HAIII

I am staying in Woodside! Sis Tanner is moving to Paradise, though. Weird, that she's going where I just came from :) she'll love it. She's heard me talk so much about it, so she thinks it's bizarre that she's actually going to MEET these people that I talk so much about. So funny :) She will be great.

My next companion is Sister Zoumberis! (It's Greek, if that helps your pronunciation at all.) It was weird cos she was serving in the ward next to us, so that will be interesting. 

Stacy IS amazing!! I hope you do get to meet her someday. She listened to the bassoon cd you sent her yesterday, and she called us all in a rave about how awesome I was. She said you were probably so proud of me, and I think you are :) she did ask though, "how did you have enough air to do all that??" it was cute, and quite funny. Maybe someday when she goes through the temple you can come with me :D

Her family (a sister and a daughter are all that's left) are pretty confused, and ask her frequently if she "knows what she's doing". And also remind her that they come from a long line of Catholics. But Stacy is firm and tells them that she believes it's true and that her whole life has, for some reason or another, been leading up to this point. She's had Mormons around her for her whole life, and she's truly committed to following the gospel. She believes in Joseph Smith, President Monson and the Book of Mormon. I'm so proud of her and all the steps she's making :) She's quite independent though and keeps trying to plan her own baptism (and thereby gets stressed out), but we keep telling her that we'll take care of everything XD so basically, she's adorable. And I love her. :3

speaking of "just do it", I found a talk you might like on that subject! I was impressed with it as I read it, so that was cool that you referenced Pres Kimball :D

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/10/do-it?lang=eng

@OE: no way! Crazy. I think just making the finals is impressive, now they can go home and be content that they made it haha. Props if they win, but Southern IL? Those are crazy farmkids down there, we haven't got a snowball's chance in Hades haha.

Aha, Mr Tham. I played Finlandia when I was there. I'm sure you remember that. Matt's group will hopefully play it better than ours did- the trumpets blew out halfway through the song in the concert when we did it. *facepalm* so either way, it will probably be better. :)

This week was weird. Just, weird. But we're excited about Stacy's baptism on the 16th! It'll be great. Sis Tanner will be able to come down from Paradise to attend, so that will be excellent. 

I don't have a lot to report, other than I anticipate that these last 6 weeks will be a difficult run for me... I'm trying to work hard and be obedient and such, but due to some specific things that I won't disclose at this time, I just think things are going to be a little bit harder for me this transfer than a lot of the others. SO. I just want to put it out there that any extra support and love that can be sent my way, it will be greatly appreciated. Cos honestly, I think I'm quite possibly going to really need it. So even if it's a napkin in an envelope with a quick two lines, I'd gladly take it.

Anyway. On that note, a lot to do today! Lots of packing and visiting to be done on Sis Tanner's end. Thanks for being great! We're in the homestretch now! :)

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

October 2013 with Sister Tanner

HIYAA FAMILY <3 <3 <3

@Music: we could do a horn/bassoon thing. we've done duets at the piano before. we'll shoot for something christmas related, since it'll be that time :P you or matt or both may have to find something, since I'm limited in my internet perusals. search for lds composers or something- sally deford is usually pretty good, although sometimes jazzy. Rosemary might have something too. you know me, I'm flexible. pick something and stick me with a day, I'll get it down :)

I heard about that book! Apparently it's really good. I'd look into it if I could. Elder Andersen referenced it in his conference talk in April, so it must be legit haha. 

