Week 21: Crash and Burn

Howdy folks!

This has been another good week for the books. 

On Tuesday we did a finding activity with our district after district meeting. We all went to downtown Athens and had people take a survey and passed out popsicles :) it was a lot of fun. We were able to try it out and figure out what we need to change and do for when we do it on campus. It's been exciting. And two people actually said they wanted to meet up and we set up appointments with them. One didn't show up, but the other we really think will. It's for tomorrow so stay posted. 

On a sad note we found out that Nashville tribute band became apostate music :( it had been okayed, but now it's not. We were so sad about that because we were just finding really fun ones from them. 

But on an exciting note, we got a trainers call! We are going to be training! Woot woot! We are so excited :) we don't know if it will be a new sister or one from the Cartersville stake that we got from the boundary changes. But we will find out tomorrow :) 

We've been looking into doing English classes and getting all that figured out. There is a lot of information and legalities we have to find out about. But we think they will be exciting and useful with all of the foreign students.

New experiences this week- the Wendy's 4 for $4! Amazing. We got it on the way back from the trainers meeting and it was amazing :) also, to the title, I fell off my bike this week ha ha. We were biking up this hill and all the trashes were out on the sidewalk. Apparently I was a little too close to one and my handle bars hit it. And then either that jolted me over or I over

corrected into a mailbox. I wasn't going very fast so it wasn't bad, but because of the mailbox I half bailed and just landed on my hands. No scrapes or anything. Just a bruised ego. We were laughing pretty hard at that. And then today, we were getting off of our bikes and I have a guys bike so it comes up really high (not good for skirts and dresses). But my foot got caught in my skirt and I fell into some gravel. I'm ok, just a bit scraped up haha. What a week!

But we are so excited for this upcoming transfer! 

Also, today I was reading in Alma 50 about Moroni preparing and fortifying the people and lands from the Lamanites. I love the war chapters and we always talk about the details he does for each city of walks of dirt and timbers and pickets and towers, but what I noticed this time was that they chased out all of the lamanites who were in their east lands and had his people build cities and placed his armies so that they had all of their lands together and kept the lamanites in their lands to the south. It reminded me that, yes, we need to fortify ourselves for attacks that may come, but we also need to take care of what we already have. To build it up and chase out any small things that might weaken us or distract us. So I invite you all to take a few minutes and find something in your life that you need to just be better at or cleaned up and make a plan on how you can "drive out the lamanites" and build your cities.

Love you all!

Sister Nielson :)

 

 

Week 20: Peanuts Grow Where?

Hello my beautiful people!

This week has been great :)

We had a mission-wide conference so we could all meet the new stake that got moved from the Georgia Atlanta mission to us here in the Ganm. They are awesome! We are so excited to have them :) and the conference was great! The senior sister training leaders gave a great training on being master teachers like Christ. We are excited to apply their suggestions. 

We have been out tracting a lot this week, but not many people are home or answer their doors. We did have a funny experience. We had set up a lesson time with a guy we had met a little while ago who we referred to the elders since he wasn't YSA, but there was an emergency transfer at the beginning of the transfer, so there has only been one elder in the area so he is with other elders in their areas most of the time. So he hasn't had time to stop by or get a hold of him. So we were all ready for the lesson, but he wasn't home and was saying he was. We realized somehow contacts had been swapped and we were contacting a branch member with the same name. So that was a little embarrassing and we laughed all the way home. So now we make sure the number is correct haha

We had another meeting down at the mission office in Lilburn called 4 week follow up. It's for the trainers and trainees. It was my first time driving and we are ok! Haha. But getting closer to Atlanta is crazy. As a seventy once described, its LA traffic full of Utah drivers. Pretty crazy. But we are okay and I didn't get any bad marks haha. We went on exchanges with the senior stl's and it was amazing. They are so cool. I loved watching how they contact and interact with people. And they are such hard workers but they also work smart. So it's cool to get to follow their example. 

We also had a nasty bug problem! Maggots all over our kitchen floor. Which was weird because we keep it very clean. We did figure out they were coming from under the washer and dryer and we can't clean back there, but we got it all taken care of so we are all good now.

Also I was moving some things around my wallet and I found some gift cards!! Sadly most of them are for places not around here, but when I get back they'll be nice to college. And there is something exciting about food or any gift cards for that matter even if you can't use them soon.

What I learned about peanuts. So they grow in bushels underground!!! They grow underground like potatoes! Who knew! I don't know how I thought they grew but maybe on a bush. But I was straight shock and in shock. Couldn't believe it, but I am now educated haha :) still have yet to try boiled peanuts though

Anyways, this is going to be a crazy awesome week so stay updated! :D

Love you all!

