Week 13, St Augustine

Hey everyone!

P-day will be a little bit nuts today since we're all moving out and we're in a tripanionship right now, but I'll tell y'all about what's happening!

The transfer conference call was last night and I will be going to Hendricks Avenue with Sister Zanella as my companion. She's a Temple Square sister from Brazil, so this means that I'm going to learn Portuguese again! Sister Shumway is going to St Augustine Ward, so she's moving to the apartment two blocks down the street. Sister Wallentine already transferred so we are in a tripanionship with Sister Cline, trying to figure out the logistics of getting two apartments and two cars cleaned, as well as three people's luggage packed into one place by 6:00 tonight. Luckily we don't have to go grocery shopping though.

Despite the madness of transfers (all of us actually found out where we were going last Wednesday during interviews with President Craig and our entire district is changing up), we've been trying to teach a lot. One of my favorite investigators is named Janet. She's going blind and can't read the Book of Mormon, so we go over to read with her. She is the sweetest lady ever.

Sorry if I seem out of it; this whole week has been a blur. Turns out the St Augustine Shores Ward really loves us a lot (even if they're forget us soon); they all want to feed us/visit with us the last couple days. We'll do the best we can, but people will still be sad to see us go. Sister Shumway in particular; she's been here six months. She's going just as far as the other ward, though, so she'll be able to see everyone at 9 AM church still. I'll really miss this area. Still, I'm excited to go to a new area and an entirely new pool of investigators.

Other than that, we've been running around and doing a lot of service, raking and putting up Christmas lights and such. Sometimes I feel like we're going seven different directions trying to do everything we should but never manage to get to. At times like this, we just need to rely on the Spirit and pray for guidance in everything we do, because we certainly can't do this on our own. The devil is still tempting us missionaries just as much as anyone else, but he uses different tools for us, most particularly three thoughts: unworthiness, inadequacy, and discouragement. And at times, these seem like good and reasonable thoughts to have, especially inadequacy, because you think that the guilt you feel for your flaws may compell you to change, improve, and become a better person that way. But this week, I finally decided that's really not true. Those feelings are never good and I don't want to feel them, not even as "motivators". Guilt is the worst reason to make you or anyone else do anything: so I've decided I want to change my thinking to this: I have many faults but I want to change them without being overly hard on myself. That's where the Atonement of Jesus Christ steps in, because this is the process by which you refine and improve yourself in a positive way. More than that, if the Atonement can take away all our pains and sins, I believe it can also cleanse us of negative thoughts and character flaws so that we can be more Christlike and come closer to God. The Atonement is incredile. It just covers anything, so long as we can be humble enough to truly repent.

Sorry for a rather dissatifactory report of the week, but that's about it! See y'all next week!

Sister Nielsen

 

Pictures: The elders made us a lovely breakfast at the church last p-day!

Family Home Evening at Jaime's. Perhaps slightly more orderly than the average FHE anyone has...

Week 12, Florida

Hi y'all, 

So this week has been utter madness. Yesterday, we we headed out to find a lone less-active member who lives in the tiny town of Hastings. We went from wow-this-is-a-bit-far to um-we-might-have-just-left-the-mission. But we did find the place and we didn't break the rules, though at one point we were driving on the road that serves as the ward, stake, area, zone, AND mission boundary.

But all the madness is fine because Jaime and Sierra got baptized this Saturday! Which was just incredible. This is the first time anyone I have taught has progressed all the way to baptism. Getting ready for it was utterly crazy though. I was reminding myself constantly that today's trials will be tomorrow's blessings (and tomorrow's funny stories) so now that it's past, I can laugh at everything that happened.

