You Can Change! 💵

Wow what a great week to be a missionary!

We had a pretty stellar week this week. Something we are really excited about is that recently we have been encouraged to use Skype to stay in contact with our investigators which has really helped one of our investigators, M-----. She lives really far away and always has a lot of questions, so it has been really great to Skype her when she has questions.

We had a Zone Meeting this week! I was really nervous because I had to give a training in front of everyone. But in the end it was nothing to worry about. We get to do another one this week! Haha no sweat, eh?

We have done a lot of finding this week! Haven't gotten any one really solid, but we are working on it. One of our finding efforts is that we do a lot of great service. One of the greatest opportunities we do is the community kitchen. It is this awesome kitchen that is basically the same idea as a soup kitchen but with really great food! We help out there once a week and have met some really great people from that. We love our community kitchen friends. This week we made the most amazing peanut butter cake and I made the frosting and got it everywhere -- all over myself. But it was amazing in the end! Well, they invited us this week to also help out at a big community event called empty bowls. This was a great activity with ceramics and food. We got to help set up, serve, and we even got our own bowl!

I feel like this week was like a day long. It was a great week! With our focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ, I really liked this quote: "God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go." - Jeffery R. Holland

That is the great beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ - the reality of eternal progression. We are not only allowed to change for the better but also encouraged, and even commanded, to continue in pursuit of improvement.

Hope y'all have a groovy week!

Love,
(As the southerners say) HurMana Nielson

P.S. les quiero mucho!

P.P.S. lots of pictures this week!
1- our bowls - mine has a tree in it

2-I found a cute heart bowl

3- I made friend with a event manager and he let me ride around on his lift and collect balloons and talk about the gospel.

4- A member taught us how to box mixed martial arts for P-Day today so... just call me million dollar baby.

Update from the South

Hey!

Wow so this week was just about the craziest week ever!

We went on exchanges this week! Sister A----- came here, and we had a fabulous time. She is like my little Hispanic magnet because on exchanges we unexpectedly found like 3 different houses of Latinos which is unprecedented here. We have been teaching specifically one Guatemalan less active family, and they are so awesome. Sometimes less active people don't realize they are less active and that is hard. We are really excited for them to come back to church.

On Thursday, we woke up at the crack of dawn (4:30 am) to drive to Nashville for MLC! We were pretty excited. Two men from the missionary department addressed us, and they gave a wonderful training. Lots of other missionary were there, and it was great to learn so much! Even though we didn't get home until almost 8 o'clock that night, we were making good time. #styxproblems

P--- was baptized on Saturday! He is the cutest kid! It was a great day! Basically, P--- is the coolest kid ever. Any normal 9 year old when told by the missionaries to invite people to his baptism might invite his best friend, but P--- is no normal 9 year old. He Invited so many people. There were more non-members than members at his baptism, which is crazy because he is half Hawaiian! Among them were half his baseball team with their families and a baptist preacher and deacon. This made for some interesting times. The Restoration lesson that we teach between the baptism and confirmation was especially effective.

Other highlights of the week:

- People keep asking me where I'm from because I have an "accent". Even members 🤦‍♀️
- We went to the Superman museum which was SUPER cool!

- We were with our member from sun up till sun down.
- I went to three different states in one day.

The work is going really well here. It was a really busy week, and busy missionaries are happy missionaries!

Hope y'all have a great week!

Love,
Sister Nielson

P.S. Exchanges

P.P.S P---!

P.P.P.S. Hermana Waite

P.P.P.P.S. Bowling Green crew

Padookah Week 2

Good Evening, Y'all!

Paducah. Just say Pahdookah! It brings me joy every time I say it! It's really fun.

Things are going really great here. We are working hard. P--- is getting baptized on Saturday, he is so funny. Yesterday when we were going over the baptism questions, we mentioned the Word of Wisdom, and he just sighed and said, " Rough times." He had to give up sweet tea and is doing really good but is just being silly. 

Highlights from this week,

• We have made contact with every Spanish person that is less active in the county. I think the biggest potential is a family named the P-----s. They are Guatemalan and have 5 kids. We are really excited about that. 
• We got to be secret agents. We had to tract  down some people who had moved. My personal favorite was when a man said this guy we were looking for had moved across town to a high security equalized housing tower, which is notorious for being ruthless to visitors. Running on faith and hope, we went over there into the office, and just asked. She told us that usually it is a no (for legal reasons), but since you are from his church, here is his room number and a backdoor entrance to the oldest historic building in Paducah. Needless to say he was surprised to see us. 
• A person from Switzerland got really excited because she thought i was Swiss too, because of my accent....
• Sunday, right before Sacrament Meeting, a member of the bishopric approached us and asked us both to give talks because the speakers didn't show. That was a interesting experience I won't soon forget. Usually I am a basket case from nerves, but I felt totally fine. I had no idea what I would talk on, but a scripture came to mind. I opened to it, read it, explored it, bore testimony, and before I knew it, I had been talking 15 minutes! I was blown away. Guys, the Spirit is so real there is no way I could've done that on my own! Wow!
• We spent a lot of time in Metropolis Illinois... home of Superman. 
• Ate some beignets, French doughnuts
• Found a Take a Book, Leave a Book

This week was awesome. Things are going great! 

Love hearing from yall! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Nielson

P.S. Beignets!!

Hello, Paducah!

Well, this week has been pretty awesome! Paducah, Kentucky is a very cool place. Our area covers a huge distance, it is nestled right into where the Ohio river meets the great Mississippi! Also a half of my area is in Illinois! I am now officially what we call a 3 state missionary! I have served across three states! My new companion is the wonderful Sister Mortensen.  She is spiritual and is learning Spanish! Which she really likes because she is 1/4 Mexican. We actually have the same time in the field and will be going home together. She is from Meridian Idaho. She is a lot of fun!

Paducah is a great area! There are very few who speak Spanish, but there are a few! The work is going pretty well. We have boy on date who is named P--- and he is pretty cool.

Something else really cool happened this week. R----- and M------ got married and baptized! So basically R----- and M------ are just the coolest investigators ever. They called up the sisters about a 3 weeks ago and said we want a eternal marriage. R----- stopped smoking cold turkey in a week, they took all the discussions from the elders and sisters in our ward, and were married last Thursday and baptized on Saturday!

One of my favorite quotes from this week was at the wedding when R-----'s mom was questioning the church, she said, "It's simple, mom. It's called the restored gospel." She went on to bear her testimony to her mother before she was even a member. They are such a prepared couple. For the closing hymn at the baptism. M------ choose "If You Could Hie to Kolob". He said he had never heard the song but really liked the words. It was a totally different feeling to be at a baptism for a couple. They are already looking forward to the temple in a year.

Those are most of our happenings in Paducah. I am just trying to learn names and how to get around this town. It's a really cool town. We have a small ward, and it is definitely a pretty small southern town. We also got a full time car this week! We were both excited about that!

I have a testimony that the Lord loves to humble us, and I have definitely felt that this week. It has been a wonderful learning opportunity, loving the work we are doing and getting back into English work!

Love hearing from y'all! Hope y'all's week goes dandy!

Love,
Hermana/Sister Nielson


P.S. This cross is in my area and is like 150 ft tall #suchasouththing

P.P.S. M------ and R-----'s wedding