Dearest Family! <3

As far as "my version of dad", I basically just told stories the whole time. :D I'll write up a quicky version and send it in a letter at some point. I like that I've somehow become more funny since the start of my mission? Or at least come to a point where I've figured out how to say things to get people to laugh haha. I prefer that over any alternative :)

TRANSFERS! I'm STAYING IN PARADISE! :D :D So yep, I'll be in Paradise on my brithday. WINNAR. Not many people can say that, can they? Muhar.

Fireside!! So awesome!! :D LOVED it! I'm glad that you went to go see it! I don't know how I feel about the technology advances for missionaries- part of me hopes that I'll be finished and gone before it gets phased in here. But we'll see. I'm not thrilled about the prospect of doing all that, haha. I have other things I'd rather worry about XD (part of me really enjoys the lack of technology- is that bad? I think I just worry about continually being addicted to something with a screen.)

GWAR BLACKHAWKS. Yes I am going crazy. Trying to be obedient and not think about it, but it's not working so far haha. We will just have to wait and see! Sounds like they are evenly matched, so at least it's an action jam-packed series! Good for Q to keep Tazer off and breathing for the third period- sounds like they made do :) did the trick, I s'pose! *pompoms*

Hum, groundwork is good. Milk before meat- gotta get to a level of understanding before progress can be made. Patience is hard huh? But the Lord is working all over the board, just you wait :)

Yes, MoTab! Me and my companion love Rock-a-my-soul. So fun! We jam out to that all the time haha! I feel like it's been super long since I heard Sunrise Sunset- I really just need to watch that whole movie. Again. Forever agooooo. Life- it speeds by. XD

YAY FRUIT! Eventually I'll send that honey jar home. It was a nice one o.o but yeah. Before I move in six weeks, haha.

WELP, this week was definitely better than last! Sorta. We still had a bomb go off, but it was within the missionary sphere so the work wasn't too inversely affected. Anyway. This week we found two people to teach! YAY! One of them is Lily, she's 12. Somehow she slipped through the cracks when she was 8, so we're getting that off and done now. The parents are excited too- they haven't been to church for a while, so they're hoping the lessons and such will help them get back into the groove. :) The other is Miki, and she (well we think it's a her; I guess we're not completely sure, so we'll see) just fell out of the sky and texted us saying she wanted to meet with us to learn about the gospel O___O! we were like, freaking out and not sure if it was real or anything. (skeptical Rach for the fail.) BUT we're meeting with her tonight and going to get the whole story :D 

Crazy, huh? The Lord hears and answers our prayers! HURRAH! Also the fact that I'm staying in Paradise attests to that. I wanted so much to stay here for my birthday :3 So, selfish ftw? I dunno. 

Otherwise things are good! Sister Smith and I are staying together, so we're STOKED. We're either doing something really good or really bad together. Haha. :) Sounds like we're doing okay, I guess.

Anyway. Happy day! Hope your week has been going good :) Sounds like Matt had fun times, haha. Love you! Stay safe :)

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

p.s. did you recognize one of the skirts in the movies from the broadcast yesterday? I saw my pink one and I got ridiculously excited hahaha. <3

Hello hello! <3

 

Aah, Blackhawks! Our host family (the Hunts) are out of town, so they have a lady named Rhonda staying at their house to help take care of the house and the dog. But she's originally from Chicago, so when we had come home... whatever night that was... Wednesday? she was watching the triple overtime game and I didn't know 'til the next morning XD good thing! the temptations are getting crazy in here haha! Best of luck to mai hawks :3

(sidenote: "maryo" huh. he must not play a whole lot haha.)

 

O_O storm! you're right, that doesn't surprise me. Reminds me of when we were up at girl's camp at that other place- do you remember, mom? We were all praying to know what to do about the storm, and I can't remember if it just fizzled out or if it parted too. That was a great test of faith for me then, and I don't think that I passed that one haha. But just something I remember.

 

@scorpion: they would be the most venomous. *flail* nevermind it was in my bathroom cabinet, so now I'm super paranoid about them T_T

 

@bees: have you ever heard of meat bees? the lady we were with said it was them, but I don't really know what those are. so who knows.

 

That's really cool about the fathers of the stripling warriors!! I don't think I ever really thought about that before, about where they were or what they were doing. Makes sense to me, though :D

 

Go little bees, go! Did that third hive ever really pick up? You or Dad was saying the third one wasn't doing the best; didn't recover from something or other.

