Good morning everybody-

Things are going good around here, just keepin’ up the work and we have had probably the best week of my mission and have found so many great people!

We basically had a clean week this past week to just do some finding and teaching...and the baptizin’ is comin’ soon! Stay tuned...anyways, we have been able to see how the Lord really does go on our right and our left- the most important thing is that we are moving somewhere and relying on Him!

Like I said we spent a lot of time on the streets, but have found some sweet people, which we got some meetings with and I think I've recited the first vision about a hundred times, and at the end of the week we pulled out our planners and tallied up our lessons to find that we by far taught more lessons this week than any other week of my mission. We especially had the chance to meet and teach a kid named Sasha- he wanted to hear about the Bible because he hadn't read it before but wanted to. Anyways, he is just the most humble seeker of truth- he's 19 and a DJ! Anyways, he readily accepted a baptismal date for the 9th of November and had a good experience at church yesterday (even though he worked all night and got off at 8 in the morning) and just loves the Book of Mormon and I lent him my Bible. It's so refreshing to be around him and we have been praying super hard for him.

This is something that I have learned this week that has contributed to many good things happening and the blessing of meeting and teaching him- the simple blessing of prayer. There's a quote that we as members of the church we often live far below our privileges that are granted to us by the Lord. I think that us as missionaries fall into that category, and I have definitely lived far below my privileges to call upon our Heavenly Father for help. It doesn't mean that I haven't prayed, but I definitely have underestimated the fact that we are able to speak to our Heavenly Father as a man speaks with his friend and the ability to have Him open the windows of heaven and pour His spirit upon us. Who wouldn't want that? I have seen that as we have done that, faith has turned into confidence in the fact that He is with us, that we will meet prepared people, that we will know what to say, and in the fact that we are representatives of His one and only true church here on the earth. It isn't just some psychological game that many people attribute it to be, it is in fact the power of the Holy Ghost that has the ability to change lives of any person on the earth and confirm eternal truths in our hearts. Truth being that Heavenly Father and His Son came to Joseph Smith, that Thomas Monson is a prophet, and that Jesus Christ is our Savior. It's a great blessing to be a missionary.

Love you all, have a good week!

Elder Nielson

Hey family!

Well thanks for all the good letters and the birthday wishes! You’re all the best, we definitely had one to remember yesterday. I will tell you about it...

First off, we had a good week of going to these zone trainings with president that were more of a mini zone conference that were just for the morning hours and a little into the afternoon to help with some training and get everybody pumped! It was really fun, we had some good things happen on the way. On Wednesday, we were here in Samara and had a fun afternoon- I was with an Elder Bucanov and we found a kid that was on his way to take a test and then was willing to meet. The first thing he said was "I need to repent." Man we were so excited! So we met with him, had a restoration lesson, invited him to baptism and he accepted and it was just awesome. We were on "bro hug" basis by the end of the lesson. Unfortunately, the next night, I called him and had a twenty minute phone call after he had said that it wasn't for him after reading the Book of Mormon. I was stumped, heart break hotel! But we keep movin’ on! It was a cool experience though, just too bad we couldn’t move forward. Anyways, had a lot of other good things, and then a great day yesterday!

So, we got up and had a good ol' bowl of cereal for the birthday breakfast and did a little contacting on our way to the branch building. We ended up getting to watch conference for birthday church! Russians love their birthdays, so Svyetlana came to church with a nice tie for me and things, and even Natasha that we had taught a year ago came to church with a present from her and Masha with a big card that Masha painted! Good memories. Usually we watch conference in English but I decided to sit in on the Russian translation for my last time and that was so cool to be with my Russian friends- we had a bunch of members from both branches here in Samara (they usually combine to watch conference) and so I got to be with them. It was a really touching day to sing hymns with them and feel their faith in the apostles and prophets. Anyways, after conference we had to help pick up the chairs and things, and when we came down stairs, Svyetlana and a bunch of other members had written little messages and put them in balloons and had "Happy Birthday Elder Nielson" written on a chalk board and everyone was in the room and sang me happy birthday. Man- of course my Nielson blood kinda cringed at that, but it was the best birthday ever. We got a picture, don't worry momma I just don't have it right now. Anyways, that was really cool. Basically we left from that and had a lesson and then the rest of the day and the whole night just pounding the streets and finding and teaching people the gospel on the streets! It was the best- I'll always remember that birthday. And we did find some good people by the way.

Well, things are just great. I love my mission in Russia, hope you all have a good week!

Love

Elder Nielson

PS here is our birthday party last night with our birthday hats!- nothing tops off a long day like a bowl of cereal and this granola stuff they have here with some yogurt! I can't even express how happy that hat makes me every time I see it.

Good Monday to everybody!

Good to hear from you all this week, good things goin on all over the world it sounds like!  Ha we had a pretty good week this week with the closing out of transfers and just keeping that all going and then just doing some good, raw missionary work around these parts.  Doesn't get much better than that!

