SISTER NEILSON | SCOTLAND/IRELAND MISSION

Week 69

Yooooo my dudes!

Thjs week full of meetings and teaching!

Monday we had pday and just played sport with the missionaries because it was moves day. then we taught louise and her fam that night as always :)

This tuesday we had the opporunity to have all the new missionaries come in, greet them, have lunch with them and instruct the new trainers for a couple of hours on how to be a trainer. We did this while the assistants and president took the new trainees to climb pratts hill. This meeting usually takes all day so it filled up our day. It was a great time as always lol. We are now having a lot more out of the US missionaries because of the whole garda card situation. so we have missionaries from all over da world comin in! Its sick.

Wedsnesday we had New Leadership Training. So, for all the missionaries that are called into missionary leadership assignments, us, the assistants and president instruct them on how to be in leadership. We do this this over skype. It usually takes up our whole morning. but it went great! Then later in the day we taught our friend sarah who is getting baptised at the end of this month! we taught her about the word of wisdom, even though when we sat down she was drinking a latte. i took it away from her and she was sad. man does she love her coffee. BUT she agreed to stop and wasnt even sad about the latte anymore, and didnt even want it! It was awesome. Then we went over to Jessicas home and she fed us dinner! Her food is always so goooood. And then we talked to her about baptising her 9 year old daughter Ashley and she was so down. so we are starting to work with them on that :) they came to church on Sunday and when everyone went to second hour, me and my comp went to the bathroom. we found ashley in there and i was like yo dude what are you doin in here? And she said i dont want to go to primary. so i had a juice drink with me and said if i give you this juice will you go to class and she perked up and said yes! So then she was happy lol. Then we taught nathalie. we had one of the most spiritual lessons i have had on my mission. she is so in tune with the spirit and feels it whenever we come over. well, i am not one to really feel the spirit with my feelings, mostly with my thoughts and when I talk (it’s hard to explain). but when i started testifying about jesus christ and His atonement and the power that comes from that, the spirit was so strong and started crying and so did nathalie and sister belliston. It was so amazing. I love teaching with sister belliston. she brings such great vibes with her. She is such a good teacher and friend :) we have lots of fun together.

Thursday we had some good finding time on the streets and we taught our friend grant. he has lots of good questions about God and is a very interesting man, but cool. Then we went to dinner with the office staff. they took us to a chinese buffett which is my favorite! i started talking with one of the chefs who is from portugal and sister belliston started talking to the chinese chef. the man i talked to said he was interested in what I was saying and wanted to meet and learn more about christ, but was moving to england in the next few days so i was able to refer to the missionaries there :)

Friday we had one of the missionary leadership meetings, but it was over skype and it wasnt too long. it was about how to use facebook and online proselyting. So dont think i am being apostate if i friend you on facebook lol. The night before, we went chapping to this super posch flat thinking it was a house because i stopped this one dude a few months back saying he lived there. it was beautiful! I'll send pics. well it wasn’t just one flat it was apartments. but we ran into this one chick with this huge dog and one thing led to another and she asked if we could wallk her dog for her. we said yes, of course. so we walked her dog on friday. she is two years old but is huge! It was so much fun. Then we went to alec and susanas house and they made us so much food! They are from argentina. we taught susana, who is getting baptised later this month. we were able to skype in my girl sister linco because she is from argentina as well. It was great. Oh, also they make the best banana bread. i had 5 pieces lol. Then we just had finding the rest of the day :)

Saturday we had Zone Leaders Council, where us and the zone leaders instruct some missionaries in the zone on things we think we can change and be better at this transfer. We instructed on achieving goals. i think dad would be pretty proud haha. Then this one chick i met on the street agreed to do language study with sister belliston because she is from china. so we did that in a cafe later in the day. then taught our friend sean, who is awesome! He totally gets it and whenever we ask him questions his answers are so good and he understands why God asks us to do certain things. Its so amazing teaching these people who are preparing to be baptised and feeling the spirit with them. Then we taught a first lesson to this man, fernando. when i met him he seemed very kind. we taught him about the godhead. he is from spain and speaks very little english, but it was amazing. that night we taught nathalie again. she is amazing. She wants to be baptised, but it is going to take a little while longer, which is totally alright. But man is that chick awesome. We taught her the law of chastity and she had so many questions, like sooo many. and there were a lot of times where i had no idea what to say. but I was just praying and testifying and opening my mouth. i know for sure that God was the one putting the words in mine and sister bellistons mouth. The spirit was so strong.

