Author: andrewhyun@live.com

Hey everyone!!

This week has had big ups and also big downs! But mostly ups! More bike problems… also spider problems?? but we had plenty of lessons and have 4 people on date for baptism! Very productive overall!

Tuesday

P-day! We started out by playing pickleball! Elder Hale and I challenged the older guys at the court next to us, and that was lots of fun! We then stayed at the church since Balls still didn’t have a bike… so we played scum (the card game) with the whole district, and Elder Ashby and Rahn joined in too later in! Then, we got a ride back to our apartment. We walked to the apartment next to ours and found a lady sitting on her porch, so we had like an hour-long discussion with her! She seemed interested-ish, and we gave her a BOM!

Wednesday

Zone conference! We hitched a ride with the Spanish elders… Balls finally got a new bike! Zone conference was awesome – President Loo talked a lot about obedience and how we can do a better job of inviting people to church. Then, we met with Kristina and dropped her cause she wasn’t really progressing and kept wanting to push off her baptism… 😭 then, we gave Gale, a recent convert, a blessing! She’s so sweet! 🥰 We then went to another lesson with Nathan! While we were in our lesson (it was outside on some benches), some guy walks up to us and starts yapping about how us missionaries are “novices” cause we’re so young and like how apparently we don’t know anything. He told us he was a “prophet” (I know, another one?) Then he started saying I was evil and God was disappointed in me?? Like uhhh alright buddy… 😆 Idek what bro was talking about but anyways eventually he finally went away and we could start our lesson… Nathan has a problem with drinking alcohol/beer and smoking, and he said every time he tries to quit, he just goes back to it! We talked about “burning the ships” (thanks Dad!), meaning basically getting rid of all escape paths. So on Wednesday, we’re going to throw away all of his cigarettes and alcoholic drinks and give him a blessing! Then, Sister Barfield took us out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant (my first one! It was so bussin too 😋)!

Thursday

Sooooo I put on my shoe using a shoehorn so I dont look too closely when putting on my shoes… and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move… and then I saw this BLACK THING crawling up my shoe and onto my leg and I FREAKED!! Literally Balls can tell you i looked like i was an tap dancer or something… i flung it onto the floor and SMASHED that thing with my other shoe… it was a spider! Then I saw the red hourglass shape on its belly – IT WAS A FLIPPING BLACK WIDOW! (Shown in the pictures..) 😱 So thank the Lord that thing was only ON my shoe and not IN it… i dont feel like being that missionary that goes to the ER in the first month… Ok so then, continuing on with our day… We had a lesson with a girl named Chandler, but she scheduled into work without telling us soooo no bueno… We went out to lunch, did some calls! Thennn as we were going to stop by a contact, my tire popped… well, not just popped, more like exploded… and it wrapped around my gears… so we were kind of stranded… so then the spanish elders picked us up, took us to a bike shop, where we got a “thorn-proof” tube for the tire.. then, THAT tire also went flat in about 10 minutes! What a scam… so we were stranded in the middle of our area.. we then got picked up by some other elders who took us to dinner! Then a member took us from that dinner to meet with Samuel! Then, we played some volleyball! 🏐

Friday

We started out the day by walking to the same bike shop (45 minute walk), and i got a new tire! Then we had a lesson with a Filipino guy (yayyy another asian!) He’s seemed interested, and we invited him to read the intro of the BOM and come to church! We then did a LOT of calls… 📞 Then we knocked by some contacts at the apartment next to ours… Then, we met with Yvette! Yes, same Yvette who dropped us for an evangelical church! She put in another referral and said she wanted to come back! So yay!!! This time we’re pretty sure she’ll get baptized… she called us and said that she wanted to get baptized TODAY! 😆 Uhhh so she might be a little toooo bappy happy, we’re trying to get her as excited about the doctrine itself too! we talked to our friend Jim for a bit, and he said he wanted to come to church! We then got monsoon’d, so that sucked… but then we ran into an ex-member who said she’d call her dad to pick us up?? What a miracle! 😇

Saturday

Baptism day! Well, it wasn’t our friends, but there were 2 baptisms for the other missionaries in our district! One of them was the sisters’ friend, so i got to baptize him! That was an awesome experience! Yvette also came to watch the baptism, and she said she was super excited for her’s! We then met with Nathan and talked about the day when we’re gonna throw away all his stuff… and then ended off the day by running some calls with a recent convert named Shawn!

