With God, all things are possible

 I'm in a pill box on the top of a mountain! it was pretty cool. The picture above is on top of where I was in this picture

Not much happened this week, but we are just continuing to teach our investigators and get them ready for baptism. 

Over the past few weeks since we have bikes now, my companion has lost close to 10 pounds! I'm sure it's because it's still pretty hot and humid over here. But it's been awesome because a ton of people will pick us up and give us rides even if they aren't members. So it's actually helped us to be able to teach a little bit more :) 

I found a scripture that I really like referring to. It's the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus how he will be able to make it into the kingdom of heaven.. Jesus told him to simply follow all the commandments.. and the rich young man said that he already does that! So Jesus told him to leave all his riches behind and pick up his cross and follow him. The rich young man didn't like that and got sad and walked away... Jesus then told the disciples following him that for that man it would be harder for him to make it into the kingdom of heaven than a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. The disciples asked how can we just leave everything and still provide for our families and survive? And Jesus told them "For man it is impossible, but not with God. With God, all things are possible." This transfer I'm going to try to focus on that quote and further put my faith in the Lord, and be as selfless as I can.  I know if I rely on the Lord I'll be able to be further converted to the gospel and also Will be able to convert others. 

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

Love Elder Collings

More Pictures

A visit from Elder Holland

 So last week we did service for almost half the week! We went to a lady named "Auntie D" and she is very disabled and can't move.. and she has been running out of money because the tenants renting out her apartment weren't paying their rent and that's her only income! She couldn't do anything about it because she is bed bound. They finally got the tenants out from the house and they had pretty much destroyed it! 

One of our members called us up and we helped this whole week to renovate it! Now the church is renting it out to some sister missionaries!! Which gets me into my next story haha! 

We had transfers last week and they brought in new sisters to take over the Kaneohe 4th ward. I'm only in the 3rd ward now! But since the sister missionaries have to have a car.. we had to give them our car. So now I'm on a bike hahha!! It's awesome though, I love riding it around! Everyone always honks their horns and waves at us. 

When Elder Holland came it was amazing! I got to see him two days in a row, because we had a meeting with all the missionaries, and then on Sunday we had a special stake conference with him as well! He was super funny!! At the missionary meeting, he told us he wanted to shake all of our hands and wanted us to tell him our name and where we are from. So we all lined up 1 by 1 and shook his hand! And he just left it at that.. about half way through his talk he paused and said elders and sisters... I didn't really care about your names or where you're from.. I already forgot them anyway.. But what I did want to do is interview you! And lucky for you, you all passed. hahaha!! It was insane!! 

Part of his talk was him telling us about what makes him  the most sad.. and he said that when he sees a less active RM he can't stand it. And after that he started yelling at us and said "YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO GO BACK TO WHO YOU WERE BEFORE YOUR MISSION! YOU LITERALLY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT!" Then he started talking about all the covenants we made etc.. But needless to say I don't think anyone in the Hawaii Honolulu mission is going to be less active now.. hahaha! It scared me half to death!!!! 

Other than that I have just been doing my best to be the best servant of the Lord I can be!! I love you and hope you have a great week!

Love Elder Collings. 

PS/Happy late birthday mom!!!! I have a card I'm going to send home soon!!!! :):)  Love you! Glad you're doing better.

Auntie Q

This week was pretty rough! I've never been sworn at so much haha! But I had a awesome miracle that made it all worth it! 

On Wednesday we didn't have too much work, so I was looking at some of the people I tracted into, and planned to just stop by and try to keep busy... But this one lady "Auntie Q", I saw her name and I felt prompted that we should go see her! When we got there, we pulled in and I saw her looking out her door, so I knew she was home. As we were walking up to her I saw that her eyes were pretty red and I could tell she had been crying... I asked how she was doing and if there is anything we can do to help! She told us that her husband is in the hospital and she doesn't know if he is going to make it. She said she has been home alone all day worried... So we started to teach her the Plan of Salvation and how our families can be together forever! In the middle of the lesson she just started crying... I asked what was wrong and she said this morning she prayed to Heavenly Father to send someone from any religion to come and tell her that things are going to be okay, and that we can be with our loved ones again. It was an amazing experience and made my testimony so much stronger. I am so thankful for the the opportunity to serve our Heavenly Father!  I can see him blessing my life and all of my friends and family! 

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

Love Elder Collings

January 2016

Everyone is getting married hahha!! 

