Hello!

 

I don't know if you tried to send me a letter last week; if you did, I didn't get it yet but I'm sure it'll show up in my mailbox sooner or later. Basically what happens is it gets sent to the mission home and then gets forwarded to the address I'm currently at. It's helpful around transfer time (every 6 weeks) so if I leave, it'll still get to me as opposed to getting sent to the new missionaries who are there at the time it shows up. 

 

So we flew to Roseville on Tuesday. Yay! And I've also determined I have allergies after all! yaay. But I hear that pretty much everyone who's come here said they never had allergies before coming here, so it's basically the allergy capital of the world. Woot. I've just gotta track down where the local honey's at now, see if that helps on top of being medicated. Haha!

 

So... the ward is huge. Like, the size of two wards put together. I don't know what the exact number is, but it's 400+. INSANITYYYY. You go to church and think you know people and you never see the ones you know. There's like... 22 deacons, 62 YW, probably 80 or so ladies in Relief Society... It's fun to see, but I like to know people and this is just killing me D: The size of the ward choir is about normal though, go figure. Even in a bigger ward the choir is still small. Haha! I met the stake president and Bishop Hilton of the Rocklin 1st ward and both are on the hunt for a bassoon, XD I'll never get away from this, hahaha! It'll be good though, we're planning a musical fireside that'll hopefully draw some people. Gonna put some ads in the newspaper, get the wardies to bring some folks, meet some people, yeah :D Go big or go home, right? :P

 

I should've mentioned, yeah. I'm in Rocklin! Woot! With Sista Brown n_n She's cool. We're both cool. Apparently I've got the skills to be a super-stalker; I noticed some snowboards in the window of somebody's garage and she was like, amazed that I'd seen it XD It's happened a couple times already, and I remember people's names and she thinks it's like, amazing ossum and I'm like ¯\[°_O]/¯ but she is good at planning and prepping and lesson...ing. So we make a good pair! We're both trying to get better at being bold though, so it's a challenge for both of us. I think she's getting better than me so far, since I'm hanging out in the background all the time. ^-^;

 

Ummm what else. Everything's just awesome here! Things are somewhat strange in that people accept God, but they won't really accept Jesus Christ for what he is (as in, being a Son of God and not just "a nice guy", as one person put it). It's okay though; although we want to help everyone come unto Christ, we can't force anybody. That's the beauty of agency, eh? We're sowers, we'll plant seeds so the people who come after us can reap it. :)

 

I heard a cool thing today, that when the Elders go out when they're twenty, they're giving ~10% of their life to the service of God. Isn't that nifty? I hadn't thought of that before.

 

Well I hope all is well with y'all!

 

LOVE YOU!!!

Sista Nelson

Hallo!

Today started off with a bang... or just a fire alarm. Luckily it was right after we'd all woken up but not in the shower yet, haha! There were a few sisters from our floor who were in there though, I felt bad. And thought of Rosemary. XD

We fly out of here tomorrow! Aaah! I feel like I wanna spend another two weeks here, just cos my district is so dagum awesome. It's amazing how close we've grown with it only being three weeks. And it's more sad cos a companionship of both elders and sisters (so four total) are going to an entirely different mission down in Arcadia. It's down by LA - I told them to keep an eye out for the cup ;) although it'll prolly be travelling with the team, wherever they turn out, eh?

Yesterday at Relief Society, we had Sister Dalton come and speak to us! It was really neat. She's such a nice lady. She gave us sisters a list of scriptures that would help us in trying times or just whenever we felt discouraged. :) We shared with our elders though, we thought they would want it too. I wish I would've brought my book, I could've told you about them. After that we had some interviews and district stuff and at the fireside last night was Sheri Dew, tada! It was really cool, and she was super intense. She sure knows how to teach with power. She told us about spiritual gifts a little bit, and then told us the importance of recieving and remembering these gifts. One thing that stuck out to me was how it's our privledge to ask for spiritual gifts, and not only as missionaries. We can ask for things that will help strengthen our weaknesses throughout our lives and if we earnestly seek for those things, Heavenly Father will bless us with that.

Anyway, we're just here doing laundry before we have to run off to class x_x I don't know that we'll get a P-day for the rest of this week, we'll see once I get out there. I'm excited and sad to go at the same time, but it'll be good. I don't want to plateau my learning curve! I've gotta keep the greenie fire ;D

I better go. Lots to do and not enough time to do it. Whee!

