12 dogs?!

howzit errbody? Sending a quick email before I go to the temple for the first time in over a year! I'm so excited. Here's how my week went.

Monday: supposed to be P-day (prep day/day off), but we ended up doing service down at Uncle Ainslie Loo's ranch from 9-3. I'd like to think we got extra blessings for working on a P-day. Then at night we went on visits with our Ward Mission Leader, Maka, (yes, the one that wants to murder his neighbor) and that was awesome. We took groceries to a couple we're teaching, Orson and Janice Wilcox, because Janice's dad passed away a few days prior. Then we went and saw Kawika and since Maka is a cowboy, him and Kawika hit it off. Then we went and saw Braddah Leroy who is a less active member who was once in the bishopric a long time ago. Braddah Leroy and Maka are good friends so they were chatting up a storm and it was all in strong pidgin and it was pretty much the greatest conversation I've ever witnessed. 

Tuesday: Zone Leader exchanges. I went to Ke'ei with Elder Tregaskes and we visited a few families. One of 'em was the Clarks. Brother Clark served his mission in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission and one of his areas was Honokaa actually. Then he even moved back there and lived there from 2003-2010 and was in the bishopric with Uncle Rock, President Loo, our neighbor. They now live in Ke'ei on a mountain of lava rock. Let's just say if we still had our Nissan Sentra's we probably wouldn't have made it up there. 

Our area

Wednesday: we went and saw Auntie Sweetie. Yes, her first name is "sweetie" and she lives way high up in the hills. She's awesome and we were also able to meet her non-member husband, Chris, and talk to him for a while. Then that night we went on visits with Maka yet again (talk about fulfilling his calling!!) and visited Sister Loo/Uncle Rock's wife/our neighbor. Then after her, we visited the Silvas. Brother Silva is the former Ward Mission Leader and their family is struggling. It was a good visit and they got a kick out of Maka's legitimate desire to murder his neighbor. It's definitely a conversation starter. 

Thursday: my companion got vaccinated down in Kona. We left Honokaa at around 12:30 and got back around 5:30. They don't call it "Big Island" for no reason, lets just say that! haha. We then had a quick dinner with some recent convert girls that we visit a lot! Their family definitely needs help. Then we went on visits with Maka again!! We went and saw Braddah Andy who is a ward missionary and Maka set up a Family Home Evening with their family. Then we went to the Salvas and talked with them. Maka set up a lesson with them for us as well & we'll also be helping them clean out their rain gutters. Then we went to the Murakanes for (2nd) dinner because it was Sister Murakane's birthday. Her niece, Yieko, and nephew JR were baptized about a year ago so we typically have dinner with their family on a weekly basis. They were playin some groovy tunes and JR was performing for us and it was hilarious!! He was rocking out to Queen & Michael Jackson and, quite frankly, I was too. 

How our drives look: either this or the ocean.

Friday: Kohala exchanges: Elder Mossman came down from Kohala to be with me for the day in Honokaa and we had an excellent day! We first did our usual service at the local Buddhist church called Hung Wan Ji. We help make community meals that they hand out later that day. It's a bunch of old aunties so they really appreciate our help and usually just refer to us as "the fellas." I don't blame 'em. I told 'em to just call me Buck. "Elder Buckwalter" is pretty much as long as the whole alphabet. (Robyn inserts: HAHAHAHA) Then we went and saw TomTom who is former investigator that met with the Sisters before Elders came in. He is a Santa look alike. His belly is massive. He likes to chat so we ended up standing on his driveway listening to his talk for about 50 minutes. Absolutely brutal on the hindquarters, I'll tell you that much. Then we went and had our lesson with Orson and Janice and Maka accompanied us and actually talked the entire time. I don't think Elder Mossman or I said a single word. Despite that, it was a really good visit. Janice seemed to love Maka's personality. But Maka was able to challenge them to start fasting and praying so Orson can get rebaptized in the Church and Janice can get baptized and then eventually they said they wanna get sealed. They've been working at this for 5+ years tho so we're kinda frustrated and trying to get this show on the road because its been way too long. Then we went and saw Uncle Burt and Kimo and asked Uncle Burt where his brother lives. He told us up Paauilo Mauka by the vanilla factory and they have a sign with their last name on it out front. (I'll come back to this). Then we went and had dinner with the Silvas and, as usual, they talked about all their problems. Their oldest son is vaping and they don't know what to do. Him and his younger sister are also supposed to be going on Trek in a few months and they were not excited about that, haha. I just thought of my sister and how much she hated Trek and laughed to myself. 

