FAMILY!! <3

Hello! Happy days! Transfers were yesterday and Sis Tanner and I are staying together for another 6 weeks :) We're so excited! Things are really starting to jive in this ward and we're so grateful to be able to watch it happen n_n

@honey: local is awesome :3 yes, I said the same about IL honey to CA honey. are the backyard neighbors the ones from uhh... pakistan? or was it india? darnit. Now you know how I feel about basically everything- I just want to keep it for myself XD I need a better attitude, I've decided haha. 

@mike: aha that cracks me up. looks a lot different than he did, huh? I knew he was a music teacher floating around Chicago somewhere, but glad to know the specifics now. I didn't even know he was in the elementary range, so that's cute :3 that IS far. But y'know, it is what it is. We've sent a few letters back and forth, but not much. I'm hoping to mostly catch up with these people in the month timeframe I'll have before leaving the state... again. Haha. Obviously I'm not going to live out much of my life in Chicago XD unfortunately. (p.s. are you?)

@Stacy: I mentioned to her that Dad called her "Sister Lundberg" in his letter, and she laughed XD she's catholic, and she's like "I'm not a Sister, I'm not a nun!" It was pretty cute.

@Sis Tanner letter: yes, she wrote it. promise! she has it in her that apparently I'm awesome, so whatever that means. hahaha! I dunno what she even said, tho I guess she wrote you about our epic fail with the cookie dough. I don't get why this time didn't work out, cos it did at the start of the transfer! so funny. we do still have it, tho we tried to add more peanut butter to get it to stick, but it didn't. we will try the egg and if that doesn't work, we may just take a spoon to it and eat it raw haha. we have no fear :D (did you actually have tears when you read about that misadventure? that cracks me up; our family never cries at anything.) thanks for the recipe! 

@senior parade: now that you say that, it sounds familiar to me. just walking in front of the stands, right? and then we scooted back to the band, so it didn't make much of a difference. good times- a LONG time ago, wasn't it? time is just flying, it's crazy.

@facebook I'm not sure I'm going to want to use it, at this point. there's a lot of details to work out still, and I'm not sure I want to get caught up in it. I agree it's a fabulous idea, but I don't know about it and me, haha. so we'll see, I guess. they still haven't rolled it out to the rest of us. 

Fall is rolling in here, too. Tho, not that it makes much of a difference cos everything is basically green all year round. But, y'know. It breezes are more frequent and it doesn't get up to the hundreds, at least it hasn't for the last few days. So that's nice :) 

Ohyeah! I got to go to the temple this week!! AAH! So awesome!! If you haven't been since the update, you should gooooo! And even if you've been since then, you should go agaaain! I loved it, oh my goodness. I just love the temple. Ah. It was funny cos we barely missed the session by prolly 5 minutes (T__T) so we decided to go and do initiatories 'til the next session started. It was nice to do those, since I haven't since I did it for myself. Good reminders, and to see how all that went with the session that followed. So that was great :) I even got to see some people from my last areas there! Remember Sis. Pulsipher from Rocklin? Her son just reported to the MTC last week to go to the Denver South mission! So neat! There were a lot of people going through for the first time, so it was really cool to see all that. So happy :) I can't wait 'til I can go every week!

So.. we had a really awesome crazy experience this week!! All week we were trying to draw on the spirit to know if Stacy was ready to be baptized. We're going along, not really getting any specific direction so we just went over on Friday to talk with her and read from the Book of Mormon. It was a good little conversation, and we read and prayed with her. The next day during studies, we got this huge specific and almost urgent impression that we needed to invite her to be baptized that day. So we got nervous, of course :D but we decided we were going to be obedient and do it. A few hours later when we could actually catch her at home, we go in and start talking with her about the scriptures. She had been studying baptism for the last few days, and is trying to figure out why she needs to be baptized again. Anyway, long story short I look at her and said, "Stacy, the spirit has told me that I need to ask you: Will you be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" I tell you, I felt like there was an electrical surge going through my entire being. It felt hot, actually, but I knew it was what I had to say. Sis Tanner said later that she didn't think it sounded like me, but that it was definitely the spirit speaking, not me. Powerful. I think it was so intense for all of us that Stacy got scared and said she wasn't ready for baptism yet, and that she needed to know more before she committed to being baptized into the church. We talked about faith, and how if we knew everything there would be no faith, and she just looked at me and said, "You always have an answer for everything!" it was funny. :) but yeah. in hindsight, although we didn't have the outcome we expected after having a specific impression like that, we definitely know that it was what needed to happen. She also admitted to us that she knows Joseph Smith is a prophet! So that was really awesome too :) Honestly, I think she already knows its true, but just needs to feel more secure about it before she makes the transition. Bless! I love her so much :)

