This took too long to write cause of this blasted apartment with people distracting me so I have done no editing

Hi Everyone! This was a great week, 

Monday was good, we played a lot of basketball. In the evening we went to a lesson at a restaurant with Brother Morring. We went inside, and as we were sitting down Will and Elizabeth (the people we came to teach) said they had invited two of their friends to come too. Which was kinda strange. When they came and sat down, we knew this wasn't going to go as we had originally anticipated. Turns out they are catholic, and they and their friends used to be in a study group. They started asking questions that were not very sincere. Brother Morring just took over the conversation and basically taught them all the lessons, and made it so not many could get a word in. They kept saying "we've all had our spiritual experiences, but those alone aren't enough for faith, you need facts too" and I'm sure if we had admit that they would have pulled out some anti, but Brother Morring didn't let that happen. After a couple hours they finally relented and left haha--they were obviously thinking they could help us see the light, but didn't expect us to bring our knowledgeable friend. Overall it was fun, because they had some very obvious frustration with the situation, and it was also fun to see their beliefs dismantled, in a non-threatening way. 

Tuesday we had District council at the Barton's which was fun, we had our end-of-transfer testimony meeting, and had a good chicken salad lunch. After that I went on exchanges with Elder Van Tassell, and went immediately to a lesson with Peggy at Bishop's house. Peggy is super funny, it was probably one of the most fun lessons Ive ever had, we had an awesome discussion and read 3 Nephi 11 with her. After that we did comp study, and then forgot to eat dinner cause we got talking haha

In the evening we went out with Brother Faucette, and talked to a lot of people. None of us knew Spanish, but we still used Google Translate to invite someone to English class! As the evening was coming to a close we decided to go get What-a-burger since Brother Faucette offered, and NEVER turn down an offer for food. As we were heading over I felt like we should call someone I had messaged randomly on Facebook, so we did. He answered and we had a 30 minute restoration lesson in the car!! It went so well, and he is excited to read the Book of Mormon.

As our evening was coming to a close, we returned to our apartment, and Elder Van Tassell inserted the key into our lock, only to have the key break in half in the lock!! We tried to turn what was left of the key to no avail. We knocked on our neighbors door, and they tried to help with all sorts of pliers and knives, but it was no use. Then our neighbor's competent friend Nagaraj appeared and gave us the apartment help line, then left. We called the line and then it got to the voice-mail saying what their office hours were ad to leave a message so we hung up. So we called the APs and got permission to have the ZLs pick us up even thought they would be driving after 10:30. So we called them and then waited with our neighbor in His apartment. While we were waiting Nagaraj shows up and suggests we go on walk. So that's what we did, and as we were heading out he asked if we had gotten ahold of the office and we said no. He seemed shocked, and asked if we had really tried. As we were replying he simply held up his hand to silence us and proceeded to call the office again. He got to the same voicemail we did and then as we were trying to say "told you so" he just held up his finger, and continued to listen to the voicemail. At the very end it said, "if this is an emergency, stay on the line." Nagaraj stayed on the line. Someone answered and said they could come over and fix it. The only problem is the ZLs are now 5 minutes away haha--so we decided to just stay at their place anyway since they already burned the miles haha

Nagaraj drove away and when his exact same car returned it was a lady. He hasn't been seen since, we think hes one of the 3 Nephites.

Wednesday we got a ride back to our apartment in the morning, and then went to Lorna's for service. We helped her clean her outdoor bunny enclosure and set up some tunnels for her bunny. It was really fun. We ate at Jimmy John's for dinner, and then went out with Brother Talley to some lessons. They all fell through, but we invited a bunch of people to our ward Falloween who were out and about.

Thursday was one of the best days ever! We went to Minnie's for service as usual, and afterwards they invited us to this banquet they only hold once a year. We walked in and they had catering from A BBQ place, a quesadilla place, Chile's, Olive Garden, and some other place. It was the best sight ever walking into that room. After getting food they led us into this vip banquet room where we each had places set for us with a gift bag and cookies at each place. It was so much fun, I ate so much food. They had a drawing and 5 of the 9 missionaries there won something, including me! It was they greatest lunch ever, highly recommend. In the evening we went out with Brother Bagley, and found someone new to teach. He was awesome, he used Almas conversion story to testify of what Jerry (the guy taught) needed to do to know the truth of what we were doing.

