Primary Program with Investigators Involved....

Man this week went super fast! I cant believe I will be hitting 3 months in 2 days.... THASSS CRAZZZYYY! But even though this week went super fast, it was so good!

One highlight from this week was realizing my language is starting to come along. I can't say enough how real the Gift of Tongues is! But its so nice to see all the hard work and studying finally paying off and being able to say more in lessons of what I am thinking! Its not where I want it, but being able to understand more and talk more is always a good thing and always make the day that much better! I really pushed myself with my language this week because its a 95% chance I will be staying in Mattawa after this transfer and if I don't know how to use my Spanish well I'm about to lose all of the investigators in this area haha. So my new goal is to ONLY speak Spanish from now on, It really helps that my companion is from Venezuela because I get to hear really good Spanish. I started this ONLY Spanish talking for the past 2 days and have seen my Spanish grow in so many ways and have seen the gift of tongues really help me! I'm super excited for Tuesday because I will be doing exchanges with my zone leader and I'll be staying in Mattawa with him. This will be my first time in Mattawa doing work without my trainer. This will also be my first time driving in 3 months lol so Im way pumped about that too!

We were able to do service at the food bank and I was able to talk to a lot of the people coming in to get their food in Spanish. I am seriously so blessed to be in the area I am in because everyone here is from mexico and can only speak Spanish. But the service for the food bank was so fun! It reminded me of the service me and my family and friends would do every December, making food for the homeless! There is something about serving and seeing the smiles on the peoples faces that you are helping out that just brings so much happiness to me!

Yesterday the primary had their program and the family we are working with that are so close to baptism came and the kids were able to sing and have parts in the program!!! Man I felt like a dad watching my kids sing haha because I was so happy to see them sing the primary songs and look so happy with all the other kids! I have been able to feel the love God has for each and everyone of us by helping this family out and its the best feeling ever!

Such a good week though! I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween... Me and my companion will be doing studies while everyone else is getting candy so boooooooo haha but I love you all and hope everyone has a blessed week and eats lots of candy!!

Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

RUNNIN EN LA MANANA

MY PUMPKIN - HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Repping MMT from Yakima Washington

BOMB FOOD FOR FREE DE LA PULGA

That Feeling When You Are Asked To Baptize Someone....

Another great week in the books! We had the opportunity to go to the Colombia River Temple this week and it was so GOOD!!!! I'm not use to temples being that small though because all the temples in Utah are so big! haha but it was still so pretty and the spirit was just as strong! As missionaries we are only able to go to the temple twice a year.... So we have to cherish every moment! The peace that you have in the temple is so unreal and the love that you can feel is awesome! We are so lucky to have temples!!!

One highlight from this week that I will never forget was when we were planning with this family about their baptism! I have grown really close with this family and love them like my own! One of the boys reminds me so much of my little cousin Vete! I've grown really close with him!! But as we were planning the mom of the family asked me if I could be the one to baptize the son!! Man the feeling that came over me at that time, I can't even put into words but it was so amazing. I gladly told her I would! I didn't think that my first baptism was going to come during my training transfer but I am so lucky and blessed for this opportunity! If the feeling I felt just from having the mom ask me to baptize her son was that good, I don't even know what I'm going to be feeling when I baptize him and allow him to be closer to his Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ! I can't wait, we are planning to have them get baptized in November, so I hope everything works out for this family!

This week we tried to do a lot of tracting so we can find more investigators. We were able to find 6 new investigators this week!! Which got us pretty hyped. But during knocking door after door we had some interesting experiences lol. One of the houses we knocked this grandma opened the door and she was a hardcore catholic. She started yelling, waving her arms, and speaking the fastest Spanish ever haha. I didn't understand anything she was saying besides she thinks that our god is Joseph Smith.. haha it was crazy and we just laughed it off and went to the next house. But then the next house we went to we knocked on the door and the guy inside yells, "quien es?" we said the missionaries and he said no one is home and we were like then who are we talking to and he said the spirit of the guy that lives here. haha it was pretty funny, we left him a pass along card and left. Some people that we meet hear the craziest things about our church. But it was good week of tracting a lot because of the people that we found! I love this work and I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for allowing me to serve a mission because its seriously the best thing ever!!!

I love you all and challenge everyone to serve and forgive more! Those two things can bring us so much closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I hope you all have a good and blessed week! Thank you all for the emails and the packages, Im so grateful for all of you and I love you all so much!

