Week 20

This week flew by! but get this! We had a service project on wednesday morning and we got back to our flat and realized that we left our key inside our flat and we were like oh no! one of our windows was open but it is only like a foot tall so the only option was for me to climb through the dang window! So that is what i did but it was very high off the ground and it took a lot of effort. i finally got through the window but it hurt sooo bad and it ripped my shirt and now i have these gnarly bruises all over my legs hahahah. 

My companion is a convert so she doesn't know any primary songs so when we are chapping i teach her primary songs. yesterday i taught her popcorn popping. hahha it was so fun

The Nashville Tribute band came and played for the mission last week so that was cool.

Week 19

This week was a pretty normal week in Portadown. Me and Sister Khoo are always joking that the mission made a mistake of putting us as companions because we are both so young in the mission and are both scared of everything. So since we are so scared of everything we convinced ourselves that our flat is haunted and had the elders come dedicate it. hahaha

Sister Khoo is literally one of the biggest germaphobes ever and it kills me hahaha. She is always cleaning and like won't touch or sit on anything. She does laundry like almost every day and one time i dropped my shirt on the ground and then she was like, "sister you are gonna wash that now, right?" and i was like what the heck, no i am not gonna go wash it just cause it fell on the ground haha. i love her.

sister khoo calls me dory because i am so forgetful and because she says i am always so positive and that its very unusual for me to get sad or mad so when i do its like oh no she's broke! it made my day haha

We were chapping all day yesterday on Sunday and we were at this persons door and i was making sister khoo laugh so hard that she fell backwards and hit one of there flower pots and it tipped over and broke and we were both like crap! oops!

So something that has been very hard for me out here is that i am always trying to do everything perfectly and i get very stressed out if something i did wasn't perfect and i always beat myself up for it. But i was watching this video the other day and they were talking about how there is no perfect missionary and that God doesn't and isn't expecting us to be perfect in this life. that is something that really hit me hard. and then they said that when you start to beat yourself up that those thoughts would never come from God. soooo i have been trying to be okay with not having everything perfect. its so dang frustrating sometimes but i am trying haha. 

We went to pick up our friend Shiela to come to church with us because she promised she would go with us this Sunday and then she like just dropped us at the door step so that was sad. But she is amazing and she will get baptized eventually. she has such a sweet spirit to her. she is from Africa and raises her three kids while her paterner works in England, she is an amazing woman.

While we were chapping yesterday we had no idea where to go so we were basically just following the spirit and we ended up knocking on this chicks door who has a book of mormon already and has met with missionaries like a year ago. she wants us to come back to teach her and her family this week. it is so amazing to see how when we are in tune with the spirit where we can be led.

But thats about all i can think of. not much else to write. Peace out homies

This is me trying to make a phone call but it was so windy that my skirt kept flying up and it was so funny

This is my friend Evelynn from church

surprise picture

and then another picture when i knew she was taking the picture lol

on the ground here is someone's spilled m&ms and i was so devasted that it happened

Week 18

me with more food haha

waiting for interviews with president

waxing our lips lol

me eating ice cream

there was a viking event going on in portadown so naturally we went and i was telling everyone i was a viking hahha

Week 17

I dont know if any of you guys will remember but two months ago i was teaching this 18 year old boy named Patryk from Poland and then he took a trip to Poland and we never heard from him again. Well last week while me and my comp were waiting for our bus i looked down the street and i saw this boy running towards me and i realized it was Patryk and i was like dude where have you been?! and apparently he had broken his phone or something and had lost our number and has been looking for us ever since! He was so happy to see me and i was so happy to see him! so we meet with him a few days later to teach him a lesson and he said ever since he stopped meeting with us his life had completely gone downhill and during our lesson we invited him to be baptized and he accepted! we are so excited for him! So thats super cool!

It has been so warm this past week and everyone is outside and it makes me so happy. my face is getting sunburned and all my nose freckles are coming out.

Our old man friend Leslie that feeds the pigeons got one of those old man scooter things and he let me ride around on it so that was fun haha.

Sis Neilson

Some cool sunglasses

a giant fish in belfast

this picture might seem funny but because sister khoo is so short and im so tall she is alwasy asking me to reach things for her especially flowers in tree

Week 16-i ate chicken feet and two flies..

This week was a week of miracles i'll tell you that. 