Sunday

Church church church! We were at the church for like 8 hours! It was crazy! Sacrament meeting was awesome, 2nd hour (all combined cause 5th sunday) was awesome, and then we stuck around and hit p-study, then had a lesson with Samuel! Found out we actually can’t baptize him cause he’s on parole, so that was sad to learn (we planned to baptize him this upcoming Sunday)… 😞 Someone took apart Elder Balls’s bike for some reason??? Like literally just disassembled the wheel, the seat, the brakes… And so he spent an hour fixing it and putting it back together… 😭 then we met up with Brother Macy (WML) and went through a run-down of the week! Then, we met with Tony, a pass-off from the hermanas, and ran through some of the gospel with him! 🥰

Monday

A CRAZY DAY! So to start off our day, we had to bike through a thunderstorm to get to district council! ⛈️ The spanish elders picked us up on the way there, so that was really nice… We learned about some drama about one of the baptisms – apparently the other guy (the one i didnt baptize) like wasn’t supposed to be and therefore wasnt confirmed?? Really weird… we then came back home… shortly after realized we left Balls’s helmet in the Spanish elders’ car…  sooo then Balls went into our little storage closet right outside our apartment, to which we found ANOTHER BLACK WIDOW! anddddd 7 egg sacs surrounding her! Bruh… anyways, we then went to the front office and asked them when they could exterminate… to which they said it would take a week… and we were like heckkk no 😭 literally some of the sacs would probably hatch by then! Soooo we took care of it ourselves! We grabbed a LONG stick and spent a long and scary process of scooping up the egg sacs and putting them into a pickle jar… eventually we got it all in there! But the mama got away… we then saw the spiders hatch inside of the pickle jar, so that was really cool! Then we realized exterminating black widows isnt part of our missionary purpose, and got back to knocking… we met with Yvette and went over the plan of salvation with her!! She started tearing up, she’s really excited to be baptized and learn more. And then we came back to find another (different!) black widow sitting in a web next to our door. So yeah.

TLDR

Fun week! We’re feeling really confident about our friends Nathan and Yvette, and are pushing them to keep covenants for baptism! Killed some (female! The deadly ones) black widows 🕷 in our spare time… had some more bike problems, but it didnt stop us from doing our work! The Spirit is real, and its the only reason we’ve been successful despite these trials! The Lord is hastening his work FOR SURE!! 😋

Love ya’ll!

Elder Andrew Hyun

Hello everyone!!

This week has been reallyyyyy interesting… Lots of rain, lots of biking, and lots of bike problems…

Tuesday

Not the best day… we started out playing pickleball at 5 AM cause the other elders (Willardson and Hale) are crazy for pickleball… and they were 20 minutes late too!! After that, we went thrifting for shirts and ties… then, I crashed my bike so that hurt a lot… my bike handle hinge broke and so my wheel like took a sharp turn that I was NOT expecting, and so I fell over onto the cement and skidded a little. It was pretty painful, but I’m doing better now! We then went to in-and-out… we forgot to do laundry, so oops…. and then we started our exchange! I went with Elder Hale this time. He does a vlog every night, so I got to feature this time!

Wednesday

Crazy day!! First off, the area i was in was actually a deaf ward! Or like that’s the ward where deaf people go! We started out the day by giving a blessing to a lady in a hospital… we then knocked a LOT of doors after, to which not much success. I started implementing some magic into the knocking though, and so we got some people that way! We went to a deaf person’s house for dinner, so that was a very different cool experience! The guy’s best friend actually lives in Federal Way, right next to steel lake! We then went to an ASL class after, and I learned the whole alphabet! Then, we got HAILED ON! It was raining so hard, and I was biking for like 20 minutes in it! We then met up with the other elders and exchanged back!

