7th Week March 18,2013

Well folks! I'm still alive! heck yes!!!!!!! I wrote myself a cute list so I could remember everything I am wanting to write home about but I'm also a little nervous I'll forget important stuff. so first I'll tell you about the apartment a little more. I can't remember what i said before... Well! Its myself and Sister Andrade in one room, we have a bathroom to ourself! Yes!!! Then Sister Kreis and Sister Neinataype(definitely not spelt right...) In the other room. That's right! My MTC comp and I are out here together! No worries we don't hang out at all. First big thing I wanna talk about, it is HOT HOT HOT!! In Laredo. apparently it is the hottest area in our mission. Yay.... But its ok. Because everyone puts their conditioners on full blast! So if they let us in, we are good to go and have no problems with heat! Our car got to 110 degrees one day when we were out walking around. Pretty crazy right?! It is so stinking hot and just gets hotter in april and may.... yikes! Wish me luck on that one! The water is interesting... we all buy bottled water to drink.. so if someone wanted to send me those drink mixes? Like the personal water bottle sized ones? I would not be complaining(: I had my first member dinner on... Wednesday night? something like that! The family is so sweet! They are from Utah so sister andrade asked me if every mormon family is just like them... Mostly(: They were super sweet though. They made me green jello jigglers since i'm the greenie! Cute right? I told them about my brother in law who just loves green jello and they had a good laugh about that one. They really are so sweet though! The father of the family is the branch mission leader in one of our branches. They really are so awesome! By the way.. Laredo doesn't have its own zone. I can't remember if I told you that. So we have 5 branches. I work in Laredo 1st and ... i think 3rd... 3rd is the spanish branch and they rock. I don't understand everything yet. but they had us sing in sunday school(: No one can carry a tune out here. Its pretty fun. I haven't received any mail yet): That broke my heart a little. zone conference the bring the mail up from the office and there was nothing for me): sad day.... We had zone conference by the way! That was way awesome. one of my favorite things they talked about what asking yourself every night 'was the holy ghost the senior companion, junior companion, or even a companion in my lessons today" I know its SO important to have the spirit with you when you teach. if its not there, your just preaching not teaching! My first official lesson was with an investigador that is set to be baptized on April 21!!!! I'm so excited! she is awesome! she has a little boy about 4 who is just full of energy! She wants to be baptized but doesn't want to be a mormon... definitely makes sense right? but we will see her this week and hopefully resolve that issue and her word of wisdom problem... she came to church on sunday though! that rocked! minor problem... she was an hour late and walked up smoking with a starbucks coffee in hand hahaha(: Thats ok! she is wonderful and I know she wants to come closer to the savior! I already love her so muchHAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHAN!!!!! I went to bed on the 14th thinking" crap i didn't send his letter yet..." so that will be in the mail this week. It feels weird missing family events... i don't really like that at all but I know we have plenty more to come in 16 months so it will be fine! Last HUGE thing to write about...... WE HAD OUR FIRST BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes. thats right. This greenie had a baptism her first sunday! Oh yeah! It was amazing! The girl is 9. Her mom was less active so the missionaries started visiting then turned focus on the daughter because she was old enough to get baptized. so she was baptized yesterday! So fun! her family is hilarious. the mom is 50 and only speaks spanish and the dad is an 80 white guy... whaaaat? But they were so excited for her baptism! After wards we went to the dinner at her house and I tried mole... oh man... it was a chocolate mole and it was spicy! But pretty good. they do the mole sauce over boiled chicken.. definitely an adventure. did I mention the food is hit and miss here? I've had a lot of cornbread all ready, not complaining! and then I get random bursts of mexican food. the other awesome thing about the baptism is the dad isn't a member. So at the dinner Sister andrade felt very strongly he needs to be baptized. So she started talking to him and was like 'so what do you think about your daughter being baptized?" and hes like oh yeah its good then she just straight out asked 'so are you ready to be baptized?" it took a little talking about it and well.... he's doing it on april 21! yay! We start teaching him officially on friday night! so awesome! I had the best time in primary on sunday by the way... we went to primary with our investigator and her son because he didn't want to be alone. I got to sing and sit with the kids. then a little girl turned around and blew me kisses(: So happy! She was adorable! Well that about tells all my fun for this week! Not really... but kind of.. Oh wait! one more story I got to door knock! So intense! it was very intimidating at first but then got easier. The first person was rude and totally blew us off. Then we had a guy who started walking out and after we said who we were started to walk away saying "oh well I'm catholic I don't need you" so sister andrade asked "who is jesus christ to you?" and he shouted "hes that guy that established the catholic church 2000 years ago!" and slammed the door. Sister A and I looked at each other and said 'well i don't remember the holy ghost telling me that..." and away we went to find others! Funny huh? Kinda of sad... but its ok. He will come around eventually I'm sure! we just aren't the right missionaries for him(: Alright! I love you all! be safe and remember, the church is true! Your Heavenly Father loves you! -Sister Nielson

