Do you like car washes? I don't.

One day Kassidy decided to start a blog. She has always loved to write and she has seen how much I love to write on my blog. So she asked me "what should I name it?" And it came to ME!!!!! I screamed at her "STORIES FROM THE SHIRE!!!!!" 

Needless to say my hobbit loving girl loved the title and was quite disturbed she hadn't thought of that great title herself. So she has a blog and she wants me to post her letters on it for anyone interested and following on her  mission. 

But....she didn't leave me the password. And she just sent the greatest letter. So I am going to post it here and then I'll try to get more organized and put it on her blog. I was so excited she wrote such a great and informative letter. It hardly sounded like her!!!!!!

Hello Brothers and Sisters! This has been a great week! I'm learning tons of things! I have a great companion named Sister Abrams. She has similar interests as me. Shes very cute and funny and I think we are getting along just fine. Most of you know that Wednesday I was dropped off, one of those touching moments that I was not expecting was having my sister cry and hug me. I did not expect her to cry that I was leaving. It was a moment that I am going to cherish. I'm ashamed that you haven't emailed me! Just kidding. Kinda. I'm looking forward to emails and letters. It is something that missionaries look forward too to make themselves stay sane. So please! Email me! Write me! Anything! I would love love love to hear from you! Send my email around! 

June 11th was a very busy day and I felt like a fire hose was shoved down my throat. We got to teach 3 people who I still don't know if they are real investigators or someone who is portraying their earlier self. But it was an experience. I learned that day that it is important to get to know your investigators and to remember the names of their family and specific events. One of the people we taught was very touched when one missionary repeated his son's name. He said it made him feel good. It makes them feel listened too. I also learned that we are not hear to preach, we are here to help. With a little bit of preaching. But mostly we are here to help God's children. 

June 12th,  was a good day, my district got to teach an investigator named Glen. He is interested in learning more about the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and what our standpoint is on marriage. He is gay, but I hold nothing against him. I'm happy that he is here.  Me and Sister Abrams taught him a short 16 minute lesson  on the Book of Mormon and invited him to read the Introduction. I bore my testimony that if he read the Book of Mormon that he would feel a warmth in his heart that testifies that it is true. I can feel the love I have for him already, and the desire I have to make him happy and to have him understand the things that he needs to know.  He is very nice and I hope that he will commit to being baptized. :) I learned something interesting from Brother Hutchings yesterday that I never thought of before. It's the tree of life vision. (I know I have some friends who are not members, but this is found in the Book of Mormon, so please excuse me as i say things that you may understand, but please feel free to email me and ask!) Lehi had the vision of the tree of life. The tree represents the love of God. The love of God represents the Atonement, Jesus Christ dying for our sins.  The fruit in the tree represents Chirst. The fruit hangs from the tree, just as Christ hung on the cross. That is something I never thought of before, is that the fruit hanging in the tree symbolizes Christ hanging on the cross! I would write more but I'm getting short on time. I also learned that I need to view the investigators the way God would view them. Precious, important, special. It all matters. 

These emails may sound choppy, but it is only because I am taking them from my notes that I find important enough to share with you. Brother Uchdorf said: " You don't gain humility by thinking less of yourself. You gain humility by thinking less about yourself." That is a great missionary quote!

I have two awesome teachers! Sister Hawkes and Brother Hutchings. They are great and I love them! They look familiar but I have no idea from where. Tomorrow we get to teach Glen again, I'm excited.  And nervous. I already tried practicing asking someone if they would be baptized and I tried explaining about Christ's example. Epic fail..... 

Today I learned many things. We were taught the Doctrine of Christ which is baptism, the Holy Ghost, going down the right path, Repentance, Enduring to the end and having Unshaken faith. This is the only true, unchangeable doctrine that we have. I know that through baptism, that we can be with our Heavenly Father again. 

Brother Hutchings had me and Sister Abrams read from Joseph Smith's translation of Matthew, the part where Christ set the example to be baptized, with all of those people watching him. He asked me what I thought those people felt as they watched Christ be baptized. I told him that they felt warmth in their hearts, knowing that that is their savior and that he has the spirit with Him. As i was telling Hutchings this, my heart started to burn, to become warm. I was feeling the spirit as I was testifying of what those people felt as they witnessed our savior become baptized. 

My brother sent me a letter and he quotes Gandalf, which was AWESOME!!!! He said: "I will not tell you not to weep, for not all tears are evil." That's summarizes it, but it made me think that even though I miss everyone and may cry over them, that its not bad that I cry. 

I'm having a great week! I haven't experienced much fire hose experiences, but I hope that I can learn more, and learn what I want to learn. I am eager to gain more knowledge. There's something that I want to learn, I just can't think of what. i think i want to dig deeper into the scriptures, find more meaning in them. The food is great here! No one was lying! i don't know if I am gaining more pounds but Sister Abrams is keeping walking everywhere and she keeps making me go outside! The horror! It is way to hot here and I'm pretty much sweating the whole entire time. I hate the heat. I hate it so much that I wish it was cold. The spirit is undeniable here. I have pictures! But the computers here don't have a way to let me put them on! So sad! If anyone has a Sony, I could use a computer cord to put my pictures on! 

Well, I have not a lot else to report other than my testimony that the church is true. This gospel is true. God loves you. You are His children and He wants you to come back to live with him again, and one of those ways is to be baptized by the proper priesthood authority. I know that My Savior lives and I will never deny that. Ohio is where I am meant to go, and although I will miss you, I won't miss you too much because this is where I'm suppose to be and you will all be fine! The church is true!

Love, Sister Nielsen

Here is her email, kassidy.nielsen@myldsmail.net she would love some emails apparently! lol.  Justine's like....she only has been gone two days!

So we took Kassidy to the MTC on wed but the day before we took the four oldest kids to Hogle Zoo in Utah and stayed in a hotel. We never do stuff like that so they were very excited.

Kassidy, Justine and I were so excited to have our beloved DIPPIN DOTS!!!! The boys hadn't ever tried them so we just had to have a bowl. And they were great.

We went to "Temple Square" which is a beautiful area with the Salt Lake City Temple and a visitor center with this beautiful statue of Christ.

 

Ta Ta for now!

Oh wait...today I went to the car wash and paid for a car wash. I don't think I have ever done that alone for my care ever in my entire life. I have gone with my mom in her car and with Corey in our car but never alone.

I got creeped out. There was something about it that gave me the HUGEO creeps! I don't know. I didn't like it. I kept waiting for something Criminal Mindsish to happen.