Sunday, June 16, 2013

May 20, 2013

"...and needless to say, Greg was hungry." hahah so classic. I'm hungry too man, hang in there.

I'm glad to hear that you got there safely! I wish I could watch some lightning storms. that would be sick. Yeah, there totally is some huge tropical storm coming this way. good thing they forced us to spend all of our food money on a 96 hour kit! if it gets windy and the power goes out i'll have some deicious salchichas (vienna sausages) to eat. mmmmmm....
This week was awesome. one of our investigators, Jorge Terrero form the Domincan Republic, came to church with us yesterday. He was crying the whole time we were there. At the end of sacrament meeting her looked over to us and said "necesito hacer esto. Yo me quiero bautizar."  Whoo! June 2nd he is going to be baptized. The craziest part is seeing how the Lord helps out in all of this. So when we met Jorge 3 weeks ago he told us that he owns a strip club. we were like awesome. next...  but he has closed it! He is also living with a woman but he has made plans to move out because he doesnt want to marry her. So crazy. Hopefuly he keeps progressing and will be baptized on june second.
We also found a bunch of new people to teach. These first few weeks were hard because we didnt know the are or know anybody because we were both new, but know things are starting to move. We have planned to set 3 more baptismal dates this week, hopefully everything goes as planned. Our Zone Leaders told us this morning that this last week was the 2nd best week they've seen number wise since they've been here (
6 months). The thing is, we felt that our numbers could totally be better. Our numbers have been low but we are working our tail off. I learned in my studies today that we dont earn success ourselves, success is given to us by the Lord. (Alma 26:27)
We started this thing on friday called the 40 day fast. (calm down greg, let me explain..) We fast on the first day and make a list of things that pokes at our spirit or drives the spirit away, such as not keeping mission rules, telling inappropriate jokes, that kind of stuff. For 40 days we covenant not to do these things on our list. If we mess up one day, we tell the lord in our prayers at night (accountability D&C 58:43) and try to figure out why it happened. the next morning we pray again and try our best to not do those things. After the 40 days, our desires and habits will be changed and we will be able to have the spirit with us as our constant companion. We started on friday and I can already tell a difference. This weekend we had more success than we have had in the last little bit. We can feel the spirit with us more, and it's only day 4!  It's pretty hard, because it seems like we have a lot more temptation now to do those things, but we're trying our best.
So my freaking bike broke again. gosh, i go too hard. The screw that holds the derailer on snapped in half so I've been borrowing Elder Duclos' bike, which is a royal piece of crap haha. gosh, i want my bike back. my bike is actually super nice. I still havent fallen yet, but I have been extremely close plenty of times. With all this weight i've been losing, and my natural athletic agility, i always land on my feet. one time my handle bars hit a fence post and i flew over my handle bars and landed on my feet. nothing happened at all. it was sick haha
So a couple crazy things. First, an elder that was serving in the islands came back to PR and has been staying in our apt for this last week. His name is Elder Taylor. We were talking and he mentioned that he was from colorado. PARKER colorado. he went to Chaparral high school (yeah greg, i totally cringed when I heard that name again..) and that he was friends with ALL of my friends. He said that the Stonegate ward still sucks (obviously) and that in parker now there are 2 stakes (5500 members there). Our old building where we went (right across from chap) is now one of the stake centers. The other stake center is the one across from Ponderose High School. Crazy!
Second: Lacy is getting married on July 19th! What the trash. To Tyler (greg knows, that guy is awesome. He's the guy who's neighbor's freaking pet wolf bit me in the butt). That blows my mind. By the time we get back from our missions shes going to have a little 2 yr old toddler named garret running around. my heavens. Better yet, I just told Elder Duclos (because he's from pleasant grove, like tyler) and elder duclos knows him. Crazy how small this world is. Oh, speaking of that, one of the senior missionaries today asked me if i was related to Nielsons in Utah. She knows Judy and her son JD.  I cant remember all of those guys names but I said I was related to them, so hopefully I am and I'm not a liar haha. Her name is Sister Stoddard. She said someone named Nielson is in her home ward in Utah. Grandma Nielson might know a little more about that?  idk, interesting...
Alright, so you've totally got to look up why logartijas (lizards) do push ups. It's bugging me so bad. I want to know why they do that haha. every single lizard here does it, it's ridiculous. Also, yesterday I saw a giant iguana the size of zach running through the trees. it ran like 50 mph. it was one of the scariest things i've ever seen haha.
Well, hopefully i dont drown in the storm this week! Have an awesome week and I will talk you you next week! oh, and I got the pretzels this morning. Thanks!
Sean felices y tengan fe!
Elder Nielson
oh, and i mailed that loan form this morning. hopefully it gets there soon. oh and always remember, rock chalk gay hawk!

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