Peace up, H-Town.! -- October 12, 2020

Aloha!! A lot happened this week, so be ready for another long email.

Quarantine ended for us on Wednesday. We went to the mission home for dinner and we found out who are trainers are and what area we'd be in first. My trainer is Sister Israelsen and I'm in Honolulu!! Sister Israelsen just finished her training a few weeks ago and now she's training me! She's the sweetest and she's so beautiful. We call Honolulu H-town. You guys all know the song "Yeah" by Usher right?? And how it's a tik tok dance? Well we sing that but say H-town instead of A-town, so that explains the title of the email. Honolulu is the city, and I love it. It's not exactly what you'd think of when you think Hawaii. But I love it! I'm definitely a city girl.

I was honestly pretty nervous to leave on Thursday morning. I started feeling like I wasn't prepared to actually be out in the field. But those feelings went away throughout the day. Thursday was busy and stressful. But that night we went to this place called the Lookout which is a view of the entire city. It was so pretty, I'll send a picture of it even though it doesn't do the real thing justice.

On Friday we had a service project from 9 am-2 pm at the food bank. It was hard work, but it was also fun. I loved talking to people. Everyone here really has the aloha spirit. Everyone is friendly and willing to talk to us. I already love the people here so so so much. Friday night was very stressful. We had two baptisms on Saturday morning so we were trying to get things done. A lot happened, but let's just say that Satan clearly did not want those people to be baptized. A lot of things seemed to go wrong. But it all worked out in the end.

We had two baptisms on Saturday! The first baptism was a girl named Anna. She's 18, and is the cutest. She has such a sweet spirit, and she loves the church. The second baptism was a boy in our ward. We went to a member's house for lunch which was my first meal at a member's house. Her name is Sister Bond and she lives in Waikiki. Waikiki is actually a red zone because of the tourists. But there are no tourists right now, so we are able to go there. We also had zone conference on Saturday. We ate dinner and had a training. It was a fun night with everyone!

Sister Israelsen and I spoke in Church on Sunday. I think it went well..but I also only had three days to prepare haha. Our ward is awesome and they love the missionaries. We went to a member's house for dinner and it was so good! They are the Hansen family, and they are so kind and helpful.

We live about 5 minutes away from the mission office, so we go there pretty often. We love helping out there. We see the AP's a lot and are pretty close with them. I'm pretty sure, like 90% sure, that one of the AP's has a crush on Sister Israelsen..lol. He always talks to her, but he's also so friendly. Anyways, the AP's were talking to us about a hike the other day. They called us last night and asked if we wanted to go on the same hike with them this morning. So we did...it was the longest and hardest hike that I have ever done! But the view was so worth it. The way down was hard because it was so muddy. It rained here this morning so we were all tripping on the way down which was so funny. The hike ended up being four hours long so that took up the majority of our day. We also went to Target to get me and Sister Brown some groceries just barely.

We are not teaching many people right now, mainly just members. We need to work on finding people on facebook. Sister Israelsen and I are over the Honolulu facebook page, so we need to set that up. We also do a bible study every Thursday night on Facebook! You should all go give us a follow! It's just called Hawaii bible study. We go live at 7pm, but that's 11 pm in Utah haha. But you can also watch it after and we need all of the followers and views that we can get!

It's been kind of a crazy and busy week! I love it here so far. I love being in Honolulu. The people here really are the best. Thank you everyone for emailing me and keeping me updated on things at home. I love it. I love all of you, I love being a missionary, I love my savior, and I love this church. Ofa Atu! (I love you)

Elders bringing us McDonald's Powerade and cookies in quarantine