Sunday was a normal day. we had "find a family day' where we go and knock on peoples doors who havent come to church in a while and we found a family! Miracle! seriously! her name is mel and she invited us back next sunday. it was great :)

pics…

Us and nathalie with our capri suns…

Walking lulu…

Where we found lulu. The flat we chapped on…

MLC online hahah…

selfie...

Week 68

This week has been so amazing. On pday we were able to go to a bbq on the meadows and it was so great. We played frisbee as always and it was awesome! I got tan so i am happy lol. Then we taught our friends louise and her three daughters. they are so cute!! They made us cupcakes with faces on them hahha so fun!

Tuesday we had our last district council for the transfer. it was really good! we talked about finding joy in the work and how the sons of mosiah were able to go out and do missionary work and they were such great missionaries. but the way they did it was by doing the small and simple things. (Alma 17: 2-5) there is really oy one way to find joy in missionary work and in normal life through... our Saviour, Jesus Christ. I know this to be one hundred percent true! Really helped me reevaluate my life hahah. Then that evening we taught our friend Nathalie. Nathalie is sooo amazing. She was found by missionaries over a year ago. they had stopped meeting with her and asked me and sister belliston if we wanted to try and teach her again. She has gone through so many hard struggles in her life that continue to today, like WAY HARD things, and has a lot of health problems, but pushed through. she is so spiritual. She is so fun too because loves keeping up with the kardashians and all those shows and loves crime shows too. those are things i love so we bond over that. And she loves that i am from orange county. she always says, "the oc" haha. But she is so sensitive to the spirit, like we will say a prayer and she feels the spirit. Funny story with her, when missionaries started teaching her she wanted to meet up with them to convince them that they were wrong. (Nathalie studied religion in university and is way smart) She was like hardcore athiest, but now she has a belief in God and loves the missionaries. She has just started to pray again. We know it is going to be a slow journey with her, but she can totally make it she is so amazing. She said she wants to work towards baptism. And i know Heavenly Father loves her so much. Also she made us vegetarian haggis and neeps and tatties. sooooo good actually.

On wednesday we had excanges with the Dublin STLs. i was with sister taylo.r she is from england and she is awesome. we had a blast together just doin our thing. She is great :) we had a lot of finding this day, which means finding on the streets, from 10am to 9pm :) but we tuaght one of our friends Grant. It was our third lesson with him and we went in to teach him the plan of salvation but somehow lessons change haha and we started talking about temples and he loved it! Hahah

Thursday we went over the this chicks house named jessica who hasnt been to church in a while. she is from ecuador and has two kids, 9 and 11. They are so fun to be around! I love going to her house. we recently got in contact with her and have just starting teaching her family. She always has friends over to so we teach them too :) jessica and her daughter have come to church the last two weeks and it has been so amazing to see them starting to do the little things in their life again and the joy that it brings :) she also makes the best mexican food. Then we had a dinner appointment with jade and gordon. they are being taught by the elders. they are a young couple with 4 kids. Jade was a convert at the age of 15 and her partner, gordon, wants to be baptised as well! But he went to college to be a chef so his food is the best. They are literally the best couple ever. they have gone through so much together, but have such strong faith.

Friday it felt like we had lesson after lesson haha which is always the best. We taught this dude named francesco and he understood the restoration so well! It was so cool to see. but then we invited him to be baptised and maybe he didnt understand it enough cause he said no haha he said he has already been baptised. But wants to meet again and learn more, so we will see what happens :) our friend jonathon, who had been meeting with us for a while, broke up with us. Said he just cant see how the book of mormon can be true and said he would stop meeting with us. It was sad. And then we went over to our friends house, alec and susana, that evening. Alec and susana were found when sister belliston was here at the beginning of her mission and alec got baptised but his mom, susanana, never did. we had such a spiritual lesson with them this night and invited her to be baptised and she accepted and is so excited to be baptised in may!! They are from argentina. i seriously love them so much!!!!