Anyway! That was the highlight for this week. Good times, huh? :) It was fantastic to realize that I'm being the mouthpiece that Heavenly Father wants me to be. I'm still imperfect and I'm still making mistakes, but I feel closer than I ever have before. It's AMAZING!

Thank you so much for supporting me always :) your letters and notes mean so much to me, and I'm so thankful for them. The gospel is true! I'm grateful for your shining examples in my life, and for the things that you've always taught me about working hard and following through with the spirit and the impressions we receive. Everything is just amazing. I can't even express it.

I LOVELOVELOVE YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!! 

<3

Sister Nelson

p.s. could Dad send me a copy of his line of authority? that would be really awesome :D

Hiyaaa, family!! <3

Things are great! :D

@facebook- we'll probably go to the library more, unless we can get a member's business okay'd to use. we'll see. Yes, it'll be using the actual page and hiding all the personal content- I don't personally like it that way, but that'll be the way it's done. I might just opt out, since I'd rather just go without it instead of try to stay away from the closer line. But, y'know. Issues. :D

@Granna- no, you didn't mention! that's interesting. I wonder if I should send her a Book of Mormon now ;D y' never know!

@other Granna- awh. At least she's a little closer to you now. Sounds like it was maybe the best thing to do. Is she in another assisted living place, or what?

@unity: we had that lesson in church yesterday, too! it's interesting, because recently we've felt like we need to have the ward be more connected and more unified in order for the work to go forward. the last few weeks, it's seemed like, has been on unifying ourselves. Also forgiveness, cos that'll keep us together too. Things are really starting to pick up, it seems- we really feel like the ward is turning in the right direction now, which is awesome! we have high hopes for the future weeks, we're really expecting miracles to start unfolding. :)

@hummingbirds: sweet! did you know they're quite territorial? at least they are around here. sometimes you might see one come up to the feeder, and then have another one come and chase it off. pretty interesting, huh? and when they fly close enough, they sound like a little jet plane :) there's a lot of hummingbirds out here too! we see them a lot.

Yay, honey! Did I tell you that my companion things that your honey is the best? (srsly- she hasn't liked any honey until I encouraged her to try yours.) So we're going through it really fast haha!

I asked if I could change my scripture on it- did they ever do that? can you do that? in case I can, I want it to be 3Nephi 5:13. :D

@senior parade: okay, even I don't remember that. was it just a wandering around with my parents type deal? cos I remember doing that. Haha. a magical experience, you can tell. granted, asking me with my missionary brain may not be the best idea either. 

Aw, my mum is so cute :3 you're making me all sentimental now, too. Shucks. (Yay, OE won!) I'm grateful that you're my mom- sometimes I think about the way we grew up and I determined it was perfect for us. Seriously tho- lots of letting us mess up, even though you probably didn't want us to, but you gave us enough to figure it out and learn it ourselves. I really appreciate that! It helps me when I'm with other people to just remember your example, that if it's not hurting you or anyone else, it's probably fine! That's kept a lot of nit-picky contention out of the way :)

It's the last week of the transfer again- did not this one FLY BY? I feel like I just got here. We'll keep you posted about transfers next week, but I'll probably be okay so go ahead and send me letters to the same address.