Of course, the biggest thing is missin Elder Taylor around here. it is weird- feels like we were friends all through high school and stuff and there were just a lot of jokes made this week that nobody laughed at...I guess lookin at each other for a year made us have a few of those.  Anyways, just kinda made me have a lot of thoughts about my own mission and the reality of the time restrictions- I definitely love the mission.

So, we had a few good meetings this week and unfortunately haven't been able to get a hold of the miracle man Sergei and a couple others.  However, we have had a couple of sweet experiences.  First, we have a kid named Dimitri that wants to quit smoking and considered himself an athiest, but feels the spirit when we pray.  He loves it and it has strengthened my testimony of prayer so much and the power and influence of the Holy Ghost on somebody.  Last night we had a lesson with an older man named Aleksander that just went a little off for the first little bit but after settling him down for a minute we finally got around to the first vision- there wasn't necessarily some loud spirit that was there when we told him the first vision, but it was so interesting to watch as he changed and was willing to listen, then accept a baptismal date afterwards once we had told the first vision.  The Holy Ghost is real and acts upon people and changes them!  I've had my testimony grow so much of this as I have seen these things happen.  It's the kinds of things that you always hear about...but Heavenly Father gave us the opportunity to see it happen!

Anyways, things are just goin good and we got some great weeks ahead of good work!  Have a good week!

love

Elder Nielson

(Just an update...In the past couple of weeks Elder Nielson's homecoming date has been up in the air.  We were given permission to talk briefly on the phone just the other night so Elder Nielson could tell us what had been decided between him and his mission president.  After all is said and done, Elder Nielson will be arriving home on December 18th!  We can hardly wait!)

 

 

Hey family-

Emailing is a little boring after being able to just talk for a second! Just kidding, it was good to get all of that out of the way and just focus now on what we got. Anyways, it was good to hear all your happy little voices there!

We're already back to transfer Monday- can't believe it. We had quite the last couple days with Elder Taylor and with him heading home and coming through our apartment. Because of travel and things he had to come in a day early and so we had a couple of days to do some work together and meet together with some members and converts that we have grown to love. It was a fun couple of days and then at about 1 this morning, they took off to the airport! You gotta be looking for a call from him in the next couple of days- I hope it's alright that I gave him your info. Hope it hasn't changed! Or that I remembered correctly! Haha… anyways, we went out on a bang for him by going on all the busses and public transports that we could find and "dan jones" style preach the gospel. He was pretty sad to leave and it was sad to see him go, but I guess that's a good thing. As he said, "we'll see each other way too soon."

We had a good week like I said down in Saratov and here in our area. I had one experience that I wanted to share- while down there in Saratov. I was with Elder Davydov from Kiev and on a lesson with a woman that they had been teaching forever. She's way awesome, just hasn't really had something click and is just "busy" like most people are. Anyways, after lots and lots of meetings, it seemed that on this meeting she finally allowed Elder Davydov to explain the value of reading the Book of Mormon (don't know how that's been missed...) and she really understood, but then said how she just doesn't understand everything that is written there. This is where I jumped in and just shared my experience when I was 15ish years old and President Hinckley gave us the 100 day challenge and for some reason I decided to read it. I finished by the end of the year, definitely didn't understand anything, but had just felt that it was true. I don't even recall a magical Moroni 10:3-5 moment, just with time I knew it was true without understanding anything in particular. Anyways, I shared that and she just looked at me and said, "I'm going to read the book every day now. I don't know what you said, but it convinced me to read it." she went off about how they have been meeting for over 6 months now and almost arguing even at times to try and teach her the message, but for some reason she legitimately (and since then has been reading) promised to read every day. Obviously, we know that it was the Holy Ghost that convinced her and that touched her heart. In Preach My Gospel, there's a quote from Brigham Young that says (paraphrased) "I could hear a man explain the Book of Mormon with the most eloquence and beautiful words, but if I heard a simple man simply say that he knows the Book is true by the Holy Ghost, I would be convinced..." something like that, you'll have to find it. Anyways, I for the first time was a personal witness of the divine power that comes from a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I personally didn't really feel anything when I shared my experience, but I was very humbled because as soon as she said that, I knew where the real power had come from. I am grateful to represent my Savior and help people to feel of His power which is from the Father, through the Holy Ghost. We are given no better tool than the Book of Mormon not only for doing His work but also in combating against the adversary. I challenge you all to use it!

Love you all-

Elder Nielson

Hey family!

We've had a great week here around these parts- probably some of the best days and most spiritually gratifying and just straight gratifying days of my mission. I'm a little short on time, so I'm gonna go straight into them.

