenue, Ste. A
San Jose, CA 95121-2631

Wonderful...Wonderful Conferences :)

Aloha Everyone!

This week was another great one! We had another Poly Day, Zone Conference, Sisters Conference, and Stake Conference! So totally great. Poly Day isn't really a "conference" but hey... call it what you will. Sis. Young and I are doing great and even greater seeing that she's 6' 2" and great at volleyball. We both had lots and lots of fun at Poly Day. Haha.

So Monday was Poly Day and we had lots of fun. It was outside this time and we played Volleyball mostly and a little bit of Soccer and Rugby. The best part of it all was I looked down and I wasn't the only one without shoes on. Ahh....I was in a good place.

Tuesday was Zone Conference. We had a Q&A with our mission presidency. It was great! Missionaries were able to ask questions about everything! We got a lot of really great advice and I can't wait to put it all into practice!

Saturday was a Sisters Conference and it was so beyond great! We had a guest speaker, Sis. Elaine S. Dalton! Yes...that Elaine S. Dalton. We got to meet her after and she gave me a hug. Man, I felt so cool. Haha. It was really funny. She told Sis. Watkins, "they may be your sister missionaries, but they'll always be MY young women!" HAHA! Love it! President Watkins, also made it clear that HE was still the keynote speaker. Haha. Ohhh our mission president, gotta love him!

A lot of what was talked about I felt like was our divine potential and I was led back to those that we've been teaching. Our two little investigators are just amazing! They have so much ahead of them. They really have no idea how limitless their options are if they just embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then I thought about this, if I, a sister missionary, can still all this potential in our two sweet investigators, how much more so can Heavenly Father see our potential in them and in each of us?

It's pretty exciting stuff. No matter where we are, no matter our circumstance, no matter how far gone we believe we are, one thing remains... Heavenly Father's love. He loves us all individually. Sis. Watkins shared this with us that it really doesn't matter what we know, or what we think we know, what missionary work requires and what true discipleship requires is that we love.

Thank you to all of you for all that you do! I'm so grateful for all of you! I love you all! Have a great week! 

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

P.S. And to end this awesome week....we got pineapple! A ward member we visit always gives us fruit and because he knows I'm from Hawaii tries to get us good stuff from home. This week he got us two pineapple! Weeha! :)

Ahhh 11 Months.

Aloooooha! :)

I hope everyone's week was wonderful! This week was another great one with Sis. Young. She is jsut amazing! Incase you all just didn't know that. We were able to meet a bunch of really interesting people this week. Totally great. Another plus of missionary work, you get to meet people from all walks of life and from all over the place even in a little town like Hollister, CA.

On a hilarious note, we met a guy outside of Safeway the other day while we were trying to talk to people and invite people to look at mormon.org and give them copies of the Book of Mormon and we started talking to him. He said he'd been wondering what we do all the time because he sees us walking everywhere and then... Here's the best part. He tells, "Man, are you guys gellin' or what?" HAHAHAHA! I let him down easy and told him sadly, No, sorry, I don't wear Dr. Scholls. Haha. Totally made my day.

Other than that, we were able to meet some the new adorable families in the ward and had dinner with one of them. They are just so great! I'm so glad to see the families that have come into our ward because of the boundary change, they are going to do great things!

This coming week is going to be a really great one! There's another Poly Day today! Then tomorrow we have a Zone Conference. Even better than that, we get to teach my two favorite little investigators again this week. One tonight and the other on thursday. Those two are just my favorite.

Well, I hope everyone has a great week this week! I love you all!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan

What Happened To This Week?

Aloha Everyone! :)

This week seriously flew by. Like no joke. I think the ocean breeze carried it right away out of Hollister. I don't know what happened. Haha. But it's okay. It was still great.

Let's see, we taught a bunch of different people this week! We taught one of our investigators, the little boy, on Monday night and we are reviewing the lessons with him so we taught him about the Restoration of the gospel and used an object lessons with cups to "build" Christ's church. Well, he loved it so much and asked if he could keep it to show all of his family members how to build Christ's Church. It was great! 

We were also able to teach another one of my favorite people. She is a member of the ward and she lives out on a ranch and she unexpectedly had to go help with the horses because one the horses, was giving the people out there a hard time. As it happens a horse chiropractor was trying work on one of the horses and he just wasn't having any of it. So, we ended up sharing a message out in the barn with her and the horse chiropractor. It was pretty awesome to see all of these random things fall into place so we could teach this new lady we met, the horse chiropractor, a lesson as well! The Lord truly work in mysterious ways!

Well, the rest of the week was great! The Lord just keeps blessing us so much in Hollister. The ward members are just great! They are so willing to help us and love us! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sis. Ellis-Lui-Kwan