Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Happy Father's Day!

Wow - you got rain! That is so cool. Fasting is so powerful. I am glad you were able to see a miracle like that. 

I can't wait to try out Dad's new pizza oven Father's Day present! I just ate some great Pizza Hut earlier today haha. Actually, a member from Batangas just came back from Saudi Arabia and came and visited me and took us all out for lunch. I told him to add you on Facebook so he could send you the photo. His name is Romel. Great guy, he even brought me Galaxy Chocolate (soooooo good). 

I am so sad that I have to miss a second Canada Day in a row. All you lucky cats are just going to party it up eating cotton candy all day as I slave away out here in the office! Have a fun day! 

Tell Dad that he needs to fix his knee so we can play basketball when I get home. He needs to get it checked out! I loved your Royal Tyrrell Museum  trip photos by the way haha. Aren't you just the best paleontologist in the whole world! 

The first week of the transfer we are saying good bye to old trunky missionaries and saying hello to the new ones so we don't really leave to office except to go to San Pablo. We are super busy on weeks like that. The next 2 weeks we will be going to almost every zone in the mission to change water filters so we will be driving around probably 4 of the 7 days. That last 3 weeks are spent dealing with all of the problems that apartments have and trying to catch up on office work. We do a lot of driving and work outside the office. We almost never stay over night at other apartments unless we go to one of the islands (never been yet). We are still looking for a new apartment for the sisters. Speaking of sisters I saw Sister Rasmussen and her family. Right as soon as her mom read my name tag she says "Hey - I know your mom!". Haha you must have made a lot of good missionary mom friends haha. (When I heard they were going to pick up thier daughter, I actually messaged Sister Rasmussen and asked her to say hello to Erik for me! :))

Last night Elder Duduya and I had a pretty good lesson with 6 referrals. They could all potentially be baptized, so that would be really cool to get in the office. Its nice to get out and do a little missionary work after hours!

Well thanks for the email Mom - sorry that my emails have gotten crappier as my mission has gone on haha. These things are hardly blog-worthy. Oh well. Love you lots!

Elder Nielson      

Hey - Happy Fathers Day Dad! Even though I am not at home and am able to see with physical eyes the great job you are doing, I know that you are being a great father. Love you lots Dad. Keep up the hard work. I also know that you are being tried really hard in your life right now but remember, all sorts of blessings hide inside the trials we face. You're just being tested so that when you get called as stake president you will be ready for that. ha-ha Jk. Well I hope everything is going good for you back at home. 1 more week and you can almost relax a little bit! Hey, that reminds me. You need to make relaxing a part of everyday life. So try to make that more of a priority. With the work-load you are taking on right now, death might come for you when your only 60 if you don't spend some time relaxing. Well anyways even if no one else notices how much work you're doing, just know that I do. And I think you are an awesome dad. I tell everyone that I have the hardest working dad in the whole world and he is that way because of how much he loves me and the rest of his family. Well happy Fathers day.

Your son, Elder Nielson :)

 Elder Nielson, Elder Duduya, Elder Tamanguel(sp?), Elder Bryson

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Trying Hard to Prevent Trunkiness!! Three letters!

Hey Mom - I am liking the random photos you sent! Elder Richards got 8 screws in his arm!!! Wow that's crazy...  I hope he heals up ok! You may have gotten to meet Dr. Allan Grant but you didn't get to meet the first Canadian woman in space like I did. 

Well Everything is going great out here but today is a really crappy day. I have all of these super trunky missionaries here in the office right now. They arrived last night and they are so ready to go home ha-ha. They all need to leave right now so I won't get trunky! Ya - Elder Kikel and Sister Rasmussen are both on their way out of here. The batch leaves tomorrow to Manila where they will get to go to the Mall of Asia and the the temple. Then on Wednesday, they will all hop on planes and head home. 

You didn't send Ben's rat photo! I haven't really heard to much from Ben but hey that is super cool that he is now AP. He doesn't have that much time to be AP though... How many months does he have left in his mission? It is weird that he would be put in now. Here in this mission AP and OE is a 6 month calling at least. Elder Daduya, my comp, will be going on 9 months in the office - which is a new record. A record I am so glad I have no chance of ever holding. 

