The End!! 11-24-2015

FAMILIA!!

See you in 2 days!! ;) I love you guys so much and I can't wait to see you and hear all about your lives and tell you about all of the experiences and lessons that I have learned! 

Love, Elder Nielsen

Palm Springs North 11-16-2015

FAMILIA!!

Yo!! I feel the exact same way as all of you! I'm so done emailing! Haha I think that's a true sign that my time as a missionary is coming to an end. I wish I would have brought my camera with me today, but I forgot! So. . . Forgive me, but I will send a boss last email next week!

This week we just went crazy hard! The bags under my eyes, are about past my nose their so big! haha but it's ok. It's been really good this last transfer to just be a zone leader and just go hard in our area. It's helped me to just get any last desires for the work out of me! We found a super cool lady this week named Rachel. It was awesome because she was the exact person that we had prayed to find and then we found her. She works at the hospital and works super long shifts. She started a shift late saturday night, that all the way through Sunday. Then during her lunch break she came to church for sacrament meeting! It was amazing! The only time she had off she took it to come to church, and she loved it. At church she accepted a date for my last day in the mission, so hopefully we can help her be ready by that day so that I could baptize on my last day in the mission! That would be legendary! 

That's about all I have to report, and about all that I have time for! haha I'm sorry, but I promise that I will have good stories for when I get home! I love you guys so much! I can't wait to see you! Thank you for all of your support to me over my mission! I truly have the best family ever! And mom if there is anyway that you could get the stake president to release me through the phone on Thursday or whatever that would be great. Because I do not want to have to resist the temptation to watch football on Thanksgiving day with the family! Anyways whatever happens happens! See you in 10 days!

Palm Springs North 11-9-2015

FAMILIA!

Wow, first off, I have to say congrats to Mom, for hiking from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon! That hiked looked like a lot of fun, and you seem like a supernatural athelete now! So I must say I'm impressed! haha you're probably in way better shape than me now, so when I get home you're going to have to run my butt off! ;) I really can't wait to see you guys! I don't think it will hit that I'm actually going home until I land in SLC because it still doesn't feel real to me! 

Missionary life is pretty normal here right now! Haha I'm so sorry but I literally have like nothing to say about this week. I can't really think of any cool stories from this week. . . Oh! here we go. So this week we were knocking doors, and every house in our area has a little fence around it with a gate. And whenever we get up to the gate we always whistle and shake the fence so that way if there's any dogs they come running up and we know not to go in. So one house we whistle, and shake the gate and we see no dog. So we go in and knock the door, and the next thing we hear is a gnarly snarl, coming from behind us. We jump around and there is a fat, pit bull momma, just chilling right there! I about pooped my pants. Luckily the owner of the house came out and stopped the dog from attacking us, but I'm pretty sure if he hadn't been there it would have been an all out battle! haha!

Something else cool, that happened this week was our stake had a huge "International Dinner". Where every ward is assigned a country and then they all bring a bunch of food from that country and meet together and play music and hang out. It was really fun because I got to see a bunch of members and people from my past wards that I've served in. The fountainebleau ward, and miami lakes ward, and miami YSA branch were all there. So it was cool to see a bunch of people again before I head home. Not to mention there was a bunch of good food so that was fun. ;) 

Haha sorry I don't have much else to say! I love you guys a lot, and I will see you soon! 

Palm Springs North 11-2-2015

FAMILIA!

Wow, I love you guys! I can't wait to see you in like 3 weeks! But, I promise I'm not trunky! haha so I don't have much to say this week because I will literally just be able to tell you guys everything in the flesh soon. So . . . But to answer some of your questions. Momma, for school I do not have a clue what kind of classes are good to take or what I should do. Not in the least bit do I know what I want to do. All I can say is just choose some super general classes for me to figure out what I like. And yes I did do some ap classes, but I only passed the AP calculus test. 

This week was an interesting week. Satan seemed to just come out with all guns firing this week. That is what usually happens after a super good week, but our zone still did really good and we baptized 4 as a zone this weekend! In our area, not much happened other than with Umberto. So, Umberto was in a super interesting situation where he was living with a lady who used to be his girlfriend, but now they no longer like each other in the least bit. But this lady (her name is Cathy) lived with her mom who was super old and about to die. So they were both taking care of her and then the situation just got so bad with the mom, that even the hospitals wouldn't help them because they said she just needed to die. . . So, yeah, a really weird situation and it was just stressing U out super bad because he didn't want to leave Cathy to take care of her by herself, but at the same time he didn't have a job and he wasn't getting the opportunities that he needed to provide for himself. So, long story short he dropped us for the time being just so that he can get his life stable again. Super disappointing, but it's all good! 