Also! I went online and looked at my byu stuff, and it says I'm already endorsed thru Summer of 2015. O_o not sure how that happened. But hey! We'll go with it! Haha. I'mm gonna read the honor code and such again, just because I should. But it's all not too different from anything I've been living in the last year anyway :P

SOOO We have great news this week! (Ohmygosh it was the longest week EVER I felt like it'd never end haha but it was good!) On Wednesday, we took a super-awesome member with us to Stacy's house, intending to teach her about the word of wisdom. As is typical with Stacy, she likes to ask a question multiple times to see what different answers she can get. She asked, "why do I need to be baptized again?" We've explained to her about the apostasy, the priesthood, Joseph Smith being a prophet (and she already knows he and Pres Monson are called of God), and this awesome member just shrugged with a smile, and with all love and encouragement in her heart said, "just do it!" Stacy thought about it for a second and said, "Okay!" So now she'll be baptized onNovember 16th! WOO! We so didn't see it coming like that haha. That morning we had thought about inviting her to be baptized again, so that was just miraculous. We're stoked! And we totally know too, that when she gets baptized I don't think she'll ever go away :) it was awesome. She's been talking a lot too about how she thinks that her whole life has been leading up to this point, and I really think that it is. She's so faithful, and even though her sister and daughter are raising loads of questions about her joining the church, she believes and knows this is the path for her! We love her so much and are so happy for her :D

Also this week was Sister's Training! Yay! So all 62 of the Sister missionaries in the mission got together in Gridley for a conference :) it was so nice! There are a lot of them that I don't know now. But yeah. Lots of insight and awesomeness! And hilariousness. A lot of the Sisters in their lessons took part in President Weston impressions, and they were SO funny. Aha. I love this mission :) It's the best mission I could've ever gone to! Definitely the one for me ^__^

In light of that, there are two big messages that have recently stood out to me. First was to focus on things that are in my control (and results are definitely not in my control, so I shouldn't stress about those). Second, to "just do it"!!! If you think something, and it's good, do it. If you have to decide between two good things, pick one and go for it! Full steam ahead! or "damn the torpedos", as Stacy would say :D so fabulous. But yeah. For the last chunk of my mission, I am going to try to be so much better at focusing what I can control, and then do the very best that I can every day (even - and especially even- when I don't want to!). So. It'll be interesting.

*pompoms*

Nothing else I can think of right now. Transfers are next Sunday, but I don't think I'll go anywhere. We'll see what happens! There's rumblings that Sisters will open up the ward next to us, but we'll see what happens. ¯\[°_O]/¯ always something!

thanks for being great!! I love you muchly and I hope all continues to go well and smoothly for you :) thanks for the support and love, I love it and feel it now more than ever. Thank you thank you!

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

HI FAMILY <3

How's it hanging? :3 I am much better- it was a weird sick cos basically my nose just threw a revolution and congested itself up like whoa. But my brain wasn't foggy and I wasn't achey, so I don't really know what that was. Sis Tanner got it as soon as I was on the upswing, so it was a pretty slow week for us haha. Sad times. But we did take things slower than we normally was. It was tough, actually. Bluh.

@Byu stuff- yes, I was looking at mymap. Just for fun I tried to add a class, and it told me I couldn't 'til my allotted day. So yeah. haha.

Yes, that's a typical length between people to register. I think they only take a week to open it up to everyone, and they do it based on the number of credits you have. SO the more credits= the earlier to sign up. Considering they only take about 7 days to open up everything, the 5 days between him and me is quite a lot. So yeah. It's normal. 

*pompoms for Craig*

*pompoms for Matt*

*pompoms for Paca* hey, I'll be able to make his birthday party this year :D right?

This week, like I said, was slower cos we were trying to recuperate as slowly as we'd allow ourselves XD But it is what it is. A crazy thing happened tho!

At the RS broadcast two weeks ago, this lady came up and stood next to me while we were singing the song in the middle. Later she said, "you have to come and sing in our ward!" so we laughed and said we would. Well, this week we found out just how serious she was. She called the mission president's wife to get permission for it on Thursday, called us on Friday to let us know, practiced on Saturday night, and then performed it on Sunday afternoon.

