Super family!! <3

Yes, thank you! Happy birthday! :D It's been good so far, and happily it's been more like a birthday week than just a day. So fun :D We had a celebration with a family last Monday, and then we had another fun dinner (with the Sonntags) on Saturday, then a birthday dinner tonight at the park- we're BBQing :3 yay! I love this place. Can't get any better than birthdays in Paradise! *para-para-paradise!*

Yes, I did open the box early. Must've been the spirit :D the bread was soooo yummy! Thank you!! The honey went great with it! And I love the picture! So fun! I'll have to find somewhere to put it! Where did you get it from? And the skirt is lovely- I have a yellow shirt that matches pretty well, so I look pretty springy when I wear it. It's happy. I should've taken a picture, drat! I'm so good at thinking about these things, haha.

Today is a lot cooler than the rest of the week! For some reason I feel like Heavenly Father expresses some of his love for me through the weather. Seriously! July just typically has something weird happen in it that makes me happy. And the weather today isn't supposed to get higher than 85°ish! So nice :D especially cos we'll be having a party in the park tonight. Yay! So excited :)

Yay, genealogy! I have been getting so much more interested in that, you'll have to give me a tutorial when I get back. I blame the oldschool peeps in Paradise that are all awesome at it, haha. And the temple! Bah, I need to get back there soon! Anyway, looking forward to it. Best of luck hunting down some details!

Hurrah for Les! We weren't able to meet this week, but he finally got his license back so this week he drove himself to church! That was pretty exciting, haha. So things are moving forward. We're trying to help him in his understanding of the scriptures and the commandments and whatnot, since he's so unfamiliar with... everything. But he's doing well, and gets along with pretty much everyone :D so he's a keeper, haha.

We had some setbacks that made this week really hard (July and August STINK- everyone goes on holidays! bah), but Lily the 12yrold well be baptized this coming Saturday, the 3rd, and Miki will be baptized the week after on the 10th! Yay! So excited for those. :)

[[Who knows what will happen to me between now and then tho, transfers are next week. So Dad, if you send your letter to the mission office next week, there's a good chance I'll pick it up while I'm at the office next week, haha. (I have no clue if I'm actually transferring or not, but I've been in Paradise since January, so... makes sense. *shrug*]]

Oh! So, there's another couple we're working with, the Frenches! They are top notch AWESOME. I love them :D a little rough around the edges, but they are sincere and are really trying to follow the Savior. They were baptized about 40+ years ago, but due to some circumstances stopped coming. I love them! But we talked this week about tithing and preparing for the temple, and they really want to!! They've made it a goal and they are going to try to get there before the end of the year. Wahoo! So excited for them :) They have a lot of progress to make still, but they are willing and I believe they are ready! Yes! *pompoms*

Not a lot else this week, cos of people cancelling everywhere :| BUT we are going to do our best to make this last week our BEST WEEK! so it'll be good :D pray that we'll be able to find new investigators! they're out there, but we've just been totally uninspired of late. We blame the heat. Haha.

Anyway, I LOVE YOU!! Thank you for the birthday wishes! :D You are all the best evar.

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

HIYAAA FAMILYY <3

Much better now, judging by the 3 mile hike we took this morning :D it was great! pretty steep both ways tho- we made it down to the flume again, from the backyard of a member. great fun :D will send some pictures. eventually. :)

@transposing: so fun, huh! I bet you could do it with the primary songs, too. remember that one time I transposed that song for Rosemary when she was in the primary? (is she still? how are they all? I haven't heard from them or about them in a while.) yeah, that was good times. made me feel good to use that skill though :) 

YAY, BAPTISMS! We're having one this week too! :D for Lily, she's 12. Yay! Youth! 

It really does take a ward! We were just thinking this week on more ways we could include ours, since it's hard for just two of us to find people to teach in such a large area. But we're working at it. A couple ideas. Say hi to the Sisters for me! (Dad said you had them over for dinner :)

@Bro Redman: YAY! He's so cool :D Did they call him as the ward mission leader, or just as a ward missionary? cos I thought Bro. Flinders just barely got called o.o or was Courtney as an WML assistant? Anyway. He sounds legit, either way. Yay, missionary work! You can always tell how converted people are based on their willingness to share the gospel/answers questions. 

I got the thingy from downeast! thanks! the shirts fit perfect. also, the skirt looks comfy! I don't have anything to match it yet, but I'll find something. :D something white, maybe. we'll see. *shopping spree* 

*brick'd*

Honey, yay! I love that you named the hives. I like it. Haha :) Is Ed the one I saw?

@Cawleys: go figure! haha I'm just surprised I haven't met anyone with family connections yet. (pretty much all my companions thus far have had some sort of cousin-somethingorother-relative. muhar, lookit me, being crazy.)

"Too bad we don't have a lot of members from California.:(" Birds... but they're gone now anyway. Hm. Well, guess I'll just have to come home and then I can be all over Facebook then. Haha!

"The more I learn the more I realize I don't know." Story of my life, haha. I bet you're doing great! much better than me, for sure :) although I'm tempted to take a class, so... ha, we'll see. 