Which reminds me: the mission office asked that we start having all our mail sent to our house address, to slim down the amount of mail they get in and out of the office. SO, all mail should be sent to this address for the next three months:

6904 Walnut Ave

Orangevale, CA 95662

That would be great :)

Not a lot else. Stacy, our investigator tried to send you an email with a picture of me and Sis Tanner- did you get it? She's doing well - loves us and all we do. Oh! We spoke in church yesterday- it was really fun. You know it's a bad sign when you enjoy speaking in church haha. Um, yes. Sis Tanner spoke on faith and I on repentance. I got to talk about the Atonement too- my favorite subject :) it's fantastico! we got a lot of nice comments, and one gentleman even told me that he could see me talking at a semi-annual conference someday O__O that might be scary. Aha. 

We got to pick up a new investigator this week!! His name is Caleb, and he's 10. Win! His dad and step-mom are both converts who got baptized a few years ago, so now we're going to try to get him baptized too. His real mom wants him to know why he wants to be baptized, so we're going to attempt to help him understand that. :D Things are movin'!

Anyway, that's all for this week! Glad to hear things are going great! Know that I love and appreciate y'all!

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

FAMILY!! <3

Okay, I will get to zone conference in a minute cos I'll be going on forever about that. :D

Beekeepers are fun! They actually keep their hives differently; not in a traditional beebox but on a weird triangular pole thing. They're not even inclosed! But they keep them in the backyard, so they don't have to worry about too many predators. I didn't ask about swarming, so I don't know! I impressed them with my jargon knowledge tho, and managed to keep my companion in the dark on accident <_< haha. their honey is way dark tho, and both Sis Tanner and I agreed that IL honey is better :3 (srsly tho). 

wait, when did Matt declare he wanted to do engineering? man, all this musical skill is just being wasted, isn't it. hahaha. 

Is all the applying for colleges coming? Or did that pass already? ¯\[°_O]/¯ haha.

@familysearch I'm not too worried about it yet, considering I can't really use it. But if you want to tackle that can of worms, by all means!

Ahaha if we got Payton involved with obstacle courses, that'd be the most hilarious thing ever. We'd have to get him to stop spazzing so much though, he's still an excitable little guy. Man, I can't wait to see him spring over the futon :D my suggestion is google! google solves everything!

awww haircut. is it way short again? or back to normal length? almost? and it's not that cool white anymore? I thought it looked cool that way.

OKAY 'scuse me while I fan about awesomeness at zone conference this week

basically the biggest thing ever happened this week: our mission is a test mission!!! there are 12 missions total for trying this out, and there are 405 mission in the whole world. (That translates into 2.96% of all missionaries.) AND... it's for FACEBOOK!!! CRAZY. Right now it's just limited to the zone leaders and exchange sisters, but sometime within the next few weeks it'll roll out to the rest of us. So, just in case they want me to modify all my facebook to make it missionary appropriate: if you see me on facebook, I'm not being a disobedient missionary. okay? okay. :D 

I'm not sure if they're going to for sure ask us to use our ones that we had before or make a new one, so I'm not sure if I'll be on mine or what. Personally I think they should just make a facebook page for the missionaries to use so it won't keep moving and floating around and changing. But that's just me. We'll see how it goes! Lots of things to fiddle around with and try, since it is, after all, a test. :D Madness! (Sparta!)

Yep. Other than that, we talked more about being nicer to each other haha. Also, I saw Sister Loveland!! :D AND we got to go on exchanges! Yay! So we spent another day together :D So fun! I just love her. A lot. I'm sad she goes home in two weeks, and she's even more sad. She doesn't want to go just as much as I don't want her to XD But it's a bittersweet thing. Someday we'll be together again in Utah and playing pinochle until we've got cards coming out of our ears. Mm. Looking forward to that. But yeah, so good to see her. It was like... I don't even know what. Like talking to your family on the phone for the first time in 7 months. :D We send a lot of letters haha. Anyway! She's great. 

