Book

Hi everyone, 

This week was great! It was super fun:

Monday I went on exchanges with Elder Rainey. We walked around the super poor streets of College Hill and had a lot of fun talking with various people. We also went to Sam's Southern Eatery and had one of the best burgers I've had in my enrire life! Which is saying a lot cause I lovee burgers and have had most burgers in the world! They also had amazing Cajun tarter sauce. 

Other than that and the bear riding Monday was pretty relaxed.

Tuesday was fun, I went on exchanges with Elder Bagley. We went to New Boston so I got to show him the ropes. We walked around a lot and found 4 new people to teach! We also talked with a girl we are teaching and put her on date! She was concerned about receiving the Holy Ghost cause of Pentacostals but we explained how the dumb stuff they do is not the Holy Ghost haha--and that the Holy Ghost actually brings peace and comfort, not snakes and nonsense words and death. 

On Wednesday we gave Sister Carr a blessing cause she had been sick for a while. After that we exchanged back. We did a lot of walking around on Wednesday, and met a girl named Desire who was really interested in our message! We are running super low on copies of the Book of Mormon because I've been overzealous at giving them out haha--so we've had to resort to giving out pamphlets and the Book of Mormon app. If you haven't downloaded the Book of Mormon app, go do it now! 🔫 It makes it super easy to share with people and if it's on your home screen it might remind you to talk to people around you more about your beliefs. (Don't you like how I just ordered you to do something? Hehe)

Later in the evening on Wednesday I found another person on Facebook. He wants to make us steaks! 

Thursday was wild, it started out like any other day. We did weekly planning, and taught a bunch of lessons. We also had meetings with the Social Media Specialists. In the evening we knew a member we had never gone out with would be taking us out, so we planned some lessons and stopbys that weren't too far to drive to cause we wanted to be considerate of his gas. As soon as he arrived and we got in his spotless car and started talking with him, we knew we shouldn't have worried haha--he came with us to a lesson and it went super well! He taught with the spirit and really related to the guy JJ we are teaching and even invited to take him to church! It was awesome. Afterwards we stopped by a few people and then after hardly any time he said, "Well, let's take a break and I'll get yall a treat" and we of course did not turn down the offer. Then he hopped on the freeway. 

We passed Hooks, then Leary, then next thing you know he points and says, "That's the border for your area, right?" And zooms right passed it hahaha--we replied "Yep that sure is the border" in voices of dismay haha--We are supposed to get permission before leaving our area but here we were haha--next thing you know he says, "Do yall like Sushi?" And of course we answered in the affirmative, we aren't crazy. So he took us to this fancy Sushi place in Texarkana. It's been a while since I've been to a fancy sit down restaurant, I guess that is Brother Bush's idea of a "snack" haha--it was soooo good I got the Pink Lady roll which had crap, a slightly spicy sauce, cream cheese, avocado, and all the other ingredients usually in sushi. It was some of the best sushi I've ever had. The while time he talked about his motorcycle racing days, and how he got in a crash going 152 mph and broke basically the right side of his body. He had so many cool stories. At the end he ordered a giant platter of fried rice with shrimp and chicken and gave it to us to take home! It was definitely some of the best fried rice I've ever had in my life! It was even better than the sushi. Overall it was a fun night.

Friday we realized we had 350 miles left and only 3 days to use them haha--and we don't want our miles getting cut so we decided to go to Foreman, Arkansas for the first time ever since I came to this area haha--We always joke about going there cause we've been low on miles haha, so it felt surreal actually going to Foreman! It was a pretty drive up there, and we got hit by the rain so that made it extra fun! We stopped by a bunch of people and found a couple new people to teach. Then we drove to the other side of our area and stopped by people on that side too! Overall we burned 110 miles on Friday.

Then on Saturday we burned another 120 miles by going to people at the far reaches of our area. It was also stormy on Saturday so it was really fun to be driving all around the countryside knocking on trailers deep in the forests. We also walked around in De Kalb and it was the most beautiful weather I've ever seen! It was 73⁰F and 94% humidity and overcast which is exactly how I love it! We talked to a homeless dude, but other than that almost nobody was out tsk tsk

Sunday was also fun, Elder and Sister Atkinson who are in charge of the TDEM Service mission came and spoke in church. They are super cool, and it was fascinating to hear how much service missions are evolving. After church we decided to go to Foreman for comp study just cause we could haha--We drove up there and sat at a picnic spot to study.

Later in the evening I found someone on Facebook who wants a large print Bible and Book of Mormon! She's really cool, and is definitely elect. We are now teaching 43 people, so my plan is to just put them all on date to be baptized and then when I leave my companion can deal with all the Baptisms :)

I think that about covers it, I wish there were more funny or intriguing stories from this week to share, but overall it was a blast! You just kinda go with the flow and it's fun

-Elder Nielson

One of the Slowest Weeks of My Life

Ha! Just joking, this was probably one of the most interesting weeks ever, it's hopeless to fit everything in here but I will try to put a few things in at least :)

You will probably not read this whole thing, and then it will be your loss cause this contains some very juicy stories! 

