Preparing for the Temple

Aloha! 

This week was an adventure. We have been trying to contact all of the part member families in our ward. While we were walking through an apartment complex looking for one of the houses, we had a girl who came and stopped me and the elder I was on exchanges with. She told us that her husband is a Mormon and he is kinda lost right now, he hasn't been to church in years and she felt like he may be depressed and just told us all these things about him. Then in closing she said that he could really use good friends from his church to help give him a foundation in life. I started to tell her about how our church is all family orientated and that we would love to come in to share a message with them. She was excited and brought us in and we taught their family. The lesson we taught was about having a foundation on Jesus Christ, and how the ways that we can simply do that is by practicing CPR: Church, Praying & Reading the scriptures. We commited them to start as a family that day to do those things and they agreed! The next day was Sunday and they came to church! And it just so happened early that morning I got a call to speak in sacrament meeting, haha and we were singing in the choir as well! It was a very busy day. But my talk was all on how the scriptures influence our lives, and I shared some stories about the scriptures blessing me in my life. After sacrament meeting that couple came and invited us over for dinner that night! Even though we are constantly stuffed we accepted so we could go teach them again haha! She shared that night how their family wants to be sealed in the temple and asked how that process is. So we told them how the first step for now is baptism!  We have lessons we come to teach people to help them reach that point. So they told us they would love to take the lessons and work on progressing to that point.

It was an awesome experience! The Lord truly does answer prayers and help lead us to those who are searching for the truth. It's always an amazing experience whenever the Lord uses you as a instrument in his work to share the gospel. Hope you guys have an awesome week! Love Elder Collings

Aloha!

Aloha and malo lelei! 

We made some good progress this week! In our Palangi ward we have so much work! It's crazy. We have about 4 part member families who we are teaching that are coming to church every week. All of them have kids who need to be baptized. It's pretty hard because the whole family including the kids want to be baptized, the only hold back is that the fathers of all these kids won't allow it. We discussed this in our ward council and we'll be holding a fast this fast and testimony meeting coming up to soften the hearts of the fathers of these families that we can help them. I'm not too worried because I know the Lord can soften hearts so I'm excited for these coming weeks. In the Tongan ward we are still trying to work with the ward for referrals but as much as we try I think they mistake referrals for food sometimes hahaha! But I'm trying to learn as much as possible! Over all everything is going great. Hope you have a great week! And happy birthday dad!! Ofa atu

 Elder Collings

Transferred to a Tongan Ward

So I'm getting transferred to Waipahu! I'll be serving in a Tongan ward now.. haha! It'll be interesting to try and learn Tongan. I'm sorry I didn't email last week! But man, I had a really crazy week this week! I'm pretty sad to leave Kalihi but the ward is still in good hands. We were able to meet a new person this week and set them with a date and bring them to church. So hopefully in this up coming transfer she will be able to progress more! I'm getting really bad with emails again haha so I apologize.. I get really busy and so much is going on.. and with the college applications before I didn't have time to email a lot because we only have one hour to email a week. But now  its calmed down so I'll start writing more I promise haha! I love you! And I can't wait to talk to you guys! 

Ofa atu! Tau toki sio!

Aloha and Malo lelei! 

Pretty crazy week this week! So being in the Tongan ward I cover all of Oahu now. Wherever Tongan members live in our ward we can go see them. It's very different from being in a normal ward because we can do any finding by ourselves now. All of our work has to be generated by the members.  So pretty much all we are doing is going through our ward list and visiting everyone and teaching them, then asking for family or friends we can teach. So far we have found one person we're teaching and we set him with a baptismal date for June 3rd. he is living in their house and was curious what we had to share! My goal now is to not get fat at all.. but its pretty hard haha! After I called home on mothers day, we had three dinner appointments and all of them made us so much food! We always eat a lot on our mission in Hawaii but this is somethin crazy hahaha! The saying they have over here is "Kai ke mate" Which means.. Eat until you die. haha! So pray for me. And maybe send some weight loss pills. Love Elder Collings

New Companion