And the kicker was, it was all in Spanish. (*booyah*) So that was a CRAZY adventure, hahaha. All on a getting-better throat. Coughdrops were my best friend this weekend. We sung Lead Kindly Light, or Divina Luz in the Spanish book. IT was exciting, and those two semesters of spanish in HS taught me nothing if not pronunciation! The Sisters were impressed :) so yep. Be proud. Who knew that my average singing skills would outshine my bassoon skills? Dang non-portable instruments :P

Also this week, I was reading some of the talks from April conference of this year. I was reading about keeping covenants, keeping commandments and personal agency. I thought about agency and the choices we make every day, and how- though we make choices- we have no say in the consequences (good or bad) that follow. SO, I was thinking about that and the choices we make to keep the commandments of God. Of course we're promised that we'll have blessings when we follow the things that He asks, so good things will come. In essence, this is saying that when we CHOOSE to keep the commandments of God, Heavenly Father has promised that GOOD consequences will come. EVERY. TIME. It's foolproof! And, from the scriptures we know that when we do what He asks, He is bound to keep His promises. So, keeping commandments invites the assurance that good things will come. I love it! That doesn't mean that bad things won't come, but that's where the faith comes in- that Heavenly Father will make good on His promises no matter what we're thrown into. I really loved that from my studies this week :) 

Anyway I've been taking too long on this so I gotta go! I love you! I hope that all goes well this week :) Thanks for being great! <3

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

p.s. Here's our zone! If you can hopefully open it. It should be fine.

Zone Oct 2013

FAMILY!! <3

yep, conference was AWESOME!!! I loved it all. So so much. Saturday was particularly pertinent, don't you think? :) I was thinking Dad should put more pictures of the temple/Christ/family on his desk or something. I dunno what his workplace is life so what do I know :D *brick'd* I loved the talk by Elder Neilsen, he was so enthusiastic and hilarious :D I loved it. Did you see the fly on the podium on the Sunday afternoon session? I feel so bad for him haha. They were all amazing and awesome and I'm excited for the Ensign, although I don't think I'll get it in time before I leave haha.

Also, yikes, I thought you didn't ever cry? Elder Holland is so powerful, it's great. I thought it was an awesome relevant talk. We all have periods of that, I think, and it's true that mental illnesses are just as real as the physical ones. So I thought it was great that he talked about that. My thought was, it's so awesome that a living church talks about living issues. It's real and we know it! And certainly not blind or oblivious to it. That was comforting to me.

For the record, Stacy is 70. She's a cute lady :) We watched both Saturday sessions with her and she was remarking all over about how they were "holy men" and how much she loved President Monson already. We already had places to watch Sunday with, but she told us she was going to watch Sunday (all day!) also! So... we're anxious to see how she responded to all the messages from Sunday. We'll hopefully see her tomorrow, so we'll get back to you on that :) She's so great though! And, after Saturday sessions, we were talking to her and she said, "Now girls, when I get baptized..." We were flipping out :D I'm thinking she'll likely get baptized in November, so we'll see what happens!!!

So, d'you remember Sister Ripplinger? She was my companion over last Christmas. Well... she's going to be getting married in December! the 20th, to be exact, in SLC. So I'm curious about your input on if/how I can get there? I'm even okay with the train :D that'd be a fun adventure, I'm sure. Still trying to think of who I can take for a travel buddy maybe, but I'll let you ponder on that for a while. 

I got sick this weekend! That was an exciting adventure too. Sunday I had a sore throat, and later in the day I got a stomachache, so I had to lay down for a while. Today my throat is fine but my nose is running a marathon. So we'll see what happens. Boo. I hardly ever get sick, and then I went on a mission. haha. 

Also, I went on exchanges with the one and only Sis Tittle today :) MTC companion woohoo! It was really awesome. We talked a lot about finishing our mission strong, and made a new resolve to be 100% exactly obedient all the time!! So that's been an interesting new goal. Fun times!! We're going to be accountable to basically everyone around us, so that helps. I've found that the more I'm accountable to people, the more I'm influenced to actually get things done. which is a nice find haha :) always something to improve on!

I love you lots!! Thanks for the stamps :) and Dad told me about the email thing, so I'll brace myself in the next while haha. Thanks!!

Fight to the finish!!

Sister Nelson