Monday was fun, we had District p-day as usual. The Zone Leaders also came which was great! We played a bunch of games and just hung out with the ZLs. In the evening we had some street contacting and a lesson with someone named Adrian. So we went over and started teaching Adrian on his porch. When we were about halfway through our lesson things suddenly changed drastically. 

A dude named Kelly emerged from the house via wheel chair and planted himself on the porch. I had a bad feeling about his presence, but we were talking about repentance at the time, so we asked him how he would define repentance. He said, "I probably know more about repentance than you!" And immediately we knew we were in for it. The entire mood changed immediately, and Adrian slipped away. Kelly started to bash us on all sorts of things about our beliefs, and so I just kind of relaxed against a pole and tuned him out. Bashers are usually pretty hilarious to watch, I love seeing how inexperienced they are and yet how hard they try hahaha

After a little bit of him bashing us on the usual dumb stuff, he suddenly switched gears and said to my comp, "You need to smile more." And then he just went off on how Elder Maisey was too serious and that if he went around not smiling like that then people would think we were Satan worshippers. What made it worse is I was trying to hold in my laughter the whole time so Kelly kept on gesturing to me and telling Elder Maisey to smile more like me and that I was the perfect example of what he should be doing haha--the thing is Elder Maisey usually does smile, so I don't know what Kelly was on, he only wasn't smiling cause of the "Oh shoot this is a bash" feeling. Anyway so I started trying to get us out of there, but the problem is everytime I was about to say something and dip he grabbed Elder Maisey's marked up Book of Mormon and started gesturing with it animatedly as he spoke. He would then give it back eventually, and then when we thought we were free he would take it and gesture to something again! It was hilarious, so finally I just aluded to a non-existent lesson we needed to head to and Kelly said, "You don't have a lesson, you just want me to stop railing on your companion" haha--he was right but I was insistent and we left. Elder Maisey and I then spent the rest of the night debunking everything he had said to each other as revenge :)

Tuesday we had District Council with the ZLs, and it was a lot of fun. I trained everyone on talking with everyone, and we had a lot of good discussion. After district council Elder Maisey and I went and did comp study at Subway--which was a mistake. Because of unwanted scents wafting up to us, our feet took us and got us sandwiches. They were pretty good, Subway has a weird new menu though. 

After our studies, we walked around the neighborhoods of Hooks and taught a sweet girl named Dulce (haha) and found a couple new people to teach! In the evening we did a bunch of street contacting in New Boston and taught a phone lesson while standing in a park which was really fun! After that we started walking again and we had another lesson in 5 minutes. As we were walking to our next stopping point for our phone lesson we ran into this dude named Anthony, and he wanted to hear a scripture, so we quickly shared one with him and then said we had to go. We called Allie and then started our lesson with her. While we were talking with her this dude with the most boosted bass I've ever heard drove up and yelled out to us. So we apologized to Allie and said we would be back in a second, and muted ourselves. Then we talked to this dude and he gave us giant water bottles and kept insisting that he should buy us some food too haha--he was super nice but he just kept insisting on giving us stuff and we were just trying to get back to Allie. He finally accepted that we were good and drove off. And immediately after he drove off another lady drove up and started talking with us haha--she's an inactive member so we felt like we needed to talk with her. She invited us over for dinner! After finally finishing our conversation with her we unmuted and finished teaching Allie. The whole encounter was super fun haha--We dealt with like 4 separate situations within a 7 minute span. 

Wednesday was no car day which was fun! So we were on bikes all day. Our ZLs told everyone to wear sunscreen and drink lots of water cause no car day was also going to be around 105-108⁰F. I definitely put on sunscreen, as I defintely always do. ;) we had a blast biking around New Boston, it also happened to be the day they were re-doing the road which it made it even more of an adventure cause we were just going through construction zones. Hopefully we were on the right side of the cones, it wasn't clear at all haha--a member drove us to Hooks and we had a great Lasagna lunch there. Brother Garrett is insanely good at playing guitar. 

