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Hello young gosling,

This week was interesting--

On Monday evening after P-day me and my companion quaded up (hehe) and worked Shreveport North for the evening. It was a stormy but pretty night. We went to the top of a casino parking garage and got lots of pictures. After this we went to the river front and walked along it a bit and got a bunch more pictures. All our driving in Shreveport included a lot of u-turns, some intentional, some forced...so it was a lot of fun! The weather was just perfect so we did some Facebook finding out in the park by the river. Then it was getting dark and we wanted to get some more pictures so we went back up to the parking garage but about 2 minutes into our adventure, it started dumping so we got completely soaked. I was happy though cause the rain is so fun haha

Tuesday we drove back from Shreveport and stopped in Texarkana cause a member there nicely offered to take us out for pizza. After mulling it over and giving it much thought and consideration we decided to accept this offer. We did a bunch of stopbys when we got back to New Boston.

On Wednesday we had some really good fried chicken that a member made for us. It's fun we are slowly getting to know our ward better and better now that it's almost transfer time haha

We had a cool phone lesson with a lady we are teaching Wednesday evening. We are trying to put her on date, but she says she still isn't ready even though she is pretty ready. We did invite her to church so we will see how that goes.

Thursday wasn't very interesting, just the usual bear attacks and underground smuggling rings.

On Friday my comp got sick so we had to stay inside all day. It was kind of nice to not have to go anywhere though, we just did some Facebook work and slept :)

Saturday we did a lot of calls and Facebook work cause even though we could go out again we wanted to still stay away from people. We got a ton done of updating a spreadsheet on inactive members for our ward. 

Sunday church was good, there were some good talks on trusting in the Lord. In the afternoon I found someone on Facebook which was awesome! I just randomly messaged her and turns out she is interested in our religion so I offered to stop by and give her a Book of Mormon and she said sure! So we stopped by and gave her one and answered some of her questions. Hopefully we can set up a teaching appointment soon.

That's all I think 

-Elder Nielson

Just One More Dollar...

Hi everyone, 

This was a crazy week and I cannot write the hundredth part of the proceedings of my people this week. Nevertheless I write what I can for a wise purpose.

Tuesday was really fun I went on exchanges with the DL's comp in Texarkana so that was really fun. We saw the craziest thing ever which I will attatch a video of. Elder Rainey is really good at yo-yos so I saw him do a ton of cool tricks also. He often uses it as a way to talk to new people. They will approach him whenever he is doing tricks so it works really well. We had some really good fried rice with bacon that he made for dinner. Also, while I was on exchanges with him we found a new person to teach! She is super cool and we would’nt have stopped by that house if the spirit hadn't guided us.

On Wednesday me and my companion were back, and we helped set up for an auction and chili cook-off which happened Saturday. I'm finally getting to know this ward a bit better, there are tons of cool people. 

Thursday we did a ton of stopbys, but almost nobody answered sadly. We went to dinner at a member's house and it's huge! We ate on their huge deck and it rained but we were under the awning so it was super fun. They have a lake on their property as well as a pool and a playground. It's the perfect house for a family reunion or some similar event, but it's just their normal house! We had some good enchiladas there.

On Friday we had an amazing lesson with the person who really likes the Bible. We were able to get a member with us and it made such a big difference. The lesson went so well, and hopefully we can put him on date soon!

Saturday was super fun! We had the ward auction and chili cook-off and it was so much fun. We judged the chili and there was lots of interesting and unique ones. Nothing beats my Mom's chili though, it's world class. The auction was so fun, a member gave me and my comp each $20 to spend on the auction. The bishop was the auctioneer and he's really good at it. "It's just one more dollar" is a notable quote. People spent a lot of money, one pie sold for $60 haha

Sunday was really fun too, me and my companion were in good moods so our interactions were all funny.

We are currently in the car on the way to "The Shreve" as Elder Thompson calls it (I have never seen as much jamming out to "Rock-A-My Soul in the Bossom of Abraham" by the Tabernacle Choir as I am seeing at this moment). We are going to play a bunch of ping pong, pool, and Foosball hopefully :) 

-Elder Nielson

Jury, Judges

Hi everyone,

This week really flew by.

On Tuesday we woke up in Texarkana cause we were going to do some service at the food bank. It was fun, we got to create bags with meals in them. Each one had a lot of different things in it. We went along the table putting one of each thing in each bag and by the end we were going at a rate of at least 15 bpm (bags per minute). It was really fun to talk to all the Elders and Sisters in our district while we did this!

Wednesday was pretty normal, we got to teach a couple of lessons. In one of our lessons we invited a lady to pray about Baptism and hopefully we can put her on date this week! The other lesson went veryyyyyy long cause we were teaching a talker haha--it was fun though, we will soon be inviting him to church once he has read more in the Book of Mormon.