For Halloween, we didn't really do much either. Haha sorry this is like the most boring email ever! We had to be inside by 7 so we just hung out with another companionship of elders and carved some pumpkins and ate some candy. Nobody even came and knocked our door for trick or treating! 

I'm really looking forward to this next week because this week is my last week to be able to find people to be baptized before I come home. So this is literally the last hurrah, if you want to call it that! We've got a lot of work to do, but I know that the Lord will strengthen us this next week to accomplish what we need to accomplish! I really do love you guys so much! Have a fantastic week! 

Love,

Elder Nielsen

Palm Springs North 10-26-2015

FAMILIA!

I bet you were getting a little nervous since it's so late, and you hadn't received my email yet! ;) Don't worry I didn't forget! Haha I'm sure your probably sick of all of my emails anyways, their all basically the same! Haha, they all go: Hey, what's up, this week was good, we taught this person, or we baptized these people, the church is true, love you, bye! haha! But the reason why I'm emailing so late, is because earlier today we had a zone activity with all of our zone. We had everyone meet at our chapel here in Miami Lakes and we did a whole bunch of games and activities. And we had to set it all up and take it all down, so that's why it's so late. And as usual I don't have much time, so I will keep it brief!

This week has been a week to remember for sure! God has been so good to our Zone, and to our Area. it's been amazing to see how much progress our zone has made in just the past 2 weeks. The last weekend of last transfer our zone had the lowest totals in the mission for New Investigators, Investigators @ Sacrament, and Baptismal Dates. But, this past weekend, we literally 3X our amount of New Investigators, 2X our amount of Investigators @ Sacrament, and 4X our amount of Baptismal Dates! It was legendary!! I've literally never seen anything like this where missionaries have been able to turn things around improve so quickly! So that was really exciting for us. 

The other exciting thing that happened this week has been with our investigator named Umberto. He is a 50 year old man, who has really had a difficult life. He's constantly been up and down, and has had some serious drinking problems in the past. The spanish Elders knocked into him 2 weeks ago, on Saturday and invited him to come with them to church the following day. And he did! He really enjoyed it, but he said he would prefer english so they passed him to us. Umberto is an interesting guy, because the way that he relieves stress is by talking. So the first time we met him he literally would not stop talking!! Haha I was so frustrated because he was impossible to teach! So after meeting him for the first time, and 45 minutes into our first lesson and after not having said anything other than, 'hi, i'm elder Nielsen." we handed him a book of mormon, and told him to read it, and left! I had no idea if he was actually going to do it, but he did! And when we came back the next day, he had read, from 3 Nephi 11 to 3 Nephi 20. All of the Introduction, and testimonies of the witnesses, and also from 1 Nephi 1 to 1 Nephi 10. Our jaws hit the floor, as he described to us in full detail everything that he read! he remembered the dates, and names of everything! He is extremely intelligent, so we decided that since he loved to talk so much we would let him teach himself! So every day this past week, we would go over, follow up with what he had read (whether it was a pamphlet or chapters in the book of mormon). Then he would explain it all to us in perfect detail and take about 30 minutes. Then we would leave him something new to read, with questions to answer and we would come back the following day and follow up again. It's been the strangest thing, yet some of the most spiritual! I've never had someone be able to learn so much about the gospel without me saying anything to them, other than, "Here, read this, pray about it, and answers these questions and we will follow up tomorow." Haha it makes our job really easy! :) He came to church this past Sunday and felt the spirit so strong that after church he asked us, "So could I be baptized today!?" We about died with joy! But he is set for november 7th, and we are so excited to continue to help him! That's about it for this week! 

I just want to say how much I love you guys! I really am so excited to see you in 4 weeks! Ahhh! Words can't describe how sad I am going to be when I leave Florida, but words can't describe how happy I will be when I get to see all of your beautiful faces! You all are amazing! I love you! Have a blessed week!

Last transfer!!- Palm Springs North. New companion Elder Tenney 10-19-2015

FAMILIA!

At the beginning of my emails I never know what to say, other than that I love you guys! haha so I will go ahead and jump right into it!