Throughout the afternoon and evening our Zone chat was full of miracles! Our ZLs said each companionship should put at least one miracle in the chat during no car day, and each companionship did more than that! It was super cool to see the Zone chat so active, it was a lot of fun! Throughout the afternoon we had every one of our lessons fall through, even our phone lessons. Then as we were going back to our place, someone happened to be out on her porch, so we talked with her and she's super interested! It definitely put us in a good mood, and our night was even better! We found 4 other people in the evening, and had a blast just biking around. The best part is seeing the surprise on peoples faces when you screech to a stop and talk with them haha

Thursday was nice, we did weekly planning, and then drove to below Leary for member dinner. On our drive back it started pouring which was lots of fun. When we got back to New Boston it was so nice but it was still sprinkling so nobody was out. Which is fine, except that we had planned to do street contacting. So we werent sure what to do. We decided to pray that a few people would be out anyway despite the rain and our prayers got answered! We found a few people who happened to be going from their cars to their house right when we came by! It was also lots of fun cause the temperature was soo nice. 

Friday was also super cool, I found someone on Facebook in the morning. In the afternoon we stopped by a lady named Cathy, and we taught her and put her on date to be baptized! After that we went up to her neighbor's apartment and taught her! She's really interested in our message, her Grandma was a member and she likes the missionaries. The main reason she hasn't really joined the church or anything is because she said life just got super busy and she thought she didn't have time for God. But now she's realizing her mistake. It was super cool to teach her.

In the evening we were walking around in our usual evening street contacting neighborhood, and we went the longest time without finding someone new to teach. It was fun to walk and talk, but the whole time we were remembering that we needed to meet our daily finding goal of 4. So we just kept going, trusting that whoever we were meant to talk to would be put in our path. After a couple hours it was time to go back to our car, so we started walking back. Literally right as we got to about 50 yards from our car we run into this group of people! We talked with them and gave them copies of the Book of Mormon. We asked if we could meet again and they were very hesitant to say yes, but then suddenly Anthony pops out of nowhere and says, "You should talk with these guys, they are called of God and are super cool!" It was awesome cause then these people brightened up and are now interested in meeting again next week! Also we were able to meet our finding goal for the day which was awesome.

On Saturday we went and helped with the pioneer day activity in Texarkana. We ate some burgers, and manned the blood drive tables. When we returned home we did some stopbys, and taught someone named JJ. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then talked about Baptism! He wants to be baptized so we put him on date. Apparently everytime he's been about to be baptized into various churches he's moved right before it can happen haha--so we will hope that doesn't happen again :)

 

In the evening we ran into Anthony, and we didn't really have time to talk long, so we just said a prayer with him. As we were leaving I felt like I needed to bring up baptism, so we did and put him on date! It was super cool.

Okay here's where things get interesting. As we were going back to our car we get a call from someone I will call Brother William Williamson. He said he's with JustServe and works for the Church, and wanted us to come over for dinner the next day to talk. As we were talking with him immediately all of my red flags went up. But we agreed to come over for dinner the next day, cause he seemed to be telling the truth, even though everything about it seemed fishy. Stay tuned for what happens on Sunday.

Sunday we had church and Brother Williamson was there (he's been coming to church in New Boston for the last couple weeks bit he usually dips after the Sacrament so thats why we had never talked with him). He invited our Elders Quorum President to our dinner that night to, which was a relief cause we had a bad feeling about going alone.

So evening comes and we start driving over there with President Pierce, and as we are driving we all just kind of nervously talked. None of us were really sure what or why he wanted to talk with us. So we drove up to the address and it's literally a metal warehouse that is a church of some sort. On the lawn sitting in chairs are Brother Williamson and a Reverend of some sort. We were perplexed, we parked and went over to talk with them. They brought out a couple chairs for us and then they just started to talk. President Pierce asked Brother Williamson about how he became a member of our church, and he shared a ton of his life's stories with us. He's lived a very interesting life, and his conversion story started with him being prompted not to shoot someone. He's one of those people that just talks and talks and never gets to the point. As we were talking slowly more and more people started to arrive. The whole time I was just on the alert, I can get very paranoid haha--like for example he gave us water and so I waited until he had drank some before I had any haha

Some of these people were of various faiths, but none of them were members besides Brother Williamson. After am hour of talking he told us to talk about Coriantum suddenly with these people. So we did, and it went fine--but just everything about the experience seemed off. It seemed like these people were mostly coming to get some food cause they would go inside and eat a bit and then come out and sit. We finally got him to get to the point, and basically what he's trying to do is start up a thing where he gives out food and supplies and then while people are there he has either the missionaries or someone from another church share a spiritual thought. The way he described it is, "other churches don't have the Priesthood so we bring the Priesthood to them." So who knows what THAT means. Here's a few other things he said when we were talking with him:

"I'm married to the Priesthood"

"A lot of members suck so don't be like them"

"I was born where the white people were the poor ones"

"Everyone who comes to my home leaves my home black" 

"I've had 7 different wives, cause whenever one of them leaves the church we get divorced"

So basically he seems to have good intentions but he wants to trick people into missionary messages or something. And he had kind of tricked us into even coming cause he hadn't said anything about the other people. So I got us out of there and President Pierce reported him to the Bishop, and we are not supposed to involve ourselves in whatever he is doing. He would have to talk with the Stake President and get authorization to do anything else. It's super weird though cause he claims to be doing this under the direction of some area seventies for our area. So we aren't sure what on earth is going on, but it was definitely an adventure!