Saturday we taught our friend sarah. i dont know if you remember her or not, but she has been back and forth with the church for a long time. after a long lesson she accepted a baptism date too! She is seriously so amazing! then we went and got dinner all together and got chicken nuggets. it was the best.

Sunday was great we had 4 of our friends at church again this week, and three of our friends who are less active who havent been in a while came as well :) it was a great sunday.

Sister lough, mckay, and curtis are all going home today. It was so fun to see them at the mission home last night. It was weird, my whole mission i thought i was going to be wanting to go home with them when they were leaving, but i know that i have three months left and so much work to do and am happy its not over quite yet.

The work is finally starting to pick up. God is good. But it is only through our Saviour that we can find joy. Please turn to Him in all things. In the good and the bad. He loves and cares for all of you no matter what.

Love you all :)

pics...

Bbq on the meadows last pday

Shiska bobs

Where we walk everyday

Our friend sarah. we taught her and she accepted a baptism date and then we went out to get nuggest after hahah

Some pretty houses

Week 67

Exchanges with sister killian

Its actually been hot this week so we got some tan :)

Week 66

this week was a great week!

Pday was pretty boring, but on Monday night we drove up to Aberdeen for the scotland north conference. its about a 2.5 hour drive there, but about 30 mins into the drive we ran out of petrol.. so we waited on the side of the road for the elders to come with more petrol and help us out.hahah, that was our b. but to give us more credit, our petrol gauge broke so it said we had more petrol than we thought haha.

On Wednesday we went over to this less active recent converts house named Alec. he is from Argentina. he lives with his mom and they are amazing!! so much fun. they fed us their traditional food. it was really good. and then we shared a spiritual thought and invited them back to church. Alec came to church but his mom didnt, which we were super sad about but hopefully she will come this sunday because it is easter! haha but we taught some cool lessons that day.

Thursday we had Scotland South conference. but it was in Edinburgh so we didnt have to travel too far, which was nice haha. the conferences this transfer were all about our study habits and our invitations to our friends it was a way cool learning experience. i struggle a lot in the morning to study, just because i dont like studying. but i can for sure see the difference in my day when i study in the morning versus when my study isnt that great. i am definitely more spirit led when i have a good study. its way cool.

Friday we had exchanges with the STLS in Belfast. i was with sister Cheatham. it was way fun! we did mostly finding that day, but we saw so many miracles in the day! I was talking to this man who was like half blind and he is from poland, but he was so spiritual and we talked a lot about the light that is always there pulling us closer to God, the light of Christ haha. but he said he wanted to meet and learn more so we should be visiting him this week:) he does really cool flips! We usually gq on the same city street, but that day i really felt like we should switch it up and so we did. we are really trying to find different ways and places to qg becuase it has been the same here for so long. so its fun trying new things! haha

Saturday me and sister Belliston went into KFC to do companion study and even before we sat down this dude came up to us and started asking us questions. so we invited him to sit down with us and we taught him the whole plan of salvation. as we were teaching him, the dude sitting next to him was listening the whole time and came over to us after and started asking us questions so we taught him a little bit and gave him a book of mormon. and after them we were like that was pretty sick. lets get another one. we looked up and this guy was trying to find a seat and we called him over to sit next to us and he did. we shared more with him. it was pretty cool. so we found a new way that we want to try finding. it involves food so i am always down. haha.

On Sunday we visited this less active chick named jessica. she is from Ecuador and she said that everytime she is feeling down that God always brings her something to help her. she said she really needed us that day and that it was a great surprise. she invited us back for dinner this week. we are excited to go back over. :) we also tuaght our friend patricia who is from Spain. she speaks little english but has the cutest little two kids. she had us over for dinner and she said she wants to be baptized, but her partner doesnt want to get married. so we are sad but were still going to work with her and see what happens :)

Peace

We ran out of gas on the way to aberdeen…

Edinburgh…

Me and sister macnamara…

Week 65

My week was good. we are teaching some friends right now who are very cool. We went into louise's home planning on talking to her about baptizing her daughters and i was so nervous. I love this family so much, like so much. so i was nervous to talk to louise about the option of helping her daughters prepare for baptism even though we are all so close. I want them to have these blessings in their life and to be raised in the gospel. Well i talked about it with louise and we kind of got the brakes put on us, it didnt go as planned. I was so sad. it's so hard when you really love these people and you know what can help them. i'm actually really sad about it.