ANYWAY

(sorry, I'm being distracted by my bro's emails :3)

so... missionary work is awesome. but it's also got it's fair share of awkward. STORYTIEM! we tried to go see an man this week that I'd talked to in like, February. So we were all, yeah it's time to go see him again and try to introduce the gospel! So we go up to the house, and a young guy answers (we were looking for an older guy).

we said, "hay we're looking for David!" 

and he goes "o um... he's deceased." 

and we were all O_O

*epic backpedal*

so the mom came to the door and I tried to talk about how we share messages about what happens after we die (smooth huh) and she says, "we're still looking for a church to mourn at, but thanks for coming!" so we said g'bye and left.

yep. awkward. don't you just love it?

on a more spiritual note, we shared a video [finding faith in Christ] with Les this week. It was so great!! He has zero religious background, so he isn't famliar with those kinds of stories at all. But when we were finished watching it he brought up that it was really well done, and it brought the "tingle" feeling that he said he'd sometimes got at church. PERFECT! (we had to move his date back again, btw- still not smoke-free.) But it was really cool to be able to realize that he's feeling the spirit and recognizing that things are changing, even if he doesn't have actual names for these events or whatever. the spirit! it is awesome!

okay, gonna go so I'm not distracted anymore haha. LOVE YA! Thanks for being great! <3

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

Smores July 2013

Halloooooo family! <3

We are doing our best to stay cool! It's been nice here of late, but we hear hundreds again by Wednesday. Bleh. Sis. Smith's mom sent us a towel to keep in the car, it's supposed to keep us cool :) we'll try it and see!

Make the most of those missionary opportunities! It gets harder after we get back, kinda :) just different. Ack, I just want them to listen to missionaries so much! Maybe you can send me all their addresses and I'll just send missionaries to them all.... with a note, saying that "Rachael says you should listen to them!!" muhar? I've thought about it on occasion, so maybe. haha. 

I don't remember anything about glass fish- I guess I will just have to wait and see. We're teaching a lady out here that has big ol' fishtanks too! (She can't come to church at present, so we go once a week to read the Book of Mormon with her). She loves them O_O and they're huge fish. She hopes that all the sisters that comes to her house will someday be inspired to have fish of their own. But I won't tell her that you started a fishtank back up again- maybe she'll think she has translative talents or something haha. *who knows*

YAY, young family! I bet they are awesome :D I'm excited to meet them! 

Thanks preemptively for the boxes! :D

This week was busy busy! Good though. Well, 'til the latter end of the week while I'm still trying to figure out some weird physical signs o.o but I'm still trying to vaguely ask around about that without arousing suspicion. You know how it goes. Anyway... Wednesday we had a zone conference! yay! it was really good, we talked about teaching the restoration simply and whatnot. WAY good. I love the restoration! It's my favorite to teach, and especially to feel the difference in the room as soon as one of us starts reciting the first vision :3 it's almost like you can pinpoint the point when the spirit just floods the room and testifies the more strongly of the truthfulness of the event, ah! love it. <3 We decided to have a fast this weekend too, which went well. I'm getting better at fasting, the more I focus on my purpose for it. Go figure :O thanks goodness for that at least.

Aah! Can you believe it's halfway through July already?! Crazy! We're still hoping that Les makes his baptism on the 27th, we're just hoping that the smoking isn't an issue by the time he gets to it. We'll see. We're stoked about him though, :D And then Miki is doing AWESOME and is going to be baptized on Aug. 3! Yay! She's super awesome, I just can't even. We were reading with her in 2 Nephi, which as you know has a lot of Isaiah. So that was fun to try to interpret :D but she texted us earlier in the week when she read this scripture:

"Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul." (2 Nephi 4:28)

She has a scripture journal where she jots down notes next to the verses and things that mean something to her, and she said when she read this scripture she wrote next to it "Yes, just yes!" she's SO ready for this gospel, I love it! I love her! I love the Savior, and the Book of Mormon! 

This gospel is everything to me and gives all of us such a direction that so many people around us just don't see. It gives us a perspective to look up and see how we can be bigger, better, and stronger. It gives us a glance into eternity, how we can see and know that the choices we make now can and will change everything. What a blessing that we know! That the spirit is with us to guide us and help us and lead us back to our Father in Heaven. I'm so thankful to be a member of this church and that it's such a part of my life so that whenever trials and hard things come, I can turn back to the gospel and EVERY TIME just proclaim, "Yes, just yes!"

I love you all, thanks for being awesome :D as Elder Cook said, "Look up and you will cheer up!" 

LOVELOVELOVE always,

Sister Nelson

With Sister Smith and cooling towels

HIYAA! *tacklehug* <3

Yay, MO! I have to admit, I laughed a lot when you had your little remark of Adamondiamon ("it's a field"). Bahaha! Shouldn't be funny, but hey, it is. Glad you had a good time down there- how's Uncle Mike and the fam?