I will do no editing on the letter above cause I am out of time, so I am not responsible for any errors 

-Elder Nielson

"The Streets Took Him"

Horchata,

This week went by extremely fa5t! It was a blast 

Monday I went on exchanges with our DL Elder Bagley. It was fun, there's some things he does that confuse me, but he's still cool. We taught some janky lessons, and then walked around an apartment complex and knocked some formers. We found a couple new people to teach! We also stopped by these people who weren't really interested in a message, but they WERE interested in Pamphlets so we gave all 8 of them one. We just passed pamphlet after pamphlet down the endless line until everyone had one. After that we walked around the complex more, looking for a  certain apartment. The only problem was, the person who made that apartment complex must have randomly assigned what buildings have what numbers, cause there is no order at all haha--We finally found the right one after just wandering in circles.

Tuesday was so much fun. Elder Rainey and I went on exchanges. On our way back to New Boston we stopped at the Texarkana church building to grab something stuff. On our way the fire department showed up and said they needed to inspect it sometime. Elder Rainey and I had a quick unspoken conversation, and then decided to wing it and pretend we knew what was going on haha--Someone from the Stake Presidency was definitely supposed to be there, but I'm sure nobody will care--so we let them inspect it and then signed all the paperwork. No harm done :)

We got back to New Boston and decided to eat cheese for lunch! It was really good we just ate Parmesan cheese and melted other cheese and ate it. :) Then we did comp study and language study and talked about Cameras throughout. Later in the afternoon and talked with accents as we walked around. We found a new person to teach also!

For dinner Elder Rainey made the best pork chops I've ever had! They were so flavorful. Afterwards we explored the treasure trove that our commissary shelf is (nobody quite knows everything it holds for the world).. We found some singular New Testaments and then Elder Rainey dared me to give out a Bible and I dared him to give out a New Testament haha--it was on! So two dudes caring Bibles and New Testaments were now walking around through the neighborhoods of New Boston. Every single person we saw had no choice but to encounter these two strange men. We attempted to share a scripture from the Bible or New Testament with every person, and it worked! We completed our challenges to each other and found 3 new people to teach! It was hilarious especially to give out just a New Testament, it's so thin and sad haha

When we gave it out, the guy we gave it to lit up and his whole demeanor changed! He loved getting it.

We gave out some copies of the Book of Mormon too, it's super fun to give stuff out.

Then as we were doing Facebook afterwards, I friended a guy and then stated my purpose as a missionary. He then called me!! We taught him, and got a return appointment. He said he wants to come to church! It was so cool, I love finding people through Facebook, it has been working better and better the longer I do it.

After we got home we made a gallon of Strawberry milk which we drank most of as we relaxed. It was a fun night!

On Wednesday we exchanged back, and then called a bunch of companionships to help them improve their Facebook efforts. It's really fun to talk with different companionships and be able to counsel about their unique areas and challenges. Elder Maisey also found someone on Facebook which was awesome!

Thursday was crazy, we woke up very early and got on the road to Longview for Zone conference. It was a fun drive, on the way we got hit with a sudden gigantic storm. It was pouring soo hard and there was tons of lightning and thunder. The visibility got very bad, and that's when you know it's a true storm, not just the wimpy kind. It was so fun, we had to vacuum our car so we pulled in to a deserted car wash (I wonder why 🤔 ), and vacuumed our car. Zone Conference was really good as usual, President Seitz knows what he's doing for sure. After Zone conference the ward in Longview made us nachos, which were super good. President Seitz has us do "relatives around me" while we ate, so it was fun seeing everyone we were related to. The closest relationship I had just said "close relative" haha--must have been so close that the exact relationship was private. 

After Zone conference our district hung around in Longview and did interviews with President and Sister Seitz. We hung out with our Zone leaders while we were waiting around.

In the evening we drove back to New Boston and were immediately picked up by some members to head over to the Watsons for a member dinner. It was a feast of corn, chicken pot pie, nachos, salsa, salad, fruit, enchiladas, artichoke dip, cookies, cake, and ice cream! It was really good, I naturally ate 4 plates. I'm still trying to bump my companion's habit of only getting one plate to at least 2! After eating we realized that it was time to BE back home and we were in Avery which was 40 minutes away! Actually now that I think about it, we would never be back late, so ignore what I just said. ;) Our drive back was very fun, it was dark and raining which is my favorite combination! They drove us a weird way through the Boonies. It was fun seeing how big our area really is! It's like an hour drive to cross it horizontally, and even longer vertically.