One of the 12 dogs

Saturday: we went to contact a referral from a member. She told us that this man had recently lost his wife and was pretty upset about it, and would benefit from the knowledge of eternal families and temples and family history. We decided to contact him and we ended up being there for about an hour while he just went off on the health care workers that were watching over his wife. He is convinced that it was cold blooded murder and he now wants to murder the healthcare workers. I immediately thought "this guy would get along great with our Ward Mission Leader" hahaha. The dude's name is Stan and he's an old timer and he's been smoking since he was 11 and he was married to his wife for 49 years. We honestly didn't even get to talk much because he was talking the whole time.Tthen we had our carwash and it was mildly successful. Then we decided to try to find Uncle Burt's brother! We drove hecka far up Paauilo Mauka until we reached a gate and had to turn around. We figured we couldn't find so decided to visit a nearby family instead. However, on the way there my companion spotted their sign with their name on it. So we went down there and met Brother and Sister Pascual and their "kids" aka - their 12 dogs! Needless to say, I was in heaven!! The Pascual's have a beautiful place tho. It was amazing. They had a old stereo playing some Hawaiian music and they had some horses out front. I honestly felt like I was in the 60's or somethin' like that. 

Just out doing some good

Local scriptures signs and crosses

This email is incredibly long so I won't write about Sunday but Sunday was a good day also. Hope y'allz doing alright tho. Feel free to email me! One of my favorite quotes from the current Prophet of God on the earth today is this, "The gospel of Jesus Christ is exactly what is needed in this confused, contentious, and weary world." I absolutely know that is true. The gospel is Jesus Christ may not be the most popular thing in this world, but I know with all of my heart that it truly is EXACTLY what is needed in this world. If you wanna be happy in this life and in the next, then the gospel and church of Jesus Christ is for you. In temples, families can be together forever. A husband and wife not married in the temple will have their marriage end at death and they will be tragically separated. In the temple, that will not be the case. God loves you. Jesus loves you. They want us to return to live w Them and to do so, we must be members of Their Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Can I get an AMEN?!

Won't describe all of the pictures but one of 'em is Maka just chillin in our pad on our couch and we're not allowed to have members in our pad, hahah. Maka isn't much of a rule follower tho. 

shoots,

elder minty buck (weighing in at a GINORMOUS 160) 

our ward mission leader wants to murder his neighbor

aloha my braddahs and sistas. tis your boy elder buck. recently i've really considered putting a piece of paper or tape of somethin to cover up the "walter" part of my last name b/c everyone really struggles w/ my name and its just a pain for the both of us. If you wanna find out the scoop behind the subject line of my email, scroll down to Sunday...you're welcome.

Monday-

For P-day we did the Captain Cook Monument Hike and it was gorgeous. It takes you all the way down to the ocean and the water is a beautiful greenish blue color. Some other Elders and I were so close to jumping in. The 2 mile hike back up nearly killed me. It was straight uphill and my calves were on fire. then we had dinner with the Scovels with some Elders from the Hilo Zone. There's an elder from the Hilo Zone that previously served in my area (Honokaa) and he was getting transferred to Maui so he came over to say goodbye to the Scovels. Braddah John Scovel is one of my favorites for sure. 

Tuesday-

Tuesday morning as we were about to head out for the day we saw our neighbor, also landlord, also in the stake presidency, out in his garage doin' somethin so we popped over and he was actually cleaning off some freshly caught crab and opihi which is the slimy stuff in a shell and you can bet that I ate some of that stuff raw. My companion did too and he didn't really like it - hahah - but I didn't mind it honestly. Our neighbor, Rocky or Uncle Rock or President Loo, invited us back for dinner that night when he was gonna cook everything up. We went back that night and had some ono kine grindz brah (really good food). They also had some freshly caught fish called Kole and they fried that up as well and it was incredible. 