Otherwise, this week we tried to see a lot of people. It's hard for me to transition still from Paradise where everyone is retired and home all the time, to a normal community where people aren't home all the time. Derp. There's still a ton of people that not even my companion knows cos we just don't know when they're home! Bah. Anyway, that's been an interesting challenge.

Not much else to report, really. One of our investigators, Stacy, has now come to church with us four times! It's been great. She has a ton of questions, and loves how the church is set up and everything. She's still got some things that she wants to figure out for herself, as she rightly should, so that's good. We'll see how things go! Add in an extra prayer for her, okay? :)

Thanks for being awesome! Things are going really good, and tho we have a lot to do there's so much joy! Oh yeah, and while you're at the prayers, throw in an extra one for President Weston. Even though I swear he's perfect. @_@

Have an AWESOME holiday! It's raining here today, so we're enjoying it :D 

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

With Sister Tanner Sept 2013

Sunset Sept 2013

Sunset Sept 2013

It's raining Sept 2013

HIII FAMILY <3

Things are good on this homefront :D and for the record dad, I'm in the Woodside ward; Orangevale has Elders!

Tehe I love that phrase, "galavanting around the countryside". is that from something? I feel like I use it frequently.

"Though I would do it again." take us out of school or go through gradeschool again? haha.

I love that about Payton :D is he gonna be totally confused when you say, "let's wake up Rach"? altho, I'm not sure he could make it up to the top of the bed, but he could surprise me. those lil' dogs can jump better than you'd think o.o

Alma 32 is coming great! I'm on day 7. It's really good! It's interesting how one chapter can apply to your lives in many ways. I think every day this week I've gotten a different interpretation of the same verse! Also, I have a new love for v. 19. go read it! and you should do it too. Just keep lots of notes! Things that came to your mind, things that you found interesting, other things you want to copyreference, whatever. Just have something handy to write on. 

*domestic diva* I like that! I totally forgot we even had a raspberry bush... I knew about the blackberries, but not the raspberries.

My companion's family is in MN. Maybe they'll move into their ward! They live by Rochester. What are they moving up there for?

Yay, family history! I was looking at my familysearch thing and I don't have a granpa. Sad day. I don't think that'll get fixed until... well, you know. Dumb Salt Lake XD

Things are well here. We're getting a lot of direction on the course we need to take, and it involves making a lot of friends. Which shouldn't be too hard, I think. hahaha. 

Also, a member told me that she thought I was awesome, and that it must run in the family. So I thought I'd pass that along :D <3

We have zone conference this week, so I'm super excited :D I'm hoping we find out more about the whole technology-using-stuff, since a lot of people are asking us about it. I'm getting more and more excited for the changes, so that's a good sign I guess :) Yay! 

Thanks for being AWESOME!!! And just fabulous in all ways. Stay great! Stay close to the spirit! 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Sister Nelson

FAMILY!! <3

Sooo as far as the pictures, the first one is just cute and you don't need to post it. The latter pictures are what we did this weekend! WE PARTIED! Yeah :D The ward had an ice cream social this weekend, and it was tasty. Obviously. A lot of people made ice cream and brought it, so it worked out well! There was a really yummy kind, like a chocolate cherry, and it was divine. OOH! I wanna learn how to make that O_O Anyway, a picture of my Sister Tanner, in case you were wondering. :)

I am super distracted by sending pictures and whoever else is emailing me today, haha. Apparently there's another Sister Rachael Nelson serving in Texas somewhere, and people have been sending me emails for her. Pretty funny, also especially since there was a Sister Loveland down there, too! So apparently the Loveland/Nelson duo is a divine one :) Yeah!~

I do not know everyone yet, haha. There's a lot of people that my companion doesn't even know, so sometimes I feel like I'm just paving my own way. We're organizing our area book and whatnot so we can leave more notes about who everyone is and who would be good for fellowshipping and whatnot, but there's a long way to go so we're going to be meeting a loot of people. :) Sister Tanner moved to MN when she was 8, and she's 19 now. So you can math that and see where you were at the time. I knew dad went to school there, but I didn't know if I could accurately count that as a "connection" or not, considering I don't know anyone. But yay! Cool! (literally?)

