No Gears and Worn Out Heels

(Written Monday, January 11, 2016)

Hello Everyone,

This will be a short email today but I want all of you to know that The Lord has proven to me that I can do hard things. This week, our keys to our (brand new) car were taken away because last month, we went over our mile limit.  For FOUR days, we lived like elders and had to walk everywhere and beg for rides from members. 2.5 of those days were very cold and it chose to rain for the first time in forever. Another day, we didn't have member rides and so we had to ride bikes to get to our appointments. I was on a bike that didn't have gears and had to ride uphill a lot. For a girl that does only stretches for her exercise in the morning.... this was a big jump (talk about involuntarily joining the 6 months to sexy program) and I lacked stamina, but I was praying all day that the Lord would help me and He did.  I don't know how, but I have mad appreciation for the elders that walk and bike everywhere... but then again, they get to wear pants. Also, I got to go up to a baptism in North Las Vegas and see the last member of a family get baptized and of course see the familiar faces of my North Las Vegas Family! I miss them!

This week ended on a good note and the Lord provided like always. We got to do two exchanges, one with Sister Mere who is from South Africa! She's a convert herself and so I got to talk to her about my sister serving there and the other was with Sister Brown when we were on the bikes! We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us! I love this picture of the Savior that we found. He is so happy when we put forth just a little more effort each day to be a little better! The church is true my friends and He loves us. I have felt that love this week!
I love you all!
Sister Nelson

A New Year

(Written Monday, January 4, 2016)

Howdy Everyone!

I hope you all had a safe and Happy New Year! My companion started getting sick New Year's Eve and we had to be in by 6 pm for safety reasons anyways so she tried to rest up, but we both pretty much got sick and weren't able to do much this week. We brought in the new year being two sickies!

Nevertheless, some cool miracles have occurred that I'd like to tell you about. Sometimes (more so recently) I feel like my emails have lacked substance of miracles and things that I've seen and I apologize for that so it's one of my goals to do better for the last leg of my mission. So two big miracles. We have a member family who has been working with a young 12 year old named Eliza and they said they were going to bring her to church and then we'd be able to teach her. We ended up going to one of our investigator's houses on Saturday night to teach him a lesson and came to find out that he was her uncle and she was there. She became a new investigator and can't wait to be baptized on the 30th! She is such a joy to be teaching. We feel very privileged.

Another miracle was being led by the spirit without realizing it. We were driving around one of our lesser proselyted areas trying to figure out where we should go to knock on doors. We were a couple streets down the mountain but looked up and saw a street of white houses and I just felt like we needed to get to them. We figured out where they were and parked at the bottom of the hill and started knocking on doors. The first house was dark, but through the window I saw a man sitting on a couch, he got up, but never came to the door. We ended up leaving our card in his door and every other door that opened was very rude and not interested. I felt a little discouraged but felt like we had at least done our job. Later we got a phone call (we came to find out that it was the guy in the first house on the street, but to start with he wouldn't tell us exactly where he lived) he kept calling us and asking us things about the church and has been through some hard challenges. Ultimately, we got him to meet us and a member at the park and our member was perfect for him sharing his conversion story and it really helped Rocky to feel God's love. He has lots of potential and I really hope we get to keep teaching him. We are teaching him tonight so I'm excited to let you all know what happens.

Many good things are coming for this new year, our mission vision focuses on helping members be more involved with the work and doing their part to have missionary and spiritual experiences and I'm excited to apply that to my area, but also to myself and family when I get home so we can really help the missionaries in Indiana out. My invitation to you all this week is to set spiritual goals for yourself in the new year. We come up with a slew of temporal ones, but drawing closer to Christ is something we can seek out every year and also the spiritual things are the only things we can take with us. May this be the best year yet and may you feel closer to the Savior than ever. May you feel his love throughout this year! I have a feeling lots of good things will happen this year!

Love you all,
Sister Nelson

PS: These pictures are from more adventures downtown last week!
Boulder City has my heart! I love aliens and the Blues Brothers :)

Happy New Year!

(Written Monday, December 28, 2015)

Hello dear Family and Friends,

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! I'm sorry there hasn't been a legit email sent to you all for a while, life has been crazy, but Christmas was wonderful!

I got to do many of the things that I did last year like going to a homeless shelter and feeding them, getting Christmases taken care of for families in need, we made three batches of chocolate chip cookies and left them on members' front porches.  It was so rewarding to doorbell ditch people and make others Christmases wonderful.

We were able to get some donations to buy presents for a family in need with some of our investigators and then we were able to doorbell ditch them and it was so fulfilling.

We have been able to share the video about Jesus Christ for Christmas called "He is the Gift" and people loved it. Christmas was a great time this year and now we are moving in to the new year and my question to all of you is who do you want to be this year, what do you want to accomplish?
Make some goals, both spiritual, temporal, personal and family oriented and you'll see great self improvement. God can change us into much better people than we could ever make of ourselves.