Thursday

Started off by doing a LOT of calls… then, we did lots of knocking! Not much success, and it was like 107 degrees that day… double sad. We met with a guy named Ramone with the Hermanas, which was AWESOME cause you could just tell the spirit was there teaching to him. He had a lot of anti-questions (polygamy, blah blah blah)… But for dinner we had the Maxfields, and they are AWESOME!! First off, the dinner they cooked up was like amazing! It was like a chicken Alfredo with garlic bread it was so so scrumptious. I actually ate WAY too much, I about threw up after… And then we played a few games with them, like one called Mexican train?? I hadn’t heard of it but it was fun! Although Sister Maxfield destroyed me in it… home-field advantage? We then played some volleyball!!! Which i missed so much, i havent played since the mtc…

Friday

Today we met with a cool guy named Jim! He was super awesome, and willing to learn more about the gospel and come to church! We did lots of knocking and lots of calls in the evening as well… Pretty normal day!

Saturday

Unfortunately, Elder Balls’s tire popped and so we had to go to a repair shop and fix it. I also decided that I wanted to start learning some Korean, so I was just kind of grinding some of that out while waiting for the repair! The Petersons took us out to dinner at Raisin Canes (yes very bussin)

Sunday

We went to church, and a lot of friends showed up! Two of which we actually didn’t know… I met a guy named Samuel who had met with Elder Balls before… He was previously a member of the ITALIAN MAFIA!! And served 18 years in prison… he just barely got out and now he’s interested in our church! After Elder’s Quorum, I put him on date! That was awesome!! Thennn Elder Balls’s bike like is special or something cause the tire just keep deflating without a visible hole.. and then he changed the tire, and it happened again! So now we’re without bikes until Wednesday, when he gets provided with a new bike…

Monday

So, we were walking around all day! We had district council… we also went knocking with the Spanish Elders since they picked us up for district council! Yvette actually put in another media referral and wanted to meet with us again! That was a little miracle! We met with her and we put her on date again! We then met with Samuel and taught him more about the gospel! So yay!! Awesome day!

TLDR

Kind of a slow week because of some biking issues, but we put 2 more people on date for baptism! We are looking to baptize probably those 2 people this upcoming month!

See you next week!

Elder Andrew Hyun

Hey everyone!

Last week was a little bit slow – we’ve been knocking a LOT and we had a lot of lessons lined up, but everyone kept canceling! Which isn’t awesome… but this week will be better!

Tuesday

P-day!! 😁 We started out by waking up early – like as in 5:30 a.m early… That’s even worse than waking up for seminary! We went to go play pickleball at a park near the church, so that was really fun! Elder Hale and I SMOKED the trainers (Elder Balls and Willardson), and it was tons of fun! Also pretty hot! 🔥 We went shopping at Walmart to get our weekly food supplies, and then went to the mall with the whole district, got some Panda Express (my first semi-real Asian food here?) and then just kind of walked around. Yvette dropped us to join an evangelical church (which stinks, but at least she’s finding Christ in her life!) Then we just kind of wrapped up the day by doing laundry, and getting to bed!

Wednesday

Not much happened… We had 6 lessons planned, but most of them fell through… 😭 We got two LMPs (lessons with members participating) in though! One was with Kristina, who is on date. She’s currently 90+ days sober, and is currently trying to get off smoking as well! One was with Nathan, who is also doing pretty well! We taught him the whole restoration of the gospel, and we got to meet one of his daughters named Annabelle! She was really nice, and maybe we can get her baptized too…?? 👀 We then had dinner with the Smith’s (a young couple), who made us pancakes… Sister Smith was really cool! She watches tennis, just like me! And she plays volleyball too! Brother Smith is also awesome, he served his mission in Washington! He also makes some REALLY GOOD PANCAKES! They told us their entire backstory (how they met and such), and we ran a call with Nathan! 📞