We taught Grenville (who wanted to get baptised) about the word of wisdom and he got pretty upset about the whole thing. he basically said he was never going to give up tea and coffee and then proceeded to get up on his leg that is healing and hobble over to the table where his tea was and drink it in front of us. I told him to knock it off and sit down. So those were our most solid people, so it was really sad.

We met this really cool dude named steve. he lives on the orkney islands for 8 months out of the year to grow vegtables. he is 25 and literally the coolest person ever. He lives so out of the world and just has the coolest perspective on life. So spiritual.

Conference was amazing! i loved how it talked about our personal conversion. And how blunt they are. We really need it. I learned a lot and need to change a lot :) our friend sarah, alec, and ahmed came to watch as well! Sarah loved it and it answered so many of questions for her. She had a lot of questions after and we talked a lot about it and she opened up a lot. Then she went home and watched the sunday afternoon session by herself, which is 9pm here. I was making phone calls that night, but she live texted me as she was watching it and all of her questions were answered again. So cool! now its just up to her as to what she will do.

Me and sister belliston flew to dublin last week for zone conference and it was great being able to see everyone and to help in the ways we could. Tonight we are driving to aberdeen for the next zone conference.

Hey quick advice, if you are ever doubting or stuggling with the gospel, which is totally okay, just hold on to the things you do know. No matter how small, just hold on. even if it looks dark in the future, it will turn to light. Just like they talked about in general conference. I love you guys.

Peace out

flying to dublin...

In the library cafe with some missionaries where we teach our friends...

Picture on campus…

Grenville and me …

Exchanges with sis clark…

Very foggy week…

Me and sister belliston…

Week 64

this past week was the first week of the transfer (i have two more transfers after this…). So on Monday it was moves day where all the missionaries are traveling to their new areas. which is crazy here because we are all traveling to other countries but it is fun. so i was driving people around all day and then i picked up my new comapnion sister belliston!

We then went over to Louise's house as usual on Monday evening. and her whole family was home and it was so cool to have them all there. we talked about the plan of salvation again, because there oldest daughter rebecca wasn't there when we explained it last time. they all loved it but they said they couldn't come to church because they had sport on sunday. then sunday rolled around and their daughter had come to church with her grand-dad! i was so happy! she said her game got cancelled so she asked her mom if she could go to church! i sat with her and we had so much fun!

TUESDAY we were able to have all the new missionaries come in and there were 16 of them. on this day we are at the mission home the whole day helping and instructing and making sure everyone is happy. it was fun to see some of my friends and past companions who were training it was a fun day!

WEDNESDAY we had missionary leadership council, where all the leaders from the mission fly in and we council about the mission. it is an all day thing as well. my favorite part is in the morning when we all get to the mission home and we make pancakes with each other and hangout until 9 when the meeting starts. it wasnt over til about 4. This meeting was very differnt from the others because we got smart phones! it was crazy. so yes i have a smart phone now, but have no idea how to work it.

THURSDAY-SATURDAY were just normal missionary days. we taught our friend Grenville, who broke his femur. he is preparing for his baptism later this month. sad thing is though, he lives 3 stories up in his flat building so he can’t go down the stairs because he can barely walk. which means he cant go to church:( but we are workin on it! we were just finding lots of new people this week.

The smart phones are actually pretty nice. there are a lot of new rules that come with them, but we have been showing lots of new videos to people on the streets and in lessons. it is so cool.

SUNDAY we went chapping and had new leadership training, which is where us the aps and president skype all the new leaders in the mission and teach them the importance of being a leader and what they need to know and do.

it has been a crazy week but i am super excited for this transfer here with sister belliston and to be here in Edinburgh.

The streets in edinburgh...

the mission home…

chapping…

my friend at church...

mission president & his wife…

Week 63

this week was a normal week.

So every morning for morning exercise we go and play frisbee for sport. This past week I brought up the idea to my companion that we should make cookies for the elders and then put laxatives in them without them knowing. so we did exactly that. so 6 elders took the cookies and one of the elders took two cookies and he was on the toilet 9 times in one day. To be honest that was his fault, he was only supposed to take one. But i am screwed because now all the elders are gonna team up and get me back and they are already planning on it. so we will see what happens lol.