Wednesday-

We did the usual service at Salvation Army where we prepare bags of food to pass out. Later that night we had a lesson with Jordan who is about 12 years old and is the grandson of the 1st counselor in the Bishopric. Jordan is supposed to be getting baptized soon, we're just waiting for his mom to give the okay. Braddah Acdal, Jordan's grandpa, was wearing a sick Honokaa shirt and I asked him where we could get a shirt like that and he said he would talk to the Athletic Director of Honokaa High and hook us up. I'm stoked!

Two weeks later: check it out!

Thursday-

not much happened

Friday-

Did the usual Buddhist temple service in the morning where we prepare bags of food to pass out later and also cook a meal down in the kitchen. The meal was Pork Adobo and it was delicious. It's a Filipino dish they got here in Hawaii. Later we had a lesson w Ana, Keana, & Mehea who are little girls set to be baptized on May 1st. they're excited to be baptized. Their grandpa is the Executive Secretary of the ward so that's the connection there. After that we had dinner with the Silvas and the Silvas are awesome, but they are definitely struggling. Sister Silva told us she has started to keep some of the commandments she previously hadn't been following and she was motivated to turn their family around. It made me so happy! Meanwhile Bro Silva doesn't really take life seriously and he was just over there laughing. He laughs at almost anything haha. 

Saturday-

the first ever free car wash at the Honokaa chapel organized by yours truly!! 

On Oahu we would do these all the time and so they are making their way over to the Big Island now I guess! Just with the size of the town and the failure to spread the word, I was anticipating honestly 1-2 cars to come, but we had about 10-15 cars so that was huge!! it was a blast. the missionaries serving in Waimea, Kohala, and Waikoloa came to help out as well as some members of our ward. That night we had our usual Saturday night dinner w the Murakanes. There's a kid named JR that lives there and he's one of my favorites. When we got there he was playing Call of Duty and he was doing this mode where it was him vs 9 others and he was talking so much smack and it was a crack up, In the lesson we decided to invite Megan (13 year old girl) to be baptized again and she kinda just sat there awkwardly and didn't say anything haha. She's a good girl and I'm sure she'll get baptized eventually! 

Sunday(yesterday)-

okay now the moment you've all been waiting for where I explain the subject line of my email.

So actually Brother Silva was our ward mission leader, but at church they released him and called a new one who was just barely in the Bishopric. His name is Maka Wolfgramm and essentially he's having some legal issues in court with his neighbor after his neighbor pulled a gun on him a few months ago. This ongoing quagmire has really gotten to Maka and he now really wants to kill his neighbor. And Maka is a funny guy that likes to joke around, but I promise you he was not kidding at all...Sooo uhhh pray for him I guess. I really hope he doesn't kill his neighbor. Also, on Sunday we had our weekly lesson with President Loo's friend/former horse trainer named Kawika. Kawika drinks and smokes so we decided to teach the Word of Wisdom (one of God's commandments that prohibits Coffee, Alcohol, Tobacco, Tea, or any other harmful, addictive, or illegal substance) and Kawika took it really well actually. I kind of expected it to go that way tho b/c Kawika is a really awesome guy who definitely wants to follow Christ. So just like that Kawika went and grabbed his pack of cigarettes and turned it over to us and we threw 'em away later of course!!

Great week this week! sorry this email is long but I know my mom will appreciate it!! 

Last Sunday the Prophet of God on the earth and the Apostles all gave talks. One of my favorites was by Elder Christofferson. In it, he says,

• Following the principles and commandments of the gospel of Jesus Christ day by day is the happiest and most satisfying course in life.
  
• The covenants God offers to His children do more than guide us. They bind us to Him, and, bound to Him, we can overcome all things.9
  
• What is the covenant path? It is the one path that leads to the celestial kingdom of God. We embark upon the path at the gate of baptism and then “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men [the two great commandments] … to the end.”² In the course of the covenant path (which, by the way, extends beyond mortality), we receive all the ordinances and covenants pertaining to salvation and exaltation.
  

nuff said. If you have any questions about any of that, feel free to email me. Hope y'all have a fantastic week. pics included! 

Elder Buck, 13 months pau, 11 mo to go

🤙🏽