Happy May! Can't believe time is flying by so fast! I hit my 1 year mark as a missionary next month! WHAT?!
And Happy Mother's Day to the one and only MAMA NIELSEN. Love you mama! Thanks for all you do for me! And Happy Mother's Day to all of the other moms out there! And to my grandmas. I love you guys and I hope one day I will become half as good of a mom as you all are. Thanks for the awesome example you've set for me.
I FINISHED THE BOOK OF MORMON AGAIN! Alright everybody listen to me for just a sec, THIS BOOK IS THE GREATEST BOOK ON THE PLANET. READ IT. THEN READ IT AGAIN. For reals. The Book of Mormon is so much more than just an ancient record from the Americas. It is a voice of a people speaking from the dust to us. It is a miracle that has lasted through the ages. It is the most correct book on the face of the planet. It is another witness that Jesus IS the Christ. There is literally NO way that Joseph Smith could have just written this book. It is impossible to think that a young man with little education could write a book with such detail about ancient peoples that contained the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is simply impossible. But here's the thing, Joseph Smith didn't write this book. He translated it by the gift and power of God. Every time I read it, my testimony grows so much stronger. I have felt myself come so much closer to my Savior through its pages. Since I just finished it, I've started it again but I'm doing something different this time. I got a new paper back version of the Book of Mormon and I'm reading it cover to cover, completely focusing on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and acting like the Book of Mormon is my only source of information about it. Already it has been such a powerful experience and I encourage you all to join me. If you haven't read the Book of Mormon before, cover to cover, I urge and plead with you to start now. If you have, read it again. It will change your life, but only if you let it.
This week was full of miracles, as always! Probably one of the coolest was on Sunday. Back when we did our mission wide fast, the focus for our district was to increase church attendance (something that we were desperately struggling with). Well since then, we've been having investigators in church! (yessss!) E has been coming every Sunday and A has been coming regularly as well. Well yesterday, the Elders came up to us and said "Sisters! There's a woman here that came to the Talent Show. Do you know her?" We were like "huh?" Wellllll turns out, a woman, J, that Sisar Woods and I talked to on the street just came to church on her own! Sisar Woods and I had met her a couple months back on the street and talked to her about the gospel. She said that she has a strong faith in Christ. However, she was unwilling to give us her number. A couple months later, we met her again on the street (in a completely different part of town) and invited her to our Talent Show which was the next day, and she came! However, she was still unwilling to give us her info! Wellllll, she just walked into church yesterday on her own and then was finaaaaally willing to give us her info and we have an appointment set up with her for this week! So sweet! And it's truly amazing how the Lord answers prayers. As we worked to really consecrate ourselves and tell the Lord that we are willing to do whatever He wanted in order to accomplish His work, He made up the rest. Our God is so good!
E is doing so well! We had a Vappu party this week at the church. Vappu (Labor's Day) is a huge holiday in Finland! As one of our member's called it, it's Babylon's Day. Basically everyone is out in the streets dressed in crazy costumes drinking their lives away. It's just a huge party day. As a result, it was a "hard red day" for us which means we couldn't do normal missionary work because it wasn't safe for us to be on the streets. So we just did stuff around our apartment, weekly planned, and went to our ward party. Well remember how I told you guys that E volunteered to help at it? Yeah basically she's just totally a little rock star. She had so much fun and it is crazy to me how well she gets along with our members. We ate yummy munnkis (homemade doughnuts, a typical Vappu food) and had fun just chillin' with our ward family. Have I mentioned recently how amazing our ward members are? Because they are seriously the best! I was so touched yesterday when I was sitting in Sacrament meeting. One of the moms in the congregation was struggling with trying to keep her 3 young boys quiet. Her husband is less active and these boys are all young and can be quite a handful. As she was struggling, the Young Women's president and the Relief Society President both got up at the same time and went over to this mother's bench. They both reached it at the same time, sat down with the children, and immediately started taking care of them. The Relief Society president (who has no children of her own) brought stickers and things for the boys to do. They stayed there the remainder of the meeting. It honestly almost brought tears to my eyes. I was so impressed with the love and service that these good sisters showed. As members of the church, we truly are a family. I'm so grateful to be a member of it. To be a disciple of Christ every day of my life and to be a child of God and a member of a big family.
This week we also found a new investigator by praying always. We have this way old potential sheet in our area book that we felt we should pray about and pick a name off of. Well one of the names stuck out so we set out to go find this person. Wellll, turns out they've moved. So we were like, clearly the Lord knew that this person had moved, why did He bring us here? We felt we should knock this person's building, so we did. And we ended up finding the sweetest 15 year old girl ever! She's from Burma (one more reason why I love being in Finland-teaching people from all over the world). We testified and told her about the gospel and she invited us back to talk to her family! Yes! Church is true!
I love you all. I love this gospel. I love this work. READ THE BOOK OF MORMON. Start today! Read it again! Do it now! Make it a part of your life! I promise you that you will feel God's love greater in your life.
Love,
Sisar Nielsen p.s. we were talking to a guy on the street this week and it was really windy and cold! He told us that we looked really cold and that we should go warm up. He was telling us something to do that would warm us up and I couldn't fully understand what he was saying so I was just like "yes, we should definitely do that". He said it would really help us and I just agreed with him (because we were freezing!) and so naturally my comp did too (cuz she really couldn't understand him) but then all of a sudden I started piecing together what he was explaining and he was recommending a type of alcoholic drink that we should get at the bar down the street cuz the level of alcohol in it would really warm us up and there we were just totally agreeing with him and saying that we were going to go do that! ah! don't worry, I made sure to set him straight and explain that we do NOT drink alcohol and that we don't need it cuz the gospel makes us warm! :) Then he walked away. hahaha my life.
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