Friday was super rainy, it rained from 8 am to 3 pm straight haha--we made the mistake of thinking it wouldn't be that bad and biking out to the pavilion at the park for comp study. We were mistaken haha--it was pouring so hard that it went through our coats and sweaters, and filled our shoes. I don't think I've ever been so soaked in my life. It was fun though, we made the 15 minute ride to the pavilion, realized the wind was cold, and rode 15 minutes back to a Starbucks instead. We covered their floor in water haha, but we payed for it by getting hot chocolate which wasn't very good. Most places don't know how to make good hot chocolate. I love rain storms though, I wish we would get these more often! In the evening we went to our ward Falloween party, which had a great turnout! Also we got a call from our friend Audrey, who we've been trying to get ahold of for the last week, and invited her to a baptism and she wants to come! It was a huge miracle because we've been trying to get her to come to church for MONTHS now.

Saturday morning we picked up Audrey with Brother Howieson, and went to the ZLs baptism. It was super good, Audrey loved it, and we set up a ride for her so she could come to church also! In the afternoon Bishop took us to Inn-n-out which I am liking more and more. In the evening we went out to some lessons with Brother Morring, and afterwards got shakes at Braums.

Sunday morning was so good! We went to ward council which was awesome, and then Audrey came to church for the first time!! Also Brother Morring brought a friend with him! And Jerry watched church on Zoom cause he couldn't make it in person. It was great, Elder Stanley and I spoke. After wards we had an impromptu Gospel Principles class for Audrey and Brother Morrings friends with the ward missionaries, and some other assorted people. It was a great discussion, and Audrey commented how much she loved church later that day. She wants to come again, and is also going to talk with the aparment manager about doing a weekly Book of Mormon study at the clubhouse! 

In the evening we went to the ZLs apartment and got transfer news! Elder Stanley is headed to Sweden, I am staying in Plano 10 as DL and training a new missionary again! It's going to be lots of fun. 

-Elder Nielson

We seek him here; we seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Hello people,

Monday two weeks ago was fun, we shall return to it soon...

Tuesday was good, we had District council, and afterwards ate at Braums. Then I went on exchanges with Elder Frenzel. He's cool, I always love comp study on exchanges cause it's a great time that I get to hear about how missionaries are doing, and gauge where they are at. It's also fun to have different discussions and hear different perspectives. In the evening we taught Lee, and it went super well! Brother Talley was with us, we read Alma the Younger's repentance story with Lee. 

On Wednesday it was my birthday! It felt weird to have my birthday on the mission, but it was good. We made soooooo many calls in the afternoon. Everytime we go through our Area Book we are blocked by more people then last time, what is people's problem? 😤 If I were them I would love getting harassed by the missionaries, if I knew my eternal welfare was at stake! In the evening we ate at Shlotzky's and went out with Brother Faucette to stop by people. We had a good night, and ended by getting ice cream at Braums to end the night. The whole day I kept getting random messages on Facebook saying Happy Birthday from people who usually ignore me, so that was fun haha

Thursday we did service at Minnie's, and then went to Sam's club with some other missionaries and a member payed for our food! Then in the evening we went out with Brother Allred and did some stopbys. It was fun, afterwards we went and ate this amazing barbeque with him! And thats saying something coming from me, cause I think barbecue is over-hyped and not that good in general. But it was soooo good, really pricey though! We have so many nice members here.

In the morning on Friday, we went and helped out Lorna, we moved a lot of marble slabs haha--the rest of our day was pretty normal, lots of meetings and then some member lessons in the evening. 

Sunday was good as usual, our streak of 4 people to church for the last 3 weeks was broken sadly. :( It was a really rainy day, so we had a lot of fun riding through Breckinridge park! The temperature was perfect. That evening we had steaks with the Andruses and talked about how we can help the Elders Quorum. We are really trying to build trust with the ward council, we would love for them to do their job and give us names. :) In the evening we biked around and stopped by some inactive members. For some reason people think it's okay to go to sleep at 7:30 here, don't know what on e they are thinking!! It's puzzling and irritating when we knock on someone's door and they say "we were just going to bed." Don't people have more important things to do then sleep tsk tsk

Monday felt super weird because it wasn't pday. We made another video to get our Zone excited about Facebook again which was fun! In the evening we had big plans to go to downtown State Farm, but then my tire suddenly had a hole, so instead we had to spend some time patching it, and then did some calls haha 