This week has been the biggest relief of my life! haha! I seriously feel like I've lost 15 pounds! Being an Assistant was a lot of fun, but holy cow it was a lot of responsibility. This week has been fantastic though! My new companion is Elder Tenney. He's chill. He's from Las Vegas. He loves sports, so we get along great. The best thing about this week has just been not having to worry about anything other than fulfilling my purpose and helping the missionaries in our zone do the same. It's amazing! I still feel tired just because I'm so old, but seriously the Spirit is just carrying me! Our area is called Palm Springs North. We cover an english ward. In fact, it is a brand new ward. This week was only the second sunday that it has existed. What happened is that there were 2 giant wards, and so they split both those wards, and combined the middle of it into our ward, called Palm Springs. It's interesting because literally everyone is new. Our bishop and all of his counselors are first timers and then today in sacrament probably 15 people received new callings. It's really cool to see just how even though everyone is coming from different wards, were all still unified and working towards the same goal, and helping each other.

The majority of our members are hispanics that speak or are trying to learn english. It's an english ward though, so we only speak english. We meet at a chapel in Hialeah which is the heart of all the cubans. Our area is big, but the majority of our area covers this city called Opa-Locka. Opa Locka is an interesting place. . . I thought Ft. laud was hood. It doesn't even compare to Opa Locka! Haha! Don't worry though, I promise were staying safe! It's a fun place to be and I'm excited for this next week to just work our area to the ground! Our only investigator right now is a woman named D. And she is awesome! She's an older single black woman, who is a school teacher. She has dreads that go down to her knees and she loves Jesus! She came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it and hopefully will be getting baptized soon! :) I'm sorry that my email was so rushed and short today, but unfortunately I don't have much time! I love you guys! I can't wait to see you in 5 weeks! Have an amazing week and remember to ponderize! ;)

Elder Nielsen

Saying goodbye to the office life

Ft. Lauderdale West 10-12-2015

With my Jamaican Grandma Sis. Brady, she always hugs all the elders before they leave!

FAMILIA!

Wow, what a week it has been! I can't believe that the floors in our house were re-done this week! So weird, things are going to be so different when I get home! I'm probably going to have a panic attack when I get home, but oh well I will worry about that later! haha! As always thanks for all the updates on life. I'm pretty sure you guys have been the most loyal family with emails and updates so I really appreciate that! I don't have a whole lot of time, so I will go ahead and jump into it!

This past week has had a strange surreal feeling about it. What I mean by that is it just hasn't felt real. I've been in Ft. Laud for so long this place has literally just become home to me! I know like every member in the ward, I have the city memorized, and this past week just didn't feel like my last week here! And then on top of that I was having all these strange thoughts about how I was originally supposed to go home in 2 days, and it all was just so weird! (Sorry, Mom again about the extension, but how cool is it that I'm coming home on thanksgiving day now! ;) Way better than a random day in October!) So yeah this week was strangely tough, because normally you never know when you're getting transferred until the day before, so you only have 1 day of 'limbo' is what I call it. But I had a full week of it! Then yesterday at church saying goodbye to all of my rc's and everyone about made me sweat buckets out of my eyes, but luckily I held them all in like a real man! ;) and I promised all of them that we would come and visit in december, so you better get ready for some RC visits when we're here! It won't be a vacation, but a 'Missionary Work Vacation'! ahh yeah! 

Even with the strangeness of this whole week, we did still have some great experiences. Mainly with one of our investigators named Elivira. E is a little bit crazy, but super legit at the same time. She's a mom, with 4 kids who are insanely adorable and love us. And she served in the US Army for a few years, and has been shot 3 times, and she's also cousins with Deion Sanders, and she pinky promised me that she would invite me and my companions over to her house when Deion came to visit. Because she said he comes and visits about once a year! So sick! But Elvira is someone who has just been completely prepared by God. She dated a Mormon guy for about a year and already knows a ton about the church. We saw her and her family everyday this week, and they were pumped for church on Sunday. Then on Sunday morning as they got into their van for church it wouldn't start because the battery was dead. So E went and banged on her neighbors door until they woke and they came and gave her a jump! Haha so legendary! Super sad to leave them, but their gonna get baptized for sure! 

I'll just wrap up by saying how grateful I am to have such a loving family! I love you guys so much! Thanks for not complaining too much about me staying an extra 6 weeks! ;) I'm so grateful that God has given me these last 6 weeks to change just a few more lives! I'm very excited to go back to the Hialeah Zone, (it was the zone where I started my mission) and get things going! I know God has kept me here for some specific reasons and I'm very excited to figure them out! I love you all and have a fantastic week! 

Elder Nielsen

Elvira and kids

At a local baptist church with Shanice and her family. Her mom died this week and they had the funeral at this baptist church