Seminary and school started this week around here, so people have been stressin' and everything else. I kinda liked the isolation of Paradise. More chill up there!

YAY, MB! Sounds like so much fun :D

"So we don't get attacked when we pick them" this made me happy. also I laughed. :D

@cleaning: I claim my room.

*pompoms for bees* apparently we are having dinner with beekeepers this week. They are, ironically, the Winns. (Not Craig's, and not related either.) They have given the sisters here a lot of honey, so we have some stockpiled in the cupboard. Haha :)

You are hard-hearted, haha! Don't even think about the rabbits. Poor dogs. You think they'd be able to keep each other entertained. I dunno, the Hunts had a cute lil' Terrier (she looked like she ought to be the show-dog for dog-food commercials) that would click on the floor sometimes. I think it just made me feel better cos I miss being around well-behaved dogs (there are very few of them out here. And somehow people go off about how they don't have the finances for xyz and they have a bunch of animals. what? *brick'd* ). How was Payton when Craig came back? Nearly passed out from the excitement, I bet :D

This week was good! Met some more people, and we're getting back into a groove too. Getting to know the ward (a lot of them are hilarious, ohgosh I can't even) and they love us. a LOT. :D We're hoping to go to the temple next week! I haven't been since January, and apparently... well, they do things a little differently. Apparently better. Have you been recently? If not, you should go. And hope there's no one that needs a translation in your session. *winkywink*

So we were talking to one of the other Sister companionships this week (Sister Loveland and her companion, actually) and she talked about how she read Alma 32 every day for 21 days!! That's a lot of Alma 32. She mentioned tho about how her perspective on faith changed a ton because of it, so I think it's a really good and cool idea, so I'm gonna try it! I'm starting tomorrow, since I forgot 'til just now. It'll be SWEET! I'm excited for it :) and I'll be sure to report back on it, too. 

Well, that's about it for now! Sorry it's short. Hope all is well and things are going great :) G'luck with school and everything!

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson 

Ward Party Aug 2013

Sister Tanner Aug 2013

HAI FAMILY <3

I didn't get the letter he sent last week, but I'm assuming it got stuck at the mission office with transfers and everything so it'll prolly get here today or tomorrow. Never fear! If it doesn't come by next week, I'll just assume it bounced or something haha. I'm surprised I haven't gotten any Nielson mail yet- we have two of those in our mission at present. Go figure :)

"driven out of Paradise"- I didn't willingly go and they didn't want me to either, so nyeh. Haha. 

My ward is called Woodside! It's half in Citrus Heights and half in Orangevale. To my knowledge there isn't actually a lot of citrus here, although since last week I've been craving a grapefruit like whoa. Haha. My companion is Sister Tanner! She's from Minnesota (but no accent, alas) so everyone's amazed that they have two midwestern-ites for missionaries :) it actually makes our claims a little more awesome, since neither of us are from Utah XD for some reason I feel like people take us more seriously. Not a clue why that is. Ah well. But yeah, she's super sweet and nice and we've had a lot of fun already :D

As far as the work, there are a lot of less-actives to work with here! we're doing our best to get to know ALL the members of the ward- there's half of the even active part that we have no clue who they are. So we're going to be bffs with all the people :) we have one investigator, Stacey! She's a cute Catholic lady who has a devoted Mormon neighbor, and when she started asking all kinds of questions about our faith he quickly got us involved! She still has a ton of questions and I think she's doing okay, if not a little overwhelmed at everything. But she recognizes that the spirit of the Lord is with us and that we were sent for some reason, so she's willing to stick it out for a while to see what that message is. Might take a while, but we're not really in any rush. :)

Ooh, the MB theme sounds fun :O should video that one, if you can!

Oh, well if Bro Beeri visits us instead, I'm way okay with that haha. Who do Dad&Matt HT instead?

