Aw shucks. We are some good looking Sisters, huh? :) I still say you should get an iphone. haha! Also, if y'all can figure out how, you should post the picture to my blog! I'm sure everyone would love to see it :D And that's so nice of the Holyoaks! I will for sure write them a letter!

I don't know of an Elder Tagget, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out for him! I only know the missionaries in my district in Rocklin and also the ones I came out with, plus a spattering of Zone Leaders. We had a trainer/trainee meeting on Friday and all the zone leaders were there before us so I met a lot of them. No Taggets though. Our area is suprisingly big. XD Sister Brown doesn't know him either. ¯\[°_O]/¯

Whenever I introduce myself, they always ask where I'm from and when I say Chicago, they always make mention of it being much hotter out there than it is here! It's a dry heat here but it's been about 100°, so we're doing our best to have a lot of appointments and things going on inside to beat the heat. Speaking of, though, I've seen so many blue hydrangeas! Dunno if I mentioned that before. It's the weirdest thing everrr, and when I tell them we can only get pink ones back home, they give me a funny look. Haha! There was a man in our ward where we're serving and he went to Chicago this week for work stuff, but he said hello to the temple for me while he was there. I thought that was fun, hehe.

I'm glad you're sleeping lots! I'm with you on that, if that's the only thing you have to deal with you're sitting pretty. And you are. :P @Craig: Woo! Starting early, eh? ;D @Matt: We learn according to the amount of light we have, y'know? So it's why we keep reading the BoM over and over again, each time we read it there'll be more things for us to learn. Same with all things spiritual, really. Study study study! If you're looking for answers it'll never be "just reading". And sleeping, in my case. If I'm not looking for anything I'll conk right out. *brick'd*

Anyway! So like I said earlier, I went to a training thing on Friday! It was up in Gridley, about an hour and a half away from Rocklin. I got to see all my Elders from my MTC district, it was good times :) I missed them! We are awesome! I'll be sure to send pictures once I figure out how! We studied the doctrine of Christ with President, specifically in 2N 31 and 3N 11. It was so great! The doctrine of Christ is basically the missionary purpose: to invite others to come unto Christ by receiving the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, repentance, baptism, recieving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It's more than just getting people to get baptized, although that's definitely a part of it. It's recognizing the need for Christ in our lives, and once we have that faith in him and all that he's done for us, we're invited to act on that knowledge - that's where the baptism comes in. It's so much more than "gaining membership", we really want people to come unto Christ. That's the purpose. It was a great meeting!

We had two brothers get baptized on Saturday! Andrew and Josh's parents were inactive for the past ten years, so their sons never got to be baptized (they're 17 and 14 now). But now they're back! They already had an interview with the bishop on Sunday and their next step, the priesthood, is just around the corner. We're going to go teach them this week about it! Well, they're going to teach us what they know first, since we think they already know a lot about it so we'll just fill in the holes ;) Thank goodness for manuals though, I know what the priesthood is and what it does, but not well enough to explain it. Derp. But yeah, it was an awesome experience! Some of the members were being silly and talking to me that I'd only been in the field for 3 weeks and already had 2 baptisms, XD but I really don't feel like I did much, other than walk right into it. It was still awesome!

I'm running out of time, drat. The coolest thing I know about missionaries is we're allowed to believe and expect miracles to happen and they will! Maybe that's cos we're set apart for that, I don't know. But if you have the faith that it will happen in some way, and then work as hard as you can to get it to happen, Heavenly Father will bend over backwards to get it to work out for us! We just always need to remember he's in charge and takes care of us, and everything we do is for Him, not for us. The more we realize our divine lineage and relationship, the more we can remember that and be great tools for Him to invite people to come unto Christ!

That's all for now. I love you all so much and I really feel your prayers! They are awesome, and so are you!

LOVE,
Sister Nelson