Love you all,
Can't wait to hear from you for your plans in the new year!
Sister Nelson

We helped move a lady this week and we were so glad when we finished, it was hard work but really fun!

This is me and Sister George this morning. Love you all!

Merry Christmas!

(Written Friday, December 25, 2015)

Howdy Everyone!

I don't have much time or means to email everyone today, but I will have more time on Pday! I sure do hope that you all know that I love you! My testimony of the Savior is rock solid. I've talked to many people recently that want to destroy that faith that I have, but it's only making me stronger to withstand trials and challenges. I love this gospel and how it brings families together. I love that we have a living prophet on the earth today who is guiding the righteous people just like prophets that prophesied of Christ in the bible. I love the example that Christ set for all of us in establishing His church, showing us how to love and share his gospel, being baptized and suffering for our sins, I love that he lives again. I love that after a time of darkness that God restored the gospel of Christ to it's fullest by giving us another prophet and the authority to do baptisms in his name and I love that we have another witness of our savior Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon as he shared the gospel with the people in the Americas. I love that God promises us answers about these things if we ask and pray to him. He loves us and that's a beautiful message that we want to share with everyone! I'm so glad to be a missionary at this time of year and share the love that God has for us with everyone. May this Christmas season bring you much joy and happiness!

More coming soon on Monday but here are some pictures for now!
Love,
Sister Nelson

 

Christmas is now P-day

(Written Monday, December 21, 2015)

Hello friends and family,

So sorry we don't have a preparation day this week, I'll be able to email later on Christmas, but I hope you all use your last couple of days to spread the Christmas cheer that Christ was brought into the world! Lend a hand to all and share the true meaning of Christmas! May god bless and keep you all!

Love,
Sister Nelson

A Savior Is Born—Christmas Video #ASaviorIsBorn

   

Changes Gonna Happen!

(Written Monday December 14, 2015)

Hey y'all,

It's been a crazy week. We had the Christmas Conference together this week and "Santa" came and visited the missionaries.

We were also super sick and then we found out that my companion is being made the Sister AP, so she left on like Thursday at 4:30 and I had to hop from member to member to do missionary work, it was super stressful, but I learned a lot. I got it worked out and today I have another sister missionary with me for Pday tomorrow to get my next companion. She is a temple square missionary and will only be with me for this next 7 week transfer and then I'm probably be switching areas and my next area will be my last area and I'll "die" there.
I've met some cool people though and in the second picture, you might recognize some people from a year ago, the girl in the black shirt got baptized and she was in my first area a year ago with Sister D and I got to go see her get baptized, it was so great!

Also, Christian, our great member is leaving for his mission on Tuesday, he's gonna be great, he's going to Brazil!

Life goes on and the Christmas season is here! Also, the squad pic is us at the dam, it was so fun!

Keep spreading the message of Christ, sorry his isn't longer, more pictures will be sent next week cause I'm out of time,

Love you,
Sister Nelson

Christmas-time is Here

 (Written Monday, December 7, 2015)

Hi Family and Friends,

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (probably everywhere else in the world except here) But I hope that you all are enjoying the weather and the sights nonetheless. Boulder is still the happiest and quirkiest place on Earth.

This week wasn't quite as eventful as last week although, we are going to the Hoover Dam later today so I should have more pictures next week. But, this week, we were walking around a trailer park and stumbled upon this exhibit of handmade intricate wooden dolls depicting the Savior's birth, they had music playing and free hot chocolate and a guestbook and it was beautiful! They even had a running waterfall! It's so beautiful!

We love seeing people celebrating Christ at this time of year. Strangely many of those that do celebrate don't want us to share a Christmas message with them, but we still keep going to do the Lord's work and on our way we find dalmatian decorated fire hydrants!

My dear sweet friends, last night we were able to listen to many of the leaders in our church speak to the world about our savior and celebrating him, it brought the spirit of Christmas in so wonderfully! I love Jesus Christ, I testify that He is our Savior and He started in a manger and one day will come again to rule the Earth and all wickedness, evil, unfair and unjust things will cease. I know that Christ lives today and his birth was so miraculous. I'm grateful that He came to set an example for us and to show the way. Since it is Christmas-time, I'll be sharing videos with you again this year to help bring in the true spirit of Christmas. With this video, Wise Men still seek him, pay attention to when the narrator says that the child will not be found in a manger but he's the brother or sister we once viewed as a stranger. May we all look for opportunities to see Christ in others, to see others the way that Christ sees them, to recognize that they are our brothers and sisters and to treat them as we want to be treated. May this be a holiday season of peace rather than stress and may we not get caught up in it all, but remember what is truly important and how Christ changed the world!

I love you all, Have a wonderful week! Christmas is not too far away!
Merry Christmas,
Sister Nelson
Watch the video here:

Wise Men Still Seek Him