The new truck is super nice as always. I haven't hit anything or anyone yet so that is a bonus. One of the AP's hit someone with their side mirror the other day ha-ha. That was an experience! The worst part about the whole thing was that the guy they hit was a Barangay captain which means he was kind of like the head of the community police. He made those elders pay him some good money! Oh well. 4pm missionary work is kind of like Christ-like perfection. It is something that we hold as a goal and constantly push ourselves to achieve it and progress but we will never attain it in this life. We are able to get out and do work and sometimes it is at 4pm but we always have to come back later in the evening and finish up some mission work. But I am glad that we are finally finding time to do some good teaching. The reason president wants us to make this push is because the area presidency is coming out in 2 weeks and will really chastise us super hard if anything in the office is not the way the brethren in the first presidency has it written in the presidents hand book. Well other than that, everything is going just peachy out here. 

I love you lots - oh hey, make sure I have some good money on my card I got some good gifts for my family :). 

Elder Nielson

Hey Dad! That is super cool that you were able to find some long lost relatives. That will be pretty fun for you to go out and meet with them. I can't wait to meet them too haha. Well I hope that you won't be too stressed this week and that the school stuff will go smooth. Tell all of the students good luck on their exams for me. Hey how is Matt doing with his mission prep? I hope he is still doing just fine with that stuff and nothing is slowing him down. Well hope you have a super fun week and that everything runs like it is supposed to. Love you lots.

Elder Nielson

Wow, awesome talk Kenzie! Thanks for sending me a copy! You could just be the next John Bytheway. Your talk was both inspirational and church focused. You make me want to set and make good goals and then go out and achieve them. Hey good luck with your exams. I know that it seems like a big load to carry but guess what? A lot of people have gone before you and did just fine on them (ex. ME) so don't stress to much. You'll do just fine.

But hey speaking of the fact that I will be going home in 4 months or so, I need you to be a nice "member" and start hitting me up with the "referrals" if you know what I mean ;). I expect to have a good "teaching pool" waiting for me, when I get home, that I can choose from. Actually, an email or two from some "potential investigators" would be nice as well. Now you will be going to collage in the fall right? Just remember to start spreading word that a pogi RM is coming home. Haha JK ( but actually not really:P) Anyways love ya lots. Thanks for the email.

Elder Nielson

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Bad News from Home!!

Wow that is a lot of bad news... Hey Grandpa Nielson is still alive I guess that is good news right? Send my love to Grandma Pat and Auntie Natalie! And tell Paige and her new husband Cleigh congratulations. 

Tell Sister Crichton that I don't get to go to that big meeting on the 12th. We are too busy and not really needed out there. :( Oh well I am sure that Elder Crichton will do just fine without meeting his brother in the mission (Elder Richards trained both of us). Oh hey, tell his mom just to send the package by normal post only. The government does weird stuff here to "special post" and it might end up costing Elder Crichton big bucks to just pick the package up. I didn't get to see Elder Richards. He was so sad before he left though. Sister Mangum said that he had like 5 baptisms lined up and a lot of plans with his batch going home. I feel so bad for him. That is a really crappy way to end your mission. 

Hey Dad - that is so rotten that your hard drive is fried! Wait hold up... how can Western Digital ensure that a hard drive can last into the eternities? I thought it was a common law that all hard drives eventually die and that we need to always be backing files up but of course you knew that didn't you. I think you should get your money back because your eternal hard drive didn't even last until the millennium. I can't believe best buy wants to charge $1500 to retrieve data off of your hard drive. I could take it to any one of the countless computer places out here and have them fix it for 200 pesos and it would take no longer then a day. I have seen some of the stuff they can do out here. I saw a computer that had lit on fire, the owner wanted his files back, and almost all of them were retrieved.  

Anyways, sounds like a big week of bad things happened to you guys out there back at home. I am really sorry about that. 

I am starting to get used to the work out here in the office. The lack of sleep is the only thing that is really weighing down on me. Other then that I am pretty much used to the work out here and I am really starting to like it. Last night we taught a lesson to a family who are all members but 2 of the kids. The dad is moving back into activity and the mom came to church on Sunday yesterday for the first time in forever. She has a lot of doubts about the Book of Mormon and we are trying to resolve. An example would be 1 Nephi 4 where God commanded Nephi to kill Laban. She said that if God truly loved all of his children he would have given Laban many more chances to repent and that he would have also found a different way for Nephi to get the plates. We explained that God gave Laban many chances to repent and that it was the only way Nephi could get the plates. Along with that we gave accounts in the Bible of how God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites, God helping David fight Goliath, and many more. In the end we told her to just continue to read, pray, and come to church and she will learn the answer for herself. 