Thursday

Not our best day… We had 7 lessons, which ALL fell through… 😠 So, we knocked! A lot… We met with the Macy’s (they were nice enough to invite us over for dinner a few hours before, knowing we didn’t have anyone for dinner…) Brother Macy is the GOAT!!! Literally the greatest ward mission leader ever… So that made the day better! but it was really just a long and painful day of knocking nonstop. However, at the end, I got to do an exchange with Elder Willardson! So we’re together for Friday. Also, Elder Balls gave me the SIM card, so I’m in charge of texting people! And I have been texting friends in our area like CRAZY (for gospel-related purposes of course)!!! Nobody really responds though… Oh well! It’s the effort that counts!

Friday

My saddest day yet. Ok, well the exchange was really fun! Elder Willardson is awesome, and we knocked a lot of doors together. We also talked to this guy with the CRAZIEST story I’ve ever heard. Basically, from what he said: he’s a prophet who got called by Jesus himself in a vision, who ran away because he was scared (like Jonah)… He was then apparently chased by lightning as a punishment by God, and evil spirits were sent to attack him, and so he became an alcoholic to relieve the pain? He then went on a 2-year trial, where he preached the gospel to all the inmates, and so apparently God blessed him by making him not guilty of the crime? And now he preaches to different churches and basically sees if they align with the doctrine of Christ. It was a pretty crazy lesson… Then, my tire popped, so we had to walk to our next lessons. While knocking, we accidentally knocked on a member’s door, but she (Sister Broadbent) needed a blessing of comfort and healing, so it was kind of a miracle we stopped by! ✨️ Thennnnn Esther dropped us. WHICH WAS THE WORST PART OF THE WEEK! 😓 Cause she was like literally the perfect person to work towards a baptism. But, she said she felt too stressed and too open. So that kind of ruined my mood for the rest of the day, and honestly the week too… But then we met with the Macy’s again for dinner, so that was awesome! Like I said, they’re the best. And they’re baby is SO CUTE! Made me excited to have kids! (sadly not for a while though…) Then, in the night, I got Elder Balls back!

Saturday

Better than Friday! We fasted for breakfast and lunch with Elder Hale and Willardson for Nathan and one of their friends to work towards being baptized… We met with Nathan, so that was awesome! We taught him the entire plan of salvation with Brother Pinegar. We also met with this guy named Jay (who we found at the Walmart we went to on Tuesday), who is a wrestling coach! He was already a member, but has been inactive recently… He had all these questions about the gospel (Polygamy, blah blah blah), and we taught him the restoration and answered his questions. We then invited him to come to church! (which is a funny story, more on that later…) Balls and I then played a fun board game called Splendor (I’ve never heard of it, but it’s pretty cool!) We broke our fast with Hale and Willardson at the nearby Wendy’s 🥓 (reminded me of high school days…) Besides that, just a bunch of knocking…

Sunday

A pretty chill day! Met with a lady named María, and while Elder Balls talked to her about the gospel, I distracted her little kids with some magic tricks! Hahaha again, I just love little kids so much, they’re so cute and fun to be around. Then, stake conference! Kristina and Edgar came! Jay also came, and bro is crazyyyy! First off, he’s wearing the craziest fit ever, like a bright blue shirt and this backpack he’s wearing over the front. He gave us some uncrustables 🥪, so that was awesome! He also kinda went around and grabbed all the girls’ numbers that he could find… So that was funny! Also, he’d randomly just start raising his hands and say “hallelujah!” or “Amen!” whenever the speaker said something he liked… Also, after a special musical number from the YSA, he started clapping REALLY LOUDLY and Elder Balls had to quiet him down LOL it was reallyyy awkward. But he’s a really cool guy! Fun to talk to, and really nice. Elder Hale, Willardson, Balls, and I stayed after for a linger-longer! We ate some rock-hard baked potatoes, and we talked a bit to the mission president, President Loo, and his wife! They’re both so nice! They’re from Peru, so they are both learning English! So I’m really trying to work on my Spanish… Duolingo has been revived… We then did some weekly planning, called up some more people, and then had some meetings and did personal study!