Friday we had a lesson with a friend named Amanda, and attempted to put her on date. We explained Priesthood authority (and how it's necessary) very well and had the Watsons with us and they were very blunt about it too. But then Amanda still said she's not sure and that she might get Baptized in another church instead. She said "would that stop me from being able to study with yall, cause I really like studying with yall" and Brother Watson basically said "yes" haha--she didn't commit to baptism but she said she'd think about it. So we will probably drop her. Other than that Friday was full of planning, meetings, and street contacting. 

On Saturday we did a bunch of biking, and besides teaching 5 lessons our day was kind of slow. One guy named Anthony we taught was hilarious though, when we asked him to say the closing Prayer he asked us to pray too. So we said three consecutive prayers haha--I felt very Baptist. 

Sunday was super cool, someone we found on Facebook came to church! It was really cool, she liked it a lot. Then after church I found a new person on Facebook! It was cool, now I've found 3 and my companion found 1 also in the last couple weeks from Facebook alone. So that goes to show that Facebook CAN be used for good regardless of what it may seem. 

We also met with Mark again, and he told he has started getting sick everytime he has coffee, so he has had to drink less and less! So that's yet another miracle haha, Mark is so close to baptism. :)

Explanation of title (yall are lucky I'm explaining it, you may never get this again!):

I was talking to the Shreveport Elders and they apparently lose half the people they are teaching every week haha due to one of 3 reasons which is always told to them by whomever the new residents are:

1. "Got shot"

2. "Went to jail"

3. "The streets took him"

They said they never know what that last one means, but it's just something that happens in Shreveport!

-Elder Neilsen

Won't I Panic In a Pit Now?

 

Aha! I see I am writing another email,

This was a fun week!

Monday was super fun, we had a pancake breakfast in the morning in Texarkana. Then we hung out as a district and had a giant nerf war. Much to my dismay I lost. Sister Carr won overall multiple times tsk tsk. In the evening we went over to a member's house for hamburgers, hot dogs, and other foods. There were lots of flies, so almost everyone there was complaining about those the whole time. ("These darn flies, why won't they just leave?!" "Next rime we will have fly traps cause of these stupid flies." "I hate flies, back in my day there weren't this many flies.") We listened to all this conversation with much amusement, all while just chowing down on our food. Or at least I was chowing down--Elder Maisey has much to learn about eating obscene amounts of food! It was a fun dinner, after that we drove to the other side of town and as we drove through the middle of town there were tons and tons of cars lining the streets and parked everywhere. I have rarely seen so many cars and so many people-- there were tons of people in lawn chairs literally everywhere! I didn't know this many people lived in East Texas, let alone just New Boston!! It was crazy cause usually when driving through town it's super dead, I guess everyone climbs out of their holes for the 4th haha

We did some calls and Facebook at McDonald's, and then headed back to our apartment. Turns out our apartment is literally right in front of where the Fireworks are set off every year, so some members always come and park in our driveway and watch from there. We pulled out our couches and chairs and we had the best seat of the whole town. :) The fireworks were soo good! I've never been so close, it was super fun. Overall one of the better 4th of July's I've had!

Tuesday was also fun, we had a great district council and did service at the food bank afterwards. Elder Maisey and I took pictures by some wall art afterwards, and then got my bike fixed. In the evening we walked around and gave away 3 copies of the Book of Mormon and 6 restoration pamphlets. It was fun, I love giving away copies of The Book of Mormon because then I get to carry around a fresh one more often! We found a couple people also.

Wednesday we also did a lot of street contacting! We taught 7 lessons and found 3 new people to teach. One of the people we found said she was so glad we came by, and that it was just what she needed. She said she's been looking for a church family and so we invited her to church and she said she would come. We have been stopping by her apartment for the last 5 months and she has never answered so its a miracle she did today, cause we had felt like we should put her in our calendar when we were planning our day! We also had a phone lesson with Daphne (someone I found on Facebook). When it was time to call her we realized we were just walking the streets of a neighborhood and didn't have time to get somewhere we could sit. So we found an empty lot and stood there while we called. So there we were, just standing looking at a single phone teaching a 30 minute lesson, while befuddled cars drove by. It was fun, would recommend! The lesson went super well, and afterwards as we were walking to our car we saw another person, who we talked with and found! 

On Thursday we finished teaching Mark everything he needs to know for Baptism. We also had a lot of meetings, we met with the other Zone Reps, the Social Media Specialists, and started doing our companionship calls. It was great to talk to everyone, we got lots of ideas on how we can improve. We were hopefully also able to help some companionships improve their Facebook efforts. 