President Herrington (who is a counselor in the mission presidency and who had conducted Jaime's interview) had warned all of us that the week before baptism is usually pretty tough. Jaime was working on quitting smoking and wasn't anticipating anything to be harder than that. But the next day, two people proposed to her out of the blue, which I thought was really hilarious. We'd decided to hold this baptism at the church instead of the beach, which was a lot better based on the weather reports and the health of Jaime's parents, but we first had to scrub the baptismal font for a few hours before we had it sparkling clean again. It was slightly tough to find baptismal clothes for both Jaime and Sierra, though we managed fine in the end. More distressing though, was the news that the entire bishopric was out of town that day, so we asked the high priest group leader, the elders quorum president, and a bunch of other group leaders with no success. So slightly frazzled, we called up President Herrington (who used to be the stake president and could technically preside) and he gave us a definite maybe. So the day of the baptism, in the midst of making a few dozen cookies and trying to convince our speaker that he didn't need ten powerpoint slides for his 3-5 minute talk, President Herrington called and told us that not only was he coming; the entire mission presidency (plus Sister Craig) was coming too! It was great to have them, but we were a little stressed about getting everything perfect, especially since this was the first baptism I have ever put on. By the way, none of this is me complaining about a hard week, but it's funny to see how hard Satan was trying to foil Jaime's baptism and how beautifully it went in the end. Jaime and Sierra were both so happy and beaming. Sierra told me that she'd finally received her answer that this was the right thing for her and how glad she was that she'd taken this step of faith. We had to stall a little bit during the service while we waited for Jaime's parents and sister to make it (they'd driven all the way from Daytona!) but they got there in the nick of time and had a wonderful experience. And while it seemed like the entire ward was out of town/working/had family visiting, everyone's plans suddenly fell through and they showed up to the baptism instead! It was a bit of a trial of faith to see 5:00 roll around and there are 3 people present, but by 5:15 there are 30. It was just miracle after miracle. The Spirit was so strong through the whole thing and it was just perfect. They were so happy and their family was happy to see them happy. Bishop Marsh confirmed both of them in sacrament meeting the next day. Jaime is getting called as a visiting teacher (she requested it) and Sierra is started her Personal Progress and making plans to serve a mission in between school (she wants to become a lawyer). Another miracle: our ward had no Mia Maids at all, but with Sierra and Crystal getting baptized, we now have two! We've gotta find and teach some deacon-age boys now.

I received some interesting insight this week: both Jaime and Sierra have told me how strongly they felt impressed by the Spirit in sacrament meeting. Jaime said several times how real and sincere everyone was, especially when they bore their testimonies. They weren't pretending to be perfect in front of the rest of the congregation, but they were really striving to live the principles and commandments they spoke about. Each time Jaime took me aside to tell me something amazing she'd felt, I'd think something like "Well, I don't see what was so special; it was just a regular meeting. All the speakers were good, for sure, and I learned something valuable, but it wasn't the most spiritual experience I've ever had." (I'm not proud of that thought.) But for Jaime and Sierra, church really WAS the most spiritual experience they've ever had before. It made me realize that out here on a mission and having attended church my whole life, I am immersed enough in the Spirit that I can sort of take it for granted when it is present. I can feel the difference instantly when it is gone, but the people I meet out here don't know that different. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we know that difference and it is incredible. 

That's about it for this week! Also, transfers next week, so we'll see where I go!

Love everyone,

Sister Nielsen

Pictures: At the baptism!

Sierra dyed Sister Shumway's hair last P-day

The font really did look a lot better afterwards

Also, quotable quotes by Sierra immediately following her baptism: "Wow, I really do feel clean! Thought you guys were kidding about that."

Week 11, Florida

Hey everyone!

I got really sick this week so we didn't go out and do as much as usual, perhaps. That, or I don't remember much. So bear with me.

Cody and Crystal got baptized this Saturday and confirmed on Sunday, which was pretty amazing. They are both great youth and I love 'em. Crystal and Sierra are really good friends and Crystal was the reason Sierra started to attend church, and that's where she encountered Joshua, who gave Jaime the elders' number, so just a whole bunch of miracles coming together amazingly. They are both getting baptized this Saturday as well. We had Crystal and Cody and their dad over at Jaime's house this Friday to watch the Joseph Smith movie and the elders brought Joshua and we tried to bring Victor, so it was a big party.

A lot of times it seems like the plans we make for the day have no bearing on who we actually manage to see that day, so there's a lot of madness all the time. We rush about a lot and try not to get our investigators to hate us too much. We got two more last Sunday night: this sweet old couple named Earl and Betty. They have an LDS son and daughter-in-law so they know a little about the church, because Betty saw my Personal Progress medallion which I randomly decided to wear that day and recognized the Salt Lake Temple. We were able to teach them about eternal marriage and the Plan of Salvation and as we were walking out, Betty said "Take care of that locket, dear! It's so special that you remember your goal." I love the people we get to meet out here. It seems that in Florida everyone is either extremely hostile or extremely friendly with little middle ground, which makes every encounter an adventure.

