October 28- November 3, 2013
Well this week has been a pretty dang good week! Tuesday and Wednesday I did exchanges with our STL Sister Scholle. I went to Blacksburg with her and it was super fun! One of the best exchanges I have been on yet! Sister Scholle is from Logan UT so we basically know exactly were each other lives and it was so awesome because we related very well and stuff!
When I got back from exchanges I came home to find out that we had 3 new investigators that day (Robbie, Justin, Dorothy) and that one of them excepted to be baptized on December 7th!! it was so crazy and Sister Holden and Reed must have been rock stars!!
November 4- November 12, 2013
Last week was good! :) on Saturday Elder Sitati from the quorum of the 70 came and talked to us in Roanoke and it was simply so awesome! He taught us great principles and I learned so much! his wife talked to us as well and expressed the importance of companionship unity. definatley something that i need to improve on even in the hard times that I have been having lately!
On Thursday we had district meeting and we got together early and did Chicken and Waffles for lunch which was pretty fun! The zone leaders Elder Hughes and Raffensparger came and they are always super fun and nice.. :)
November 13-20, 2013
Well this week was very interesting!! Wednesday Sister Holden and I were going to contact this referral and we were walking up onto the curb and I turned around and Sister Holden was on the ground in the middle of a pot hole that she had fallen in! haha oh my goodness, it took me a minute to realize that something was really wrong!! haha So I was like are you okay and the only thing she muttered was "my ankle" oh my gosh I just about died. Then I saw that there was blood everywhere!! It freaked me out so bad and then she started to cry and you know how I am when people cry it makes me super uncomfortable so I started LAUGHING! oh my gosh I am such a retard but then I realized that she was laughing and crying at the same time so I felt a little bit better. I went back up the road to get the car so I could pick her up and get her taken care of and it took a good ten minutes to get her to get in the car. it was so bad. We went to Ron and Mama B's to get some assistance after we realized that we had nothing to take care of this kind if situation! Sister Holden's knee looked like hamburger and she had this huge gouche in her knee that looked pretty sweet and then Ron yelled at me for touching it! haha But Sister Holden's ankle is basically broken. okay not broken I am being dramatic but she has sprained it really good! and this past week she has been resting it basically all day so it has been kinda frustrating just sitting in the apartment cancelling appointments. But This week we were suppose to study the Christlike attribute PATIENCE. ha so the lord has taught me a whole new meaning on patience this week with Sister Holden's ankle! So she is starting to use it a lot more and she is getting allot better!
And now for the even bigger news..... Drum Roll please....
I am getting transferred :) :( :) :(
if you cant figure that out i have very mixed emotions on it. I am the very bottom of the mission in Virgnia and now I am heading all the way to the very top to MORGANTOWN WEST VIRGNIA!! I am super excited because I have heard that it is basically so amazing there and I am just so excited. But on the other hand I am super heartbroken to be leaving Dublin and Pulaski! I have been here for almost 5 months and this place has basically become home to me! The member's and the families I have met here are amazing and their testimonies are such an amazing example to me!! I have grown so much!
So i keep singing to myself "I'll go where you want me to go dear lord." I am going there to try touch other lives as well.
I am going to be "Greenie-Breaking" Sister Maddox which means that she is finishing training right now so I was so relieved that I still have not had to train any missionaries yet!! :D *knock on wood! :)
I am so excited for this coming transfer because I am going to be back with one of my best friends Elder Hohneke! He went to Morgantown last transfer so we are gonna be having some fun in M-town!!
November 21- 25, 2013
Oh my goodness gracious! You are hearing from one excited Sister Missionary from MO-TOWN WEST VIRGINIA!!! :) I am so happy I cant even explain my feelings right now!! hah this is a baptizing zone and we are seeing miracles here every single day! I have not felt true happiness like this in quite a while and I am just so happy!!! I love you all and I hope that this week you have a fantastic Thanksgiving! I have been thinking alot of people in the Book of Mormon who are so thankful and great examples for thanksgiving and I have though a lot about MOroni! in Alma 48 it talks about how good of a man that he is and he is always quick to be thankful to the lord for the blessing and the happiness that he recieves from the lord. So my challenge to you guys is to be thankful as Moroni is! :)
We have two solid investigators right now and we are expecting to see great things coming from Shea and Smitha! I am just so excited to be in Morgantown! There is 6 Companionship's in Morgantown making 12 missionaries and we are seriously just dominating this area! Baptisms are happening everywhere in West Virginia and its so exciting!! :)
This work is truly hastening and TIME IS RUNNING OUT!! the prophets seers and revelators have declared it! This missionary efforts are showing it! and now its time for the members to pick up there feet and do something about it!! isn't this amazing that we are members of the church during the last dispensation of a winding up period for the lord to come again?!? :)
People this church is true and there is no denying it!
