Elder Tyler Nielsen- Hawaii Honolulu Mission: Week 34/ 35: Drones at the beach park, teaching the deaf, miracles!!

Me and Elder Chan

Aloha Everyone! It was another great couple of weeks!

One cool thing that Elder Chan is really good at is magic tricks. Growing up, sometimes missionaries would teach me and family lessons using magic tricks as object lessons and they were really fun! Well that's how we got to know one family a lot better. I can't remember if I've ever mentioned Christine before, but basically she was a progressing investigator from a while back but kinda came to a point where she just wasn't able to get in contact with missionaries. She's good friends with Bishop Kuriharas family and I've met her once or twice before.

Anyway we thought we should just swing by her house to see how she was and surprisingly was excited to see us! We shared a small message at her front gate and then she said "You guys should come by tomorrow and share a magic trick for my son's birthday!" And of course we said yes! It was so cool to finally make contact with her and to share a lesson for her and her family. We are already making efforts to fellowship her and invite her to continue taking the lessons. President and Sister Walker even invited themselves to have a family home evening with her family!

Another miracle!

We went tracting one day this week and right towards the end Elder Chan had to use the bathroom pretty badly so we went to a beach park with a bathroom. After he got out we found a small drone on the ground. It was really small but it was still on so we thought somebody had just recently lost it. We decided to use it as a tool to ask people if it was theirs and to start conversations. Then we met this couple sitting at a bench and their names were Jenna and Shaw. We easily connected with them and started talking about our beliefs. Elder Chan asked Shaw, "If there was one question you would ask God, what would it be?" he replied, "Why is there suffering in the world?" Then we taught them about the plan of salvation and they took great interest in it. We gave them our number if they ever wanted to learn more.

Another!

We were going to the beachpark to meet some people and we saw a guy flying a drone like an expensive one. His name was Matthew. We asked if we could share a message and then he told us that he appreciated it but he's agnostic. He explained it as he believes that there's a God of sorts but he just isn't sure for himself. We explained that not having perfect knowledge is completely ok. We taught him that after this life, there is a place called the Spirit world where everyone who wasn't able to accept the gospel is able to hear it before we meet God. He thought that was so cool! He said he's never heard of something like that and he asked about what else we believe. We taught him about how we believe that we're the true church of Christ and he said he wanted to learn more. Then his friend comes up and tells him that they need to catch a flight. We gave him a copy of The Book of Mormon and our number and the church website. I hope he continues to learn more!

Another update on Cristine: we stopped by her house again and asked if she and her family would like to join us and the Bishop's family for a family home evening.....THEY SAID YES!!! They have been to the Kurikaras house before and we already started planning it with Sister Kurihara and it's going to be so awesome! I'll keep you updated.

A funny encounter we had the past few days: We went to the beach park again and met some guys named Joshua, Josiah, and Shiato. We interrupted them as they were just chilling on the beach. But they were so inviting and let us join them to talk. The only guy who was basically talking the whole time was Joshua. Now that was interesting because he was heavily drinking vodka. You can easily tell he was so drunk that he was just going off about how there's no purpose in life but to have fun and drink hahaha. We had a good talk though and we shared a brief message. Then when we were leaving, Joshua gave us both hugs and I could smell the alcohol on him GROSS! It was so funny.

We met a new friend at church! His name was Kevin. He told us he found the church through Brandon Sanderson books. It was fast Sunday so he got to sit in as we shared testimonies and he said he really liked it.

After Sacrament meeting, we taught the message of the restored gospel to a group of deaf people. They are friends of some members in our ward who lead the deaf group. It was a great first lesson and they all seemed to want to learn more.

It was a really great week. It can be rough sometimes but I know that every time we try to go out to find people, we always find a chance to share our message.

Thanks for your prayers! Hope you all had a great week!

Love, Elder Nielsen

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