The other picture is from Kaci's baptism last week. She's nine and lives in the other ward and was taught by Elders Jenkins and Smedley, but she comes to church with her deaf grandmother and so was baptized into our ward. But the font was really dirty and the elders neglected to clean it before they started filling it. But the time we noticed it was too late to refill, so the sisters (cause we don't wear pants and all) hopped into the font to emergency clean out the bugs and scrub the bathtub ring. We did a good job but Sister Cline's legs looked so bad that we checked the temperature and realized that it was 120 degrees. Luckily we noticed before they tried to baptize Kaci.

Here's an awesome pattern that we've been challenging people to use to answer their questions: Read, Write, Pray, Read, Write, Pray. I'd never done exactly that before and I was a little dubious, but it's amazing! If any of you have a serious question that you really need to take up with the Lord, try this. The scripture you read is the only thing you change out every time. Then you write whatever questions and thoughts that come to your mind and then you pray about your question. Then you read exactly what you read before over again, write down your new insights, and pray over again. Then stay on your knees for five minutes or so and just ponder. I promise that if you do this, you will able to receive revelation and peace to your soul. Anyway, that's about it. 

Love y'all!

Sister Nielsen

Week 10 in Florida (woah, already?)

Hey everyone!

This will be real brief cause the timer on this computer (public library) says I only have 22:56 left, but we didn't see as many people as we usually do this week anyway. The reason: among other meetings, Elder Zwick of the Seventy came to our mission, had an extremely intense devotional Wednesday night, and then a 9-hour 5-zone conference the next day. It was, to say the least, mindblowing, and naturally I left my notes at home before I came to write this email. But Elder Zwick basically revealed the future of missionary work and the programs that our mission and a few others will lead the way in establishing. You all already know about Facebook, but that's being expanded in amazing ways. I know people have been talking about missionaries getting iPads for a while, but it was so neat to see him hold up a 1937 version of Preach My Gospel in one hand and one of the new mini iPads in the other and show us how they complement each other. We'll be getting them sometime in 2014 and we'll be able to purchase them for $50 after our missions to insure that we treat them nicely. Our planners, area books, map books, and investigator progress records will all be on there. Any general authority will be able to go to Florida, St Augustine Shores Ward Sisters, and look at our plans for that day (our names won't be attached to them, but everything we put up will be there). The Church is setting up a cloud data plan whatever thingie so that our iPads will be connected to the internet at all times (with missionary-appropriate firewalls) so we can do facebook from there, browse lds.org, pull up a Mormon Message for a lesson, etc. There are other things he said that I've totally forgotten. He was wayyy bolder than I was expecting in calling on the ward councils to unite with missionaries. He comitted every member in the devotional to have a person in their home for the missionaries to teach within ten days. A ton of other things are happening here in the FJM but I don't have time to talk about 'em! Sorry, next week.

Sister Shumway taught Wiley the entire Plan of Salvation in ASL yesterday while I contributed a few sign comments to distract Wiley's little sister (she's 7, hearing, and a little obnoxious). Wiley lives on an Arabian farm, which makes me miss horses a ton. Then we went to find a deaf former gator and encountered his brother David, who committed to come to volleyball. I had no clue how to converse with him and my ASL is still terrible, but then we found out he does jui-jitsu[*] and MMA and then I was able to talk with him just fine. That was a real miracle. All the other sisters ordered ASL nametags and I think I'll order one too, because then it will force me to improve a lot in the 6 weeks or so before it arrives. Don't worry, I'm still studying Portuguese as well. Elder Andrade's native Spanish is a great resource because if I'm reading O Livro de Mormon during facebook time, I can just ask what "rebanho" means instead of stopping to look it up. (It means "herd" or somesuch).

We set up a table in St. George Plaza in the Old City Friday night, where we asked everyone what question they would have for God if he were standing right there and then answered it with the Book of Mormon. We met a lot of really interesting people that way (and almost got eaten by a homeless man's pit bull, but that's besides the point. And mom, of course I'm kidding!) We weren't allowed to go out anywhere on Halloween, so we stayed at a member's house and helped pass out candy, which was possibly the most relaxing time I've had on my entire mission. We're still teaching Jaime and Sierra and they're incredible, but tell y'all bout that later! Sorry, totally out of time, but Naomi is coming on a mini mission with us this weekend and I'll talk about that later too!

Sorry for the multiple apologies.

Love y'all!

Sister Nielsen

Picture: All of us on Halloween. The sisters all dressed as Disney princesses so guess who I am!

*jiu-jitsu

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