Rachael's Mission Blog!

HI THERE :D

How are things? Things are GREAT! :D The baptism was AWESOME! This weekend was so happy for all of us. We set everything up, and got the font ready and whatnot and we got the water HOT! Usually fonts are known to be freezing cold, but ours was steamy :D we're hilarious. When everything was all said and done and she came up out of the water, she came up saying, "Yaaay!" It was adorable!! I love her so much :3 everything went reaally really well, and the spirit was so strong. After she got confirmed yesterday in sacrament, she turned to us and said, "You know what? This may sound crazy, but I feel different now. But that's totally crazy, isn't it?" Nope, definitely not crazy- totally normal :) I'm super tired now tho from all the busy and smiling and such. Did you get an email with pictures? A lady who was there said she'd do that. :)

Yes, Stacy got your letter! She thought it was adorable and loved it a lot :) She showed it in class after sacrament, she was so pleased with it. It must've come Saturday afternoon. But about it, she said, "I feel like I know them, but I don't know them!" Aha aww I loved it. I hope one day you get to meet her. You would love her :)

But yep, now it's official. She's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, restored to the earth from when Christ himself was here :) and she loves it!! I can't wait for her to get to the temple someday. ^__^

No news on Caleb yet. We're trying!

Nooo not Pres Clark! :( I knew his time was coming soon, but I was hoping to get BACK first :C Alas. I'll have to go see him anyway when I get back. He'd like that, wouldn't he? :3

But yay, President Holyoak! Bahaha bless his lil' heart haha. Guess I'll never see him again huh, hahaha, since he'll never be at church. Bless his wife for putting up with that, again. *headpat*

*pompoms for signing* my companion (who took several semesters of sign) recommends ASLpro.com . Tho, I suppose if you ask Holly she would know, which I'm guessing you would. Is she not so proud of you? Do you have a name sign yet? Would my namesign be connected with yours? I think a namesign would be so cool :3

I'm proud of your ASL! I knew you could do it ^__^

waitwait, Elder who? Did you mean Christensen? Haha. Christofferson is another big name, but you didn't mention an apostle coming, haha. Who decides new Stake Presidencies, anyway? Is it the 12, or a 70? (I think I should postface that with the comment that I'm directing that question to Dad. lol)

Yeah, someone around here mentioned there were bad storms back there. They asked me if you were near there, and I was like ¯\[°_O]/¯ people think I pay attention to the news or something haha. The only storm I've heard of is the one in the Philippines, so, y'know. Glad to hear that all is well and safe!

*headpats new Elm tree* I'mma miss the big fluffy thing in the front :(

Did Dad give an endure to the end talk recently? He's been writing me about one forever in his letters, are we talking about the same talk?

and as far as getting tired of hearing from you, I'm sure Holly never gets tired of hearing from you :) *is smack'd*

Anyway. More miracles!! Ready...

-We had a lesson with a less-active lady named Tysha this week. (pronounce her name tee-sha) IT WAS AWESOME! Typically we go over there and it doesn't turn into much. But this week, I don't even really know what happened. All of the sudden we were talking about church and going to sacrament, and she said, "I know I need to get back to church, and I'd really like to. But I just have some things I need to overcome, first." So we talked about that for a while and determined that she's afraid to come back because she doesn't want to be judged for anything. I guess there were things that happened in her past that she felt like the people of her ward had turned on her, so we are definitely going to try to help that smooth over. (It was a different ward, but her feelings are the same.) So we're SOOO grateful about that spiritually progressing time we were able to have with her :) She can make it!!!

-Okay, this story sounds Ensign worthy. We got a referral from Salt Lake this week!! They told us she was super into family history, and she was really enthusiastic about meeting with us. Awesome! So we set up a time to meet her and whatnot. HOLYCOW. I've never met a more prepared and spiritual person, despite the cruddy surroundings she's living in. It's intense. So, a few weeks ago she woke up in the morning and decided she just needed to know more about her family's history. So she did some research and traced things back to Notre Dame circa 1330's. (That's impressive in it's own right!) Then she found a giant box left by her grandmother with tons and tons of different versions of the Bible... so she started to read, and read, and read. Several copies later, she decided that the King James version was most right out of any of them! Then, as she kept digging through the box, she found a Book of Mormon and decided to give it a go. She described it that when she was reading it, light just seemed to fill her and her room, and she knew that it was from God! Somehow she got connected to a phone in the church office building somewhere, and along we came. :D :D So we came and started talking to her. She's super enthusiastic, it's hard to keep up with her haha. But basically she was all, "I want to do what you do! Help the women and children, and share about God's love. How do I do that?" We told her that to be a missionary like us, she'd need to be baptized... and she started to cry. The spirit was SO STRONG! It was amazing. Simply awesome. Then, as we got further into it, we found a picture from a Restoration pamphlet (that we give out some times) hanging on the wall! And in her room, a passalong card! And on the shelf, an LDS version of the KJV, footnotes and all! We were having a hard time keeping our jaws from hitting the floor. O_O! So we will see her again this week and are hoping to set a specific date for her to be baptized!! YAAY!

Oh, yes, and also? Remember Jessie I would talk about in Paradise?

... she wants to be baptized :D :D

Holy hannah there are so many miracles happening! It's gotta be a dream, hahaha. Everything exploded this week, it was fabulous. But MAN. I love this work! I love the converting power of the spirit, and of the scriptures! They truly testify of each other, and I know that they speak of truth. Christ is our Savior and He LOVES US!! and He wants all of us to be happy. Commandments are not restrictions- they're instructions on how to be the most happy we can possibly be in this life. That doesn't mean hard times and bad things will happen to us, but it will give us perspective and joy throughout them! I love it. The gospel could not be sweeter!

That's all for this week! I love you oodles and oodles! Thanks for being amazing and helping me all along the way :)

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson