SISTER NEILSON | SCOTLAND/IRELAND MISSION: March 2018

WEEK 11

In the Subject line she wrote: The beginning of the week we go into it excited and running and then you trip and fall but its okay you dust yourself off a little and then you trip and fall some more and then you're just over it and its still only tuesday haha that is missionary work

Her letter:

missions totally suck but they are the best but they can really be hard but literally be the best thing ever. Oh boy, this week was rough not gonna lie. Sorry i couldn't email last week! but last week our investigator Barry committed to a baptismal date! we are so excited for him. He has a bit of a smoking problem but says he would be willing to quit because he knows this church is true. He has read almost all of the Book of Mormon which is crazy! We were kind of nervous at first because me and companion were like what if he is only getting baptized to be our friend and to make us happy? So we went into one of the lessons and i just was like why do you feel like getting baptized is what you should do? and he bore his testimony on the book of mormon and the spirit was so strong we just knew he was getting baptized for the right reasons, it was so amazing.

In one of our lessons we were teaching him about the commandments and we talked about Thou shall not steal, and he stopped us and was like "well i stole something one time.." and we were like "what did you steal?" he said "when i was younger i was down by the river with my friend and there was a van near us and inside the van there were 24 creme eggs and i thought to myself i want those creme eggs” so he stole them. it was so funny hahahah. it reminded me of the SNL skit with Chris Farley the one where he lives "in a van down by the river!"

But this week we visited our Romanian friend Valentina. we love her so much. she is going through a lot of hard things in her life right now that we are trying to help her through. she expressed to us that she really wants to get baptized. and we were so happy. Then we asked her if she knew the book of mormon was true and she said "i don't even have to read this book to know it's true. You two sisters were angels sent from God to me so anything you guys tell me i know is true." she is so amazing. we read the book of mormon with her and she reads it in Romanian to us, the spirit is always so strong. There are a lot of things we have to work through with her but we are so excited for her.

i gave a talk in church on Sunday. Then Tuesday came a long and i just woke up in a terrible mood and was just so miserable and was so over everything. i had been praying a lot to do what i can do to get out of this funk and i was expecting this big answer from God. but then i was reading this general conference talk and it was talking about the Book Of Mormon and how we can't take it for granted and i realized that that was exactly what i was doing. This book is literally the word of God and i am so lucky to have it my life to guide and direct me. I am grateful for all the trials and troubles that i am having even though they totally suck sometimes. we have to trip and fall a couple a times or a lot of times and we can either choose to stay down and give up or get up with the help of the Lord and be stronger and better because of it. read Mosiah 24:14,15 it talks about how our burdens and trials wont be lifted all of sudden and permanetly go away but that the lord with strengthen us so our burdens will be a little easier.

It is cool serving here because we meet people from all over the world and so we get all types of different foods. i set some Word of Wisdom goals, i am addicted to chocolate and i have been trying to cut down and i am happy to say i have been doing it for the last three weeks. Miracles do happen when you serve a mission hahah

i dyed my companions hair again. she went from blonde to black, it looks pretty rad.

We taught a true Irish man the other day and he said he wanted to be baptized and we were like yes thats great! and then he said but i wont change my catholic religion and i was like then why do you even want to be baptized bro? and he couldnt answer that. it was so weird. but he wants to continue to meet so that is exciting!

My companion really wanted to go running for exercise time and i keep telling her no but finally i was like i okay we can go and i’ll just tell you i am never doing that again. it was pretty dang rough hahahah

Sis Neilson

WEEK 9

Hi!

So Monday night last week we went chapping (when we knock on peoples doors they always shut it on us and never let us in). so we were knocking door to door and this one girl answers the door and we gave our little missionary speech and she says, "well do you want to come in?" and me and my companion were shocked. so we went inside and we didn't have anything prepared because nobody ever lets us in! so we just went with the flow of the spirit and she said she wanted us to come back and said that she had been praying to God to show her a sign that He hasn't forgotten about her and she said that we were the answer to her prayers and that God sent His answer to her, literally on her door step. It was so amazing! So we are still teaching her and she loves it! she is from Romania and is 21 years old. we love her.

Me and my companion had our first big fight this week, it was over something very stupid but we were both hungry, lost and tired and were both very stubborn so neither of us would apologize. then my companion bought me a cookie and made it all better. It's amazing what sweets can do for you.

