Monday, March 17, 2014

Pictures!






February!

So this is just going to be one very long email for february! Basically because I have no time to sit and write every week. But February has been absolutley amazing!! :) Besides the frostbite february weather it has been so fun!
This month I got to see my first conversion/baptism which was JJ McCormick. He is 13 years and he is absoultey amazing haah!! the bishop pulled us in his office this last sunday and wanted to talk with us. With tear filled eyes as he sat us down he began to express his thanks and explain that he didnt know why the lord worked the way he did but he knew that me and Sister Simmons were sent here for a reason. They have been trying for over 6 years to get into the McCormick families home to teach Barb and JJ and a little over 6 weeks later JJ is now baptized and is preparing to recieve the priesthood. This helped me to gain a testimony that we are sent to certain places, areas, and houses for a reason! Sometimes good things fall apart so even better things can fall together and JJ McCormick is a perfect example of that. I was able to share this expirience with my Mission President and he told me when he was figuring transfers out he felt very strongly that me and Sister Simmons needed to be together to take care of a very special work! I can bear testimony too you that Me and Sister Simmons were put together to teach JJ! :)
On saturday after the baptism me and sister Simmons hit a tough realization, haha we had just baptized our top investigator and we basically had 0 investigators now.. so we are hitting the streets hard and we are ready to find the elect in morgantown! we know that they are there we are just going to have to be very in touch with the spirit to find them.
a funny little story the other night there had been a very big snow storm and that night we were going to teach JJ, we had 15 minutes before the lesson and I saw a old lady outside shoveling her snow so i turned around and pulled off to the side to go help her. Just as I got to her home she slammed the door and her driveway was shoveled. Frustrated, that the lord had prompted me to help this lady and i followed that prompting yet nothing came from it. I got back in the car put in into drive and realized that I was stuck and was not about to go anywhere. ha so we called the other missionaries to come and help us in the mean time a man down the road came out and started helping us, his name was Joe. we talked alot about the gospel and his sister actually lived in UTah and he had been to temple square where he was given a book of mormon which he read. he loved our standards and respected alot of our beliefs. but he wanted to stay reformed baptist. shocker huh! haha but it was just a humbling expirience that heavenly father is trying to teach me to be patientand he was making sure that I was responding to the promptings of the holy ghost because we never realize who may be put in our paths. We eventually got unstuck and the next week we made brownies and took him a thankyou letter :)
the Lord provides a way, ALWAYS he IS hastening his work and we see lots of miracles daily! I love you all :)
Love Sister Nielsen :)

Pictures












January!

January 6, 20 freaking 14!
Holy crap you guys can you seriously believe that it is already 2014! Last week I had my 6th Click day which means I have now been on my mission for over 6 months which completley blows my mind and makes me so sad! But so many great things have came and gone this past year and I am so grateful for the oppurtunity that I have to serve all of 2014! Many new leaves have been turned over for me this year already along with a new Companion! I was super sad tooo see Sister Maddox go, ha I cried for the second time on my mission when she left me.. hah I know i am a baby. But what is even been is that I get to serve these next  6 weeks with Sister Simmons! hahah oh my heck I am just so pumped typing this already! :) Sister Simmons actually was in the MTC with me so we have always really wanted to serve with each other! She is so legit! She actually grew up in Europe for 12 years and she has thee most beautiful accent ever! ha i always just tell her to keep talking to me because i love it! ha i know I am a creep but i dont care!
Too be honest I am kinda glad that the holidays are now winding down and that we can just focus on complete missionary work with no more excuses for why we cant come over or why they are busy!
Its also really fun to be serving with all of my friends that are also on missions and hearing about all of them and how they are doing! It also makes it a lot easier to be away from home because I feel like I am not missing out on as much as if they were still at home!
Here is a little something to think about, its a small tid bit to my email to President Pitt this week! I hope you like it!
 