Friday was Elder Maisey's birthday, so our whole district sang him happy birthday over Zoom. Zoom is easily the best platform to sing over, fun fact, there is no lag and it works perfectly everytime! So go try it. In the afternoon the Watson's drove us to De Kalb and stopped by some formers and members with us. It was really fun to be driving with them, especially since it was 102⁰F and felt like we'll over 110--so an air-conditioned car was super nice.

Okay now I must pause for a second and just say, any complaints of heat I have been getting do not faze me. :) Most of the temperatures that yall have complained to me about I consider nice and cool 😎 

One house we went to had a guy who was not interested, but his wife WAS so we just ignored him and taught her haha-- We found 3 new people to teach while we were with the Watson's, and they got us Sonic for dinner. I got a shake, a chicken sandwich, and two fries, so I was content. In the evening nobody answered their door. I think next time I'm going to bring battering ram, that way we can just answer the door for people! They'll understand once they realize how important our message is.

Saturday was a blast, we decided to bike since we need to save miles. We picked a hot day for it haha--it got up to 104⁰, but it was fine, we kind of just vibed. We taught a surprise Plan of Salvation lesson which was fun! The Plan of Salvation always impresses people, because no other church has this many answers. :) Then we stopped by this guy named Paul, and he didn't answer. As usual we left a card, and left. Then about 30 minutes later we got a call, and it was Paul! He told us to come back, and of course we obliged. It was great, cause nobody ever calls our cards haha--and now we have his number! We went over, and he invited us in. He is very intrigued with us, cause he says he sees nobody else biking and walking around in this "(swear word) heat." We talked about what we do, and taught him about the Book of Mormon. He says he loves us, and as we were leaving he gave us each a surprise hug and $20 haha--it was definitely a miracle that we got to talk with him. The rest of the afternoon we had a blast just biking around and skidding to a stop to talk with people who were out. I think this is the most sweaty I've ever been haha, we went to KFC, and the lady at the counter took one look at our drenched selves and immediately gave us each a free drink. I drank like 5 whole cups of soda and water in about 10 minutes. 

In the evening it was overcast, so it cooled down to only 95⁰! It was super nice, we walked around and found 2 new people to teach. :) The key to having fun talking to random weird and new people is to just enjoy how weird and funny each interaction is. It's super fun! We gave out some more copies of the Book of Mormon, and I really need to stop giving them out so much cause we are almost out, but I can't help it haha--it's too much fun.

Sunday was great we had the monthly potluck which was great, I ate all the food. In the evening we found someone on Facebook which was great! We also did some calls, and taught a phone lesson. The lady we taught offered to say a prayer and then immediately started praying for like 5 minutes straight haha--We didn't even realize she was praying at first, so we tried to answer and then realized she was praying. 

Overall we found 11 new people this week which was so cool, cause I've always had a goal to find that many in a week! We are now teaching 31 people :))

-Elder Nielson

Consuming a Weirdly Cylindrical Rat

Ho,

This was a very interesting week, full of lots of fun and interesting things:

Monday evening I did my last mini exchange with Elder Nelson. We were biking in Texarkana which is a blast cause you can just yell out to people as you Go! We went over to a member's house cause Elder Nelson wanted to say good bye. The Sisters also came and we talked for quite a while there. Elder Nelson and I didn't say much though cause we were busy eating an entire pizza which had been placed on our laps, if they didn't want the entire thing consumed they shouldn't have given us the whole thing! Afterwards we got some Shave Ice and Elder Nelson told me some more crazy stories from His life. Overall it was super fun, even though it is hard to keep up with a beanstalk on a bike.

Tuesday we drove back to New Boston. Then every single thing we had planned proceeded to disintegrate haha--it was hilarious to see. We had someone we were teaching tell us to not come back cause she wasn't interested even though last time she told us she knows the church is true. We tried to offer her a card so that she ever changed her mind she could call us and she waved it away saying, "I won't ever be interested." We are kind of baffled as to what made her want to stop meeting with us, she claims to have prayed about it and said that she got an answer to stop meeting meeting with us. And we know that isn't true so I guess we will just have investigate a bit more hehe

We did a bunch of street contacting which was super fun, and when we stopped by another person we are teaching. Someone yelled to get the f off her porch and then said you have to the count of 5, and started counting down. I would have liked to see what she did to us, and was very tempted to wait around, but we decided to instead just leave a friendly card and leave. That will probably make her feel horrible hehehe >:)

After this the work was finished, so that's that! The unhallowed hand has stopped the work. 

Don't worry, that was a joke. The work will only be finished once I am gone :)

We also met our new district leader Elder Bagley cause they had to stop in New Boston to get gas. I think he may have been a bit disconcerted by some of our jokes, but he will have get used to it! 