 

So this week was probably the longest week of my LIIIIIFE. Ugh. Not the most pleasant feeling. On Wednesday we had zone meeting though, which was good. It's unfortunate how sometimes at these things there's so much they talk about, and I just start to feel inadequate about all the things I have to work on x_x it NEVER ENDS! thankfully, but also unfortunately haha. One thing I picked up that was cool was about the sacrament prayers- we were talking about why it's important to go to church, and to have the people we're working with understand why it's important to go to church. we read the sacrament prayers and the promises that go in that, how the baptismal covenant is in there, and what the promise is back to us if we do those things. We know how it's initially said (v.3), and they suggested to us that we personalize it to make it more meaningful. Thus, it'd be something like this: "O God, the Eternal Father, Rachael asks thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to her soul as she partakes of it; that she may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that she is willing to take upon her the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given her, that Rachael may always have his Spirit to be with her." Neat huh? I liked it. Makes everything just a little different, but just enough to make it... well, personal :)

 

In other news, we're not going to be able to meet with Jessie anymore :( the family she's living with right now is too opposed to the idea, so she can't get baptized. We've taught her everything she needs to know, and she said she'd keep reading and praying cos she knows that's what's right, but it still stinks. :( I think she'll come to it eventually, though. Someday when she's living on her own, she'll remember. I just have to remember that everything doesn't have to happen while I'm involved, y'know? Which is hard. Eternal perspective is difficult to have, some days!

 

But Les is still doing AWESOME. He's making a lot of good progress, likes the church, the Book of Mormon, and everything else that we're teaching him about. He's so great :D still shooting for the 29th. Winnar! He gets along so well with the ward, it's amazing how well he fits in here. God's timing is fascinating, I'm just so grateful I got to be in the right place at the right time ^_^

 

Transfers are next week. I think I heard that there are 14 sisters coming out, so my chances of training again are REALLY high. woo. Who knows what will happen though; I haven't been able to feel it out if I'm moving or staying, so we'll have to wait and see. Might send another box home at one point to get rid of some extra weight; being in one place for a long time ends up collecting a lot of things. You know how that goes. Might send home the honey jar that you sent home, then you can reuse it :D we'll see.

 

And lastly, I gave a talk yesterday :D third one in three years. it was about Fathers :D :D so what else would I do, but tell a whole bunch of stories about my dad? :D :D :D everyone seemed to like it, so thanks for being such an awesome dad, Dad! <3 They said you sounded like a great man, and they're darn right! *hug* so yeah. I'm glad you're my Dad ^_^

 

Yep. Things are goin', in Paradise. I feel like great things are coming, so it'll be good. Are you going to watch the missionary broadcast that everyone's been talking about on Sunday? I don't know if they've been announcing it or not. But it will be good! We're looking forward to it. They're going to combine our wards for the day too, so it's going to be crazy. But... still good. :D

 

Anyway, thanks always for your constant love and support! It means so much to me, especially on a long week such as this one x_x lots of blah-stuff, but lots of good stuff too. You make the days brighter! Thanks for being great and keeping with me <3

 

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

FAMILIA! <3 <3 <3

How's it going?? Go Blackhawks! I was happy to hear about them and the Kings, and I'm glad they have a breather too 'til Wednesday. Are they playing MarioKart together again? Haha :)

Tell Paca hi for me! :) Is the MoTab coming to Ravinia again? Hope it's not raining. It is here today. It's nice!

Have fun at trek, Matteo! Don't get rained out like we did the one year I went haha. (Well, not rained out, just rained on. XD )

JAM! I was thinking about that the other day. Have we made much in recent years? Or have I just been gone the whole time you've been doing it? Oh, I didn't know you were trying corn again. Neat calling! That's a good thing :) Do you have a namesign yet? There's a lady in our ward here that teaches ASL and got permission from her deaf teacher to give namesigns. To the ones she's teaching, anyway. We're exempt haha. maybe someday.

Speaking of pictures, I don't have any this week, but I was going to send a picture of what we found in our bathroom on Friday night! Go ahead, guess what it was!

.....

a scorpion. :D

granted it wasn't any longer from the tip of my thumb to the first knuckle, but still. a scorpion! in the bathroom! boy I was freaking out so much XD

well this week we had our lesson with Les on Friday, and we asked him if he would be cigarette/coffee/etc. free by Saturday (we're asked to make sure they're "sober" as far as two weeks out from the baptism). he said he would, and we were so excited until Sunday when he said he wanted to move it back a week cos he relapsed :| but we're still excited cos darnit, he's gonna be baptized! and he wants to be, so woot. he's doing really well though! and we're so proud of him ^-^ he keeps saying that this is all new to him cos he never wanted to be religious before, but then when we came to talk to him he just decided that it was something that he needed to get into. So... yeah. Totally awesome :3

