Sister Flake's Mission Blog: B I G Island

Aloha ohana!

I'm sure you've all been dying to hear all about what full field on the Big Island is like! Well, it's been an adventure, that's for sure. It was an adjustment going from being around 60 sisters, to being isolated with only my companion (the closest missionaries are 30 minutes away haha). It was a tough first few days, but things are going a lot better now! I LOVE it😀😊 Big island is wayyyy different than Oahu. It's a whole lot of lava rock!🌋 You can see Maui from Kona side too.

We live in a little studio next to a stake presidency member's home (the Loo's). It's a cute little home. It's weird only living with my companion, and no other sisters. It's wayyyy easier to use my decompress time wisely though haha (no distractions!). It's a SUPER rainy part of the island, and I've got lots of mosquitoe bits on my legs, but I found the repellent in our pad. Also, we've got these super noisy frogs at night. It's kind of fun to have all of these tropical sounds to fall asleep and wake up to, the only problem is that my current alarm sounds the exact same! Thankfully I've still woken up on time😉 There are also crab spiders here, and LOTS of them. There are webs everywhere, but I haven't walked into one yet so I'd consider it a success.🕸

I'm serving in Honoka'a. It's on the north shore of the island. It's a little over an hour away from Kona, but we are part of the Kona zone. There are two zones on the island, Kona and Hilo. Our area borders the Hilo zone. Our area is HUGE... like H U G E (no wonder they call this place big island). We have way more car miles allotted to us each month than I ever had in Laie/Hauula. I spend a lot more time in the car than I did before, but I'm slowly getting the area down, and have goals to better plan our visits so that we cluster them by location. From end to end in our area, it's about a 40 minute drive. We go all the way down a little ways past Pauuilo, and on the other side it goes to about Kukuihaele. We see other missionaries at district council once a week. We drive down to Waimea, about 30 minutes away. Oh, and there's WAY more pigeon spoken here😂 Sometimes I have to look at Sis Lavaka with a "what the heck did they just say... was that English??!" look on my face because I can't understand their islander accent. LOL.

My companion is Sister Lavaka. She is from Maui--yes, I said Maui, Hawaii haha--but is Tongan. She is awesome! I am really coming to love her😊 I'm grateful for her experience in the area. She is a hoot. It always just takes a few days to figure out how to work together with a new person.

My comp, Sis Lavaka! Here are results of Honokaa rain and no rain jacket💧

My ward is so awesome! At church on Sunday there were so many connections... what a small world. For example, apparently my great grandma Hirschi was Brother Wilkes' 1st grade teacher in St Charles! He loved her.

The Wilkes! Grandma Naomi was his 1st grade teacher❤

The Honokaa ward chapel is pretty small, and there are maybe 50 ish people who come to church each week (but there are 12 pages of people on the ward list...). We've got lots of work to do in the area! There are sooo many people to love and serve! We found SIX new people this week, which apparently is way more than any other week Sis Lavaka has had in the area, and we only had a half-week really, since I arrived on Thursday afternoon instead of Tuesday. We visited a LOT of potential people who are in our area book, but hadn't really been taught yet, or were taught months and months ago. I just wanted to give a quick peek into a few of the people we are teaching so you can be praying for them. Chelsea is our only person with a solid baptismal date as of right now. She is a miracle! The week before I got to the area, the elders referred her to Honokaa sisters because she'd been going to church with her mother-in-law in the elder's ward and wanted to know more. When they met with her last week, Chelsea told them that she's been wanting to be baptized since last November, and she picked the date of March 10 to be baptized. We got to meet with her once this week, and she is super neat. She is willing to change and act, which is crucial in conversion to the Savior and His gospel.

We are also teaching Junior. We had a wonderful lesson on the Plan of Salvation with him. He moved from Mexico a while ago, so sometimes we still have a bit of a language barrier, but the Spirit breaks through that😊 We are trying to help him understand how important the restored priesthood authority is. He feels good about being baptized, but pray that he can have the courage and understanding to commit to a specific date this week!

We also had a lesson with Tanya. We are excited about her. She grew up with religion but to her it seemed much too controlling, so she kind of jumped ship. Since having a baby last month, she's felt a desire to know if God is really there, and she hopes He is. She's willing to act as well, and we are so excited to teach her again on Thursday. It's hard for me to see other people grow up with such a different view of God and who He is vs. the loving Heavenly Father I know Him to be. It's a privilege to be a missionary and help others understand who God really is!

I officially survived with no vegetables besides my subway sandwich greens, and panda express green beans and broccoli. I haven't had veggies since WEDNESDAY. AH! I was SO happy to get to shop at Walmart today in Kona, and to buy VEGGIES😍

Meat, meat, meat! (but it was yummy)

We had our zone temple trip today. Full field missionaries with a temple on their island get to go every other transfer. I'm so happy I happened to come during the 'right' transfer! It was reassuring to feel 'home' at the temple. I miss being on the Laie temple grounds every day. I miss the sisters a lot too, but I know they are doing great things in Laie still😊