((3x)' + (5.2£)' = 45) - 4*

 

Hi everyone,

This week was pretty busy--and pretty fun too. On Tuesday we went to Allen for transfers. Its amazing how much richer that area is, I didn't realize how nice everything there is last time I was in Allen. Transfers were fun, you basically just go to a church building and congregate and talk to other missionaries in the parking lot for 2 hours! I got my new companion Elder Maisey and we stopped at Raising Canes to eat lunch. After that we went to Buc-ees (basically a huge gas station with lots of things to eat and buy, Texas is famous for it). 

Wednesday we taught a lot of lessons. We also did street contacting and I have a goal to pull out the most underused scriptures when street contacting and so far it's pretty fun. Street contacting is really nice, it's fun to give out copies of the Book of Mormon. And sometimes someone in front of us that spots us will quickly sppedwalk inside. Or sometimes he or she will start walking the opposite way. It's fun to walk faster and faster ourselves and watch he or she be forced to speed up more and more to avoid talking to us. Sometimes they have no choice but to face the inevitable though, we are fast walkers hehe

On Thursday we also did some street contacting. As we were walking around an apartment complex a lady was passing through with a master key cause someone got locked out of their apartment. When she saw us she said, "You are going to have to leave. We don't allow people to loiter and walk around offering/selling things to people, but I'm sure you already knew that." She went on to say that she hates to put it that way since we aren't really selling anything, but that it still wasn't allowed. Elder Maisey explained that it wasn't tracting, and that we were just talking to anyone who was already out and about. It was good Elder Maisey did the talking cause I was trying so hard not to laugh the whole time haha--It was difficult to keep in. I know they can't do a thing to actually kick us out because we know a bunch of people in that complex so if they ever give us any trouble we could just say "We're actually stopping by our friends here who want us to stop by" and that would be the end of that. :) 

We also ate dinner with the Smiths that evening and got to hear more of Brother Smiths touches with death, motorcycle chases, and shark catches. He could tell life stories nonstop 24/7

Also on Thursday we got a call from the social media specialists, which was ominous. They called us to be the Zone Reps for our zone. So we will be over the Zone page and Facebook work in our zone haha

On Friday we had some meetings where we learned what our responsibilities are, and what we need to do to get started. We had mission conference too, which was fun. We also had an awesome lesson with Amanda about patience. In the evening when we were doing Facebook at Dairy Queen I felt like I should talk to one of the employees and it turns out he's been wondering who we are and what we do! So I gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and told him about what we teach with people and he's pretty interested. We have found a ton of new interested people this week, it's kind of crazy. Next week we will probably just rest and do nothing because honestly the work is done. 

Saturday we went to De Kalb and decided to walk around and stop by some people Elder Clark and I found last week. It felt like 102⁰F according to the weather app. (Though I've always wondered what business it has telling ME what it feels like. I can decide for myself what it feels like thank you very much. 😤) It was pretty fun though, once it gets hot enough you just stop noticing it haha--we talked to a tonn of people here. Talked to a dude named D-money and another named Buggy! Talking to D-money was pretty fun, it's always funny to talk with their lingo so we fit in better.

Sunday was good too, we got 3 people to church! It also misted all morning on Sunday so it was fun to study outside after church. Overall our week was pretty good, we taught 17 non-member lessons which is more than I've done in a while.

Well that's all for now, we will leave the situation involving the needle, the pork, and the straw hat for next time. 

-Elder Nielson

Monk of The Open Hand

 

         ,

Tuesday we had our last district council of the transfer. It was really good, and we did floating which I am forbidden to explain. We also had a really cool lesson with a lady we've been trying to get in contact with for a long time. She just randomly reached out to US and set up a lesson so that was great. We also did some painting for a lady in the Texarkana ward.

Wednesday we had several good lessons, and then in the evening we went to a Sign language class our ward just started. It was really cool, but also super overwhelming. But the good thing is I am now fluent and can speak it effortlessly (as one does after a single class). After the class we had a Q/A with the young men. It was super fun to talk about all the weird/fun things in missionary life and I wish we could have had a few more hours. 

