Alrighty

This last week was kinda crazy at some times, and then pretty chill other times. 

Monday morning I left for the airport at 4:30 am or so. Everything went smoothly at the airport, and I made it to Texas around Noon. I met my mission president and his wife: President and Sister Seitz. And you are welcome to believe me or not, but he was an eye doctor before being called as a mission president :)

He seems really cool, and I have even heard wisperings of him participating in various pranks...

Monday afternoon we got training on driving in the mission, and we also played some basketball and had some amazing mexican food that the Senior Missionaries had made. After dinner they threw us right into the fire. We went street contacting with some of the more experienced Elders, and talked to some people who were outside. This whole time it was hot and humid--but in a good way. We stayed at an apartment with some other Elders that night, and never have I seen such a messy apartment tsk tsk

The next day we went back to the church building and got our trainers. My and my new comp Elder Clark then drove 2.5 hours to our apartment in New Boston. 

Elder Clark is pretty cool, he likes Board games, also comes from a huge family, and is from Idaho. He has been good at teaching me the ropes.

When we got to our apartment it was really messy, the other Elders did not clean it before they left, so we cleaned it up and I will attach some pictures of it. Its a pretty cool apartment, it has two bathrooms which is nice. 

The weather here has been cold, rainy, and dreary. There were a few days where the APs told us we couldn't drive becasue of ice, and even though we may be familiar driving on ice, many Texans are not haha

So we bundled up and walked the best we could on those days. Luckily this didn't last long and we were able to drive again after a day or two

The area seems cool but unfortunately we whitewashed our new area, and we got doubled in--so neither of us knows anything yet haha--luckily Area Book is amazing and gives knowledge to our feeble minds. Its a super cool app it has everything ever on everyone basically. It is also great for planning our days and goals, etc.

This week we made a lotttttttt of calls, and talked to a lot of new people. We were able to get a bunch of lessons for next week set up. The only person we aactually got to teach this week is pretty cool. He loves the bible a lot, and says he is reading the Book of Mormon. Hopefully we can teach him more and get him on the right path. He struggles with our concepts of the three kingdoms of glory because he just thought there was heaven and hell. We asked him to read Alma 40.

Church on Sunday was cool, its a small ward and small church building. The stake president talked about repentance and it was really awesome. He seems realy cool.

I will also attach pictures of the dreary world.

-Elder Nielson

Week 2 or 3 perhaps

Hello everyone,

How are you? This week I finally got the hang of things here at the MTC. 

I really love my afternoon classes with Sister Lewandowski. She's 6 feet tall, and one of the best teachers I have ever had. She is great at bringing the spirit, and having a fun time too. We throw a lot of hard questions at her and she always has all the answers. She also often eats meals with us and spends time with us, she's really cool.

This last Sunday was exhausting. The entire day was full of meetings, and great spiritual thoughts, but it got really hard to focus after 10 hours of meetings. I did get to sing in the MTC choir which was really fun though!

We played a lot of volleyball and basketball with our District this week, which was great, and me and my roommates and a few Elders from another district played a game with rocks called Batu Terrabon so that was also fun.

On Tuesday we got to help put up the flags, using a weird drill thing. I was glad to see that we didn't have to raise each one manually. They have four rotations of flags that they go through.

On Wednesday we got to greet the new missionaries and help them move in which was fun! I wish I could help with that more often.

Food has been pretty good this week, I have a maple bar with every meal. My favorite meal this week was probably the chicken sandwiches, they were some of the best I've ever had!

I can't wait to get to Texas on Monday! 

©️2022 Elder Nielson

(enter subject here)

Hello everyone, 

I just entered the in-person MTC yesterday, and it's been an interesting experience so far. 

I got to meet my district in person which was fun, and you can see the height difference in the attached picture : )

We have learned a lot about turning outwards and focusing on loving others so far, but today was our p-day so besides that it has been mostly just us getting to know the MTC. Our devotional last night notably contained Elder Bednar giving an impression of the cookie monster (exclusively available to missionaries), so if you don't serve a mission for any other reason, I guess you now know one possible reason.

The food so far has been great, and I've been enjoying the unique options the have with each meal. I've had lots of chocolate milk and I have no intention of ever stopping.

Today we got to go to the temple with our district, which was really fun. We also got to meet in person with our branch president, and me and my companion (Elder King) were called as Zone Leaders. Its only our second day so we will see how that goes, but it should be fun!

I hope you all are doing well! 

Elder Abraham Nielson

(If there are any typos in the above message the following applies: All typos in the are intentional and are intended to add character and nuance to the communication)

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Feel free to reply to this email individually and tell me about anything going on in each of your lives