I love you all!! :)
Miracle Time!! :)
This first week that I have been transferred to Morgantown with Sister Maddox has been full of miracles. Its truly been such an amazing experience here already! The Night I got here we went to see one of our investigators named Shea!
We had an amazing lesson on the importance of not only having faith but using that faith to put it to action. And it clicked for her she decided that she would use that faith to finally quit smoking!
The following night we got a text from her saying that she had decided that the church was not something that she wanted to be involved in and that she would let us know if she decided otherwise. Me and Sister Maddox were stuck and we didn't know how to respond, that night we text her and told her that we respected her decision, that we loved her, and that we would still like to stop by and say hi to her if that was okay.
All the rest of that night we prayed, studied, and thought about Shea so much and we just knew that there was more that we were able to do. The next morning there was a baptism for a little girl in the ward, we quickly text Shea and made sure that she knew she was invited to the baptism regardless of the circumstances. She text us and told us that she would be there! We were so excited!!
We met her there and the baptism went great! afterwards we went to say hi and asked her if she had any questions and she did, we answered them and then asked her if she would like to go sit down and talk for a little bit. She agreed and we went to sit in the foyer from there the spirit was strong and she again began to explain why she did not think that she could be involved with the church. Sister Maddox shared Alma 7: 11-13 and read a quote by President Thomas S. Monson about the importance of feeling gods love in our lives. From there Shea began to cry, we were all confused and from there I had realized that she felt VERY overwhelmed.
A member then came over and started sitting with us trying to comfort Shea the best that she could. The member then began to bear her testimony on the importance of feeling and recognizing the Holy Ghost and the importance of making sure that we recognize those feelings so that we can have the faith to follow the examples that have been set to be a member of the church. Shea then looked at both of us crying and said "I felt the Holy Ghost."
The spirit was so strong right then and there and I knew at that moment in my heart that the lord had just answered mine and Sister Maddox's many prayers from the following evening when she had dropped us. She then explained to us that she would be attending church the next day and that she knew that she needed to continue seeing with us.
There is so many miracles in missionary work and I am sure that there are so many that go unaccounted for and forgotten. But I know that the lord led Shea to that baptism so that she would be able to help her identify and recognize the Holy Ghost. Its truly a miracle that she is still meeting with us and I know without a doubt that she will be a member of the church one day!
Dallin H. Oaks said; A miracle has been defined as “a beneficial event brought about through divine power that mortals do not understand and of themselves cannot duplicate.”
The lord truly provides miracles.
November 25, - December 2, 2013
Well Thanksgiving week is over and I am pretty sure that I have gained ten thousand pounds from all the places that we went and ate!! haha We had three different dinner appointments one at 1 ,3, and 5!! hah and my goodness when I got too the third appointment I made sure that i knew where the bathroom was because I had every intention to throw up after i got through the third dinner haha! But thanksgiving was so fun and so great!! It was nice to be around members and feel that you belong to a family! And strangely no homesickness was felt but i will hurry and knock on wood before the Christmas season comes around because i am already missing the fact that i was not home to put the Christmas tree up after coming home from blackfriday shopping! hah
This week me and Sister Maddox won the YOMO challenge!! haha (You Only Mission Once) we had to see how many people that we could bare testimony too about Jesus Christ that were not affiliated with the church and we were the winners of the entire Morgantown Zone!! OH heck ya!! :)
haha but last night we were going to the Christmas Spirit sing a long with sister granthem and Gubler and all of a sudden of car started clicking and it was totally sketch so we pulled over at this weigh station and the plastic around the wheel was dragging hard core!! haha so i started to rip it off and then realized that was a VERY bad idea haha so this man stopped and helped us DUCT TAPE the car back together!!!! hahaha oh my goodness i have been in West Virginia for way too long!! haha but hey DUct tape fixes EVERYTHING out here!! :) haha thank goodness for the road maintenance guy TOMMY ASH!! haha we gave him a Book of MOrmon and then reffered him to the missionaries in Clarksburg! haha
haha but oh my goodness I love missionary work and I love being around people who make me feel so good and it truly put perspective into my life about what I want when I get home from my mission. -its kinda weird how missionary work prepares you for marriage.. hah i mean i now understand why returned missionaries come home and get married so quickly, its kinda strange!
I love you all and I hope that as the holidays are now here and the presents are being wrapped i hope you all remember the importance of what Christmas is! it is a time that we can reflect on Jesus Christ and his love for us! And also its an amazing time to forget yourself and serve others!! I love you all to the end of the world and back! I love you! I love you! I love You!!
Love Sister Nielsen!