Amor

Elder Ka'ili

Attending the Columbia Temple

the crazy fog on the way to the temple

the crazy fog on the way to the temple

The Colombia River Temple

-letters from my fav people

aunty nicas package!

Starting my picture wall

The Big Pig that got away....

This week was such a good week. We had interviews with President Jackman and Sister Jackman and exchanges with the zone leaders. I feel like every time I talk to President and Sister Jackman I learn so much! They are seriously so awesome!

One of the families that we are working have there baptismal date next Friday, so we were with them a lot this week! Man they have been up and down on thinking if they should get baptized or not or feeling ready! I just know that baptism is what this family needs so much right now! But its crazy how you can feel the Lord's love for all of his children through you when you serve and really care about the people that you are teaching. I have grown to love this family so much. The mom feeds us every time we go over there too lol. But I pray and hope that they will go through with their baptism this Friday and not back out!! Funny story with this family this week though haha. They own 2 pigs (I don't know why because they never even do anything with them lol) but one of the pigs got out, so she told us to go get the pig in the cage and me and my comp were running all around trying to get this stupid pig(and this pig is huge... and surprisingly fast lol), but we didn't end up getting the pig and it actually went to the neighbors yard and messed everything up and now they have a fine lol, we don't know if its our fault that we scared the pig off their property but we still gave them a fire lesson that day haha. Ill attach the video of us chasing the pigs under this!

During exchanges, I was able to bless this mom that is going through a hard time. She wasn't a member but her little boy was going to surgery the next day and she asked us to come over and give her one! She had heard what priesthood blessing can do and how powerful they are. Its crazy to me that I met this mom for the first time but I feel like I knew her elsewhere and while I was giving the blessing I just remember that I felt that I have known this mom for my whole life! It was an awesome experience and shows me that people are put in our paths for a reason!

This past Sunday I was able to give a talk in my Spanish Branch! It was an awesome experience! After all the members in the branch were teasing me saying I'm not a Tongan or a Samoan anymore but I am Mexican for the rest of my life. I love all the members here they are seriously so awesome haha. One of the members is from Spain! His Spanish is so crazy and way good haha. I wish I was serving in Spain, I want my Spanish to sound like that lol. But yeah here in Mattawa I'm going to come out sounding like a Mexican! Something that Mexicans use for "what" is mande, so I have been saying that a lot and my trainer who is from Venezuela always gets mad and says stop saying mande lol you aren't from mexico, say como or que to sound like a Venezuelan lol!

Such a good week and thank you all for the emails and the love! I love you all and hope everyone has a blessed week!

Amor,
Elder Ka'ili

Become Fishers of Men.....

This week was such a good week! We had Zone Conference as well with General Conference! So this week was so spiritually uplifting. I was able to see what I need to improve and what I need to take away to become a better missionary! Me and my companion also were able to do a pretty crazy service project as we helped a member build roofs for the flea market for 2 hours! haha I was way sore because I haven't lifted heavy like that for a min! Lol but.....

My first Zone Conference was so awesome! We talked a lot about Faith and Miracles. We focused on following Christ and becoming Fisher of Men in our missions like Jesus Christ says in Matt 4:17-23 to his first disciples. I love that scripture and I loved how my mission president compared it to us as missionaries. As Jesus says In verse 19 and 20 in Matt 4: 19) And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. 20) And they straightway left their nets, and followed him." Just as his disciples dropped everything and followed our savior never looking back, we as missionaries are leaving everything at home and following our savior and never looking back. We also talked about faith and confidence. I realized the two work hand and hand with each other. When we have confidence in ourselves we have faith in ourselves that we can do this work and be able to serve the people as our savior would. When we have faith, we will see miracles. Something that I have had a lot of faith in but not so much confidence in is my language. Learning a new language is hard but after this zone conference I learned once I have the confidence in myself to be able to speak the language, I can have faith that Heavenly Father will do the rest as I am talking to people everyday! I learned a whole lot more too because It was such a good conference. I am already excited for November to have another one lol. I was also able to meet a ton of missionaries in the other zones as well so that was tight too!

