A giant

Hello everyone,

This week was really fun! On Monday we went to the cheesecake factory as a district, and then played basketball at the Exchange building. Our ride was very late, so we were the last ones at the church, which is always fun!

Tuesday was fairly normal since we didn't go to transfers. In the evening we had a lesson scheduled with both Lee and Audrey. So we went to dinner with the Roses and then afterwards they came with us for those lessons. And they both fell through! We called Lee and turns out he wasn't going to get home until a bit later, but the Rose's stuck around with us anyway until he got home! So we were able to have a great lesson. Brother Rose just took over and talked about Trusting in the Lord, and Lee seemed to love it. Which is good cause we didn't know if them and Lee would get along.

Wednesday we had the first District Council of the transfer, and it was really fun! The new missionaries in my district seen awesome, it's going to be so fun to have a bigger district. The new Zone Leader Elder Layton seems like he will be great. 

In the evening we had a great lesson with an inactive member named Melissa. We had it a the Morring's house, and showed the Rome Temple video. 

On Thursday we had our final lesson with Bebe before her upcoming baptism, and figured out she now wants her records in the Dallas YSA ward after her baptism. Which is fine, but it means we have to involve that ward more in the baptism. So we called the bishop of that ward to explain the situation, and he ripped into us. He started lecturing us on how we should have involved him sooner and how there's a lot we need to do first and that the date might need to be moved (it can't cause she has family and friends flying in from all over) and on and on. Finally we realized that we had the wrong bishop, cause he didn't know any of the people we were telling him Bebe knew. He was over the REGULAR ward in that building, so we had accidentally called him haha--so we got off the phone with this unpleasant man. Because of that I was super worried about everything working out for her baptism, more on that soon.

Friday was an amazing day! In the morning we went and did service at Minnie's again, which was super fun. I love doing service there. Afterwards we got some pizza at Sam's club cause a member randomly showed up and payed for our food! 

In the afternoon we had a meeting with the STLs and ZLs to make some Facebook Goals for the transfer, we are the Zone Reps so now we don't only message people who interact with the page, but we also are in charge of hyping up Facebook in this Zone. In the evening we had a phone lesson with someone named Marilyn. We had Sister Johnson join us for that, and Marilyn is so elect! Her friend who's a member has been teaching her, and Marilyn said her goal is baptism! So we found her and put her on date in the same lesson! Unfortunately her date is next year on her birthday cause thats the date she wants to set as her goal, but she's happy to get baptized wayyy sooner but she wanted her birthday as the goal haha

On Saturday nothing too exciting happened, in the evening though we went and stopped by a ton of members and nonmembers with Brother Crandall. It was fun because he has a million crazy mission stories. He's also very bold! He told multiple inactive members, "the church is still true, it's time to come back." One lady pretended to use covid as her excuse why she still isn't coming but he would have none of it (good).

Sunday we were still really worried about Bebes baptism, cause we hadn't been able to get in contact with the bishop in that ward. Luckily the Sparks went there and now the Bishop and a bunch of other people from that ward are coming! And the missionaries there seem good too. So everything kinda fell into place. We also did some stopbys on Sunday, and texted every single PMF in our area. It was a super nice night, perfect for being outside! Hopefully it continues to cool down :)

-Elder Nielson

GG Simmons

-Elder Nielson

Sunday was fun, we had 4 people come to church, one of which is named Patrick. He's a cool guy and he thinks we look like lawyers in our suits. We also got a text from Sharon who we were teaching, here's what it said, "Hi. I ended up going to my church. After much thought, I decided I'm not in a place right now, where I want to switch denominations. I love my pastors through sermons, and this what I'm used to all my life. I appreciate all that youvefone for me, but I know I will not be changing my mind. I am actually going to start volunteering at my church as they have a 9nce a month street church where they feed the homeless in DT Dallas. I'm looking forward to this to keep me busy. Please log onto Create Churches website to listen to this week or last weeks sermons for an insight on my theological faith."

Some people just want to settle for the Terrestrial Kingdom. 🙃 We asked her if she had even given the Book of Mormon a try and she just left us on read, so that's a no. If you never read the Book of Mormon, how are you even going to know if it's good or not?