On Thursday we walked around a lot--street contacting in the neighborhoods and complexes in Hooks. It was hot but fun, and we found someone new to teach. She said she didn't want to come to church because she doesn't want to wake up at that time but that should change if we can get some members to come with us and fellowship her. 

Friday we finally got to meet a couple who have cancelled on us 6 times. They are incredibly flakey, we didn't even try to set up another lesson. If they don't want to get resurrected first then I guess that's that...

Saturday we went to a funeral for Brother Woody in our ward. It was sad but also really cool to hear about his life. Radio DJ and anesthesiologist were a few of his many endeavors. After the funeral Elder Clark and I stopped by a guy named Odie and taught him the restoration. It went well, and afterwards we felt like we should walk around his whole apartment complex. So we walked around and talked to people and found 4 new interested people! It was lots of fun, we gave out some copies of the Book of Mormon and got each person's address and phone number. 

In the evening we put Stephen (who we've been teaching for a while) on date to be baptized! It was great, the best part was putting it into area book cause everything turns green and it's the first time I have seen the on-date goal advance :)

On Sunday the morning was uneventful but in the evening we went up to Texarkana to watch the YA devotional with our district. It was a really good devotional and an investigator who is getting Baptized watched it with us! So he got to hang our with 8 missionaries which as everyone knows is much better than hanging out with normal people. 😎 After the devotional we stayed the night in Texarkana since we were going to have to come up here anyway for p-day. 

As we waited for transfer news the tension was palpable. We called the Sisters so that our whole district could get it at the same time. It's very stressful since the email could come anywhere from 9:30 to 10:40 haha

We had some fun sending a fake transfer news email that looked identical to the right one to the Sisters and we got some appropriate gasps from them before they realized it was fake hehe

It finally arrived and Elder Clark is the only one leaving! So I will get a new companion and the Sisters will be trio training but otherwise our district will stay the same! 

Pictures are attached. (This is all the information I will give about them as usual)

-Elder Nielson

Cygnus X3 - The Ascent of Descent

 Hello,

I hope everyone had a good Mother's Day (this is the correct use of the apostrophe I decided after much meditation, if it wasn't an official holiday though it would most likely be Mothers' Day)

On Monday we went to the Shreve for Zone p-day. It was pretty fun, one of the things we played is chair soccer. Monday evening we did some walking around in neighborhoods and we talked to everyone who was out and about. We found a new person to teach also. I have started using Alma 37:37 (one of my new favorite scriptures) as one of my goto in-the-moment scriptures because it is very unique and good. 

On Tuesday we taught someone on her porch the Plan of Salvation and she told us to wait a second, went inside, and then grabbed a notebook. She then took about 1.62 pages of notes as we taught. She was really excited about this plan and asked us why we didn't tell more people about it and said how her life would have been very different if she had known about it sooner. We were very glad to see such good reception, she also liked our visual we gave her to help her remember it. I have attached a picture of it. Later in the afternoon we did some street contacting and stopbys in Maud and we talked to an old lady and man and gave them each copies of the Book of Mormon. For dinner we went to a member's trailer house and ate some amazing hamburgers and fries they made. Some of the best homemade burgers I've had for sure. They even made us fry sauce which was a surprise since there are so many inferior people who do not care for fry sauce in this world. :(

Wednesday we had a few good lessons, but nothing particularly interesting happened. We helped the youth plan some activities in the evening, because otherwise they would only have the physical activities planned. We are trying to help many of them prepare for missions so we try to befriend them all every chance we get. 

On Thursday we had a gigantic storm come through. As we were doing personal study at our apartment it started pouring exceedingly hard. It got super dark outside too and there was almost constant thunder and lightning. The power kept going in and out, lots of flickering, but never long enough in my opinion.

