Miami Lakes South Area 7-28-14

FAMILIA!
Wow you guys had a lot going on this week!! I was happy as always to hear about all your super fun experiences, and as well that you finally got a car!! I don't know if I like glamorous gaby or Classy Clariss more but they are both super clever names! Sorry little sistahs that I didn't have time today to reply individually but I'll write a little something real quick to each of you! Kenzo! Happy birthday last week little girl! Did you get my letter?? I mailed a birthday letter to you so hopefully it got there! Did you get scared at all as you walked through the shark tunnel at the aquarium?? Maddie! It sounded like you loved the family reunion! ;) keep learning how to talk to new people! I get to do it everyday and it's the best! I love it! You still have 3 weeks of summer before you start Jr. High so live it up!! Because soon your life is just going to be pure homework!;) haha just kidding Jr. High is awesome! Kyle! I loved hearing your gnarly experience of the natural waterslide! That place is da best! Keep going hard in the paint in tennis I can't wait to hear about when you win state in a couple months! whoop whoop! Don't get cocky though cause I will still kick your trash when I get home! Alright I think that's about it but I love you sistahs!

This week was an interesting week! First off dad I'll answer your question and say I didn't write about that Cuban couple because they were on a cruise all last week. Then they are moving to Miami beach tomorrow so we have all their info and the missionaries over there will have to help them get married. This week we didn't teach a whole lot of lessons, but the lessons that we did teach were super awesome! We're really trying to focus on the elect people  in our area and we definitely found some this week! It was blazing hot this week. Good night! But luckily for us we had a car for most of the week!! Yeah, it was crazy nice. One of the elders in district had knee surgery this week, and so they couldn't work at all so we had their car! A/C is da best! As always I'll share a quick miracle from this week.

On Tuesday, we had planned to harvest in a gated community. We have been looking for new places to knock and felt like we should just try and walk into this gated complex. So we did, and we started knocking. We knocked a whole building and found no one, so we went to the next one. Then the first door we knock on this man from Honduras opens up. We introduce ourselves and right away he lets us in. We start talking to him, and he tells us how he has a daughter in Honduras who is "Mormon", and that he had met with missionaries before in Honduras. He then tells us that he wanted to get baptized but he had to move a week before his baptism! As you can imagine my companion and I were both just grinning from ear to ear as he was telling us that! :)  Anyway long story short, we taught him this week and he came to church on sunday as well! Right before he left church, we showed him the baptismal font, and invited him for next weekend. He accepted! Now we will be working with him all this week to give up smoking and drinking so that he can be baptized! And I forgot to mention as well that literally not more than 5 minutes after we had finished teaching him, we got kicked out of that complex. So truly the Lord did guide us to him.

This week went by very quickly but it was a great week to be a missionary! We had interviews with President Richardson this week and he is a lot different than President Anderson but he is still so awesome! He is a super cool guy and it was great talking with him. I love missionary work, and I know that I was called here to serve in South Florida by God! I love this Church and I know that it is true! Keep up the good work back home, and everybody learn something new this week from the scriptures! Les quiero muchisimo!
Elder Nielsen

Miami Lakes South Area 7-21-14

With one our favorite Cuban members

FAMILIA!
Whoop whoop! Thank you all as always for your super awesome emails! I sounded like you survived your first week as young womens president mom! I liked what you said about just taking it one step at a time cause that's what I've had to do on the mission for sure! Thank you so much as well for looking for a new bag for me! I'm excited to get the new one in the mail so I will let you when I get it. I was glad to hear you guys finally found a car! I definitely want to see some pics next week por favor. Oh and another random thing, yes our mission will be getting ipads. Our president said we will have them before the end of the year. So weird but I'm super pumped!

Our week here in Miami Lakes South was super fun as well! Like I said last week we were able to set some super cool people with dates last week, but then this week they all literally just dropped off the face of the earth. We tried calling them, going by at different times, leaving notes on their doors, and nada. Oh well no worries we just went out and found some other super sweet people this week! We had this super cool lady named Marta come to church yesterday. She had met with missionaries before, and she was super excited when we just randomly came and knocked on her door. Sadly, she did not have a great experience at church. Latin people sometimes can be a little bit irreverent, and for some reason this week it was super bad. She straight up told us after that she was really frustrated because people kept talking and stuff, so hopefully we can help her still strengthen her testimony of the Restoration and help her see that this still is the Church of Jesus Christ even though the people may not be perfect. We also have plans with our ward mission leader about how we're going to help teach the ward about reverence, and get things better here!

I want to share a cool miracle that we saw this week as usual. It happened last night. We were a little frustrated from all of the day's events, and we were not able to set as many dates as we would have liked, so right at the end of the night we decided to go harvest the last 4 doors of this huge apartment complex that we have been working for the past 2 weeks. So we go knock the doors, nobody opens up. We look at our watches realize it's time to go, and we start heading back to our bikes. Then as were unlocking them we see a lady carrying some groceries, so we go and ask her if we can help and she gladly accepts. Long story short we start talking to her, and right away we could tell she was elect. She had been going through so much lately, and she has been looking for help from anywhere. After the prayer she accepted everything and said she would like to baptized with her 8 year old son as well! We are going to see her again tonight, and were super pumped cause she was way cool. It was just crazy to see as well, how after we had put in all this effort of knocking so many doors in this complex right before we were about to leave, and probably never come back, boom, the Lord puts somebody prepared in our path!

I know this is the Church of Jesus of Christ! I love the mission! It certainly hasn't been easy, but salvation has never been a cheap experience so it will never be easy! I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week! Thank you so much for all your prayers! Les quiero mucho!
Elder Nielsen

Miami Lakes South Area 7-14-14

FAMILIA!