Didn't have a ton this week.. just the missionary grind! I had three less active families who I've been working with ever since I got here to come back to church!! On  Sunday all of them showed up! So I finally saw some of the fruits of my labor for them hahaha! 

On Sunday I gave 15 minute talk and it was no big deal! But when I stood up to go give my talk at the pulpit I opened up my binder to grab my talk and everything I had prepared was gone... hahaha! So I ended up just winging it up there! I ended up just baring my testimony and talking about Missionary work and some of my experiences! But man, when I saw it was gone my heart dropped a little bit hahaha!!

Me and my comp worked super hard this week and led our zone in almost everything! So that was really cool.  I'm sorry I'm going to write a short message! But I promise next week I'll tell you guys a lot about whats been happening! 

Love you and hope you have an amazing week! And thank you!! Love you !

Elder Collings

After 3 weeks of no letters... YAY!!

I'll try the best I can to write a long letter.. haha! It's so hard.. But we get to go to Pearl Harbor every couple of months for service! So they took us and gave us a short tour and then we helped them clean the ship and re-wire some things! It was super cool and we met a lot of members there!! 

The weeks just fly by.. I feel like I get to talk to you guys a lot more than just Mondays because how much joy I am having out here and I'm keeping myself as busy as possible, so the days just go by soo fast.. haha!

I've been introducing a family missionary plan that we came up with! So we visit all of our members and less actives once a week and go over a plan with them! the goal is to read, pray about missionary work and invite someone to a ward function every day for 28 days! And when we're not doing that, we are either tracting out our area or meeting with our investigators! 

The start of this transfer they split one of our wards to bring in more missionaries because the work has been increasing so much! When we only covered one ward we almost tracted the whole area and in one week. But found around 14 new investigators who told us we could come back and have lessons with them. The feeling of doing missionary working and helping bring others unto Christ is by far the best feeling that I've ever had in my life, and I wish I could be doing this for so much more than 2 years haha! 

For new years we went to a members house and that gave us soo much food haha! I think that was the first time I've gotten sick since I've been out here! The picture he sent home was only the beginning of the feast! I had like 3 more servings of just that and then a ton of dessert... It was horrible haha!! But that night our zone got together after and played basketball and watched movies, etc. at the church, so I was able to work off some of the weight :)

One other thing I've been trying to do ( I should really stop because it's making me broke every month.. hahaha!!) But Hawaii has a ton of homeless people... So every time we come across someone we give them food and cash that we keep out every month just for them. They have the sweetest hearts and I wish I could give them so much more.. 

Also!! Something that I am SUPER excited about is that Elder Holland is coming to Hawaii to talk to the elders and meet each of them individually! He is also having a fireside with the members that we get to go to!  I couldn't be more excited! I feel like this is a once in a lifetime thing!! I'm trying my hardest to keep as busy as I know I can, so that I can further progress the Lord's work here in Hawaii. I can feel the Lord's hand in my life so strong and I know that as I further study, fast, and pray, I'll be able to continue to bring more souls unto this perfect gospel of Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope everything is well.

Making an IMU pit

This week has really showed me the culture out here! I love all the people of Hawaii so much! 

The first story that happened this week was when I went and visited a less active family. When we showed up they were already leaving, so I just shared a scripture with them. We just talked about their story with them for a little bit. We found out the sister's brother, who we were talking to, is homeless. He was really skinny and only had a small z! He knew a lot about the church because when he was being raised he went to seminary and other church activities! So he was really nice to us. He had some food that he had been given on Thanksgiving from someone! He gave us over half of his plate! And for them you never deny food or money etc.. because it's very disrespectful. So even though we tried to say no, he ended up making us take it. I had some money in my pocket so I tried to offer it to him. And he just said "no, no. I have plenty" and pulled out a couple bucks in his pocket. So I tried to give it to him again and he just said no, you've already helped just by being here to talk with me. 

Another thing that happened this week was right after Thanksgiving! I learned how to cook the food underground! They call it an Imu pit over here! I did a lot of service working in an imu pit! So my shoes were pretty messed up haha! But one of the members just gave me a brand new pair of Nike shoes like it was no big deal! I can't tell you how nice these people are over here.  (We asked Conner to show us how to cook this way when he gets home) It's really different! We wouldn't be able to do it the right way back home. You need banana leaves because they hold a lot of water, and you put them everywhere! Then you also need lava rock, because other rocks will explode because they get too hot.