We had our usual P-day dinner with Tadeu last week and his food is always so good, so we were excited to see what he would bring out and what he brought out completely surprised me, it was chicken feet... i was like whaaaat?! Sister Khoo and elder Rocha wouldnt eat it but me and elder Alfonso manned up and ate the chickens feet. hahaha the taste actually wasnt too bad but the feet has so many bones in it and you have to spit out the bones before you can swallow it. so after i spit out the bones it was just a pile of skin in my mouth and it was really hard to swallow when i realized that haha

Since we have all these flies out because it has been so warm i was yawning one day and one fly flew directly into mouth and i could feel it in the back of my throat and it was disgusting!! and then it happened the next day again!

Me and sister Khoo were Gqing and when we GQ we walk the same street just in circles because our town is so small and as we were walking i was like,"sister Khoo lets stop and think where we should go instead of going on the exact same path." so as we were standing there pondering where we should go this guy walked up behind us and we started talking to him and it took a little bit of convincing but next thing i know we were in a cafe teaching him an on the spot lesson. God's timing is amazing. it's amazing when we see God's hand helping us in our missionary work when we are being obedient. It wasn't just a coincidence that we stopped at the right time to talk to him but it was Heavenly Father helping us. He was very skeptical at the beginning and he is a born again (which do not like mormons) but the lesson was the most spiritual lesson i have ever been in. we were in the noisiest cafe but 2 minutes into the lesson i honestly didn't even hear anything going on around us. it felt like it was just the three of us in there. (plus the spirit lol) and at the end of the lesson the man we taught, Neil said, "I honestly really like what you guys have to share and you have helped me so much already and i would love to meet more and learn more." i was so happy dude. So he is one of our new investigators now! so exciting.

On Sunday the best thing happened. so our friend Valenitna who i have been teaching for about the whole time i have been in Portadown finally said she would come to church! So we picked her up at 9:15 and started walking to church. and this other friend of ours named Aladin (we have been trying to get him to church for about 5 months now) said he wanted to come to church and we picked him up at 9:30 and as we were talking with him we found out he is from Romania also! so Aladin and Valentina were just talking together in Romanian as we walked to church. then we all got to church and sat down. and i have never been so happy before in my life. It was better than any day at the beach, winning a volleyball tournament, or eating pancakes. this topped them all.

There are so many other miracles that happened this week but these two were the best by far. I am so grateful for the experiences i am having out here. I know that this church is true with no doubt in my mind. Love you all!

Peace

this is a members front yard its insane, he always asks the elders to mow his lawn while we wait for dinner.

this is on the street we walk everyday

This is Barry our recent convert and stphen another recent convert the one who baptized him we were teaching him in his home and it was so nice out that we had a little picnic out back haha

Week 15

So on Tuesday i flew to Edinburgh to pick up the chick that i am follow up training. i had to travel there all alone and i am the worst traveler. i was so worried the whole time haha. i looked so lost all alone haha. 

i had to go to a trainers meeting which was like 3 hours long and there was only three trainers including me in there so it was some good one on one time with the president haha. 

My new companions name is sister Khoo and she is from Singapore and is 23 years old. i was sitting in the lounge of the mission home all by myself while i was waiting for my new comp to arrive and it was so nice and peaceful actually being alone for once. and then president walked in and we talked for a little bit and i was so nervous to meet my trainee. then i heard my new companion walk into the front door of the mission home and she walked into the lounge and she is a fireball and i am not at all so it was a big surprise. haha

It was very hard saying by to my last companion, harder than i thought it would be, but i am excited to serve with sister khoo! It is a whole new experience training her. We have to do language study for an hour every day which is cool and i am trying to learn more mandarine and porteguese while she studies haha. i feel bad for her sometimes because i have such long spider legs that i walk really fast and she has short legs and i always have to rememeber to slow down haha. we are working very hard though this transfer and we are always so tired, which is so good! 

The weather here as been so nice lately. it has probably been in the 50s and that means short sleeves! the sun never comes out and we had like 2 days where there was sun all day, it was a miracle! i have never seen so many people outside in town before haha. But with the heat brings lots of bugs and gnats! so we are always covering our nose and mouth with our book of mormon because they get into our mouth. its gross haha. 