Oh! Bees! Speaking of, we got attacked by a swarm this week!! we were going to help a lady with cleaning up her backyard, and I put my waterbottle down on a rotted stump while I went to go grab the yardwaste bin. I made it maybe 5 feet and that kamikaze bee (the warning bee? I don't know what you call those things) started divebombing my head and got stuck in my hair. At first I thought it was a fly, so I shook my hair around trying to get it out. When it didn't leave, I guess the swarm started coming out of the stump and the lady started yelling at us to run. Sooo we did haha! ran to the front yard and she started to spray the stump with a hose, and while they were distracted by that we grabbed all the stuff and ran away again. Quite the adventure. We didn't have a lot of luck with the bugs this week XD

Also, Jessie was out of town this week so we weren't able to meet with her this week. Next week, we think! She was at Oakland, and close enough to see the angel Moroni from her back porch :O anyway, we usually meet on Fridays at the church, but we didn't have our lesson and happened to be there anyway. We were planning some things and Cindi (Jessie's boyfriend's mom who's basically AMAZING) came in to see us anyway! She's so great, I can't even express how much love I have for this lady. Anyway, we were talking about things and one thing I love that she said was this:

"Feel that bumpy thing on the back of your neck? Your spirit is connected to that. Your spirit may be little and weak now, but your spine is strong, and your spirit is a part of that. You know what you believe. Yell it! Shout it from the rooftops!"

Ah, I love it! It's so true, and it's good to remember on a bum day. Or on a day that's 103 in the "cooler part" of town. *brick'd*

And speaking of that, it's been an interesting thing to me this week that everything we'll probably ever want in this life requires a great deal of sacrifice. As it says in one of the hymns, "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven." And it's true! We felt prompted this weekend to fast on Saturday, but we (unfortunately) ignored it cos we thought it would be "too hard", especially since it was going to be over a hundred degrees that day. In consequence, Les' baptism was pushed back a week. Now, we'll never know what would've happened if we HAD fasted... aside from maybe heat stroke. Or maybe not. Heavenly Father's in control of that, and if we're sacrificing for HIM, then he will NOT let us fail. Anyway. So I thought it was curious that I was taught that this week, but I've got some vinegar in me yet. I'm sure not going to back down now, and hopefully now when I feel to do something like that again, I'll have enough faith to just hunker down and do it!

Thanks always for your love and prayers! I appreciate it :) Stay awesome! <3

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

FAMILY~!

You're welcome for the long letters! Sometimes I get to the end of them and I ooh and aah at the length XD someday I'll look back and be glad I was as mega detailed as I was. :)

Zone conferences are usually every other transfer, so basically once every three months. SO GOOD! I love them :3 I've learned since being on my mission that I love learning and just knowing how things are, so that bodes well I guess. :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! :D :D :D You're so ossum! ^_^ I'm happy that you are mine <3

What is Kevin's business, again? I just remember hearing that all the mormons work there, but that's about it. ¯\[°_O]/¯

If I were Matt, I'd like having things to do too.

HAWKS~! Oof I was going crazy all week long *flail* but I'm glad they sound like they're going stronger now. That's crazy about the Stanley Cup thing- I would not have even noticed that. *pompoms* So the Winter Classic next year? That I'll be home for? :D hopefully March turns out to be chilly. It could be um, different. Why aren't they putting it on New Years like they've typically done?

@Haircut: Yes, I did intend to say that I literally cut it myself. :D Pretty good huh? It's been two weeks already tho so it's already grown out a noticeable amount. I thank my genes. ^_^

anyway. THIS WEEK. super sonic failsauce! *double brick'd* okay, not ALL bad... but pretty bad. Mostly just cos a TON of our lessons cancelled and a few of the people we were meeting with decided they didn't want to meet with us again. TT______TT so yeah. woo.

I can't remember if I told you about Elder Bednar's CES fireside or not. Welp, if you haven't seen it yet, do so. Cos it's AWESOME. President Weston sent it to us to study (and he talked about it some at zone conference a few weeks ago), and it's really powerful. Do it! 

Anyway, even though all our plans and our hopes turned out not super great this week, I somehow feel relatively at peace about everything. The Lord is in control, and even though I always have more I could be doing, he's making it work for the best.

I love you! Thanks for being great! <3 I appreciate your prayers- they make everything smoother, definitely!

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

p.s. I sent off the skirt today. Also a book that Mike sent me. (Haha...) So you can just chuck the book in my room. Hopefully it gets there, I just put a bunch of stamps on it so I don't know if it's enough. We'll see :D