FARMER! I knew it. Haha. Well, whatever your term, you're a cute one. :D 

Ah, corn. I just remember the last time we tried it, it didn't work out in the least bit. Oh well. 

I've heard of boysenberry! I've tried it in syrup before, it was pretty good. loganberry sounds fictional to me, you'll have to tell me how that one worked out. speaking of blackberries, Paradise had a ton of blackberry bushes all over the place :O we ate a lot of them, they were really good. And I can't imagine how bears would get to them, those bushes are really pokey! But anyway. Tasty tasty :9

Anyway! We did a lot of cleaning and such this week, mostly for our own stuff :| Sisters have lived in this little unit on the side of a member's house for basically ever, so there's a TON of left-behind and whatnot stuff. So... we organized and cleaned it to pieces :D it made me happy! You're be proud. Threw away and recycled tons of paper and stuff, and we're going to donate a lot of left-behind clothes and stuff to the thrift store. Yay! So yeah. We did a ton of that this week. *feels so good!*

Something else cool happened this week! We have been trying to contact a lot of people that visited with missionaries before, so we can try to get to teaching more people. We decided to walk a lot, since that opens a lot of opportunities to talk to people about the gospel without annoying them cos we're knocking on their door :D anyway, we were walking down the street and there was this lady in the front yard with her two little kids (aah they had the bluest blue eyes, cute @_@ ). We said had and exchanged comments about the weather and whatnot, and then we started talking about religion. (it's funny how easy that comes up.) but she talked about how she had been religious before, but stopped attending after some people in her life passed away and she just couldn't figure it out. So when we were talking I got this very distinct impression about Alma chapter 40, so I pulled out my extra Book of Mormon and a passalong card to stick by the chapter. I started sharing with her about the Book of Mormon and how that book had brought me a lot of peace and answers in my life, and how it was really simple and straightforward to understand. Anyway, she took the book! AND she said we could come back in a couple weeks to talk to her about it :D Yaay, excitement! Anyway, it was exciting. We're hoping that she actually reads it so we can talk to her about it :3

Not much else to report. I'm thinking I won't move again after this until I come home in December, so more than likely I'll finish up here. That's reassuring, isn't it? :) 

Thanks for being great! I love you all and am so grateful for your thoughtfulness <3 keep at it!

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson

Hi family! <3

Birthday was GREAT this week! It was all awesome. We had a BBQ that night and they gave me a balloon :3 it was cute. if I had my card with me, I'd send it. I'll try again next week.

@Craig: honorable release FTW!

@Paradise friend: All the ones close to me would be, um... Turners, Singlers, McArthurs, Dunlaps, or maybe the Southwicks. Or if they're in the other ward, the Reeves or the Taylors? Take your pick hahaha.

Transfers! I am indeed moving. I'm going from Paradise clear down to the Woodside ward, which is located in the Citrus Heights stake! I hear it's pretty and nice, but we'll see compared to Paradise. It just doesn't get much better than that, does it? :) Anyway, next week I'll send the address, so hold onto Dad's letter next week until you get that. Thanks.

"I think Dad and I made him feel a little better, but that could be parental delusions." I laughed.

*pompoms for marching band*

I feel the same way about Utah from here. Plus it seems half the ward just moved out, so bleh.

Testimony meeting is probably one of my favorite meetings in the church! I had the opportunity in my ward to bear my testimony, which I enjoyed. :) There was a member who got baptized 11 years ago and bore his testimony for the FIRST TIME yesterday!! So special :3 Basically this Paradise ward is so cute and happy. I'm going to miss it a lot.

So our baptism got moved this week again, so now I won't be a part of it. Oh well. I will just assume then that I've done my part and everything that I was supposed to do. Heavenly Father knows what's best and I feel peace about this move. There most be someone there that needs me too!

Not a lot else this week. A little scatterbrained at the moment too, but I'll get back on that later. Next week, haha. 

Thanks for the letters and help and everything! I LOVE YOU ALL! <3

LOVELOVELOVE,

Sister Nelson