Sister Nielson :D

Week 19: Happy Independance Day!

Hello all!

This week has had many ups and downs. We have seen some of our friends and those who were baptized recently struggling, and that is always hard and sad to see. But we are helping them the best we can. But, we have seen some miracles this week too. There is a girl named Shania that we met on campus last week that we met with this week. She is so sweet! And we were talking about faith and she said the most solid part of her faith she never struggles with is that she knows God loves her and wants to get her back to Him. We are so excited she understands this so well! We are excited to show her how that can help strengthen other parts of her testimony. 

We also had a cool experience while we were out tracting. We had the option to stay out or head over and stop by the roommates we had met last week. We decided to pray, and we felt like we needed to stay. Two doors later we met Kara. She let us in and we talked for an hour before we had to go. But we exchanged numbers and she wants to get lunch and talk more this week! It was awesome to know that the Lord will lead us to those who are prepared for the gospel and need help if we are just willing to ask and listen. 

The fourth of July started out pretty rough. No one was home or answering their doors and the buses weren't running, which we did not expect. They must've cancelled classes for the holiday. So we were out in the heat for quite a few hours just walking around not getting to talk to anyone. But that night the Athens first sisters invited us to go to a little town in their area called Crawford. And there was the cutest celebration going on. There were bouncy castles and a little tractor pulling a couple train cars, booths, and lots of families and kids running around having fun. So we got to talk with a lot of people and pass out glowsticks :) it was a ton of fun.

We met a lot of very interesting people this week too. There was one guy who answered the door dripping wet and shirtless. And then we realized he was only in a towel! Who does that?! Another guy did that too, but he was just poking his head out and told us why and just took a card. But for reals! Apparently lots of people will answer the door straight from the shower. There was another person who went by chay-tanya? And he was talking about not liking labels because it divides everything and had never met sister missionaries before and had actually been writing a couple books on that and kinda talked about reasons we might have only had boy missionaries, so we opened his eyes to that. He was nice, but quite interesting. And we've seen him out walking with his hair up and jean skirt a few times since we knocked on his door haha 

But the last cool thing to happen this week was on Saturday we got a call from some elders in the area who had a member call them saying he had been inactive but wants to come back to church. So we set up rides for him to come to our ysa branch. And he came! So that is exciting! His name is Patrick and it's awesome that he reached out to us. 

Anyways, I hope y'all have a fabulous week and can see how God is working in our lives and we just need to be receptive to the promptings of the Spirit that entice us to do good, serve others, and draw closer to God.

Love, 

Sister Nielson :D

Week 18: Hello My Beautiful People

Hello my beautiful people! This has been a very wonderful week.

It started with a short preparation day last Monday. We got caught in a rainstorm while we were walking home. So we ended up running home haha

We had exchanges this week so after our district council we exchanged companions for the day with the Sister Training Leaders. So sister Ferris went to their area with sister Olson and sister Hoffman came here with me. I showed her campus and we talked with some people and there was one really nice girl named Shania who wants to keep talking with us, so we are meeting her tomorrow. The next day before lunch we exchanged back to our regular companions. It was a good exchange and they always bring miracles. 

We get to do family history for a couple hours every week, and I love it. The spirit of Elijah is real. I used to not be interested in family history, but learning their stories is actually amazing because you can see qualities in them that you have. And even just finding records for people becomes so interesting. If you haven't ever done family history or want to learn more talk with someone who can help you like the family history consultant in the ward or my dad (love you!) We also got to go to the temple to do an endowment session for someone who has passed on. It is always such a beautiful, learning, and peaceful experience vicariously making covenants with God for those who died without the chance. 

Our friend Hunter that we've been meeting with has been doing the things we ask him and has been asking us some really good questions. I'm really hoping and excited for him to start feeling and understanding the truth and importance of what we teach.

I know that God has a perfect plan and we are only able to see a small picture of it. We were going to a fourth of July thing downtown, but there weren't really any college kids so we decided to go out knocking doors. The places we went to we found out the elders had been a couple weeks ago, so we headed for home and decided to stop by some girls we had talked with a couple weeks ago. We caught them at home and they invited us in to talk. The timing was so perfect and they really loved meeting with us and want us to come back. God truly helped guide us there at that time. 

I know that God is real and in the details of our lives. He loves us and is blessing us more than we know and if we slow down and open our eyes to the small things we can start to notice Him more in our lives around us all the time. So take the time this week to see His light in something and share that with a friend or neighbor. 

Love y'all!

Stay poppin' my party people 

Sista Nielson 😎