Holy cow it sounds like you guys had the greatest week ever! I can just imagine just so many little cousins and kids just running around everywhere just having the greatest time! You're emails definitely brought a smile to my face! I was super glad to hear that Tate and Dylan had their farewells as well. Such studs they're going to love the mission. To answer your question, no Dad, luckily we don't have to get our sheets wet to sleep at night. Remember there may not be any americans here in Miami, but it's still the U.S. we got A/C! Momma! I'm so pumped for you! That seriously is amazing that you're gonna be young women's pres! That will be a real fun time! haha no crying! You're such a boss mom, there seriously is no reason to stress about anything. All the girls will love you and you're just gonna have a great time! I will be praying for you for sure. Don't ever doubt your calling though, because I know Bishop is an inspired man!

We had a super fun week here in Miami lakes. I seriously don't even know where to start. Like I said transfers came and we stayed, but this week I still had a new companion. So what happened is there are 2 elders who are companions in our district, but neither of them has a license, and one of them can't bike because he has knee problems. So we have been on exchanges basically everyday this week. It was fun though because I got to stay here and work with an elder from mexico. So we just talked spanish to each other all day which was the best!

So this week we were working a lot with that Cuban couple I told you about, Marcos and Magaly. So legit. When we taught them the word of wisdom, Magaly was smoking 12 cigarettes a day. She had been smoking since she was 14 years old in Cuba. The next day she smoked 1. Incredible! I've never met people who wanted it, and needed it as bad as they do right now. Sadly, they are not married. I'm sure you know but in Cuba people are literally doing anything they can to leave. So for Magaly to leave she had to get married to some random guy in Costa Rica who she had never met, and then move there, and then go up from Costa Rica through Mexico to come to here. Crazy situation, but because of that she hasn't been able to get a legal divorce, so now her and her "husband" are just living together, and there was no where for them to move too. I'm not going to lie it was definitely one of the saddest moments of my mission. After we taught them the law of chastity they understood it and everything but they were just sad because they wanted to be baptized so bad this sunday! In the closing prayer of the lesson Magaly was seriously bawling. She's seriously the sweetest lady I've ever met. It's definitely a tough situation, but they still have the desire! So this week were going to try and find some way for her to get divorced or one of them to move out. Please pray for them, and for us to know what to do! The other problem is their moving in like a week so it's just hectic! They want to be baptized, and they know they need to do it, so I believe that the Lord will provide a way for them to do it!

This week we were able to find a lot of other super cool potentials as well. We have several baptismal dates, so now we just need to help these people progress and get baptized! I love you all so much and I know this church is true! One more thing real quick. Yesterday we got to baptize a lady in a wheelchair. It was so intense. She was pretty heavy, and me and my companion had to pick her up in a chair, and carry her into the water, and then tip her back. She's awesome though and we didn't drop her! This week I read an article in the Ensign called becoming perfected in Christ, or something like that. But you should all go and read it because it will definitely strengthen your testimonies of the atonement. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!

Elder Nielsen

Miami Lakes South Area 7-8-14

This is a nice park we found in our area.

FAMILIA!
First off I want to say Kyle I'm sorry for not writing you but I don't have a whole lot of time, but just know I love you! :) Alright real quick with the business. No Mom, you don't need to send me anything! I'm doing really good!:) I still have not found the other memory card for my camera, but I will keep looking. The one I have still has a ton memory left though so I think I will hold off on sending it for a little bit. Good news I sent the pants home today! I also sent home the brown ones because our president told us we still can't wear them so I guess I'll just save them for after. I didn't even hear that there was a hurricane on the east coast! But yeah it's been about the same just rains everyday really hard for a little bit.

I want to thank you all so much for your prayers this week. I truly felt uplifted during times of trial this week, and we truly were blessed with so many miracles! Yes Mom, you were right. In my last letter I was a little bit frustrated but things are definitely looking up here in Miami Lakes. Oh, and in other news transfer were this week, but me and Elder White are both staying here in Miami Lakes so no changes. But like I said we were super blessed this week in finding this week! One of the huge miracles we saw this week came on Saturday.  We were out with a member who's a recently returned missionary and all our appointments fell through. So we went and knocked a door, and the first door we knocked a Cuban couple opened up. We prayed with them and talked to them, and they accepted everything. They came to church the very next day, and the Dad named Marcos tapped my leg during the sacrament then pointed to his eyes, and he was crying! It was the greatest thing ever! They're super receptive to the spirit and hopefully if we are able to teach them everything they will be baptized this sunday! so legit!

This week was super awesome because we were able to improve in every key indicator category. So basically we worked our tails off, but we were also able to have a super fun time! On of the crazy things that happened this week was on 4th of July. We had to be in our homes at 7:30! So early! So we got permission from President to sleep over at the Zone leaders house in Miami Gardens. Let me tell you something. The people in Miami Gardens are poor, cause they basically live in shacks, but man they buy some good fireworks! I don't know if they just saved all their food stamps from the year or what but there were literally stadium of fire status fireworks getting launched off at the neighbors house! It was insane! We went out on the roof and watched fireworks going off from all directions until it was time to go to bed. It was a real fun time!

I love it here and Florida and specifically here in Miami! There are so many amazing people here. I am learning to love the latin culture. I just love speaking Spanish! It seriously is the best, I feel like if I were to try and teach someone the gospel in English I would be completely lost because all I know is Spanish! Anyway sorry this was a super long email but my fingers have been flying today! I hope you all have a great week and just keep studying and strengthening your testimonies! I love this church and I love this gospel, and know it changes lives because it has changed mine forever!
Elder Nielsen