Other than that nothing interesting happened on Sunday. Oh wait, except for transfer news...

Saturday was good, we helped an inactive member named Allan sort through some boxes. He's a funny guy, he just can't make up his mind about anything and seeing all the boxes just overwhelms him and he can't even really deal with it all. He moved from a house to an apartment and there's too much he can't bear to part with, so we had to take a firm hand. We ate at SmashBurger that night which was fun. Afterwards we stopped by some members, and were able to have a Facebook lesson at their place! We got a member to be on the lesson with us too, so anyone who says you can't get members on Facebook lessons is wrong. :) We had members with us on every single lesson we taught this week!

On Friday we went and did some service with the Sisters at Hope's Resale Store. Brother Rose gave us a ride there in his Mustang! It has a supercharger and is from the top line. It was the most fun ride of my life, the way he drives it he gets 10 mpg haha--its really cool and you can just feel the car's engine the whole way. When we showed up they were having a Baby Shower haha--so we just joined in and then helped clean up. We moved a lot of boxes for the store after that. After service Elder Barton picked us up and since we needed a new tube for Elder Stanley's tire we stopped at store after store looking for one but they were all out! Finally we found one at a Bike store luckily. For lunch at 4 since it had gotten so late we had some pretty good burritos, then for dinner an hour later we had Fettucine Alfredo! Lorna also brought by 3 more bags of cookies, so now our entire counter is covered with cookies and Brownies and donuts and pastries and bread and bagels.

In the evening we went with Brother Sparks to teach Audrey, and the lesson went so well! One of the best lessons I've ever taught. She said "wow" a lot during the first vision, and is super excited to read the Book of Mormon!

Thursday we did service at the food bank and for Peggy. We also did our weekly planning, and then stopped by some inactive members. We had chinese for dinner. Also Elder Stanleys tire popped!

Wednesday we did service for Lorna. We helped her pack up her RV for her trip. We had Spaghetti and Meatballs with Garlic bread at the Bushop's house for dinner and it was really good! Immediately after that we biked over to Olive Garden and had a lesson over our second dinner there with Sister Sparks and Sharon! I got the Fettucine Alfredo which was super good as usual. Sometimes 2 dinners is good cause then if one wasn't good you have another chance. Luckily both of these were good!

Tuesday we had our last district council of the transfer! We did it at the Barton's house, and it was super good. Afterwards we did floating and false prophecies. We ate taco salad for lunch. Then we went on exchanges, so I went with Elder Fuentes back to Plano 10. We had a good time, we taught a couple lessons in the evening. One of the lessons was with a couple and we taught a full Restoration lesson and it seemed to be going really well and then when we invited them to read the Book of Mormon they flat out said "no." Elder Fuentes about walked out haha--we basically ended up bearing our testimonies of it and then leaving. Afterwards we had a lesson with a guy named Lee, and we talked about the spirit. He said he is struggling to find answers, so we asked if he prays about what we teach. And he said yes. So we asked what he feels after he prays about it. And he said he feels the spirit and feels peace. Sooo basically we tried to explain that WAS his prayer being answered haha--he even said the last time he felt the spirit was when we last taught him a couple weeks ago. So he just needs to connect the dots!

Monday we had Zone pday which was fun! We had waffles. Lots of the day was spent talking about conspiracy theories that might be true! In the evening we had a great FHE lesson with the Bushes and Bebe. 

Hi everyone, heres my week:

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P.S. I am staying and so is Elder Stanley. Sister Carr is going to be STL in this zone Sister Luke is staying and trio training

Elder Fuentes is leaving and Elder Van Tassel is staying

They are opening a new area in our district so 2 more Elders will be joining us!

Our district is going from 6 missionaries to 9 missionaries haha

Title

Hi everyone, 

Monday was Labor Day supposedly (still not sure if this is true) so all the missionaries in the Plano Stake got a bunch of food and gathered at the Stake Center. We played Volleyball and a game called Love Letter. It was pretty fun! 