Moves are this week and that means sister curtis is leaving and i am getting a new companion, i will be training her to be the new STLT. her name is sister Belliston. she is from Michigan and she is Mandarin speaking. She is great so i am excited to be serving with her :)

We were able to find a lot of cool people. we taught this one man who is from Syria and he has an 11 year old son who has lots of good questions. The dad is named Tarek and he is pretty interested in learning more it was really exciting.

We also taught this chick name Natalie. she has been taught before but was not really progressing for some time so the missionaries stopped teaching her, but still were in contact with her. we went over the other night and she brought up baptsim and said it was something that she saw in her future so we are way pumped about that.

We visited Grenville in the hospital yesterday he is the one who broke his femur and good news he is getting out of the hospital today! so we are way excited about that and we are excited to be able to teach him in his own home so he is more comfortable.

Our part member family came to church this sunday. it was so exciting! we are starting to teach her daughters so it is very exciting i love them so much! We taught their 10 year old daughter about the holy spirit and she was like "i think i felt that before, not all the time but i felt that". it was so cool! it really was a testimony builder of how much we need to humble ourselves and become like children like Christ says in the book of Matthew. We taught her and her sister the plan of salvation and they loved it!

This is a new transfer this week so it is going to be crazy with moves and everything today so we will see what is happening! Crazy week man!

Love you all so much! peace and blessins!

hot pot pictures. so yummy!…

the laxative cookies the orange "sprinkle" is the laxative...

the elders bought anti-diarrerha meds lol...

picture of me when i i slipped on the carpet and flew in the air and biffed it haha…

Week 60

yo sorry i have been the worst at emailing lately, the first three weeks of the transfer are always so crazy for us. but we finally finished with all three of the conferences. me and my companion instructed on the doctrine behind church and were asked to bring the spiritual side of it into it as well. we were able to have some of the other missionaries help us to explain some of the doctrine of church like the sacrament, atonement, worship, sabbath day, ministering, and learning. things like that. we shared the parable of the great supper in Luke and basically we just wanted them to understand that it is not us inviting them, but that it is Jesus Christ who is inviting our friends to partake of His feast that he has prepared for them. and that it is only Him who can heal our friends. So we helped them to understand that its important to teach the doctrine behind church and then invite them to come to church. make sense? i dont know but if not you can email me and ask questions. :)

Since one of the conferences was in Dublin we stayed with the sisters there. their running water wasnt working so they told us we would have go to the bathroom in the bathtub and so they all did and i was like nah, i will just pee off the balcony. so i did lol it was sick.

Our friend Grenville who we are teaching and preparing for baptism called us the other day and said he had broken his femur so he is in the hospital right now. he will be there for quite a few more weeks so he wont be getting baptised for a while. we are sad:( but he is doing well. we went to visit him the other day with the elders and we played card games with him and brought him a word search puzzle, since he literally has bothing else to do. poor guy.

We had exchanges with the dublin stls the other day. they were at our flat so i wanted to make popcorn for them. so i went into the kitchen and grabbed the bag of kernels and was trying to open them but i guess those morning workouts have been paying off because the bag straight exploded and kernels flew everywhere. haha it was funny.

We met this guy on the street named eddy the other day. we had an on the spot with him and he was so cool! he was a big time heroin addict and said that God helped him to overcome it and to stop. his dad is a member in Scotland, just south of us. we taught him the plan of salvation and he loved it. we invited him to be baptised and he accepted and he was able to come to church on sunday. the coolest thing though is he has his name tattooed on his fingers. haha he is such a cool dude and he has a tattoo on his face.

We also met this guy named Avi. he is amazing and from India! he is 19 years old and come from a hindu background but not practicing but he is so cool! he loved everything about the restoration that we taught him and he accepted to be baptised for later this month as well. he totally understood everything.

for pday today we are going to costco! we are taking the big mission van, packing all the missionaries in, and president and his wife, and we are gonna go party. we are all so excited haha.

sister macdonald took some cheeky pics of me sleeping during the Scotland south conference, to my defense it was my third conference and i had heard this instruction three times haha