Yaaaay, baptisms!!! And marriage! :D :D Bro. Flinders mentioned them to me in one of the letters I got from his wife, ah! So GREAT! What a blessing. He said they had a child; are they not old enough to be baptized yet? Still, that means the dad gets to do it which would be super :D Recent converts are like, the best thing ever. Such strength! Do you know them very well? Do you have anyone for the Sisters to teach yet? :O Now's the time to be more bold than ever, what with the influx of missionaries. Not to say it wasn't there before, but it's a lot stronger and the Lord is preparing people faster now. And, well, I guess people are responding to it easier than before. SO that's a plus. 

Speaking of Miki, AAAH! Greatest thing EVER happened this week!! So we met with her on Friday morning, and we were talking about things and whatnot and I think we have way too much fun with her and the family with meet with. Much laughter is had :D but we started talking and she mentioned how it was only recently that she felt like she'd truly come to know that there was a God who cared about her and that she could honestly say that she knew that He lived! Awesome! And then we talked about the Atonement and things, and how she felt apprehension about accepting that because she didn't want him to hurt anymore than he already did. So we talked about that, and one way that I heard it described from the lady we live with was that the Atonement was like piano lessons. There's you who takes the lessons, your teacher who teaches it, and your mom, the one who pays for the lessons. BUT, by the time you take the lessons, it's already been paid for- so what you do with the lesson is up to you, but it'd be best if you used it to the full potential of course. But just that part that it's already been paid for- by the time we've come to this Earth our experiences (sins, mistakes, etc.) have already been paid for. We're not going to make him hurt any more or less than he already did. If that made sense. But she liked it and it was awesome :D so we committed her to pick a baptismal date by our next meeting (Tuesday). YAY! ...BUT, it gets better! When she went home, she was really concerned about her family's reactions and whatnot, just cos she didn't want to cause divisions. But she was talking to her gma about it, and she came out and said she was proud of Miki's decisions about the church and baptism and everything AND said she would come!!! AND she discovered she wasn't scheduled for work until 11 on Sunday, so she could go to sacrament with us! :D :D :D :D YAAAAY! So when she came on Sunday she told us she wanted to be baptized on Aug. 3. WINNAR!

Aah. So happy. :)

Our 4th of July was boring. Fireworks were banned in the whole county, and we were required to be in by 7pm, so we came home early and did a couple things before going to bed early haha. *brick'd* we should've been cleaning and such, but we were just tired. we're so bad. :D

Basically, things are awesome. And so are you! Thanks for everything!! I so appreciate letters and things- they make the week sparkle even more. :)

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

Hiya

Dearest Family!

Birthday!? Where does the time go? Bah. 

Yes, we met Miki! Basically she's been half-taught by missionaries in another area because he member boyfriend is down there. She got our number from them, which only half freaked us out haha. But she's doing really good already! She loves the gospel and the feelings she gets from the church, but her family is negative about it just because they don't understand. Y'know? They're just worried about all the untrue things they've heard about our church, but aren't willing to give it up in favor of what actually is about our teachings. So, meh. But she wants to be baptized after her boyfriend leaves for his mission in September, so she can make sure she's doing it for herself, not just for him. So we're just helping her along, moral support while she's back in her homeplace. So yeah. Cultivating :)

We can go do stuff like that on our p-days, but not many missionaries like to because it takes time! and time is precious on prepday :O and we don't like going down to Chico most of the time either, just cos it's oodles hotter down there than here, and cos it's time consuming. So we like to stay up here and play cards with the older folk of our ward :D anyway. 

BLACKHAWKS!!!! SOOO EXCITED!!! I knew it :D they rock! <3 they seem to nail the game sixes, don't they? :3 BOLLY! *flail* I miss all the fun, maan.

Yay, EFY! Don't melt down there! We're trying not to up here- luckily we're in the highest elevated point of the mission, so we're not as bad as other places, but still. HOT. Anything over a hundred just feels like hot or hotter. Doesn't make any difference. I'm just doing my best to stay hydrated O_O it is what it is I guess. see picture for what happens when it's hot in our car like it's been!

Happy 4th of July! No fireworks for us; it's illegal in Paradise.

This week was good, despite the heat. Oh, yeah- and our AC went out over the weekend :D luckily we live in the basement, but still. Toasty. 85 in the house = not happy. It should be fixed this morning though, thank goodness. 

We decided to move Les' baptism to the end of July, which he was actually relieved about. He said he was okay either way, but it just gives him more time to adjust to the new lifestyle he's having to change into. He's 61, and though you can teach and old dog new tricks, it does take a little longer. :) but he's happy about it. His friend, Bro Chatfield in our ward, went to go visit with him on Saturday and Les commented to him, "Yep, these Sisters know what they're doing!" So we felt good about that, despite our hesitation to move the date or just keep it. All's well that ends well. :)

So I told you about her last week, Lily, and we had two meetings with her this week. She is aiming to be baptized on the 27th :) Yay! Good dealio :D She's cute. It's pretty awesome. 

Ummm I think that's about it for this week. Just trying to beat the heat, mostly. Sounds like it won't "cool off" 'til Friday, but even then it'll be high-90's. So pray that it'll cool off, mkay? :)

Stay great! Thanks always for your prayers and support- they mean everything :) Love you all! <3

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

July 2013
from heat in car