In the afternoon we did our usual weekly planning. I was the whiteboard scribe, as usual, and my designs are getting more and more elaborate. I may even clarify our latest whiteboard as "rococo" and "a modern day Mona Lisa." DaVinci would be proud. Not Leonardo DaVinci, but the much lesser-known Harold DaVinci--Leo's younger brother who was also a painter, of houses. I will not attach a picture of it, because it's best to imagine the greatness of it.

On Friday we drove to Shreveport again for mission president interviews. It was really fun to talk to President and Sister Seitz again, they seemed extremely tired though. We did district council there and then they just pulled us each out one at a time to talk with each of them separately. We sang our usual closing hymn (Battle Hymn of the Republic) and everyone must have been in especially high spirits because it was sung by some at full volume and if we had been in Jericho the walls would have come a-tumbling down. 

On the drive back we played the sign game where you try to read every single thing on every sign you see before somebody else in the car reads it. We had 4 Elders in the car so it was quite the noisy drive. Mainly because there's thus unspoken rule that if you talk over the other people you don't even have to be accurate in your reading (as long as everyone can hear you are making a loud attempt to read every sign).

Because of having to go to Shreveport twice this week we have already blown over 550 of our 1250 miles haha--so we will need to he careful the rest of the month. 

Saturday we went to De Kalb and did a bunch of stopbys and street contacting in that area. It was humid and hot while we walked around and almost everyone was mean and didn't want to talk with us as we walked around, but it was kinda fun anyway. There's just something about walking around in humid weather with short-sleeved Sunday shirts that's fun. I'm not sure what it is, but we just talked the whole time as we walked around (mostly about food because that's what I talk about) and it was pretty fun. Talked to some people who were high as a kite and that's always really fun too!

On Sunday I found someone on Facebook which was really fun. I invited him to church and didn't expect him to actually come but he did! He even stayed for the second hour. We gave him a Book of Mormon, got his number, and will be teaching him this week. Sunday was very hot, it was 91⁰ but it felt like 99⁰ cause of the humidity. It's nice though because then whenever we return to our apartment it's like walking into a Costco freezer haha, it feels really nice. 

That's all for now I believe. 

-Elder Nielson

Able Was I, Ere I Saw Elba

Hello everyone, 

This week flew by because of Zone conference, I couldn't dream of getting to everything that happened but I will do what I can.

Tuesday was great, we got to teach some surprise lessons, and they went really well! We had dinner with the Smiths, and Brother Smith is hilarious. He has tons of funny stories, many about his escape from the police. He constantly has a twinkle in his eye, and has an endless stream of hilarious stories to tell. 

On Wednesday we had Zone Conference, so we drove down to Longview. Zone Conference was awesome, I'm liking President and Sister Seitz more and more. We also got some new tires, which puts our possible max speed at about 340 mph. We will give it a try today I believe. 

Driving to and from Longview was fun because we got to listen to some Hugh Nimbley. He talks like an encyclopedia, and is as smart as a whole library. We loved his talk "A Critical Opinion of the Pearl of Great Price."

Wednesday evening we went to the Church building and helped the clerks and ward missionaries update the ward list. It was fun, they should make an academic competition out of updating ward lists, it takes a lot of brainpower.

On Thursday we had some awesome lessons. We were able to bring the ward missionaries with us too, so it was lots of fun. He have 3-4 progressing people who are so close to being put on date, we just need them to come to church! We also had some really good pulled pork sandwiches and baked beans with a member family that night. We are trying to get the ward more involved in missionary work, because it makes it 10 to 13.62 times easier if the members have the same missionary mindset as we do.

Friday was really fun! In the morning we went to this gigantic park to help set up for a "Scout-a-rama." We put up some signs, put giant garbage cans everywhere, and at every campsite, and set up tables everywhere. It was really fun, and it was in Texarkana so there were 6 of us helping. After service we went on exchanges, so Elder Nelson and I went back to New Boston while Elder Clark and Elder Rainey went to Texarkana AR. 