On Tuesday we had District council, then Elder Barton took Elder Stanley and I to Braum's for lunch! I couldn't help myself, so I got the bag of 5 cheeseburgers, and it was worth it! Every time I get a burger somewhere, I wish I had 4 more, so this was perfect. In the evening we went out with Bushop and ate at a pretty good Thai place! I got some herb fried chicken fried rice. Afterwards I interviewed someone the Sisters are teaching for baptism. That was really fun, I like doing baptismal interviews more and more. By the end of this month everyone in our district will have had an October baptism!! Also we are at 100% members on lessons in our district. Which is a hugeeee improvement from when I first got here. 

Wednesday morning we went and helped Lorna again, she's fun to help and talk to. We had Chipotle for dinner, and also had this super good honey dew ice cream smoothie! Which is surprising, honey dew is usually just referred to as the "less-exciting fruit," but it was really good in the smoothie!

In the evening we went out with Brother Johnson and taught 4 lessons! It was lots of fun, my favorite lesson was when we taught Lee the Plan of Salvation. It was the best Plan of Salvation lesson ever, he seemed to really get it, and agree with it. Brother Johnson was also really good at relating to him. 

Thursday was a great day! It was pday this week because we got to go to the temple. We went to the Church and played some games with our district in the morning. Or at least we intended to play games and instead ended up talking most of the time. We did play the tortilla game though. Afterwards we went and ate at El Norte, and Brother Faucette payed for our whole district! We spent some of the time convincing the Sisters of various things like the fact that Elder Layton goes home next transfer and Elder Van Tassell is really from Japan. ;) The rest of the time we had fun just talking with our district. 

In the afternoon we went to the temple, and it was great! I love the Dallas temple, highly recommend going. 

In the evening we had pizza for dinner and then went out with Brother Mendenhall for some lessons. We taught Audrey again and she's so awesome! She has some friends she wants us to teach next time haha, so she's helping us out! We also talked to her friend who was there and gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her!

Friday we went to Minnie's, but before that we had a Zone Meeting. Only problem is it's a 30 minute bike ride to Minnie's, so we hopped on the meeting while we were en route. And we even participated, I think everyone was impressed. In the afternoon we had some meetings with the STLs and ZLs, and we also did some more companionship calls. Then we went out and stopped by people with one of the new ward missionaries. He's 18, so hopefully this will help him want to go on a mission! I also went and interviewed someone the ZLs are teaching for baptism. 

On Saturday we finally had time for our weekly planning, which was super good. We are trying to figure out how to help our friends want to make the next step. It's also harder to find new people to teach in this area then my last area, so we are finding new ways to find people. In the evening we went over and had dinner with some members and taught Eleanor! We taught her about prophets and following the prophet, which was fun. Then Brother Allred took us out to some more lessons and stopbys. Afterwards he got us some super good chicken with rice from Hawaiian Brothers, and some superb Dole Whip! It's been a while since I've had this level of quality from a Dole Whip.

Okay now back to Monday from 2 weeks ago. It was Zone pday, so we had a Zone costume party!! I was a bag of Ice and Elder Stanley was a lunch-lady/lunch-man. It was so fun we played a lot of games like Halloween jeopardy and paint the pumpkin. 

In the evening we went out with Brother Adams to some appointments. As we were stopping by people we ran into Audrey, and the first thing she said to us was "I need to come to church, I've just been scared to ask for a ride." We told her of course we could find her a ride, and that we would get back to her. She was busy but said to come back in an hour. So we went and stopped by some other people in her complex while we waited. So we went up to this one lady's door named Michelle. Her door is covered in crosses, as many doors are. We knocked and then waited, enjoying pleasant conversation with our member (our usual past time on peoples doorsteps). She didn't answer, so I started writing a card, and when I had almost finished the door swung open and there's this wide-set lady there with a knife ready to strike!! We kinda jumped cause we thought nobody was home and then she started yelling at us haha--something about us always leaving our dirty cards at her door and eating candy and leaving wrappers everywhere (ah yes, my favorite pasttime, sitting at a lady's door eating candy and writing cards). We kept trying to say "okay we won't come back" and leave but she wouldn't let us haha, she just kept demanding why we kept coming back. Sue also said "don't let these crosses on my door fool you, I will cut and shoot you if I ever see you again." The Christian way I suppose, I'm sure Christ would do that too! Elder Stanley and I were about to snap and start yelling back at her, but refrained and finally just turned and walked away, her yelling at us that we were going to hell as we went. She also mentioned that she had called the cops on us haha--and that we weren't even supposed to be here. Which is not true. :) After that Brother Adams and us joked about it, and then we knocked on this inactive member's door. She let us in, and we had an awesome visit with her!! She and Brother Adams got along really well, he was definitely meant to be with us that night. At the end of the visit she asked what we were doing next and we told her we were going to teach Audrey. Once we said that she said, "does she need a ride to church?" Which of course we said yes, so now we have the inactive member right across the hall from Audrey coming with Audrey to church on Sunday!! It was definitely a miracle, and we taught Audrey afterwards and she's excited to come.

