MAHALO!

Hey y'all!

First off, I would just like to say thank you to all you wonderful fabulous people who have been writing me and say I'M SO SORRY!! To all you wonderful fabulous people who have been writing me and haven't received a letter lately. It's official, I'm pretty sure I only end up with 1 hr to write letters and that it completely pathetic because all of you know how I like to write letters and completely decorate...SO if you haven't received a letter from me in a while, know that I really do love you but I just haven't had any time "/ 

But anyhoo, so this week me and my companion have really been working on Faith. Especially me. I totally thought I had a ton of faith...until I came on a mission...holy cow it requires SO much faith and SO many prayers for miracles. Right now our goal for baptisms this month for our zone is 30...now...that may not seem like a lot, especially for 15 companionships...but when you realize that LITERALLY 90% of the population in La'ie is Mormon, and like EVERY nonmember/partmember family has been talked to by about 50 sets of missionaries over the past 20 years and they're all sick of us....yeah...it's hard......BUT, BECAUSE our goal is 30, that means there really are THIRTY people just WAITING to hear the gospel and be baptize this month! WE just have to find them. SO we're working SUPER hard and really staying focused on our goal and doing whatever we can to reach it! (Please pray for us!)

So fun fact...my companion's birthday was on the 4th.......and if you haven't been on a mission let me describe to you how hard it is to do something without your companion knowing....it's IMPOSSIBLE!!!!!! She's ALWAYS, RIGHT next to!!! She even has to stand outside the bathroom when you go! BUT....I'm awesome....and I pulled off my amazing Birthday decorating skills DESPITE this challenge! MUAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAH! Here me roar! With the help of the Temple VC directors going all the way to Honolulu to buy me some streamers (I'm not kidding when I say there isn't a  walmart or anything like it here in La'ie in our Zone) I was able to completely decorate our apartment for her 24th Birthday :D :D :D :D :D I'm not sure if you understand how proud of myself I am haha because it TOTALLY surprised her to wake up the next morning to find the apartment completely decked out! YAY!!! I love making people's day!

Also...ATTENTION ALL FORMER ROOMMATES AND CLOSE FRIENDS!!: you know how I hate cooking over the stove? Like...you know...hate it? WELL, I made pancakes the other day and they were PERFECT! BAM! I would upload pics but I forgot 9again) to ask my companion to bring her SD card-USB port. BUT I shall upload them next week! :D And I can't wait to upload more pictures of Hawaii!!! Seriously, it is BEAUTIFUL here! 

So I'm pretty sure my favorite part of being a missionary right now is the tram tours, I love being able to talk to people from all over and have them be completely absorbed in vacationing and family, and then bring them to the temple grounds and just bearing my testimony to them about what the gospel can do for their family and have them just get all wide-eyed at the possibility of being to together forever, it's SO cool! But it's so crazy because sometimes (ok, a LOT of times) you get these people who are SO interested and you can TELL they really felt the spirit and they want to know more but then they don't want the missionaries to come over! GRRRRRR!!! It's so sad! Like the one couple from India, they're Hindu, and they literally got a flat tire RIGHT outside the VC and they (believing in karma) just KNEW they needed to come in and get a tour and learn about the temple, and they did and they loved it! BUT, they "are happy with where [they] are at in life and love [their] religion" so they said no thanks to anything we offered them....so depressing....BUT we're still doing what the Lord wants us to do so we know he's proud of us! And he proves it to us by having random people walk up to us and give us cookies and ice pops! (no joke, that was like the best day ever) 

Well anyhoo I hope you all had an awesome summer! Good luck with school! I love you all so much! Work hard! Pray always!

love,

Sis. Bradley