Elder Nelson is hilarious and he's so fun to work with. We did some stopbys in De Kalb, and at each stopby we also walked around and talked to anyone outside who was in the area. We taught around 5 unplanned lessons and gave out around 6 copies of The Book of Mormon. We found some interesting people and also even a new person to teach. It was the most successful 2 hours of my mission. Elder Nelson is also really charismatic so everytime I do stuff with him our success doubles. I also love giving away copies of The Book of Mormon because then I get to carry around a new fresh one! It's also so satisfying to talk about it, share some scriptures from it, and then give it to them. All of this is much to my companions dismay because we have a limited amount of copies, and everytime Elder Nelson and I are on exchanges we give out exponentially more than is sensible. 

Friday night we went over to the Ward Missionaries' house and roasted marshmallows and made smores there with an inactive family. We invited them to church and hopefully they will come.

Saturday morning we went back to the huge park to help out some more with the scout event. It was the best "service" (if you can even call it that) I have ever done. Once we got there the staff basically just sat us down and talked with us while feeding us snacks. Then we found out that the only thing left to help with was judging the Chili competition...but this was no ORDINARY competition. >:) This was the real deal, once we signed up we became judges for the International Chili Association (which has raised over 80 million dollars in their worldwide competitions). Whichever Chili we picked would go to the world championship, so there was no messing around! They gave us a judge training and it was very serious. No talking with other judges while judging, cleanse your pallet very thoroughly after each spoonful (with grapes, tortillas, and sour cream), always use a new spoon, take as much time as needed (true judges are never rushed), etc.

We were also instructed to write comments for each chili to give the cooks things they could improve on or remember in the future.

It was really fun to judge these, it was a completely different experience than the ward chili competition. Unlike the ward cook-off, every single chili was top tier. Each one was very unique and incredibly delicious. Each judge chose their top three chili's and out of the 15 of us we were not to compare notes. My number one chili was easily the best chili I have ever had, and I kept giving it more tries well after I knew my favorite chilis, under the guise of a contemplative face--as if I was considering it very carefully and judging meticulously. Being the chili expert I now was, I shared some insightful comments about each chili on my judging sheet, and how they could improve. It took about 45 minutes before judging was completed and it was super fun! 

After doing service we came back and did some more service working on a member's gigantic lawn. It was so big it had to be mowed with riding lawnmowers, and even though we couldn't drive those, Elder Clark and I used the weedwackers to get what the mowers couldn't. It was really fun, but also exhausting. Afterward we went over to some Italian Members' house and had some of the best Spaghetti I've ever had. 

Sunday was good, but uneventful.

That's all for now

----------------Elder Nielson

(You can never predict the precise number of dashes I will use :)

Fogg

 

Hello again, (I can't think how to start in an interesting way, 'tis sad)

This week was really interesting, we had a lot of fun.

Tuesday we had District Council as usual, and we helped at the food bank afterwards. I may have already said this in a previous email, but if so that's fine because it still applies: everytime we do service at the food bank I just wish I was eating the food rather than packaging it up!

Elder Clark and I left early because we had a lesson to get to. When we got to our lesson we were in good spirits (as usual, it's hard to put me in a bad mood, when things like Panda Bears®️ exist in this world). This is also one of the guys we got to watch conference, and this was our first meeting with him since that. We entered his apartment, not noticing the look of doom upon his face. We said "hi" and sat down..We had no idea what was about to transpire . . .

Wednesday was great, we did some street contacting. It was very cloudy, and as we walked around there was basically this constant mist coming from the sky! I've never actually seen the sky MIST us, but that's what it was doing. Because it would probably rain at any moment we weren't able to really find anyone to talk to as we walked around, but it was still really fun because fog and mist are the best things ever. It was just the perfect temperature too, felt like we were in a rainforest (minus the rainforest of course).

Thursday I wrote a video and we filmed that. We need to get people to church, so we made the video so we could share it with everyone we can in our area, both formers and inactive members. It was really fun to make. In the evening my comp and I decided we were going to make as many calls as possible so he did the logging and I did the calling, and in about an hour we got through around 80 people. :) 

Friday was a lot of fun, we stopped by a ton of people with the ward missionaries. We has some great conversations and got a few inactive people to church as a result. It's really fun to go out and stop by people with the ward missionaries, especially when we take the Lear. 