6th Week March 11, 2013

Had a great talk with Courtenae this morning. She is so excited to be going to Texas. She is going to let us know as soon as she has a local address. Thanks to everyone for your love and kindness! John Courtenae called from the airport this morning. She was so excited to be starting her excellent adventure in Texas. We miss her so bad but we are so happy this is what she has chosen to do with her life at this time. lucinda

5th Week March 4, 2913

We got our travel plans on Thursday last week! We are officially going to Texas! it finally hit me how real this adventure is becoming. I will be the farthest away from family that I have ever been and I can't wait! I'm so ready to leave here and get to know the people in Texas that I already love so much! We haven't even officially met and I already love them all! So here's my day by day adventures! The rest of preparation day last week was fairly unexciting as far as I remember.. we started teaching a "new investigator:" which was fun but not so exciting because its just our teacher. Tuesday we had the most amazing devotional EVER!!!!! We got in super early, you have to be at least an hour early for these things to get a seat in the main room. Then as we sat they didn't show on the screen who was speaking... which was weird. so everyone was getting super stoked it might be an apostle. Well low and behold! In walks M Russell Ballard walks in the room as we are singing the premusic and everyone person in the room stood. It was amazing!!! He gave a wonderful talk and left us with a very sweet blessing. I would tell you more about it but I forgot my notebook... so expect a letter in the mail explaining more! It was wonderful to be in the presence of an apostle in this setting though! Everyone was so much more reverant and attentive. I loved it! Then wednesday came around! I don't remember if I mentioned, but hermana kreis and I were chosen to be the "how the begin teaching" demostrators for the new missionaries! basically on your first day you get to "teach" three investigators in a big group setting and we were the missionaries to start it all off! completely with door knocking and introducing ourselves. it was a little scary at first because we were infront of a big group. but we focused so hard on the investigator everything else just seemed to disappear. Our second one though was intense! he told us he went to a catholic school and to pray they had to sing first. so he wanted us to sing! Well! Guess what?! We sang! We sang I am a Child of God for him! then we ran into a sister yesterday who was in the group and she told us how amazing she thought we were(: Happy day! Thursday we got our travel plans as previously mentioned!!! We have to be completely ready and leaving the MTC at 5 in the morning! yikes! on monday. then our flight leaves salt lake at 8:15 to Dallas/Fortworth airport. we arrive in mcallen after that at 2:20pm! The best part is that we had 10 in our travel group. the 6 of us from our districted headed there, 3 elders in another district that we met(Doni's friends son is in that district! I met him last sunday by the way!) Then one sister who is in the intermediate spanish. Fun fun! Friday seems like it wasn't very exciting because I can't remember anything that happened... wooops... we taught a lesson I know.. and talked a lot about how we are teaching people NOT lessons. That is such an important fact... we are changing peoples lives by helping them convert to the gospel. Not just teaching lessons and getting baptisms. I love this gospel so much!!! Saturday... I really don't remember either... awkward! Sorry! Sunday!!!!! Fast sundays in the MTC are a blast! We ate dinner at 6 on saturday then didn't eat again until 4 on sunday. wowie. Its actually not hard at all though because you just feel so full of the spirit your not hungry! We had lots of a study time and I only have the book of moroni left til i finish the book of mormon! Yay it will be my third time finishing it and I can't wait. I loved reading Mormon this time! so many powerful things! i think the scripture reference is mormon 8:22... something close to that! it pretty much says the will of the lord will not stop until he has fulfilled all of his promises! I love that so much!! Testimony meeting was also wonderful! I shared my testimony completely in spanish! Go me! I wrote it down too so maybe I'll send a copy in the mail! I just love spanish so much. Its getting a lot easier to speak spanglish. Basically I say everything I can in spanish and mix in english for those words I don't know. I cant wait to be fluently and talk about the gospel with the people in texas! One last bit of news... I'm in a trio now! There is a sister who was headed to argentina but due to medical reasons is now going to texas with us! So we are a trio. Fun adventure right? I'm really excited because we are now the blond, brunette, and red head. Except I'm the brunette because my hair is the darkest!(: I have ran into Elder Palmer, Elder Stubbs, and a few various wonderfuly missionaries from Tooele these week! The work is pushing forward my friends! Love you all! The church is true! -Hermana Nielson