As I had said, we were planned to take off to Penza last Monday for some exchanges and had gotten stuck in the big office having to get a couple things to help out the office couple and finally at about 5:00 got outta there. Of course we had to buzz back home to pack up our things to be done by 6:00 and so we could work until we had to get to the train station so we were just hurrying back to the apartment that is about 15 minutes away to salvage whatever time we had of p day with our arms full of supplies and mail to take with us to the Penza elders and sisters. As we were walking, I just had the thought of "we had sacrificed all p day and so there has got to be some kind of blessing on the way home here"...so we continued on home. Honestly, we try to talk to everybody when we're outside, but at this point we were in the right to just buzz home...right? Anyways, we passed a guy that was on the sidewalk that was just lookin’ toward the building with his back to us, and I just had a feeling to talk. Of course, we walked past, and then there was definitely the feeling to go back and talk to this man. Pretty weird- but we went back and pretty openly and honestly told him that we had felt that we needed to come back and that we have the message for him and that it is what he needs and he was just open to the message and went and sat down on a bench with us and is pretty clearly going to get baptized.    I am grateful that I was able to be in the spot that the Lord could direct us- haven't really ever had that happen in that way before that I felt that the Lord directed us to somebody. It is a great blessing to have seen that end in a result.

and if that isn't enough...

So we had quite the exchange in Penza and we just tore down the walls doing work and staying out as long as possible for a couple days and sprinting to the train station to get back to Samara on Thursday morning pretty tired, and with the sniffles from some good work in the cold rain in Penza. That morning, we had the zone leaders here in Samara come over to exchange with them as well- so I worked the day with an Elder Bateman in our area here. Our apartment here in Samara sits on a street that for the last five years has just been hounded by missionaries as we have transfers, visa trips, zone conferences, and everything else that puts a bunch of missionaries into our area. Anyways, we left the apartment after lunch to go do some sweet contacting and going down this same road, stopped a man and he said it would be interesting and invited us to his house just about 5 minutes from our home in an hour.   so we went back. Turns out he had met with missionaries 10 years ago, but we didn't think much of it, and had a hard core Jewish wife that then moved to Jerusalem with his 2 sons a couple years later. He stayed alone in Samara and works some construction- anyways we began teaching the restoration lesson, and as we came up to the restoration part he says, "oh ya, something about a pillar of light right?" Of course we were a little stunned by that and said the first vision, invited him to baptism in Christ's church and he goes, "Nielson, when missionaries came to my house 10 years ago, I knew in my soul that it was for me. I've gone full circle now and now I have mormons in my house again and now I'm ready." Anyways, he told us a little more story, gratefully took a Book of Mormon, and we even came back that night with Svetlana and taught him the word of wisdom. Pretty cool huh? I don't really know where that came from other than the simple fact that Heavenly Father knows where his children are and is preparing them to receive the fulness of the gospel. I know that there are many others like him and I was grateful to have Heavenly Father allow us to be in the position to meet him.

I sure love you all and hope you are having good weeks with school and everything, we sure are having a good time.

Love,

Elder Nielson

Birthday Season

Hey family!

Glad to see all of you doin’ good and looks like you’re all keepin’ birthday football season alive there! You all look great there at the BYU game! The birthday season is definitely exciting out here too and things are just going so good right now- I can't explain how fun it's been this last week and how much we have been blessed, it is just some good times on the mission.

So, since we got back in on Monday, it has just been go time in our area for the week. Honestly, we came back and hadn't had too much work done in our area for the last few weeks, so we started building this place from the ground up! It was so fun to come back into the normal groove of things after being fired up for the last week and have been very blessed as we have tried to just put everything on the line to do the work. Of course, to get some new people, we just spent the week on the streets. The weather is so good here and so we started on Monday night just talkin’ to everybody and have found some great people. We had to go down to the senior couple's apartment here to help them translate on Tuesday morning and talked to a sweet couple of kids passing by, we got their numbers and (as we were taught to focus on at these past zone conferences) asked if they knew anybody that would like to meet with us. They didn't, but gave us their number. The next day, we called him up and he said it wasn't too interesting to meet, but said he had some friend that would be willing. Anyways, he gave us this kids number and we called him and got a meeting that night! His name is Leyonti (some old Russian name) and is just a prepared person for the gospel. We had a great meeting and the next night (Thursday?) met again, taught the restoration in full and set a baptismal date with him- he is just a great kid! Anyways, we were blessed throughout the week with little tender mercies like that as we tried our best to just do everything for the work. The stops are all coming out! haha

We have been trying to make p day focused too, and so today and last week we have tried to get as much food ready for the week so we don't have to spend time on getting it ready- I just had to report that our food today that we prepared were some canned beans that we found and cooked up and mashed with some chicken and have a pile of burritos now in the freezer for the week. haha I thought you would like that one momma. We are pretty excited about it- efficiency baby.

Anyways, things are so good, we are just excited about everything and the whole mission is just pumped up after all of these conferences with President Bennett- we are doing everything to make sure that fire doesn't go out. We definitely owe it to our Heavenly Father and our friends here to do all we can. Anyways, we're going to be exchanging this week and taking off to Penza tonight for a couple days and are excited to see the miracles that the Lord has in store there and in Samara here. He is definitely in the details of our lives and this is His work.

Hope you all have a good week!

Love

Elder Nielson

P.S. Here is us with the man- this isRoman our driver for the mission. He has been around for 20 years and is the best. (and of course,Elder Whittemore pictured as well)

No email this week...Boo!

Elder Nielson is busy with zone conferences and such and had no time to email us this week...but Sister Olsen from the mission office sent us this great picture of him and Elder Taylor who has been his companion since last December, but was recently transferred.   Until next week...