Monday, December 28, 2015

Christmas On The Mission :)

Monday, December 28, 2015

Hey, all! Christmas was so great! Here is my message to President Ware today.

Christmas as a missionary is so wonderful. We were a bit confused on how to do it, but we were grateful for the service we got to render to our investigators and members, as well as those thoughtful souls who gave us such wonderful things. It was such a blessing to see you at interviews. Your kind and uplifting thoughts for us really gave me such confidence in myself and my work. Thank you for those.

Haleigh got baptized! Neither of us really know how to put on a baptism, but it seemed to go off "without a hitch." :) It was fun to watch as we prayed for that specifically, watch as our own plans for the program didn't quite go through, but then have our district leader compliment us on the baptism with those exact words. When you don't feel like something went very well, just for someone to answer your prayer like that is pretty cool. Haleigh is so happy. She told us later that night that she felt awesome; like a new woman. Sister Evans wrote up a little note for her encouraging her to always remember the way she felt that day. I hope she does! You can tell just by looking at her that she's different, and it's really cool to experience that.

We're also still teaching Thomas, and he wants to keep preparing to be baptized on the 9th of January. He is so awesome to teach. He is usually pretty eloquent with explaining the things we've taught him, and always manages to take his own symbolic twist on the subject. When we had our last lesson with him, Sister Eden, our member, turned to us after a comment he'd made about what we taught him and said, "Are you sure he's not already baptized?" :) Thomas keeps telling us that what we teach him about makes so much more sense than what he's heard before and when he prays, he tends to thank Heavenly Father for us helping him find his faith. What a blessing to stumble upon someone who's been so prepared! I am just hoping and hoping that the Lord will grant us the privilege of helping him be baptized this transfer. That would be such a miracle and a tender mercy. He came to church with Brian M. as well! We haven't had the chance to follow up with him about church, but we'll have to do that today. Hoping to meet with him tomorrow as well.

Art was at church yesterday as well! We taught him the 15-Step Program this week, the best that we could. I only ever almost taught that lesson with Earnado in my first area, but he skipped town before we could ever get in with him to teach it. I remember there being a teacher copy of the lesson as well as a copy for our investigator, and we only had a student copy for Art, and we did our best to teach those steps to him. He said he's working on the 15 steps when we asked him yesterday, and he said it's going okay... not really sure what that means. We're meeting with him tonight, so we'll have to encourage him on that when we meet.

We feel like Art is progressing, but it's kind of slow. We keep trying to move forward with the lessons with him to help him progress, but the stupor of thought about that during daily planning is real. We keep wanting to invite him to a specific date for baptism, but we keep feeling like the more we keep pushing his date back, the less he'll take it seriously. He seems to be willing to prepare for baptism, so what we're thinking is we'll ask him about it. Like, "What do you think of actually, for reals, about getting baptized on the 16th? No jokes." He likes to come to church, and is pretty good about reading in the Book of Mormon, so I think we should just do it. See where it goes.

Thanks for letting me talk about that. That answered a lot of questions. :) Another really great thing that happened this week happened while we were tracting! (Gotta love it!) I also think it came from sticking to our plans, so I'm grateful to my companion for that. We were torn between driving out to Mesa before our dinner appointment over there, and staying in the apartment complexes we'd tracted a lot. I was having so many doubts about it. "Maybe we ought to go to Mesa," as we're walking up the stairs to knock on someone's door. Then we knock, and this guy answers and— after asking his mom about it— tells us that they're not interested in talking. But as he's saying this, his mom whips around the corner and changes her mind. She came out to talk to us outside for a minute, then invited us into her house to talk to her in her room. She kept saying how crazy it was that we were there because she had just been talking to her son the other day about what she believed and how she wanted to find out. We answered her questions about our beliefs with the Restoration pamphlet, and encouraged her to pray and read the Book of Mormon. Before we even finished doing that, she looked at my Book of Mormon and said, "Can I have that?" :)

We had an appointment scheduled with her yesterday evening, but she seems to be a little bit back and forth with us. One minute she'd cancel and tell us that she didn't agree with our beliefs or cancel to reschedule, and the next she's okay again with letting us come over or asking us if we can help her with food. So we're not really sure about her, but it was definitely cool to find her at the right time! The Lord just knows! We hope she'll stay on the letting-us-come-over side of things so that we can help her feel the Spirit testify this is true.