In the mormom message of the new year. There is a line that stuck out to me so strongly and it has been so moving for me and I am just so ready for this new year! the man states "She was too busy looking back on the past that she didnt see her potential for the future" and that is so true I think it would be okay to say that alot of us look back on the past with regret of the things we did but that is what makes this gospel so fantastic is the fact of the atonement that we are able to forgiven of our sins and shortcomings every week as we partake of the sacrement! :)  I have become a completley different person these past 6 months of my life and I am so ready to become someone new for the year of 2014!! I hope that you would also think of what you would want to become as well! I love you all so much and I would love to hear from you!
Love Sister Nielsen :)
 
January 13, 2014!
Hello hello people! so this past week has been absolutley amazing! This past friday we were able to travel to Charleston (Mission Headquarters) for quite the treat! they pulled the ENTIRE West Virginia Charleston Mission together so we have just about 300 missionaries there! I was able to see Sister Stringham and Sister Holden and SIster Maddox which was just so nice to catch up with them and see everyone that I have grown so close with, especially sister Scholle! :)  haha everyone was convinced that we were getting Ipads!! But we didnt and thats okay because we know they are coming just not quite yet! But we were able to meet and learn from Elder Gifford S. Nielsen from the quorum of the Seventy! and oh my goodness gracious he is simply the most amazing, funny, coolest man on the face of the planet I think! (he was the one who gave the exclamation point talk in General confrence)
But he is seriously such an inspired man. He talked alot about the covenants and promises that we make with the lord through out our lives and the specific blessings that we recieve when we exercise those promises the correct and incorrect ways!
He taught us how to make 2014 one of the most successful years of our lives and it was just seriously such an amazing time with him. he even shoke my hand and talked with me for a minute because he noticed that our last names were spelled the same! haha he told me that he was impressed that I knew how to spell Nielsen correcly and he was just super nice and down to earth! He is also just a very intense teacher keeping you completley in tune and focus the entire time!
This past week me and Sister Simmons seriously rocked the socks off our Area! He basically doubled the lessons that we had been teaching each week last transfer in 1 week and the lord truly showed us so many miracles.. We have now been able to come in contact with a Part Member Family and they are wanting to become members of the church. Barb and JJ and there Dad jerry is already a member. JJ said the closing prayer and prayed that he would be able to become a member of the church afterward we asked him if he wanted to be baptized and his parents agreed to his remark of "YES, YES, YES, I DO!" ha so we are going to be getting him baptized in February! :) super exciting! :)
But my testimony of this church is growing so much and if there is anything that I could share right now that is so important to me is the fact that I KNOW without a doubt that we cannot experience true happiness without the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. Everything in our lives are so temporary providing just a small moment of happiness but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provides happiness that cannot be found elsewhere. D&C 76; 22
I love the heck outta Ya'll :)
 
 January 23, 2014
Well this is coming quite a couple days late but that's okay, haha in Morgantown down here we are freezing completely too death but hey doesn't change to doctrine of the gospel so that is very nice when people let us in too warm up our toes for just a quick second. haha this gospel is sooo true my friends and family. This week has been very strange for me, i have had experiences that will forever change the way that I will live my life and has taught me to NEVER settle for anything less than my very best! The lord truly loves us and knows us very specifically  i hope none of you ever forget that! 