4th Week February 25, 2013

I'm emailing a little early today because we decided to try and get everything done quickly so we could have a nap this afternoon! napping is my favorite part of pday! last week I told my companion to wake me up at 4 (it was 340) well I woke up at 440 and she told me I just looked so peaceful she didn't want to wake me... isnt she sweet?

This week has flown by so fast!!! The funniest part of the week is that I accidently got left alone with an elder! awkward! we got paired off for an assignemtn to share a scripture that might help the person we were with, so we were just talking sharing the scriptures and my companion and his companion walked out of the room. we didn't even realize it until they came running back screaming apologies! haha its ok though, elder bainter is harmless! so all is good!

I found a quote I really love by the way! It says "pray as though everything depended on the Lord, work as though everything depended on you" That is now my motto for the mission! Pray hard, work harder!!! I'm really excited to get out to texas! i am exactly two weeks from leaving! crazy right? we get our travel plans this friday then have our infield orientatino on thursday next week then it is off to texas for me! so much happiness!!!!

This week I really learned the power the spirit has in influencing different lessons. We had TRC (which is where we "teach" volunteers from the area and just kind of have like a family home evening) we used the same three scriptures for both of those lessons and then for a lesson later in the day and EVERYONE got something completely different out of it! the spirit is such a wonderful thing! i love feeling it here! its really the best ever!

This wednesday my companion and I get to hang out with the new missionaries! we were selected to begin the practice lessons for them. On the first day you get seperated into groups and you meet with three different "investigators" and try to teach as a group. but one set of missionaries who has been here for a while starts everything off. this wednesday that will be me and hermana kreis!!!! Yay!! we are so excited! especially since we can do it in english!

On that note! my spanish is improving little by little! we taught a lesson with a random teacher (solomente en espanol!) and he asked if we were in the intermediate spanish because we spoke it so well! I've gotten a lot better at testifying and getting my thoughts acrossed in lessons. I love spanish so much! its such a direct and beautiful language!

In the fireside last night we got another flirt talk... apparently this is becoming a serious problem. especially right now because there are so many 19 year old boys AND girls! No worries, I'm not flirting. I did have an elder offer me his email this week though... I informed him he should be strictly obediant in his mission and the white handbook says to only email family and your mission president. I am neither of those. awkward! But it worked out well!

I've been working on memorizing los articulos de fe! so I will leave you with one of those!

Creemos que los hombres seran castigados por sus proprios pecados y no por la trangresions de adan!

i love you all and may shoot you another message letter today because we still have laundry time and I'm not using all my time right now! love you and hope all is well!!!!

-Hermana Nielson