Training is making me learn new things about myself everyday. i love learning new ideas from her but it is also a very humbling experience. i thought i was pretty humble, well i guess im not that humble if i just said that i am humble lol. but i also have to be very patient which is very hard for me to do. But i am excited to try to be better at those things. definitely things i want to improve so im excited for the challenges. It is also a very stressful thing because i have more resonsibility now haha. But its all fun and i am learning a lot even though it can be frustrating sometimes. i happy to learn and improve!

It is funny because sister khoo can be innapropriate sometimes with her jokes and i always have to tell her she cant talk like that. and if you know me pretty well, i am usually the innapropriate one so the fact that i have to tell her to calm it down is pretty funny. 

I am so excited for this transfer! me and sister khoo have set some good goals and have a lot of things we want to accomplish! its gonna be rad!

on the ferry going back home to portadown

me and my companion in edinburgh

this is how we hold the book of mormon because its been so warm and there are bugs everywhere and they get in our mouth haha

Week 14

we had a dinner appointment this week and i was eating super slow and everyone finished before me and then bro marques, the person feeding us, was like sister neilson you have twenty seconds to finish what is on your plate right now. then he started counting down from 20 and i was like what.. so i had to shove all my food in my mouth. then after dinner we had eaten so much i felt sick. then sister lough while we were going home after threw up because she ate so much hahaha

barry got baptized this week, we are so excited for him! 

we went on exchanges this week and they made me and my comp run for morning exercise. we were not happy about that at all but the night before we ran i was praying that i would be able to run because i literally cant run and i swear God gave me some strength because i made it half way. it was a miracle. my testimony of prayer for sure strengthened after that. 

President nelson came and spoke to all the missionaries in the UK and it was so cool! he was super strict or anything he let loose and he seems like a cool guy. he just talked about missionary work i can’t really remember because i am in a rush right now. but man is that guy inspired! so amazing

We taught a woman named angela and her family they are from portugal and they are so great! we taught about the book of mormon and she said that she has been praying to God about the next step in her life that she should take and that she is excited about the book of mormon and will read it and pray about it. the spirit was so strong. she is so in tune with the spirit, it was amazing. she doesn’t speak english so a man from our ward pedro translates for us. but i can’t wait to continue to teach her. i love teaching about the restoration and book of mormon.

moves calls! i am staying in portadown but i will be follow up training a chick from singapore! so i am going to fly to scotland for a training meeting tomorrow morning! se speaks mandarin and english so we will be able to teach chinese people. i am so excited about that!

me eating an apple, which is weird but i like apples now

another apple pic

and another pic with leslie

barrys baptism

a man named michael 

WEEK 13

conference was good! the first sessions we went to the stake center in belfast which was an hour train ride and barry came with us and loved it! so that was cool!  then the next sessions we watched the next day at this mans house named tadeu! he is the sweetest man. we always go to his home on pday and he feeds us lots of food. he doesnt speak english though but is so kind to us. he is half my size. hahah president nelsons talk was so good!

nothing really happened this week so i wont be sending a big letter but here are some pics...

we froze snowballs from when it was snowing and saved them

this street is named corcrain hahaha

this is rodney the nicest guy in portadown. he always gives us candy and a fizzy drink

elder rocha and elder alfonso they are serving in the town with us

barry our investigator has given us so many gifts. this is one of the pens he got us. it has our names written on them. then he wrote poems for us, then he gave us compasses that say "so you can always find your way back home siter neilson" engraven on it, and then he literally named a star after me hahha

this is tadeu

wearing our st patricks day pins on st patricks day

this is liliana, one of our investigators. she is about to have a baby in 4 weeks

WEEK 12

We had zone conference in dublin this week. which takes 3.5 hours to get to Dublin by bus which is usually alright but on this morning i woke up pretty ill with a cold and the flu. but i was not about to miss zone conference! it was a pretty rough bus ride but the conference was so good! we learned about the importance of the sabbath and how we must always keep the sabbath day holy which was cool. and it was super cool to see all the homies and catch up with everyone.

then the bus ride back home was just terrible i got way more sick but it was all worth it because the conference was so good. but right when i got home that night i literally passed out i was so sick lol. 

Barry our investigator that is supposed to get baptized this week is still doing great! we had to push back his baptismal date to next week sadly but he is doing so well and we are so proud of him! 

General conference was amazing and it was so great to hear president Nelson speak and to see him get ordained was super cool and the spirit was so strong!

Sis Neilson