We visited some awesome cathedrals in Armough this week. they were beautiful. Then we went to a planetarium which was pretty crappy. it was only one room haha. We had exchanges in Belfast with the STLT’s. it was great and i learned a bunch of new ways on how to find people.

We taught Karilos this week. we went into the lesson pretty sure it was gonna be our last with him but he told that he prayed and had felt something and that he was thinking about reading the book of mormon again (mind you this was the guy that tried to give us back the book of mormon last time because he said it was literally like torture reading it). We were pumped!

The ward i am in is awesome hahaha Brother Mac got up to conduct and said that the youth had youth conference this weekend and we would like to have them come up and describe their experience. so he invited one of the young men to come up. the kid was straight up and called out to him, "I am not going up" and then Bro. Mac was like we can wait all day for you. and the kid was like no i'm not going. and so they had a showdown in the middle of sacrament. haha it was so funny.

we had this dish last night called fishwada and it is straight up all the parts of a pig cut up and thrown into a stew. i literally got the tongue and my comp got the ear with all the hair on it. the food is such a struggle here. please pray for me in that aspect. and idk if my stomach is handling it well. i keep getting sharp pains in my side and my farts don't sound the same hahahaha

one of the greatest things about serving here is i come home every night and smell like cigarettes. haha all my dresses reek! everybody smokes here. i'll be talking to people and they just smoke right in your face and everybody's house reeks of cigarettes. but really the best part of missionary work is seeing the small tender mercies of the Lord. me and my comp were really struggling teaching with unity and we have finally figured out how to teach together. and we were having a hard time finding people to teach. we can find people but then they never show up. its just a hard. but then people like our friend from Romania make it all worth it, you know?

love,

sis neilson

one of the cathedrals...

this is Leslie, he sits on this bench almost everyday and feeds the birds, i love him!

the elders we serve with

WEEK 8- Beast from the East

i'm glad to hear that katie is feeling better about school! and anna! so exciting, big things are happening in the neilson household. i'm glad me serving a mission has helped anna finally learn to braid her hair. hahaha (I gave her a few little updates on the girls and also told her we have been blessed because she is serving a mission. haha)

On p-day last week we went to Belfast and just walked around and shopped a little. Then we went to a recent converts house named Filomena. she is from Africa and i love her! We talked about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon with her and she bore her testimony about it and it was so awesome. she also had the great idea of setting up one day a week to read it with just whoever in the ward wants to come and she said she wanted to invite her non member friends so were gonna try to set that up.

We had distrcit meeting on Tuesday and it was all about having unity, it was so great. if we aren't unified with our companions we can't do anything.

On wednesday everyone was talking about this huge storm that was gonna hit our town and everyone was like you better stay inside tomorrow its going to be crazy. its called the Arctic storm (Beast from the east) and wednesday was so cold! its so cold in our flat. every morning we just sit in front of the heater and always bring our blankets down with us. haha

Thursday the beast from the east hit. we woke up to a ton of snow and it was freezing outside. and the one day we had no scheduled appointments was during this storm/blizzard! hahah we had 7 hours of straight finding people in the streets. Then we got a text from the zone leaders at about 2 pm saying that the storm was so bad that all the missionaries in Ireland had to stay indoors the rest of the day. The greatest news ever, ill tell ya that!

Friday was pretty rough. me and companion were both very tired but we still went out to find people even though almost everyone ignores us. hahah it's the best. but we had a first lesson with a guy from poland named patrick and he said he wanted to meet with us again, so that was pretty awesome. When you're tired out here you just have to suck it up and keep working. sister lough slipped and fell on the ice and so i just sat down next to her on the sidewalk and we just sat there and talked about the day and how we were feeling. hahaha everyone was just looking at us in skirts sitting in the snow. but we gave ourselves pep talks and went back to work.

Saturday sam got baptized!!! It was so amazing! Sam is a huge example to me. He speaks little to no english but still goes to church every sunday and that is how powerful the spirit is. the church got this brand new piano that plays by itself and no one in the ward knows that. at the baptism the elders were like can you be in charge of the piano? all i had to do was push one button then it would start. i just pretended like i was playing and all the members bought it. it was pretty awesome. haha

I have to go. I love and miss all you guys so much! and i miss chimi too. haha

sis neilson