Okay that was a few things from my last couple weeks. One million pictures are coming.

-Elder Nielson

(No Subject)

Hello, yall shall not get an email this week hehe

Which means next week is going to be maybe the best email you ever read! So stay tuned...

I will give no explanation for why I am emailing on Thursday, or why yall aren't getting an email this week. You will just have to wait and see...

-Elder Nielson

(No Subject)

This was a pretty good week!

On Monday we had a great time in Allen playing chair soccer. We also ate at Torchy's which was really good! 

Tuesday we had Zone Conference, and it was super great! Probably the best Zone conference I've ever been to. We learned a lot about member work, and using the Book of Mormon. For lunch we had these really good tacos, with some of the best guacamole I've ever had! After Zone Conference we had to wait for all the new Tiwis to be installed so we ended up talking with a lot of missionaries which was super fun! In the evening we went out with Brother Faucette and stopped by a lady named Paulita, but instead of her a guy named Prince answered! We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and teach him right there which was great. Afterwards we went and taught Lee.

On Wednesday morning we went over to the Bushop's house and taught Peggy the most in-depth Plan of Salvation lesson I've ever taught! We talked with her and the Bushes for 2 hours, it was really fun! In the afternoon we did a lot of companionship calls. That evening we went out with Brother Yanelli and stopped by some members and friends. We ran into Audrey and were able to talk with her! She wants to come to church and bring some friends with her, which would be so great! Also Brother Yanelli is the funniest guy, he is constantly talking, and it's super fun.

Thursday morning we went to Minnie's Food Pantry as usual and ended up being sent out with the ZLs and Plano 6 to through tons of trash from different palets into a dumpster. So of course we couldn't let all this untapped potential go to waste!! So we quickly started thinking of many new and exciting ways to move the trash that WASN’T just us tossing it in. Many messes were made, but it only got funnier the more problems we encountered!

Friday morning we went to the Legacy building and I interviewed Catherine for baptism. She's ready! Afterwards the Faucettes took us to a restaurant called El Norte, and it was sooo good! I got a burrito and it was one of the best I've ever had. In the evening we biked down to downtown State Farm and stopped by a lot of people. Its getting dark so early now, and sometimes it will be 7:30 and people will already be in bed. Which makes no sense at all haha

On Saturday we went with the priest's and Elder's Quorums and helped de-leaf and mow Peggy's yard. It was fun and we got donuts. That night we went to President Beech's house for dinner. We had some amazing hamburgers there! We had our suspicions that President Beech had a brand new 2022 Corvette, but he made no mention of it, and his 3rd garage was closed so we weren't sure. We steered the conversation towards cars, and still couldn't get him to tell us if he had any nice cars. Finally we were able to get his wife to slip up and say he likes his new car. Which we quickly jumped on and said "what's your new car?" So he reluctantly told us and showed us his Corvette. It's soo nice haha--we also convinced him to let us take pictures with it! He was very kind to let us, cause he's a humble guy and does NOT want attention. But it was lots of fun!

Afterwards we went with Brother Morring to do stopbys, and later that night saw President Beech and his wife out driving the car around! We also got some drinks at Sonic.

Sunday we had Linda and Eleanor come to church which was good! We also did a lot of inactive member stopbys that evening. We went to an old neighborhood, and it got very dark so it was super Spooky biking to these old and sometimes abandoned houses haha--and the moon was also orange! It was really fun, especially cause the temperature couldn't have been more perfect.

--Elder Nielson