Elder Tyler Nielsen- Hawaii Honolulu Mission: Week 30: Videos, tracting palooza, zone conference miracles!

Picture with Donnie!

Aloha! This week was fun! Unfortunately there wasn't a pepper story.

We went up to Kaneohe (east Hawaii) to film the music video with Sisters Kurihara and Liu singing and Elder Cato playing piano. Kaneohe is so green! I've forgotten how forresty Hawaii really is. I've definitely been in the city for a bit. Then we also went to Makakilo, which looks surprisingly a lot like Lincoln, to film another person. His name was Brother Don Wright. He got baptized at 92 years old and is now 95. He shared with us his conversion story as well as went off on some tangents for a bit

. He was hard of hearing and had some trouble speaking and I sounded like a fool trying to get him to understand what we were asking

. He and his wife were really nice and they gave us lunch afterwards.

We tried going back to the same apartments we went to with Elder Hawkes last week, but the neighbors said we were soliciting and we should talk to the manager. Little do they know the manager is a member

. So we asked him if it was OK to go door to door and he said no. No! Oh well.

One day we tried going to a street up one of the valleys to go door to door. It was going well and we started teaching a man walking his dog. It was going really well until it started raining. He then stopped us and said "Got to get out of the rain. Thanks!"

We shrugged it off and kept tracking in the rain. We knocked on one house and they said that the house next door was empty and no one lived there. When we got to it, the lights were on and there were people inside. So we knocked and a very nice woman came out. We taught her the restoration and she liked it! But then she took a weird turn. She started talking about a cult named the Cabal and went scarily deep about dark religion stuff and it was really creepy

. She kinda scolded us saying that we needed to wake up and if we thought she was crazy then we were brainwashed by the government. The best part was when her husband Mike came out and talked about how his good friend was a member and he respected him a lot. Then he saw how freaked out we were and told his wife "You're making them nervous honey. They need to go now." And go we did.

Now to spiritual, happy things. We had another zone conference. It was all about the Ricciardi letter that I explained a bit ago. The training they gave us were all about fearing no man, the blessings that come from exact obedience, and relying heavily on the spirit. A huge lesson I got from it was what defines an effective missionary.

A good missionary isn't strictly defined by the amount of baptisms, new friends, doors tracked, etc. A better gauge that defines a good missionary is obedience. The two main things we're asked to do as missionaries is to 1. Open our mouths and talk to everyone, and 2. Be exactly obedient. I've recently made some adjustments to be just a little more exactly obedient and I've already seen so many blessings. During that conference the spirit was really strong.

During that latter part of the conference, President Walker told us to do just as Elder Ricciardi did. Go out and talk to everybody. All the missionaries went outside the tabernacle, said a companionship prayer, and went to find people. Me and Elder Thompson felt that we should go to the baseball field just down the street. And here's what happened...

- We started talking to a guy named Donnie who was on his way to coach little league. After teaching him we asked him if he would be baptized and he declined. He also told us he had a copy of the Book of Mormon and his good friend was a member. I made a bold promise to him that if he prayed about the Book of Mormon next time he reads it he will receive a witness that it was true. He took a picture with us to send to his friend

- Met a man just next to the baseball field stomping on recycling. He was already talked to by missionaries (He had a Book of Mormon on his scooter) but asked that we say a prayer for his girlfriend who had cancer. We said a prayer with him. His name was Vernon.

- On the other side of the street was a man next to his scooter. His name was Scotty. We started teaching him and he said he was baptized a member and hasn't gone to church in years. Whenever he's in Laie, he goes to church with his parents. We told him that the Lord wanted us to meet him to invite him back to church. We invited him to go to church at the tabernacle on Sundays and he said he'd try.

- Then the last man we met was named Romeo. The first he told us was to "find him a Juliet."

We taught him the Restoration and invited him to church. We also gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon.

I won't bore you with any more. But I know that we were led to those men for a reason. I don't usually mention all the people we meet throughout the week, but we always leave an impact in some way. As long as I remain obedient and do the best I can, I will see miracles on my mission even if it means I don't baptize every week.

Have a great week! Thanks for all your love and support.

Love, Elder Nielsen

Pictures