Week 25: New friends, miracles, and I buzzed my hair for $13

Me with hair 

 Aloha kākou! 

By the time I'm writing this I have hit six months as a missionary! I'm done with 1/4th of my mission! It's not been easy but it's been the greatest experience of my life. Thanks for everyone who's emailed me giving me well wishes. This week has seen so many miracles, struggles, and some stress leading up to transfers next week.

First things first, yes I had my head buzzed. My hair had gotten kind of long and needed a haircut. We have had an Elder staying with us who is now in his original assignment in Argentina. Anyway he told me he would give me $10 if I got my hair buzzed and I said ok. Everyone else said I should have asked for more, but at least it paid for lunch.

I'm so excited to tell you about our new friends! Me and Elder Thompson went out to go find people and I decided to just driver over to the Kahala area by the beach. We started knocking on houses but we were rudely denied many times. We started walking past a park and I saw a small family having dinner at a table so I stopped by them. I awkwardly went over to introduce myself and I could tell I wasn't doing a great job. It was from the frustration of being denied just earlier that I just decided to give them a flier for sacrament meeting and walked on. I started regretting the encounter, then Elder Thompson had the impression to go back and mention something about the gospel. I agreed and he started talking about eternal families and how God answers prayers. The woman named Lily asked "You guys felt like you should come back didn't you?" We said that we did.

Lily, the woman, has a grandma in Arkansas who is a member and she went to church when she was younger, but she herself isn't a member. We taught them the Restoration, and gave them a Book of Mormon. We are meeting with them on Sunday! As soon as I got back to the car, I said a prayer for forgiveness for my impatience. I'm glad that the spirit was with us and that Elder Thompson acted on his prompting.

I also made another friend named Suzie this week. I was on exchange with Elder Giles who came in the mission with me in the Micronesian branch. She was Marshallese and she was so nice! The Elders are meeting with her soon.

We met with Barry again on Thursday. He's been struggling recently. We decided to ask him straight out if he still wanted to be baptized. He was very honest with us and told us that he wasn't sure. He believes all that he hears, he reads the Book of Mormon, and has been feeling the spirit every time we meet with him. His current problem is that he's worried his brother won't like him if he gets baptized because apparently he doesn't like members of the Church. We talked about this for a bit and he said he would talk it over with his brother tomorrow. Thank you all so much for the prayers for Barry. He's come so far! I'm never giving up on him!

I'm so excited for the next 18 months on my mission. Currently my mission is going through an obedience problem. A bunch of missionaries have not been very obedient recently and it's made the Walkers very surprised and disappointed. However, when I look over a year from now, I see the entire mission being 100% obedient, our social media thriving, and tons more souls converted to the gospel. This is a time that has been prophesied for centuries and I get to be a missionary during it.

Thank you all for your support! I love you all and see you next week!

P.S. I might be starting a mission podcast

Love, Elder Nielsen

Pictures

Did service at the pantry doing traffic work(not busy at all)

Picture we took after we met Suzie!

Me right after haircut I miss it so MUCH!

We were on our way to a camera store and found a mirror. That's it

Cool ocean pics!

Cool ocean pics!