GENERAL CONFERENCE BOIIIII! Ahhh such a good conference. I was able to watch two sessions in english and the other two In Spanish with families that we have been working with and are so close to be baptized! it was so good! This is the first conference that I actually paid attention to the talks and took down notes, which I am way mad about because I've been missing out on so much that I could've applied in high school and in my life before the mission....(I'm so stupid). I went into conference with so many questions and they were all being answered right from the beginning! All the talks were so good!! Also 2 hr church (I knew this was going to happen) but I love it! It allows families to spend more time together teaching and learning from one another about the gospel. I loved all the talks on families and being able to get through hard things in this sinning world we live in! There is always peace in Christ and if we are able to see that and recognize that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are always there for us, then we will be able to feel peace! My two favorite talks out of all of the sessions were Elder Hollands Sunday Afternoon talk and Elder Oaks in the Saturday Morning session! I was able to take so much from both that can help me become a better missionary and also a better person! Something that I loved that Elder Oaks said was "Don't try and change the church before you try and change yourself". I love that because some people have so much pride and think they are better than the church to try and say "why is the church doing this or why is the church doing that". Those are the wrong questions we should be asking we should be asking, "What am I doing this or why am I doing that, I need to change my ways to follow and align my life with the teaching of the living prophets and apostles." We need to swallow our pride, change, and recognize that these prophets and apostles that we hear receive revelation for this church from god! I loved Elder Oaks talk! Elder Hollands talks are always good but I loved that he touched on forgiveness. Something that we all need to work on. I loved that he reminded us "Live together in love, the spirit of contention is not of Christ". I love that quote because so many times when we get in fights or somebody does something that offends you, a loved one or a friend we take it personally and have so many hard feeling against the them. Something that Elder Holland said was we need to forgive and forget, heal those wounds, and love one another. Look at the person as Christ looks at them. Swallow your pride and solve contention. I loved those 2 talks but I also loved all the other ones as well! It was just such a good conference all around!!!!! And 12 more temples!!! I didn't really like when the people were cheering but haha President Nelson didn't seem to phased on it haha. I loved the Prophets talk at the end. He explained why everything is happening and really made clear of why we were doing these changes! I loved how he said study these messages starting this week! I'm going to be listening to a talk every morning during breakfast. I know if we follow the counsel of our prophet, our lives will go much smoother!

Thank you to everyone who sent me letters and emails this week! I enjoy them so much and I am so grateful to all of you! Shoutout to Grandma Loo and Mi Momma for sending me a letter!! I love you guys all so much, Have a blessed week! Also happy birthday to my Uncle Tai!!!

Service Project

Service Project

General conference at church

Late night snack, my comp

My grill

From Grandma Loo

Small Promptings, Slammed Doors, and Big Wins!!!

Man what a week! But before I talk about last week, THIS WEEK IS GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! LETSSS GOOOOO! This general conference is going to be huge and I am so excited! I have heard so many things that might happen and I am excited to see which things happen and which things don't! I cant wait to hear Elder Holland speak! I have really grown to love him as an apostle and him as a speaker. He is so motivating and loves this gospel so much! I cant wait to hear President Nelson Speak as well! Everyone is saying President Nelson is going to drop a bomb! In all the Apostle to missionary devotionals we have watched they have all hinted at something big is coming this conference! I cant wait!

But this week was such a good week!

At the beginning of this week I went through my first exchange of the mission! I was able to go to another area called Othello with Elder Davis my zone leader! He is such a good missionary! We were able to do a lot of work and It was nice seeing how other experienced missionaries function and get some new advice from him of how to be a better missionary! It was weird being in an apartment and being able to hear cars at night.. haha I kinda missed my trailer in the middle of the field lol. But yeah it was such good experience. He really pushed me with my Spanish in contacting and it made me realize how much I know. One of the doors we were knocking he was like I'm not talking at all and I was like yeah right, but then the door opened and it was silent for like 5 sec with the old Latino lady looking at me and I was like crap and just opened my mouth and I was able to speak back and forth with her and even taught her about our gospel blesses families in Spanish! THE GIFT OF TONGUES... man its so real! But yeah I gained a lot of confidence in that exchange! It so different speaking in the MTC and then speaking in the field haha I didnt realize that until this past week.

During the week I've realized that following the Holy Ghost promptings are so key in missionary work! I've had 2 major experiences this week where I was just like oh my gosh did that just really happen after we were done teaching.

