week 17: Long rides and short hair

Howdy y'all! I'll mix Idaho and Georgia together for everyone haha

This week has been a hot one, but good as always. I got my haircut this week. Took it down to my collarbones. I love it! It's so cute and easier to deal with. I made sure it was still long enough to put in a ponytail, but now there's less hair to get tangled and gross and sweaty :)

This week we've had some great phone lessons. Some of our recent converts and those we are teaching are on trips or home for the summer, but through the blessing of technology we can continue to support and work with them! Such a miracle :) we've also been able to help some of the branch members a lot. We are helping them to identify God in their lives and to better understand Christ's gospel and what is asked of us. I know this church is God's church on the earth. It is directed by Him and operates under His power. I've been touched in my life and am only able to do what I do to help others through His Holy Ghost. I am not perfect, nor do I have any power of myself, but I have been able to become more like Christ as I've been able to serve, help, and teach as He did. His Atonement is real! I've experienced it in my life. I have been able to overcome sins and weaknesses, I have received peace and strength, and have had my heart molded and changed to better desire to follow Jesus Christ. This is such a blessing and privilege to serve God.

This week we've done lots of biking and walking. And man, the hills are everywhere! You don't notice them as much until you are biking up hill haha. We also got to go to Athfest which was a little music festival thing downtown where people put up booths and sold art and jewelry and there was a kid area with bounce houses. I had enough self control to not get in them 😜 

The guy we met last week was excited when we stopped by again. We gave him a Book of Mormon and explained what it was. He was so excited to read it. I'm excited for him to strengthen his relationship with Christ and God. 

It's been another one for the books :)

Love y'all!

Sister Nielson :D

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Week 16: Training the Sequel

I'm training!!! President Marsh decided I needed extra help in being trained so he made me a trainer so I can go through the 12 week training again. Jk! I'm loving being a trainer! My new companion is Sister Ferris. She is so cute! I love her :) she ran cross country and played tennis. She likes card games and movies, especially marvel. So we are basically automatic best friends :) 

This week has been awesome! We had transfer meeting where I said goodbye to sister Bronson and got sister Ferris. We got to help a newly wed couple move out and it'll be sad to see them go, but they are moving right around the temple in Atlanta so it's still good. 

We've had lots of awesome lessons with the branch members and recent converts. They are all doing really well. It's so awesome! 

We've been out biking up and down all the hills here having great contacts with people and hearing their stories of how Jesus helps them :) it's great, but very hot haha. Also, my southern is starting to come in. Some words have more of the drawl and I can tell the accent is starting to creep in sometimes

Between sister Ferris and I we have all types of sunscreen- lotion, spray, stick, and powder. Hopefully we won't be lobsters all summer haha. Weather wise it's starting to heat up again and the humidity is coming back up to be around 50-60s so it's all starting to come back slowly. Everyone is saying that May was like June or July weather and this weather has been like May. So I'm hoping July is only what June is usually since we already dealt with may haha. But it rains all throughout the Summer. Sometimes light, sometimes all day, sometimes it dumps, sometimes it's just for a few hours and then it's fine. It just kinda decides what it wants to do for that hour. Georgia has attitude. Even back home it would do crazy things and switch between days or have sun, snow, rain, etc in one day. But it just kinda felt like it is what it is and it's just what happens. Here it seriously feels like Georgia is just a moody teenager sometimes happy sometimes not.

We had a cool experience where we decided to go out biking and we ended up missing where we had originally planned because we didn't have the directions in front of us. So we ended up just going until I saw a little street I felt like we should go check out. It was a lot of family homes, and no one answered really. The one door that did answer saw us and immediately closed it. So it was kinda weird that we were over there. But as we were going to bike to somewhere new I saw a house right at the entrance, and it seemed like it could have ysa living there. I decided we needed to knock, prompting or just not wanting to regret not knocking on it. And no one answered. But as we went to bike sister Ferris' back tire wasn't working. We took about 20ish min trying to fix it and a ysa guy came home right before we figured it out. He didn't come out to help us, but we were going to make every opportunity to talk to him. So we went and asked for paper towels to wipe the grease off of our hands. So we gave him a card and talked for a second. Hopefully the spirit moves him to action. But it was kinda a cool experience I wanted to share

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Week 15: Another week in the books!

Hey Y'all!

It's another for the books. It's been great as always here in Athens Georgia.

I got new shoes so my feet are very happy about that :)

We've been out tracting and contacting lots this week. We've been trying to get back with some of the people we talked to last week who were interested. It's been kinda hard because everyone is working and has been so busy. So hopefully this week we can get in touch with them. 

We had one girl try to avoid us. We were stopping by when she drove up, and so she just kept driving by when she saw us. So we started walking home because we got the picture haha. But she ended up turning down the road where we live to get away. So she ended up running into us a few times which was hilarious! She finally had to drive by us to get back home and tried to act casual. So we smiled and waved really big so she had to acknowledge us. She smiled and waved back and she finally went back home so we didn't run into her on our way home again. We were dying laughing!

We also got to go to the temple with Anderson for her first time. It was so amazing and she loved it. It is just so special and has the most amazing spirit. I'm so glad we got to share that experience with her and that her dad got to come as well. 

We also found out that I will be training a new missionary this transfer! I'm so excited :) we had a meeting for all the new trainers to go to at the mission office and it was good. It was fun to see who is training. And tomorrow we get to meet the new missionaries coming in and find out who we are training! It's going to be amazing! And I'll be staying here at UGA to train her :) I love it here!

We also get pounded by a nice thunderstorm this weekend. We had to walk and then bike to a lesson and were so soaked. Luckily as missionaries we are able to just laugh about it the whole time. And smile at the people in the cars laughing at two soaking girls in dresses biking in the downpour haha. 

So it's been great and about to be another crazy and amazing week! Stay awesome and dry y'all!

Sister Nielson :D

Week 14: Happy New Year

Hey Y'all!

This week has been a week of sacrifice and miracles!! 

We went through our area book and contacted some people who had said they were interested or met with missionaries from before. Lots were interested but are home for the summer but excited to meet in August when they get back for school. One guy actually was in town and wanted to meet that same day. So we set up a time. He had a lot of questions, but wouldn't really listen to any answers given and wasn't open to letting the spirit confirm truths through feelings. I don't think he meant to be mean, but he kinda bashed us the whole lesson. So that was my first experience with that. But after that we ended up running into Ross again! He was the guy we had tracked into and he wanted us to come back but never was home. We thought he had maybe left for the summer, but turns out he just moved. So we got his number and he seemed really excited to see us again. So we are hoping to be able to meet with him this week. 

The rest of the week we've been tracting a ton. Sister Bronson and I have been working on inspired finding. We found out that our Mission President has asked all the missionaries to use half their miles allotted. Since we are on bikes it didn't affect us at all, so we've decided to have our own sacrifice to get the Lord's power and help here in finding. I am sacrificing my morning nap. We have some time to get ready, but I dont take all the time, so I've been using what I don't use to nap. But in the last few days we have already seen so many blessings. We've found three people who are really interested and we got their numbers to set up times around their busy schedules. 

We also stopped by Hunter who we had found last week. He hadn't been home a few times, but yesterday he was home. He was feeling a little bit under the weather so we asked if there was a better time, but he was down to talk then. So we had a great lesson talking about the plan of Salvation and what we know about life after this world. And he agreed to read the Book of Mormon. I'm so excited for him. He is going to love it. 

One day when we were knocking, we talked with an older gentleman who wasn't all there. When we were leaving he told us, Happy New Year! So happy new year y'all in the middle of summer :)

Love Y'all! Stay Awesome:)