I love you thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much! :3

LOVE

Sister Nelson

Hello!!

 

Is it safe to say "Huzzah for the Kings" yet?? I only heard up through game 4, XD Thanks Mom, for that update :3 (edit: 5. I just got your letter. XD)

 

All's still quiet here. Learning tons of stuff and still figuring out how best to let the spirit teach. My companion and I are teaching someone in the TRC named Sarah, and it's been really difficult. She's really umcomfortable with the spirit somehow, so whenever we try to pause to let the spirit teach she gets awkwarded out and changes the subject. I feel like we touched her heart when we visited with her yesterday though. Last Thursday she told us about how her sister has cancer and they're pretty much waiting for her to die... we prayed for that when we started yesterday and she was really touched. She mentioned she had started praying as well, and she really felt like her prayers were being answered in the sense that her sister was feeling more peace. It was a really cool experience, especially since we didn't even commit her to do that! I was impressed. She's still not sure why she needs God in her life, but I think this has shown her a little bit.

 

We got our travel plans!! We're flying out of SLC on Tuesday, and our flight is at 8:45am. We leave the MTC at like 5 though, so that'll be EARLY! T

 

Tell Alyse congrats for me!!

  

Everything flies so fast here I wish I could remember what all I wanted to tell you! Derp. There's a guy in my district from Michigan, and he said he went to the Chicago temple so he might've been the one that ran into Penni, but he's really bad at remembering faces so he doesn't remember. One of the sisters in the district ahead of us (the ones who arrived a week before us) was in the temple when we went through, isn't that weird?? We had a good bonding experience. There's another district I haven't met that are gonna be going to Roseville with us, maybe the one Penni met is in that group? Either way it's cool beans.

Week 1

 

P-day finally came! I have never been more excited to do laundry in my whole life. I sent another letter, did you get it? I hope to hear from you soon. For the record, if you send me things through DearElder.com it'll get delivered to me the same day while I'm still at the MTC. I want to hear if Craig got his letter and how things went for Mom this weekend! I have been anxious to hear.

 

@Ashlee - I got your letter! It made me smile when you said you drive past hoping to see me. Unfortunately I'm centered in three buildings in the middle of campus so I don't see the street much. Only when I go to the temple or go excerise out on that field... which isn't very often. My companions like the gym, which is fine. :) <3 <3

 

Speaking of, my companion! Her name is Sister Tittle, and she's from Orem. Super far away, huh? Hehe. She gets letters from people and her mom all the time, it's kinda bizarre. She's kinda crazy and extremely hyper almost ALL the time, but I love her. She connects with people where I can't, and she calls me super smart all the time so I guess we make up for each other's weaknesses which are cool. I'm thankful we get along for as well as we do.

 

I've learned so much already and it's kinda overwhelming at times. It's so hard when you sit down with an investigator and you have to try to formulate all the information you want to share and not overwhelm or scare them away. My teachers, Sister Winters and Brother Gonzalez, are so great at keying into the spirit and knowing what we need to hear, even when we don't know we need to hear it. I hope that I can be as inspiring as a teacher as them someday.

 

I think we'll be heading out of the MTC on the 19/20th, so that's not too far away! The new missionaries are coming in today already, it's bizarre to think we've been here a week already. The new Elder's eyes are as big as saucers, and it makes me laugh to know that's what we looked like a week ago!

 

My district is super awesome. There are ten of us, and six are going to Roseville and four are going to Arcadia, which is down by LA.

  

Something cool I learned this week was about revelation. My teacher Sister Winters had us do this thing where we wrote down a question we had for God, prayed to Him that He would answer our question, and then picked a chapter to read slowly for our answer. I was a little skeptical, but I figured I would get something. All ten in our district picked 1 Nephi chapter 2. It was the coolest thing - I was reading along and when I read one of the verses, it was like BAM: "There's your answer." And if that wasn't good enough, the next five verses felt like He was talking directly to my mind. It was the coolest thing! It's amazing what just a tiny bit of faith can do.

 

That's all I can think of right now, I hope to hear from you sooooon! I'm anxious to hear from y'all that read this :3

 

LOVE

Sister Nelson

First letter! Yeah!
Companion is Sister Tittle and preparation day is Wednesday so maybe a post to come.
Looks like will be flying out on the 19th.