Wherefore, your family shall live

Email to the family

Monday, October 19, 2015
Sorry to hear that Dad is having more troubles. All I can think to say is that the Doctrine and Covenants promises that my missionary service will really bless our family. "Therefore, thrust in your sickle with all your soul, and your sins are forgiven you, and you shall be laden with sheaves upon your back, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Wherefore, your family shall live." (D&C 31:5)

All we can do is trust that the Lord will bless our family, and move forward with faith.

They're transferring my companion to Kennewick this week. I'm not really sure why, but it sounds like that's happening to a lot of the new missionaries that came in last transfer. They don't quite know what to do with 29 missionaries! There are quite a few companionships that are only six weeks in and are getting doubled into an area. Only six weeks in with no trainer? Training each other? It's crazy.

My companion is going to be with a sister who just finished training. I guess the Lord trusts Sister Hamblin a lot (and her new trainer). That girl came pre-trained anyway. I can only hope that it's not because I did something wrong. I feel like there are things I could have done better, but ultimately I feel like I tried my best with what I had. I am trying to learn to trust the Lord more and rely on him rather than my own strengths. Maybe and hopefully that will prepare me for when the Lord calls me to train again.

I'll be getting a sister who was also training one of the 29 new missionaries that came in last transfer. So we both sent our missionaries somewhere else. I'm not sure why it's happening, but I trust it's happening for a reason. Being a trainer is such a beautiful and awesome experience, so I guess the Lord is preparing me to be even better at it for next time.

I'll send you what I sent President Ware because I ran out of time for sake of writing him about so much today.

It's been roller-coaster week! (I feel like I probably say that every week! Haha.) We had an investigator we met last week that we decided to drop by and visit. When we taught her, everything we taught about was something she agreed with, and she was really excited to pray about the Book of Mormon and find out if she had been baptized by proper authority. Apparently she didn't necessarily appreciate that we surprised her, though. She got quite a bit upset, with some choice words about us trying to shove these things down her throat and told us to never come back. So that was quite depressing. Especially after telling our district council about her and feeling their support to go and reach out to her.

I think one miraculous thing that's happened this week was actually things that happened the past couple of days. We've been striving to include the members more, and I think the best way to describe doing that is that we schedule a couple of hours or so to be in a certain part of our area— not only to find, street contact, and tract, but to look through our directory and feel by the Spirit which member we should visit. It's not something we make time for every day, but we've been able to do it every other day or so, and we found a way to reach out by offering service to a few of the members we've met.

We stopped by a fellowshipper for one of our investigators who's not really progressing, and we were able to sit down, briefly get to know the family, and share a scripture about people's hearts being prepared for the word and ask them questions about it. It sparked a great conversation that really brought the Spirit into the home. We kept it as brief as the conversation allowed, and said a prayer with them. It was hard to leave the house after that because they were talking about people they've been trying to work with after we asked if they could think of anyone we could try by that night. The father talked about his wayward daughter in the 1st Ward, and the adult son recommended a family that lived in our area and invited him to get ahold of us when we knew their address (otherwise, we'd have a really hard time finding it).

I just think the biggest thing that this plan has helped us with is just acting in a way where we've realized that we can't do this work without the members. Another thing that I think has really helped us is keeping daily contact with our ward mission leader. He's really gotten more and more excited about getting the ward involved since we had that meeting in Milton-Freewater. The most miraculous part was just seeing a member we don't talk to much (other than at church) call us and refer his neighbor. His neighbor is someone we had talked to before and he had asked our member about us, and Brother Petersen called us right away. We made it a priority to contact this referral the next day (with no notable success) and left a note on Brother Petersen's door so we could follow up with him. Brother Petersen called, we told him what happened, and then Brother Petersen started telling us about another friend he was trying to have over. He also mentioned his plans to invite them to meet with the missionaries, and the Spirit helped us compliment him and his dedication to serving the Lord.

I'm grateful for the change of mindset the Lord, through many means, has helped me to have about members. We've got to love them into this work. There's no way we can do it without them. I really am starting to see the Lord bless us with the attention we're trying to pay to the members. We sat down with one of our most progressing investigators (actually, probably our actual most progressing investigator... :/ ), Ed B., and asked him what he expected of us as missionaries. Apparently this was the best question we could have asked because he opened up about him being on the fence about whether or not this was the path the Lord wanted him to take. We encouraged him to come to church so that he would be able to feel the Spirit testify to this being the path for him. He agreed that it would help, and expressed that he wanted to come on a church tour to get a feel for it before he came. We thought this conversation was a miracle because we have been trying and trying to figure out what his holdup was and why he wasn't coming to church. But it became pretty evident when we just paid attention to the Spirit. We were trying to get a member to that lesson as well, which didn't work out, but I feel like we were able to talk to him more freely when we were able to sit with him, one on one (or, one on two, if you will) to figure out why he wasn't progressing.

So we tried to set up a church tour the next few days and didn't have any luck getting a member to come. When it kept falling through, he promised that he would be at church, but... no go. Maybe he's not ready? Maybe we need to have another "DTR" (define the relationship)? :) He's really good to read the Book of Mormon every time, so it's clear that he's willing to learn, but he won't come to church. He says he got turned off from churches when his last pastor was always asking for money in his sermons. I think he thinks that's what's going to happen at our church. I feel like we've explained that, but maybe the church tour is just what needs to happen. I think that would really help him; it's just a matter of getting a member there. We can't do a church tour without a member. Plus we'd need another woman with us!

So we're praying, and trying to listen to what the Spirit is telling us. And we're trying to find, find, find, because you've got to find if you want to teach, right?

I love you all a lot. :) Give Daddy my love.

~Sister Nielsen

Why for did you cut me down?

Monday, October 12, 2015


Another successful day of tracting

Hey, all! It's a short one this week. But I wanted to share what I wrote to my mission president, and then I wanted to share a link to a Mormon Message. It definitely applies and helped me a ton today! :)

I would say this week has been pretty good, with all things considered. In trying to keep an eternal perspective, I'd say I'm grateful for this week. Sometimes you have those weeks where everything falls through, almost everyone drops you, and you're inclined to ask God why he let that happen, but it lead to something greater!

My friend shared this story with me, and I thought it really applied to my week.

"Our mission president was teaching his son how to mow their lawn and it was taking his son a really long time to get the job done. Little by little he got better, and it got to the point where he now can mow the lawn one-handed, at like 20 miles an hour! Haha! He told us that when he was frustrated with his son initially, he had the thought come to his mind which said, 'Rich,' [he calls himself this when he is talking to himself, apparently] 'you are not just mowing a lawn, you are mowing a boy.'"

I get impatient with myself a lot! I just wanna be a perfect missionary already. I just wanna have all the answers to people's questions, but that's not how it works at all! It's about mowing a missionary, huh? :) So we're starting from square one this week and really, really focusing on the members. Thank goodness, we didn't lose our whole teaching pool, but we did lose a few potentials (and it felt like a lot! haha). But now we're really working with our ward mission leader, and we're really trying to get involved with the ward and build relationships. I think if this past week hadn't have been so awful, we would have never thought that we needed to do that, so I think the Lord really does cut you down for a reason! I'm so grateful for that!


Can't see the video? Click here.

~Sister Nielsen