Ft. Lauderdale West 5-18-2015

A Marriage and a Baptism

FAMILIA!!

So good to hear from everyone as always!! I can't believe Kylie is graduating in a few days! So weird! I loved those pictures of her with all the wardies. Such a good group of kids! Also, I can't believe that Dad is 45! haha such an old man! ;) 

I will go ahead and jump right into everything that happened this past week since I don't have a whole lot of time, and so much has happened. But this week can be described in one word, "LEGENDARY!" We started off the week with a big day on Tuesday, because Mary and Ghandi got married and baptized on Tuesday night!! Woohoo! So cool! Haha it was such a fun night! Our bishop married them, and then we had the baptism! It was funny because Mary and Ghandi have both only been here for about a year so they don't really know "American traditions". So our relief society President had a cake, and had them cut the first piece together, and then feed it to each other, and the whole time they just had these super confused and puzzled looks on their faces! They invited a lot of their family to the big night as well. And none of them speak any english, so they were just speaking marshallese to each other the whole time. Such a crazy language. I can't believe Winston is speaking that! But all in all it was an amazing night!

Then the following night on Wednesday we met with our other solid Investigator named Toni! She had come to church a couple times now, and last Sunday @ church we committed her for baptism on the following friday. Then on Tuesday she sent us this big long text about how she wasn't sure she should do it anymore because her friend had told her a bunch of "anti" stuff. So on Wednesday we had already planned a baptismal interview. So basically we just told her that we would come over answer all of her questions and then she could still decide what she wanted to do. The 2nd counselor in our Mission presidency came to do the interview. He was interviewing her for an hour and a half! And usually when it goes that long it's never a good sign, but Toni comes out of the interview with the biggest smile I've ever seen! She basically just told us, that she knew God had sent us to her, and that she had truly felt the Spirit at church, and that it didn't matter what her friend said to her this was where she needed to be. And then on Friday her and her 10 year old son B got baptized!! 

A lot of other random stuff has happened this week, but truly it has been a miracle week! This week my testimony has really been strengthened that God is the one who prepares people and that if we will follow the spirit he will put those who are prepared in our path! With Toni the way we found her was one of the biggest miracles of my mission. We were just leaving an apartment complex after a lesson, and we saw her walking in with her 4 kids. 2 of them were screaming and crying, the other one she was holding, and she looked like she was in a rush. Not really a typical person that you would just stop and talk too. But as we walked past her, both Elder Burgoyne and I had a prompting to just turn and offer her a card. So that's what we did, and she accepted and then we talked more with her, and now she is the newest member of the Church of Jesus Christ! God works in mysterious ways. I know that God answers prayers. The answers never seem to come in the way that we would expect, but I know that if we just have enough faith that they will come. I love you all so much, and I hope you have an amazing week! 

Love,

Elder Nielsen