On Saturday we did some service for a member. We helped put up arches using fencing for their tomatoes to climb up. It was hard to do but it looked great when we were done. We also helped clean out their storm shelter which was really fun! I have never even SEEN a storm shelter in real life and so it was cool to go in it. Although I still firmly believe storms are more fun when you are IN them.

On Sunday we did the usual Sunday activities. I couldn't think of anything interesting we did on Sunday so I guess the question is: Has anyone ever tried a pogo stick?

. . . Okay, back to Tuesday hehe

So we said a prayer to start, and then the first thing he says is, "So don't take this the wrong way, but this is probably the last time we will meet." He then told gave us his Book of Mormon and told us to take it when we go (little stinker). We asked him why, and he told us that he watched Conference, and he doesn't agree with how prophets and Apostles are chosen. He believes the way our church does it is "of men" and only God can choose a prophet or Apostle. We weren't going to let some utter drivel (UD for short) like that slide unaddressed, so we explained how a new Apostle is chosen by prayer and revelation among the remaining Apostles and how because it is done like this it IS God who is making the decision. We even showed him the chapter in Acts where they replaced Judas' spot in the Twelve Apostles and showed him how they did it the exact same way we do it. He wasn't convinced even though he firmly believes in the Bible. And when we asked him how he thinks it should be done he couldn't even answer that. Little did we know there was more UD to come. He then proceeded to tell us that there will also always be one Apostle who's bad because among the original 12 there was Judas. So we asked if he thinks there should always be 11 Apostles then instead and he said no but gave us no explanation. It was some of the most ripe UD I have heard in my life. Not a single thing he said made the most remote sense haha--we could see it was useless to argue anymore, we didn't want to really get into a bashing session. If you can call disproving something that already doesn't make any sense at all bashing haha

Another thing he did is he asked us how old we were and when we said 19 he said "well I'm 55 so I can reason through things a bit better than you." We just about said "want to know how old President Nelson is though?" But we refrained. Before we left he also said some blood-boiling things about how Brigham Young was a horrible person and I almost snapped but I held my cool, we said a prayer with him, and withdrew.

It was sad to lose one of our best people we were teaching, but we quickly replaced the one we lost with 6 new people to teach, one of which flat out told us she would consider Baptism on our first lesson with her!

That was my week

-Elder Nielson

Sometimes I Wonder What an Akdrebu is

Hihi,

I'm going to hop right in:

Monday night was super fun. I went on exchanges in Texarkana with our DL Elder Nelson in the evening. We decided to go to the dangerous part of town just to spice things up a bit. We knocked on a few people's doors, but mostly we just walked around and talked to anyone who was outside in the apartment complex and neighborhood. Everyone we talked to we shared the new Easter video with. It was awesome because nobody can turn down a 2 minute video if they are already outside, they would have to think of a really good excuse. And even then we would offer to help and render their excuse null and void hehehe

It was so fun to walk around with Elder Nelson and talk to everyone. We were able to find 5-6 new people to teach just because of that video and we gave out 4 copies of the Book of Mormon too, all in an hour and a half haha

On Tuesday after district council we did some service at the food bank, and then Elder Rainey (our DL's comp) and I drove back to New Boston on exchanges. Because we were going back to my area I finally got to lead the area. So I drove for the first time on the mission, and was given the sim card. It was really fun to be the only one who knew the area, so I got to lead on everything. The only thing I was sad about is that back in Texarkana there had been a tornado so I sadly missed that. According to Elder Clark and Elder Nelson they didn't see it but they heard it. It sounds like a freight train (which is my favorite sound so now you see why I am sad)

Wednesday we exchanged back but Elder Clark is having me keep the sim card so that I get some practice with it. We had a lesson with someone we're teaching at 3, so Elder Clark and I drove to his apartment, and just before we got out it suddenly starting pouring and pouring. The sky's were literally just dumping water and it had suddenly gotten super dark. We were in a super thick storm so we just stayed in our car. Then the lightning and thunder started to get really bad and Elder Clark felt like we should go back to our apartment, much to my dismay. I have always loved being out in storms but I guess this was prime tornado weather so it was probably good we headed back. It was really hard to see as we drove because it was raining so hard, but we got back safely. Sadly the storm only lasted a couple hours and them it suddenly got sunny and nice again as if there hadn't been a storm for weeks tsk tsk

On Thursday we did a lot of member calls and planning. We did 16 other intriguing things on Thursday but I shall not mention them because where would be the fun in that?

