A Wonderful Thanksgiving

Everything was amazing this week. We worked hard with our investigators this week and got one to commit to baptism. The other is suppose to be baptized on Friday and we are hoping that will go through.

 

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We started by having Elder Holland talk to us. So you know, he adopted all of us so this might be short because I need to write them as well. Jokeslang (joking). He did adopted us though and he told us we had no agency in this decision. He gave a wonderful talk, as always, about how we should be grateful for living at this time because we have the whole gospel and it is everywhere. We then had a wonderful dinner which we wanted to eat more but there was a lot of people around. Right before I got to eat we went on a temple walk and someone yelled "Happy Thanksgiving" from their car and one missionary yelled back "Wait, it's Thanksgiving" jokingly. We fill like we have no connection to the outside world. We then did a service project for Ouelessebougou which sends supplies to Malia to help educated them. It was a lot of fun. We had a Thanksgiving program which was fun and helped us relax. We finished by watching 17 Miracles. It was a great day.

We are at the point where we just want to get out of the MTC. We feel like we have been here forever. There is a saying here that the days go by like weeks and the weeks go by like days. Everyday sees to pass like a lifetime but we look back and it seems so short of a time. We just move forward. We are hoping to leave on time still but we don't know the date. We still have a group from before us that are waiting for their visas but the only visas that had problems for them are the missionaries going to the Eloelo mission. So we are hoping to go out on time. The work just goes on.

I love you all. I hope everything goes well this week. I'm happy everything went well last week.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

 

PS: We have lots of fun in class. We were practicing the language and Elder Lungren said that a dog was his friend. Our teacher came up and told him that he was Elder Lungren's friend and that they should eat the dog. It was funny.

Old Friends

Things have been going very well this week. We started to teach our second investigator. His name is Francis. He seems excited to hear the gospel but it sounds like it will be hard to get him to follow up on his commitments because he is busy with work and family. Christine is going well but we have ran into a word of wisdom problem. We are now trying to work it out. It seems like every week I see someone that I knew that has just entered the MTC. This week, I ran into a old scout camp friend. Her name is Sister Allred. She is going to the Paris France mission and is joining Sister Stapley there. I also ran into a tennis buddy. Elder Wes Brown is here and he is going to the Dallas Texas Mission. It is amazing to see how many people I know and to see them pressing forward to preach the gospel. It is good that you could sell my car. I am sorry to hear that the Miller's haven't heard from Braiden yet. I hope they have by now. He seems like he is doing great.

Being here has been so good spiritually. I have grown a lot and have learned a lot. This week I have been studying Jesus the Christ and was reading chapter 20. It has a lot of good stuff if anyone gets the time to read it.

 Happy Thanksgiving to all!!! We are going to be doing humanitarian service here by making some kind of kits. I don't know what kind yet. We saw a film about the humanitarian service being done at NYC. It is amazing how many went to go help. It was great to see that the church could prepare so many people by their service.

 I love you all. I strive to keep the spirit. I pray that you can have the spirit in your life.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

The Language and Disney Movies

This week was really good. We got our first investigator to commit to baptism!!! We were supper excited. But the day after we got her to commit, we found out she is just another teacher and so she is teaching us now. Her name is Sister Burton. She is really good and we joke around that we got her to that point since we taught her about the gospel.
The language is coming very well. I am working hard at getting it but it is difficult because the words are so close the same and some only have one letter difference. We have decided that we have the perfect plan of learning the language. We found that we could take some words and apply them to Disney movies and remember the words. Take for instance, simba is to worship and simbahan is church. We also make phrases like dumdum remember, dumdum is the word for remember. It is a lot of fun plus it helps us memorize the words. We start to teach a new investigator today. We will still work with Christine but we will add another. We don't know anything yet so we prepare as much as we can.

We get to go to the temple on Mondays. It is really cool. It is a good start to the week.

I think it is a very good idea to sell the car. I was hoping that you would. I was afraid that it would break down. The money part is fine as long as I get it back sometime .

 I love you. Sorry but there isn't much to tell this week. I hope things are going well.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

First Week

Things are going really really good here. My companions name is Elder Disque, sounds like disk. He is from Seattle Washington. He is great. We are quite similar. We have started learning Hiligaynon, sound like hili- guy-non. We had our first teaching moment on Friday where we taught about the Book of Mormon. We had our next lesson on Saturday on the restoration of the gospel. We are doing quit good for not really knowing the language. We are told this is the third group to be learning this language in the MTC. Before, they sent them out to learn it. It is a great blessing to have instructors to teach us. We are working hard. For being in the MTC for so short of a time we are really making progress. The food is great here. We love to eat. Yesterday was fast Sunday and we just stuffed ourselves full. Yesterday was great. We had testimony meeting which was very uplifting. It is amazing to hear why some people are here and there stories. It just proves how great this work is. We were told about the field and how we are representatives of the Lord. We didn't realize how big the black nametag is, if you get the chance look up the poem of the black nametag. I hope things are going well there. I love it here and know that I'm here for a good purpose. I love you all.

 Love,

Elder Nielsen

Short Letter

Dear family,

I write to tell you I'm good the MTC is great.  I like it here, though I don't understand about half the discussion.  I love you and miss you.

Love,
Jacob