Hope Floats ... or At Least It's Waterproof‏

Hola! 

This email is coming a little late because for our P-day adventure to downtown Nashville!

This week was awesome! We had so many great experiences, even with all the rain. I feel like people are most receptive in the rain. They are feeling down and then our message of hope comes. I have decided to include a few more key indicators (things we report). First, numbers of inches rained. Second, number of water bottles received. Third, number of doors knocked on. Finally, number of cheek kisses received. We have had wonderful numbers this week. We met all of our goals, and we even achieved 40% member prescence which we really wanted. 

We went on exchanges this week! It was pretty fun. Sister B------ came to our area, and Sister E----- and I paired up. Every single lesson and visit we had canceled. We basically just tracted for the whole day. An amazing thing happened though -- One of the last houses we tracted was a referral from the elders because Spanish speakers were there. They refer us to these homes because they couldn't talk to them. They sent us that referral about a week previous. When we knocked on the door, a man answered but said nobody lived there and he was just the construction worker ( he spoke Spanish). He was actually a member who just moved to town and was inactive. So we shared with him all about the Spanish ward. It was an amazing coincidence. 

On Friday we had the most amazing lesson with a man named P----. He may be an eternal investigator. We think he has been investigating for 4 years. It was our last lesson before we were going to drop him. We taught him and his girlfriend straightforward about the purpose of the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong. They were considering getting married so they could be baptized. We would love to see that happen.

On Saturday we had 5 member-present lessons which is huge for our area because our ward is not huge. We had 9 for the whole week! 

The Easter initiative came out yesterday. It's so cool we have already shared it with some people!  Watch it! followhim.mormon.org

This morning we played volleyball with some Relief Society ladies from the surrounding wards. It was very competitive lets just say. Then we went downtown with a couple from the English ward in our building, and the Smith Springs English sisters. It was so awesome! We went around and saw the sights and got a feel for downtown Nashville. Then we got some real Nashville fried chicken which is like Kentucky Fried Chicken but really spicy and served with bread. It was really fun. 

The members we went with, the Gates, the husband is the lead singer in Due West and a big part of the Nashville tribute band. There is an "I'm a Mormon" video about them. Tim Gates. Watch it. It's cool. 

My spiritual thought is on faith. If we want to learn by faith or have our prayers answered by faith, we have to be willing to act.  It gives new meaning to the principle "faith without works is dead."  We just can’t ask Heavenly Father to help us with the work or help us improve or to even help us learn by the Spirit without a firm determination to act. And we have to do the same with our investigators. We have to help them see that when they are prepared to ACT…then the Spirit will take what we are teaching them into their hearts.

I hope everything is well with y'all! 

Love, 

Hermana Nielson