Friday was a great day! We went out and did stopbys with our ward missionaries. It was an overcast day and it was extremely beautiful. It was also the perfect temperature, not too hot and just the right amount of humidity. Everything is getting so green here and I love it! We stopped by lots of formers, and some members too. We were able to share the Easter video with a new person and they are now interested in being taught! Another guy we stopped by talked to us for about 40 minutes about how the government is trying to take his family's land and the sad state of this world. Just my kind of person :) 

On Friday we also had dinner with some members and they made us their version of Cafe Rio. It was really good, especially the pork. 

Saturday it was really humid and foggy and misty and cloudy. And the perfect temperature. So basically my favorite kind of weather besides straight downpour. I don't think my companion shares my love for weather like this but it's okay because I like it enough for the both of us. 😎 We did a ton of calls on Saturday (at least 40). About a quarter of the people we called picked up which is pretty good honestly. We got a few good lessons set up. Someone came in the Wendy's we were at while we were making calls and said something like "you can't save souls sitting around, get out there!" Or something like that. We just ignored the rude comment and continued to call but I think he realized that we actually WERE working because after about a minute he came back up to us and offered to buy us lunch haha

Easter Sunday was fun, church was really good. Elder Clark and I also studied and did a lot of Facebook finding at parks under pavilions while it was pouring, so that was really fun! We had Easter dinner with a member in our ward and I think Elder Clark and I ate more then their whole family combined so we were pretty proud of ourselves.

Other than that (and the duck incident) that was my week.

-Elder Nielson

00:36:00 hours

 

Hello again,

This week was kind of fun

Monday evening we had a lesson we had set up with someone on Facebook who "wanted to learn about our beliefs but had no intention of converting." We of course set up the lesson anyway. Our plan was to hit her unexpectedly with truth and THEN we would see how much her note that she "wouldn't convert" would hold up hehehe

Unfortunately though she never showed. :( 

Tuesday was very strange because it was a normal day for me and Elder Clark, but our whole district we knew was in Allen for transfers. Me and Elder Clark each made a video at the church since we didn't have lessons set up on Tuesday. We also did a lot of Facebook work and we are starting to have lots of success! We are talking simultaneously to so many people through messenger and slowly finding ways to set up in person meetings.

Wednesday we got to meet our new DL and he's hilarious. His name is Elder Nelson and he has so much energy at all times that it's hard to keep up. He's great though and I think this will be an intense transfer. 

We also did a bunch of stopbys here in New Boston after district council. As usual hardly anybody answered but I don't mind because then I get to leave one of my beautiful cards and put a note in Area Book saying "Left a card." 🙂 It's very satisfying. I hope people appreciate the cards Elder Clark and I leave--each one is hand-crafted genuine leather and sharpened with the newest window-cleaning technology.

Thursday was pretty busy. In the afternoon we helped an inactive member with some wood. The amazing ward missionaries were there with us and so they used their chainsaw to cut the wood into manageable pieces while we then moved and stacked it. I'm so glad chainsaws were invented (on March 23, 1337 at 9 am if you were curious) otherwise that job would have taken 10-50 times longer haha

After service we ate dinner with the ward missionaries and their house is so clean and cozy! It seems like the perfect house to retire in and do missionary work from. 