We went to Starbucks as usual for Facebook and calls, and they gave us a ton of free pastries and donuts and bagels! It's the least they can do, since they get to have our presence there so often!

On Tuesday we had District Council which was really fun as usual! My district us awesome, its too bad transfers go by so fast. Afterwards Elder Barton took us to Braums again which was super good. In the afternoon we had a lesson with Bebe over Zoom cause she's traveling. We also had a member on that lesson too. We knew Bebe had a lot of questions about the temple so we decided to show the Rome Temple Tour Video. It was just exactly what she needed, she said it answered every single one of our questions. So that was that. They are planning on visiting the Rome temple after she gets baptized! Some people with money can just do things like that on a whim :)

In the evening we ate some really good Chinese food and then we went with Brother Balley to a lesson with Lee. Nobody answered the door so we tried calling him and his phone is disconnected! Luckily we always have backup plans, so we walked down the hall to knock a few other formers. On our way a lady randomly peeked her head out of her door for no reason at all, so we asked if she wanted to hear a message about Christ. We ended up talking for 40 minutes with her! I'm getting really lazy, so I am just going to copy what I put in the lesson notes and paste that here:

 "So we just ran into her in the hall. She happened to open her door as we were walking by with Brother Balley, so it was a huge miracle! She's super elect! Loves the word and is looking for a church. She's interested on reading the Book of Mormon! She's awesome! She wants to come to church. Taught her about the Book of Mormon simply and about Christ. She talked about how she's looking for a church. Brother Balley told her all about church and invited her to come! We gave her a Book of Mormon! She was super thankful for it and seemed to really appreciate it. Invited her to read and pray about it. Brother Balley bore his testimony of the Book of Mormon. Also she told us about her life a bit and it's crazy. She said she would come to church in 2 weeks!"

Wednesday we helped at Lorna's place again. This time we scooped some horse droppings and moved a LOT of wood. Later in the afternoon we had a lesson with Melissa and a member at a park in downtown State Farm. It was super nice outside and the lesson went really well! The Social Media Specialists also made us the Interactions Response Team for the Mission Facebook Page (they merged the Zone Pages) which is what I get for doing a good job at it before when we were Zone Reps tsk tsk

On Thursday morning around 7 we helped a referral from the West Mission move in. She was moving into an apartment on the 3rd floor in a retirement community, so us and her moving team got really good at loading and unloading elevators! It was kinda fun, I've never helped someone move via elevator. 

Later in the morning we had a lesson at the Bushops house in Murphy with Peggy. It went super well! She said church is her happy place, so we will definitely put her on date this week. (If I had my way she would already be on date 😤). It was great having it at the Bushop's house cause he and his wife shared such great insights throughout the lesson.

In the afternoon we went back up to Murphy because someone called us wanting a Book of Mormon. We gave him one and talked about it, he's really weird and funny haha--he says all members of our church are better-looking then everyone else in the world. He also wants to be a missionary like us but he just can't get the look down he says. 

In the evening we had some fancy corndogs from Two-Hands Corn Dogs. We also had some Horchata Slushies. It was all really good and interesting. This ward hasn't missed a single night of feeding us :)

Friday we did a lot of calls and studies, nothing too interesting happened. We had some super good Costco Pizza and Cheesecake at the Woods house. It was really good, Costco pizza is better than most pizzas, and I had forgotten that cause it's been so long. Also Brother Wood is a Rush, Muse, Boston, and more artists I love fan! He's met Tom Shultz and has some signed stuff from him! He's a software developer and a singer for a band by night :))

On Saturday we had the Stake Day of Service activity! One thing we did is we packaged 30k meals for some kids and refugees from Ukraine. It was super fun, even President Seitz showed up by surprise! After the service project a member took us to Liberty Burger and it was really good! I got a burger with avocado, salsa, chips, and refried beans and stuff on it.

Sunday was Stake Conference, and us and the Sisters sang in Stake Choir which was great! I can't remember a Stake Conference when I wasn't on the stand to be honest. 

Nothing else of note happened this week that comes to mind. A bunch of pictures are coming.

-Elder Nielson