~Sister Nielsen

Pictures:


Christmas with the family we live with! Love the Quintons!


Haleigh got baptized!! How great is that?!


Christmas hats from Sister Evans' mom = Christmas win


Oh, by the way, this is our car. Brand new 2016 Toyota Corolla. What.


Trip to the dentist today. Word.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Welcome to Connell! (Beginning Transfer 7)

Monday, December 7, 2015

Things in Connell are going really well already! The sisters have done a great job in this area, and the members are already so involved! It's been so cool to see how many of them have come up to us to give us an update on people they have been working with. We've only had two dinners with members so far, and already have three referrals! We have some big shoes to fill.

A lot of our week since Wednesday was spent in the area book and sorting through our directories and the great notes the sisters left behind for us. We spent a lot of weekly planning going through the big pile of former investigators to see which of them stood out to go by and visit. We pulled out a lady named Christina, who apparently has been meeting with missionaries from Basin City and Connell for 8 or 9 years. She already is doing Family Home Evening, and her two youngest kids have already prayed about the Book of Mormon and know it's true. When we went by to visit, we read a little from the Book of Mormon again and invited them to prepare for baptism again on the 26th of this month. We'll have to figure out a ride situation for them, it sounds like, because after she insisted they'd be there on Sunday, they didn't make it to church. Elder Harward, our district leader in Walla Walla, used to always tell us, "Church attendance directly correlates with member involvement." We'll have to ask her about it at her appointment tomorrow.

When we got to the area, we discovered the sisters had already been preparing two, almost three, people for baptism: Art, Haleigh, and Jackie. Haleigh lives with the members we live with, the Quintons. (Yeah. We live down the hall from one of our on-dates. Haha! :)) She is on fire, ready to be baptized on the 27th! We met with her Friday night and went over the interview questions with her. She passed with flying colors, but it definitely won't hurt to go over a few of the commandments. She had a hard time remembering all the details about tithes and offerings, and we're thinking it'd be very beneficial to go over Sabbath Day observance with her, since we came home from church and found her streaming the football game to her husband via FaceTime. Haha! (Can't get away with much when you live with the missionaries. ;)) (I'm sure she had a good reason. She just seems like she is so ready and converted.)

Art is another the sisters have been preparing. Apparently they haven't been teaching him for a long time, but it sounds like he is slowly starting to see the correlation between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, and the teaching record said something about how he was having a hard time finding answers. He's doing pretty well as far as quitting smoking, but still could use more of the foundational things. He's been to church twice and is on date for the 19th, so we're hopeful the fast we had yesterday will help him start to receive those answers and continue to act in faith by preparing for the 19th.

Right now our plan of action is to go through and try to visit all the former investigators that were in the area book (there were so many) and then try to work the area based on whether or not they're home or interested. I was really overwhelmed by it all when I first got here, but I think we're slowly starting to get the hang of it. I already really love my companion, Sister Evans. She has a good head on her shoulders, and she really is a great missionary. Her testimony is so genuine. We're already accomplishing a lot and it's only been a few days.

Another cool thing that happened this week was when we were contacting former investigators. We just happened to be standing there by our car trying to figure out where to go when Cynthia pulled up. We struck up a conversation and found out that she is searching for answers and seemed very open. We have an appointment with her tonight at 6:00!

So far the transfer has been quite good! I'm hopeful of the progress I've seen, and I've been trying to remember what my mission president told us at the transfer meeting about opposition and where feelings of doubt and fear come from. I already love it a lot here in Connell. I can't imagine how much it will grow as I get to know more people.

~Sister Nielsen


Our own little personal Christmas parade brought to you by Connell major providers ;)






Our ward mission leader's family in Walla Walla! (She got Sister McOmber and me that cute scarf for early Christmas!)


The Piekos family in their true character


(In Connell) It didn't take Sister Evans and me very long to find the Taco Truck. LOL. :)


The view from our front porch (the members' house where we're staying)


Our neighbors. ;)


Sister Evans and me!


We're getting along really well with the people in the community. Just looking for service opportunities.



And some leftovers from Walla Walla...


Me and Brother Ed Bush! Love that guy!


A few from our zone at the Humane Society on Tuesday


We nicknamed her Molly. I fell in love instantly.


Molly!