Wednesday morning something spooky and hilarious happened. Imagine this:

1. You wake up

2. You drowsily roll out of bed into your praying position

3. As you slowly wake up you become more aware of some faintish chanting

4. The more you wake up the louder it becomes

5. Still muddled, you walk out of your bedroom to look around, and finally end up figuring out it's coming from next door

6. You are now fully awake and you can hear what is being said 

7. "Halleuiah (then a bunch of stuff about Jesus, and speaking in 'tongues' and maniacal laughs, and more chanting prayers and so on)" 

8. Now that you are awake you can hear it anywhere in your house, and the chanting and craziness goes on for 40 minutes

This was us! It was crazy haha--Elder Maisey just got back in our beds and listened cause it was too intriguing to excerize! 

Later in the afternoon we got a call from the Social media specialists which are Elder Gammet, Elder John Kennedy (this is not a joke), and none other than Elder Nelson! Elder Nelson is a SMS for the 2nd time for the last week before he goes home. We had a fun call with them, we are being called as the Zone Reps for our Zone again this transfer, so that will be fun! In the evening we taught Doris again (I'm not sure I've talked about her before, but you can't expect me to take 15 seconds out of my busy schedule to check if I have). Doris is cool, we have now taught her literally everything, and she has read the Book of Mormon multiple times. The only problem is she refuses to come to church until her son can come with her in HIS car (she doesn't want a ride) and his car is waiting on some parts to be shipped. We don't know what else to do, cause dropping her wouldn't be a good idea, but also she NEEDS to come. So I guess we will just kidnap her and drag her to church. When we got back to our apartment we made nests and set up our phones as a makeshift mini TV and started watching the Book of Mormon videos. It's really fun, I highly recommend it! If you haven't watched the Book of Mormon videos, I might have to take care of some business.

Thursday was fairly normal, we had mission conference. We also walked around and ended up finding someone! 

Friday was a very good day we had a Zoom Zone Rep meeting in the morning, and then in the afternoon we had a surprise lesson with Mark! We met him at a restaurant at which he tried to buy us lunch, which I immediately regretted declining, argh! But our lesson with him went really well. He said the closing Prayer, and said "Thank you for telling me the Book of Mormon is true" in his prayer. We jumped audibly when he said this cause he had not told us this news. It was awesome, he is so ready! Afterwards we biked around New Boston which was pretty bikey.

In the evening we drove to Hooks and met a girl who I found on Facebook to give her a copy of the Book of Mormon! It was awesome, Facebook works super well! I'm  still on track with my goal to find at least 1 person on Facebook every transfer. We did some sick stopbys in Hooks, and then headed back to New Boston to get absolutely LOADED up with meat and food! A member loves to just give us so much food, it's amazing.

After that we did some Facebook at the park and a dude was biking by. We talked to him, and he's super cool! We taught him and got another lesson set up, making it another find. 

Saturday was so fun, we went to the Church building in the morning to fill up the font. I've never gotten to climb the ladder to see the secret hidden second floor in a church building before, but now I have! We set up everything for Stephen's Baptism and then waited for people to arrive. The Sisters brought Trevor (someone they are teaching) and the Texarkana Elders also came. Mark was also able to make it. Luckily the Baptism went very smoothly. While they were changing we shared the first vision video and had a mini testimony meeting. It was really good. After the Baptism the Sisters said it was the best one they've ever been to and our DL said it was one of his most spiritual experiences. Mark asked is after "What's next, so I can be baptized!" 

In the evening we ate the best Lasagna I have ever had, it even had bacon on top! We also found someone new to teach, lots of people like to come out and smoke and talk with us haha

Sunday church was good as usual, nothing to interesting happened. We taught Mark twice which was fun, and got to call the mission president to ask him some things. I spent a lot of my study time looking for a favorite Book of Mormon scripture. I can't pick one that everyone else loves, I want one that only I like. So if you have any ideas let me know, and then I will proceed to cross those off my list. :)

-Elder Nielson

Don't Forget to Clean Your Bathroom Ky

 

Hello everyone, 

It was a crazy last week of the transfer--by the end of this email you will know where I'm getting transfered to. Or maybe I won't tell you ;)

On Monday we had a lot of fun playing basketball as a district, or I shouldn't say basketball, more like there was a basketball that we just threw across the room trying to make impossible shots all while we talked. In the late afternoon we went  thrifting, and then to Texas Roadhouse as a district. It was really fun, and the food was surprisingly great. My companion and I were very pleased because we had gift cards and didn't have to pay--the rest of our district did :)

Tuesday was so much fun, we had the last district council of the transfer. It was really sad cause Elder Nelson is going home, so we held a funeral for him. I gave a Eulogy, and then we had a brief moment of silence. After the funeral we did an ancient ceremony which can't be spoken of, but suffice it to say we had a lot of fun! 