So when does school end? When do you get to actually start summer? It is getting close right? Tell Kenzie and Tori good luck on their exams. 

Well Love you all lots. Don't worry about me out here I am doing just fine. The only thing that is dragging me down is the lack of sleep ha-ha. Love you all lots! 

Elder Nielson 

A Letter to Dad! Early Father's Day!

Hey Dad,

I am sorry I wasn't able to email anything until now. Elder Daduya and I have been madly running around in circles lately like a chicken with no head. Monday we had a special meeting until about 4pm and than after that we took off to do some repairing at a sisters' apartment. The sisters' shower had broken due to the valve breaking. I can now proudly say that I could totally be a plumber one day! We replaced it in no time. The landlord was supposed to replace it but she was acting a lot like a "bad word" and refused and told the sisters to just kill their water and live with no shower. She also said a bunch of other stuff about how they act like a bunch of children and some other things that I don't want to type into an email being sent to my family. Needless to say, the sisters will be getting a new apartment in the next couple of weeks and the land lord will still have to replace the tap we put in because we bought the cheapest piece of plastic crap we possibly could find and it is not compatible at all with any shower heads. Yes the sisters will have to suffer for a couple of weeks but hey, TAKE THAT MEAN LANDLORD LADY! 

Tuesday we dealt with cars all day long. We literally were trying to repair or take in to the shop, all of the cars that our mission owns. It was a crazy hectic day because we were using different shops for each individual car and they were spread out all over San Pablo. Wednesday, we were dealing with our district meeting along with fixing up President's car in the morning. 

In the afternoon/evening we had to deal with counting and organizing by companionship the new 10600 pass-along cards that me and Elder Daduya made. I also made a really cool little tri-fold business card style thing in publisher that President will now be giving out to missionaries as they leave the mission. Elder Daduya and I actually have to go and get the wallet sized card printed by a printing company later today. We still haven't really gotten too much proselyting done. Elder Daduya and I normally just talk to as many people as we can as we're out traveling the mission and when we find interested people we refer them to the missionaries in the area. Actually it seems like we find a lot more interested people then normal elders do. I think that is just God is helping us find good interested people to let us know that even when your in the office, normal missionary work is still important. 

Well I can't wait to be in church with you guys and see what it really is like to have a dad as a bishop. Our bishop in our ward just got released. This is his second time as bishop. His first time he went 5 years and 6 months and his second time he did 6 years and 9 months. I hope that doesn't happen to you. Well love you lots Dad. Sorry about the late reply.

Elder Nielson

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Burgers, Trucks, and a New Challenge!!

Hey mom! I am glad you are having such a good time out there in Disneyland without me. Just kidding! It does look like you are having a good time though. 

I had a pretty good week last week! ha-ha I got to go out to Taal Batangas area a little bit last week and it was super fun. I also got to use my brand new truck a little bit. I has just over 200 km now. When was the last time you got to drive a new car like that? I also just finished a burger challenge called RC burger challenge where I had to eat an entire burger bigger then my head in under 5 mins. I did it in 4 mins and 56 seconds! 

My life has also gotten even crazier, if you can believe it! We pulled out the mission president's hand book with our president and in there it says that the office should be closed at 4:00pm everyday in order for us to go out and get some real missionary work done. My jaw kinda dropped at that statement because I already feel like I am working harder and faster then ever before in my mission. President told us that "no other office elder has yet been able to figure it out but", he said, "if you do we will surely be blessed". He also said that if we can't do it he won't be disappointed or mad or anything else because literally no one else has been able to do it before. Our mission is a fair amount different in the way we operate then other missions and that doesn't really help. Example, other missions have 4-6 office elders along with 4-6 Office Couple missionaries. Our mission only has 2 Office Elders and 2 Office Couple missionaries. The other thing that other missions have is couple missionaries in every zone. We only have couple missionaries in 4 zones (our mission has 9 zones) That means that we have to do all of the couple responsibilities in 5 zones. 

Crazy right? Well that's my life right now. I hope you have a great week. Send more pictures! . Love you lots.

Elder Nielson
 Those are some long stick man legs!
 Some pretty cool artwork in Taal!

 Nobody's going to steal my keys!! :)
 Nobody!!

 Brand new truck!!
Think its time to change this filter?? :(