After we ate Elder Clark and I had a lesson with a new family who past missionaries had taught at some point. When we got there they were making dinner and fed us a second dinner! They gave us no warning otherwise we wouldn't have eaten before. Their two kids talked and talked to us the whole time, it was really fun. The parents apologized not realizing that both Elder Clark and I come from huge families so if there is one thing we can handle, it's kids talking to us. The lesson went well and the parents had lots of hard questions but I could definitely see this family getting Baptized sometime in the near future. 

Friday was pretty normal, although we did have mission conference which was fun. I especially liked Sister Seitz' address on delighting in the Gospel. She challenged us to think of a list of things we delighted in and so far I have added the Book of Mormon and food to my list.

On Saturday we had our ward Easter Activity so that was fun to attend. They had all sorts of games and unfortunately Elder Clark and I were bamboozled by some youth into doing the sack race while in our proselytizing clothes--it was not a comfortable experience, although we did beat some people.

Saturday evening a member got us some Texmex food and it was probably some of the best Mexican food I have ever had. 

Sunday was pretty average, in the evening it rained while we were sitting at a table in a small gazebo so that was fun! It was nice to hear and see the rain and not get wet.

That's far from all that happened this week

-Elder Nielson

Quoth the Raven

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well, and is staying away from feral badgers. They get especially feral at this time of year sadly. 

This week was fun so here we go:

Tuesday we had the last district council of the transfer and Elder Crane from our district is going home :( 

District council was really fun and we did something called "false prophecies" where we all make guesses about who is going to be transferred and where. For anyone going home we make guesses on how many months until he/she is married haha

On Tuesday I also realized to my dismay that when it comes to storage space I may care more than I thought. A week or so ago I had been telling someone with disdain that my parents loved storage space so much that they would get drives and things with unfathomable amounts of storage space, before it seemed to even be necessary. But this week I noticed that I had 15 GB of trash on my SD card that my phone couldn't delete. I tried to click "empty trash" and nothing would happen. Nothing I tried would work, and even though I have plenty of storage left on the SD card I couldn't bear the thought that 15 GB were just sitting there, out of reach. :( Luckily I was able to fix the problem by putting the card into a different phone and deleting the memory before transferring it back. :) So I guess I am more like my parents then I thought.

Wednesday it was really rainy! It poured all morning, I will attach a quick video. Luckily in the afternoon the rain finally stopped cause we were going over to a non-member's house to do some service. We helped put up some fencing, and also loaded up a trailer. Luckily because of the rain the ground was very wet so working on the fencing was pretty easy. 

In the evening we had another phone lesson with one of our progressing people and we taught the Word of Wisdom. I don't know how willing she is to keep it though, she seemed pretty hesitant so we asked her to pray about it to gain her own testimony about it. Also she hasn't really been committing to come to church even though we keep inviting her to come, so if she isn't interested in keeping those commitments we will probably drop her until she is more ready.

Thursday in the afternoon we sent out mass texts to hundreds of former investigators in our area inviting them to watch General Conference. 😀 It was fun to watch the phone send out text after text haha--hopefully a few of them watched it. Also on Thursday a member family invited us over "for dinner" and I thought nothing of it until we arrived and a encountered their giant German Sheppard, which was none too happy to see us. It went insane with barking when we entered, but luckily its trainer was there. Apparently they are trying to train their dog to not freak out around new people and we were their first test. Dinner was pretty good though, we had homemade pizza! 

Friday was a fun day, we went out with the ward missionaries and stopped by a bunch of inactive members. I got to give someone a blessing and we also helped someone move in.

In the evening was when the real fun began. A former investigator randomly reached out to us and said he would love to meet the "new guys" and asked I'd we wanted to come over for tacos. We, being the type of people who like tacos, said, "Sure!" He loves talking with missionaries and even though he isn't interested in becoming a member right now he loves to talk with us about the scriptures because they fascinate him. The tacos were amazing (made with his own deer meat) and maybe someday we will get through to him.

Saturday and Sunday we watched Conference which was really good. We lounged at the church using 3 chairs each since we were the only ones there. On Sunday we watched with our Elders Quorum President and his family. What was y'alls favorite talk?

Some pictures will be attached with no captions, as is my custom :)

-Elder Nielson