Monday

This morning started out AWESOME!! We got 2 referrals overnight, which we called and scheduled appointments with both of them before 8 am! So that’s already 2 new people… then we did our district meeting (i played some gethsemane on the piano)… i also had a lesson with my in-field mentor, and she was really nice! We met with Gale and went through 2 Nephi 2 with her! She had some reallyyy cool insights and we talked about some good questions, like “Does Satan have agency?” We then had dinner at a place called Angie’s (I’ve never heard of it, but it was really good!!) Thennnn a monsoon started, which we had to bike and knock through. We met with a guy named Bobby! He has 2 kids (one was a 3 year-old girl who was SOO CUTE!) We went over the restoration with him and he wants to come to church! Then we did some calls later with Brother Macy!

TLDR

Pretty chill week – lots of effort on our part! But we didn’t really get a lot out of it which stinks… 2 ladies dropped us from baptism and we didn’t get as many new people ad we wanted… but this week is already looking better! So I’m pretty hopeful!

Hey everyone!

Today marks a full week I’ve been in the field! Despite my hopes, the MTC did not prepare me at ALL for what was to come in the field. I mean, of course, learning the lessons was nice, but I was not ready to knock at all. We’re knocking for 3+ hours per day, giving back-to-back lessons, and NONSTOP BIKING. Yep, I’m in a biking area. In Tucson. At least I’m getting my exercise in! I’m gonna go from a weak little Asian boy into a slightly less weak little Asian boy! Also, I am getting the best sleep of my LIFE here! 9+ hours every day, as compared to my 6-7 [hehe] hours back at home. Anyways, let’s get into the week.

Tuesday (8/4)

The worst day of sleep I’ve ever gotten in my life. 1 hour. I mean it was totally my fault I went to bed late, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complain. I had to wake up at 3:30 AM to get on this train to the airport. Said goodbye to the besties, Elder Goodfellow and Elder Tafisi… Elder Burgett was OUT but I already said bye the night before. Broooo I’m gonna miss them a lot. When we got out into the street, I was delegated to become the leader of our group of 24 to get everyone to the airport safely. I wish I could say I did a good job, but we missed the first bus… So we were rushing to get onto the next one which came 30 minutes later, and then finally we got to the airport. I met some cool people there that were also going to Tucson… Obviously I knew my MTC companion already (Elder Pieroth). But I met Elder Hale, Elder, Elder Baker, and Elder Rahn too, who were all pretty cool! They let me show some magic tricks as well.. On the plane ride, there was a protestant missionary (a middle-aged filipino lady) who wanted to have a “discussion” with us LDS missionaries. Oh boy. I mean she was completely surrounded by missionaries so everyone was like whispering to each other and telling each other what to say. But Elder Hale was the GOAT!! He spent like the entire 2 hours basically talking to this lady and not backing down. Shoutout to him, cause I mean he had no field experience… He’s gonna be a great missionary. He’s actually in my district now! When I stepped outside of the airport, HOLY!!!! That is the hottest air I’ve ever felt. 107 degrees!! We then met the mission president, President Loo (pronounced “Low”, found that out quickly…) Anyways, the rest of the day was kinda just orientation and all. We also went to the Tucson temple. It was so pretty! We then slept at a senior missionary couple’s home. I PROMISE NOT EVERY DAY IS GOING TO BE AS LONG AS THIS!

