Sister Danielle Heath: One for the books...

April 16, 2018

This week was crazy to say the least. I went to Waimanalo with Sister Nichalson on Tuesday.

Our first visit was with an 8 yr old girl named Dania. She is super sweet. She was raised here in Hawaii but she is Chuukese! So funny... I thought I would never see any Chuukese again but my first lesson here was with one! She is super cute and wants to be baptized. We are just waiting for her Grandma's approval.

Afterward, we went to visit an investigator and met his friend. He claimed to be agnostic and I asked him how he came to that belief and he said he couldn't explain it which I thought was kind of funny. But I guess that's what agnostic means...maybe we can help him know and decide.

Later we visited a less-active member. He has a young family. We ended up sharing the Prince of Peace video after getting to know him. Him and his daughters watched. They really liked it. We talked a little about the Book of Mormon and testified of it. The girls were excited to read and he said they would read it that night!

Our zone got to help make some health and safety videos for missionaries that will come out in about a year. They will watch these videos that are made before they come out to help them be more healthy and safe. We demonstrated how to be safe when doing service. It was a cool experience.

That night we were going to visit someone for a lesson and it started pouring rain. She ended up not being home but her grandpa was with his 2 biker friends. We actually ended up talking to them and they invited us into the garage. We had a good conversation about religion. The rain kept pouring so much that it was coming into the garage so they shut the door. They had some other friends over and were making some food. We ended up sharing the restoration and they all listened intently. It was really cool even though they might not have been all there. We hope we can share more with them. We were able to give them a copy of the Book of Mormon. They all seem to be open too... especially the grandpa, he said he is at the age now where he just wants to gain more knowledge. They offered us some food which was good. The grandpa went to the back to get all the water out of the back because it was flooding, he used a hose. One of the other guys went too to make sure his house was okay. After a while we decided to head home too before it got worse. As we were driving home there was so much water on the road! Cars were making waves! We also drove past a river type thing and it was splashing over onto the road! Then we get to our street and the water keeps getting deeper. Pretty soon we get to this group of guys standing out in the water saying we aren't going to make it. The water was super deep I could see it just below the window! We also saw a truck driving through and it was up to the doors! So we went around another way that is perpendicular to our road but it was still pretty deep from that direction. We ended up waiting a while because we didn't want to get caught in the current... Our street was literally a river of water. We even saw a garbage can float down. Eventually it went down so we decided to drive to our house. We made it but then the garage door wouldn't open so we had no way to get into our house! We were going to try and get in through our windows but there was no way to get to the doors because both sides of the house were a few inches of mud.

So thankfully the ladies from upstairs came to help us. One of them climbed on a garbage can and through a window into the garage so we could open it...we had to do it manually and a bunch of water came out from the garage. Once we got into the house we noticed our kitchen had flooded. We kind of checked the rooms and they didn't seem wet so we just focused on trying to get the water out. The fun part is what to use? Plus there wasn't any electricity. We don't have much as missionaries. So I found a mop in the garage and tried using that. We tried sweeping the water into a our small kitchen garbage but you could only get so much in until it comes back out. Let's just say it was a long process and took the sacrifice of some towels. Once the other sisters came home from their dinner appointment we realized water had gotten into the edges of the rooms too! The other sisters were super tired and went to bed. I cleaned a little more and put stuff back and showered off.

The next morning we went to see the damage and some other houses got it pretty bad and there was mud everywhere. We found out it happened because some trees fell and blocked the drainage right above our street so that's what caused it. We helped a non-member who got flooded pretty bad for a while. The worst thing about the mud is the only way you can really clear it well is with more water... So we spent a few hours helping her. Then we cleaned a little at our house. It was a long weekend to say the least. When we got back the house stunk! Mud had even come up a little on the carpet where the rooms flooded. Definitely grateful that we had a tile kitchen though...it would've wrecked wood. So I was exhausted all Sunday. But it was really fun to get to know the ward and see some familiar faces from stake activities when I was in Kaneohe. It was exciting too because our Bishop is super missionary minded so much that he wants the members to find people for us to teach so we don't have to proselyte!

This week started off so well. I had some greenie fire I guess or I have just grown a lot since I was in Kaneohe. I was excited to talk to everyone and share a message with them. We met some great people and I am excited to see what happens! I love this area already!

Aloha,

Sister Heath