First Experience: On Friday me and my comp used our dinner gift card for lunch because we thought that we were going to be able to eat with one of the less active families that night. They totally bailed on us and so me and my comp had no money for dinner and we couldn't drive back to our house because we didn't have the miles for that day. So we prayed and after one of the members called us and was like " Hey I don't know if you guys have dinner tonight but my wife is getting dinner out of the oven and we would like it if you guys would come eat with us!" Me and my comp looked at each other and were like no WAY! so we went over there and ate with this old couple in our ward! They were so nice! After dinner we asked the couple if they had any referrals for us, the Hermano said " Yeah I want to go visit a friend that his 2 daughters got in a bad crash, and I think they could use a visit from me and you two" We told him we could and told him to let us know when he wanted to go. The next day me and my comp were having the worst day, so many people bailing on us and nobody was answering their doors and it was way windy and cold. At around 8 we decided to say a prayer and ask where we should go. After the prayer my comp was like lets go tract here in this neighborhood. We have never tracted here. We knocked on 3 doors and again slam,slam, slam. Elder Corrasco was so confused why he got such a huge prompting to come to this neighborhood. We decided lets knock one more door and a lady opens the door, we talk to her and introduce ourselves and she lets us in. When we walk in there were 2 girls one in crutches and ones face was all cut up and bruised. Me and my comp looked at each other and we were like this is the family that the Hermano from the night before wanted us to visit!!! We turned and saw the dad and we introduced ourselves and he said that he knew a member of our church and we were like oh we know! Crazy thing is there was another family that was at the house visiting them as well, and it was the other inactive family we were trying to visit earlier that night! Man, me and my comp couldn't stop smiling at each other! After we taught the lesson the father of the family thanked us and told us he really needed spiritual support that night. Me and my comp went to the car and were like did that just really happen! HAHA! Heavenly Father placed all of us perfectly that night and if we didn't follow the promptings of the holly ghost we would've never met that family and give them the spiritual support they needed! Its crazy to think about how all the timing had to happen for all of us to meet there perfectly. All the doors that got slammed in our faces that day was for a reason, so we could be at that house at night at the perfect time!

Second Experience: Another experience was last night after Book of Mormon class. We had a prompting by the spirit to visit this family that is inactive. We didn't know what to teach about but we knew we just needed to go over there. When we got there we said a prayer and asked to help us get inside the house because every time we go over there they come up with a new excuse why they can't be taught at that moment... We got out of the car and decided to show a video about the commandments. When we were walking to their house their car pulled up and had a trunk full of groceries. Me and my comp were smiling because we knew that was the way to get inside the house! After helping them get all their groceries inside the house we were able to share our message. They mentioned to us that they have been thinking about church and knew that we were sent there for a reason. They also said we were a reminder of keeping the sabbath day holy and going shopping was not keeping the sabbath day holy! It was another miracle by our Heavenly Father using us as his tools! It was awesome! It's crazy how everything happens for a reason and that Heavenly Father plans it perfect for us to be able to teach his children!

I love being a missionary and seeing these experiences everyday!!! The Lord puts those small promptings in all of our heads to do good things and be able to do the things he would if he were on this earth! All the good promptings we get are for a reason, it might be for you and it might be for someone else but you will never know unless you follow them! Let the spirit be your guide and your life will be 20x better!

Something that I am trying to improve in my life and as a missionary is being more humble. The people that we teach are the most humble people that I have met in my life. One of the hermanos that we are teaching moved here from mexico and sleeps on the tile in an apartment with 4 other men from mexico! But this hermano is the nicest person ever and is always making sure we are ok when we are teaching him lessons. Another example is this family that has just been baptized. They live in this beat down trailer in the backyard of someones house. When we went there for the first time, I was like oh my gosh I am so spoiled. We sat down on his bed and it literally almost broke but there he was trying to find us some food in his pantry to feed us. It humbles me so much meeting all these people and seeing how they are living yet they are so happy!

Thank you to all you for the emails and shout out to my Aunty Nica and my family for the bomb package. (Aunty Nica, those smores bars will be killed probably by tonight lol and thank you so much for the other gift, it will be used wisely lol!)

I hope you all have a good week and I challenge all of you to prepare for general conference! Have the best week ever!

AMOR,
Elder Ka'ili



Me making Grape juice straight from the garden with grumpy grandpa lol



My packages


My dog




my comp's face all the time


packages