After district council we went on exchanges. We decided to stay and double-work Texarkana. Elder Rainey and I filmed a video, and did a lot of stopbys. Nobody answered but it was fun to talk about all sorts of things while we went. We talked a lot about our missions so far and also about board games. 

In the evening we came back to the apartment and Elder Nelson gave us each a back massage. He's a licensed masseuse, and you can tell cause afterwards you feel completely loosened up.

On Wednesday we headed back to New Boston cause of apartment inspections and Elder and Sister Scott (the inspectors of our apartment) were very impressed. They said we get first place for cleanest apartment. :)) Which was no surprise since we hire maids and servants to keep it clean. 

In the evening we taught one of our people who is on date, who's name I will keep private. (His name is Stephen.) The lesson went really well, we have taught him everything required for baptism so our last several lessons have been us teaching for personalized to his needs. He's been waiting on an answer about if thus church is true for a long time, so we have been fasting and praying as a district for him to get that answer. In our lesson we shared the first vision video, and then talked about blessings we've seen in our lives because of church. We ended by asking him if he'd gotten an answer and he said, "I'm not sure, but I do feel like this is where I need to be, and this is the church I need to join." So in other words he DID get an answer, we told him. We set up his Baptismal interview.

Thursday we had another lesson with Mark, and we got a member to come with us! It went pretty well, we taught about modern prophets. I love teaching about Modern Prophets cause God would literally be dumb if he didn't still call prophets, and you can see the same thing going on in the minds of those you teach. Despite what their pastor told them at The Mighty Holy Spirit Baptist On the Rock In the Rock of The Rock Dwayne the Rock On the Hill Of the Hill Light Under a Bushel Holy Tabernacle of The LAMB Sacrificial Lamb Eat the Lamb Temple Church of Texarkana. 

Mark said, "It would make sense if we had modern prophets" and he's right. 

After teaching Mark we had comp study, lunch, and then weekly planning. After weekly planning we went out and did some street contacting, in this so-called heat wave. Ha! I've felt worse, this was just a brisk summer heat. Anyway it was super fun, we found 4 new people to teach! One of these people we have been trying to get in contact with for a while now, and when we stopped by a different person, there she was! We taught her and set up a lesson right then and there! It was crazy cause the spirit had told us to put that stopby in our schedule when we planned that morning. 

On Friday we did a lot of Facebook work and had a meeting with the Social Media Specialists. I love Elder Esplin and Elder Gammet, they are a good mix of hilarious and serious. After our meeting we did a bunch more street contacting. In the evening we were stopping by a dude we are teaching, and after we'd knocked a lady told us he was gone. So we walked away and then started talking to these other people who were out on their porch. We asked if they would like to hear a scripture and they said no. Then we heard a voice behind us saying "I would!" And sure enough we turned around and there was Anthony, the guy we were looking for! He said he wanted to walk around and to follow him, so we did just that. We read basically all of 2 Nephi 2 with him as we walked and discussed it to. It was probably a sight to see, a black dude and two white dudes just walking the streets of New Boston reading the scriptures haha

We also found a dude named Marcus Friday evening. We were talking with him and shared a scripture and then he said, "To be honest I'm high so you should come back another day." We happily obliged, and got a return appointment.

Saturday was also great, in the morning we headed for the Church building for Stephen's Baptismal interview. Elder Nelson got there to interview him and we just waited, hoping everything would go well. When they got out Elder Nelson said he's good to get baptized! He told us how Stephen basically testified how he knows and loves the fact that we have modern prophets, and he bore his testimony about this church. He said he's very ready. So Stephen will definitely be getting Baptized!

After that we did some comp study, and then headed for a lesson at a Mexican sit-down restaurant. The person we were teaching was super cool he bought us both lunch and we talked about all of our main beliefs with him. It was really fun, I like eating food.

In the afternoon we did some street contacting and met with ZLs to talk about how the transfer went and how to improve next transfer. We also watched an awesome broadcast on missionary work, and learned a lot! In the evening we talked with Stephen and figured out the entire program for His Baptism. We also had some free time, so we found someone new to teach :)

Sunday was good, we finally had ward council for the first time in forever! They keep pushing it off. After church nothing too interesting happened until the evening. As we were doing Facebook from 8-9 a big storm started coming in, so we got very distracting taking pictures of it, but it was really cool! It finally hit and started raining and there was a LOT of lightning and Thunder. Then we headed home and started to wait for transfer news. Because of the storm, we decided to set up in the main room in the dark so we could watch the storm.  So we got a bunch of snacks and got on a call with our district while we waited for transfer news. It was super fun, and when transfer news finally came, turns out I am staying in New Boston with Elder Maisey for another! So that will be really fun. Sister Sharp and Elder Nelson are leaving, but other than that our whole district is staying! Who knows what will happen next transfer, we will have a new District Leader.

-Elder Nielson