January 27, 2014
 7 degrees here and I am like dying!! haha and i have came to the conclusion that there is no cure after it gets so cold so you just have to truly embrace it and remind yourself these are the days of missionary work that will never be forgotten! haha!
Miracles are happening everywhere!! :) The minute after we were down with interviews we headed home to grab our ward directory and go do missionary work, as we were leaving our apartment we recieved a phone call and we were tempted to not answer it because this person was usually calling to cancel the appointment we had set up to see his son JJ that so badly wanted to become a member of  the church! We answered it with hesitantcy and the first thing he said was that he was not calling to cancel the lesson but he wanted to let us know that he would be allowing his son JJ to be baptized on February 8th! This was seriously such a blessing, me and sister simmons knew that we were going to be seeing baptisms this transfer but we had lost hope of JJ because of his fathers hesitancy! There family is now keeping lessons so that he can be prepared for baptsim and we are just super excited! the lord truly answered alot of me and sister simmons prayers
but there is sooo much snow out here!
 the past two weeks morgantown has been completley shut down! kids havent even been going to school! libraries have been closed  and it has made missionary work very hard! last tuesday we were all stuck in the institute with all of the 12 missionaries in morgantown playing card games because we literally could go absolutley no where! it was super frustrating! 
 We as missionarys hate getting up in the morning so every morning we have been waking up at 5 30 and meeting at the church and playing basketball and kick ball and having a super fun time that way we are actually exercising and getting out of the bed in the morning haha its actually really fun! 
I love missionary work so ,much but i also want all of you to know how much i seriously love you!
your in my prayers always
 
we will be getting a new mission president in June
the new mission president has been announced in the Church News.  His name is President Paul Salisbury and his wife Sister Lisa Salisbury.  They come from South Salt Lake, have six children, the youngest on a mission, and they are young.  You are going to love them.
 This is sister nielsen signing out for the month of January! Bye :)

Christmas with the Tippits











December!

December 9, 2013
Your first message of the week is coming from the two best YOMO'ers in the Zone of Morgantown West Virginia! haha yep me and Sister Maddox won the YOMO challenges for this past week. okay now let me explain You Only Mission Once, is where each week we have a challenge last weeks challenge was that we had to bear testimony to as many people that we could about jesus christ and his love for that person. We had 22 YOMOS making us the Yomo champs for the week haha. And so we got to add the most random thing that we had to the YOMO trophy that we got and so me and Sister Maddox added a empty bottle of her insulin that she used for her Diabetes haha oh my gosh everyone laughed so dang hard!! :)
This past week we also went and did the missionary booth of the WVU campus at the Free Speech Circle and it was seriously so fun! we had 12 missionaries talking to people and we were handing out cards and Free hot chocolate!
 
December 16, 2013
Holy crap I hate having this one hour time limit thing in morgantown I can never get anyone written in time or get anything down either. So if I havent written you I apologize in advance. This week has been so great, We have been working with our top investigator alot these past weeks her name is Smitha and she is from India. She has now been to church twice and wanted to be baptized on the 14th of December but me and Sister Maddox decided that she needed more time to understand what a huge commitment she was going to be making.
 
Its been snowing and raining here like crazy and I absolutley love it! :) I dontknow why but there is seriously nothing like tracting and knocking on doors in freezing weather! haha  Me and Sister Maddox are tearing up the Morgantown second ward and me and elder hurt and hohneke are celebrating HOHNEKE days which is basically honeke or however you spell it! haha but we foung this investigator for the elders and we went and introduced the elders to her. and while all four of us were in here home she "Read" us. haha Elder hurt is supposably a Pot Smoker and Elder Hohneke was Unsuccessful at smoking pot.. hahha then she proceeded to tell Sister Maddox that she was an angel and then she told me that my parents did not walk with god.... haha I just had to shut my mouth and try to laugh the crazy lady off!
 
We have had 2 different baptisms here in the past 2 weeks from 2 other sets of missionaries here in Morgantown, Nicola and Brycen and they are so legit! They are in the YSA ward! :)
 
This christmas season has seriously gone by so fast and I am not sure If i am happy about it or sad. But I love missionary work and everyday i see little miracles that will and have forever changed my life! I love the gospel and I know that without it we cannot know what true happiness is.
 
December 23, 2013
SO i have NO time to write anything but the gospel is still true and I still Love the heck out of everyone!! :)
 MERRY CHRISTMAS!
December 30, 2013
well i have no time to write again but HAPPY NEW YEAR