On Thursday we had zone conference so we had to drive up to Shreveport. I think our miles are shot now, oh well :)

We listened to talks on the way there which was awesome. Zone conference was fun, we got to talk to a ton of other missionaries. We had baked potatoes which were really yummy but they perhaps needed a pinch of cumin and a touch of cilantro oil to spice them up a bit.

On Friday it snowed! Which is really rare here. Snow is as valuable as gold here, we may start using it as currency once gas prices get too high. Which is right now :)

We did some stopbys on Friday which was awesome cause evn though it was cold we always got to relax in the warm car between each one.

Saturday I got to walk around with my Book of Mormon in an awesome case that my mom made me! I will never go without it now I think cause it makes me cooler. And people have already commented on it a lot.

We also taught someone from a pmf this week and we will probably put him on date next week cause he is really progressing well!! He's also at church every week.

Sunday I gave a talk and it was so good that I am now the stake president! (Just joking it was probably my weakest talk since I don't have my personal editor [my mom] anymore haha). I also blessed the sacrament cause the priests slept in tsk tsk

I will attach a picture of my district, we are about to have a nerf war so you may not hear from me again...

-Elder Nielson

A Single Tree with which to Devour

Hi everyone,

It was an interesting week, and a lot happened. 

On Tuesday we had district council. It was a lot of fun, my district is awesome--everyone has a great sense of humor, which is a must in my eyes. Apparently there have been some pranks involving various dangerousnj substances like vaseline, so I will have to watch my back...

After heading home from district council we had 5 lessons scheduled with various non-members, and everyyy single onee fell through tsk tsk

Wednesday when we were doing our comp study a nice old couple came up to us and gave us money for some breakfast which was super nice. Since we had already eaten we decided to use it later for dinner instead. In the early afternoon we walked around a park called Tapp (tsk tsk) park and knocked a bunch of doors where missionaries had been in contact before. It was pretty hot but luckily not too bad. We knocked on a ton of doors and a few people answered, one of which we set up an appointment to teach soon so that's nice! One of the people we talked to said they had told us they weren't interested before and that it was stalkerish that we kept contacting them to check on them. It was hard to not laugh while talking to her haha--we put a note in area book saying not to stop by for at least 6 months. 

Afterward we got drinks at Wendy's and made some crazy combinations of drinks to help us cool down. Unfortunatly we had our 3 teaching appointments fall through, so we were 0/8 at this point. We did a tonn of calls instead in the evening.

On Thursday our teaching appointments finally started to happen. All 4 of our Thursday appointments worked out which was awesome. We met with an inactive member who hasn't been active for 30 years and he talked about how this world is going to dirt. We tried to help him see that coming back to church could help him, hopefully we can make some progress with him. Another of the people me met with was amazing. We had met her for the first time last week, so we taught her the Restoration and she was really awesome and open to everything. She is going to start reading the Book of Mormon and praying. She is pretty awesome and we meet with her again soon. 

Okay now Friday was crazy. We did exchanges and I was with the DL. Hes a hilarious dude, and he's constantly messing around. In my area right now there are hardly any member meals right now, but once I got to Texarkana with Elder Thompson it was a different story altogether. We got fed 3 meals by members when there were only 2 meals left in the day haha--for lunch we got pizza, for dinner we ate at Jake's BBQ and it was super good and Texasy. Then at 8:30 the Elders Quorum president took us and the Sisiters out for a second dinner. 

Texarkana is very different then New Boston, a much more alive town. We taught a lady the Restoration and she was really cool and seemed to believe everything we were teaching. Unfortunately her house was filled with smoke, so we had to change after that, hopefully she will come to church on Sunday though! We also talked to someone who was smoking weed but she seemed to want to meet with us sometime so we will see how that goes :)

While me and Elder Thompson were driving around looking for someone's house we parked next to a house that we thought might be the right one. As we were looking at the map in the car a guy comes sprinting towards my side of the car liquor bottle in hand. We quickly locked the car and he ran up and started tapping on my window with the liquor bottle. He talked to us through the window a bit and once he saw our Bible and stuff he gestured towards his peace tattoos and we asked him if the person we were looking for lived there. He ran back to his house (his liquor bottle flying out of his pocket as he ran) and he and a friend poked their heads out and asked us to come in even though the person we were looking for doesn't live there. Then he said that for all they knew we could be the cops but we could come in and talk about the Bible. We decided to drive off when they weren't looking cause it wasn't looking very smart to go in. 

So Friday was lots of fun!

Saturday I came back to New Boston and we did a ton of stopbys. In the evening we went to a part member family birthday party so that was fun. 

Today we are going fishing with our district, and right now there is lots of off-tune singing taking place in the car with 4 Elders :)

It's pretty cold today (it was 82 yesterday and it's 40 today) so we will see how fishing goes. I will attach some pictures from the week.

-Elder Nielson