Wednesday

So, rough morning. First off, I fell off my bed. I was on like this inflatable mattress on a metal frame, and like the whole mattress just fell off the frame and dumped me onto the floor. But to make up for that, I got my trainer! ELDER BALLS!!!! It was kinda funny too (like his name), cause we talked a little bit before and I was like I hope I get you as my trainer! So that was really cool! And then he told me we were in a biking area. In 100+ degree weather. Not so cool. Anyways, he’s really chill but also really mission-focused, which is the type of person I want to be. So I’m glad I got a great example as my trainer! We went shopping (I got my burger supplies of course…) Then we go tracting (knocking on doors) for a little bit (straight to work!)  Not really any luck, as I kind of expected, but we met with this guy named Nathan who is really fun! He actually just got out of jail (not sure what for) and he has 2 daughters, both teenagers. He always has the CRAZIEST stories every time we meet him, but he’s really cool, and we put him on date for baptism! First day! I mean it was all Elder Balls… but I explained a little bit of stuff too! Then, we met with a guy named Danny after, who’s a video game developer just like me! So that conversation was really fun to have (not very gospel related, but at least I got to form a connection with him…) Then, I made me and Balls some burgers for dinner (which he said was “gas”). Then we went to bed.

Thursday

We went for a run in the morning (Elder Balls is a state track runner, and I’m a state champion in sleeping in, so I struggle to keep up at times…) Today wasn’t too crazy.. We went tracting and got a few people who were interested! We also taught a lesson to a guy with the hermanas! The guy had 3 dogs, who supposedly can (and has) bite people’s faces off. Yikes.. As scary as the dogs were though, he seemed very open to having gospel discussions with us, so we’ll be back!

Friday

We taught a 2-hr lesson to a guy named Jason and his wife, Evalina. We basically covered all the lessons, and Evalina made us sandwiches! We also might be back to help Jason install an AC mini-splitter in his house at some point… We also met with a media referral named Yvette. Her sister was transgender and kinda started bashing us and asking about our beliefs about transgender people, but we just said that we love her and accept her and she’s always welcome to church. And she liked that answer! So that’s a relief. She also asked if I have a brother… (presumably to date??) to which I laughed it off (sorry Caleb! 😆 jkjk) But Yvette wanted to meet again, and she seemed genuinely interested! Then we had dinner with the Gibson’s. They were super nice, and provided me with my first Mexican food in Tucson, some burritos! We also played Flip 7 with them and I showed them some magic.

Saturday

We met with Yvette, who we put on date for baptism! She was really happy and excited and started crying (in a good way i hope) when we told her about the gospel and that God loves her, and you could just tell the spirit was there. We also met with Nathan later and went over the restoration with him. Then we had dinner with the Goodall’s, which is a REALLY fun family. They had 4 kids and they were all talkative and fun to talk to! The youngest girl, McKinsey, made me a bracelet! (Shown in the picture below) Then, we met with Danny with Brother Macy and talked about Lehi’s vision. Thennnn Elder Balls’s tire popped and so we walked home.

Sunday

Church! Yvette sadly didnt come to church (she accidentally slept in…), but Nathan did! Nothing crazy interesting happened, but Nathan is getting wayyy better! We taught him about the word of wisdom and some other stuff about the restoration, and we’re hoping to get him baptized soon! We also did some weekly planning, and then had dinner with the Leigh’s! They’re a pretty young family, and Brother Leigh is a software developer kind of like me! So we nerded out a lottt about that. They gave us pizza, and I ate wayyyy more than I should HAHA 😭

Monday

‼️ MIRACLE DAY ‼️

We met with a girl named Esther in the morning, and she had the CRAZIEST miracles happen in her life. Apparently we came at just the right time, because she had been searching all her life for a church to go to, and she had just started to see God’s love in her life. Also, cause her name was Esther, I shared a scripture from Esther (Esther 4:16) and talked about having faith over fear. We invited her to get baptized on Sept 5th, so now we’re completely lined up with baptisms for the next few weeks… awesome!! And then I got absolutely BAPTIZED IN THE RAIN!! (No not literally baptized.) But i looked like I had been. It was my first monsoon… and it was a LOT of rain. And nonstop. Andddd we were biking in it. I got so soaked. It sucked, but at least it cooled us off a little! We then got some costa vida enchiladas and I showed some cops a magic trick and talked to them.

TLDR

Anyways, things are going pretty well! Its hot and we’re on bikes, but at least i can make better food here in the field. We put 3 people on baptism in the first week!! And we have 18 more lessons coming up in the next week… super excited! See you next week!

Elder Andrew Hyun