Bob and Lois' baptism

Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!

This week was an awesome one filled with a bunch of stuff! We had Zone Conference last week, and Elder Stanley G. Ellis and his wife came to speak to us. He mostly addressed the topic of doubling our baptisms. He told us, "If you want to baptize more, then you have to teach more. If you want to teach more, than you have to talk to more people each day."  He also told us that we have to focus on finding families to teach, because then they can progress and focus on living the Gospel as a family. That is something that we have really been working on, and we have been able to find more people to teach already! As we have been doing what we can to find new investigators Heavenly Father has noticed our efforts and blessed us with the opportunity to meet with new people. We were able to meet the Lawler family this past week, and they are great people. It is a younger couple with 2 sons about 4 and 6 years old. We are planning on going back over this week to share the entire message of the Restoration with them, so we are really looking forward to that.

Bob and Lois' baptism was this past Saturday, and it was so awesome to go back and see them and be a part of their baptism. I was able to be in the water to help Lois get back up out of the water while Elder Peek baptized her. We had to try it twice since her knees popped up out of the water, but it went well! Then I was able to baptize Bob, and that was an awesome experience. I am hoping that I can go with them through the Temple as they get sealed in a year!

One of our most progressing investigators right now is Kimberly. We tracted into her a couple of weeks ago, and she is awesome. She told us that she already believes that the LDS Church is the true church on the earth, and she is wanting to come to Church! The only problem is that her 13 year old son is with her every weekend, and his father isn't too keen on letting him go to the "Mormon Church." We are going to go over to Kimberly's today to invite her to have Thanksgiving dinner with us and the Dayton family, since it will be just her and her baby boy. We are really looking forward to it!

I hope you all have an awesome week!

Elder Nielsen

More from Roseville

Well, hello!

This week we were able to teach a bunch of really cool lessons and have some really cool experiences! One of them is with the Iranian couple that we tracted into a couple weeks ago. We were able to go inside and talk to Aly for a bit about Iran and his religious beliefs. Aly told us that we were their first American guests. How cool is that?! We weren't too sure on their customs, and they seemed pretty cautious so they wouldn't do anything that might have seemed rude. While we were talking to Aly, his wife, Mariam, was sitting right in the other room listening, but she wasn't participating in the discussion. We had to start off with a lot of the basics with Aly, since they were originally Muslim, and we told him how we believe that Jesus is the Son of God as well as just a prophet. We talked to them about the Restoration, and how we can come to know whether or not it is true if we read and pray about the Book of Mormon. We gave them a Book of Mormon in Pharcy, and then we left after a prayer. As we were walking out, Mariam came to see us out the door. Right before she said goodbye, she flipped through the Book of Mormon real fast. It was cool to see that she was listening and hopefully she has the desire to find out what we were saying is true. 

We also had a really cool experience with our new investigator named Kimberly. She is a incredibly nice and humble, and she has 2 sons. One of them is just a baby, and the other is about 13 years old. We were able to go over and teach her the Restoration and give her a Book of Mormon. As we were leaving, we asked if there was anything that we could do to help or serve her. She told us that she doesn't have a bed, and neither does her oldest son, so she asked us if we could watch out for some. We told her we would, and then we left to go meet with a member family named the Justesens. We told them about the lesson we had with Kimberly and her need for a bed. They immediately started getting blankets and pillows together, as well as getting an air mattress out of their garage. We were able to take the air mattress over to her right then, and she was so grateful. When we were walking back to the car, Brother Justesen said, "That is exactly what the Gospel is. It is a way of life to help others." It was an awesome experience.

I am so excited for this weekend, because I get the opportunity to baptize an investigator in my last area named Bob this Saturday. We are going to go back to Citrus Heights for the baptism, and it is going to be amazing. i will try to include pictures next week!

Love you all!

Elder Nielsen

Elder Nielsen serving at the home of a ward member

Another week in Roseville

Hello everyone!

We met an Iranian family this past week, and we are hoping to be able to start teaching them!  He told us that they were Muslim, so we aren't completely sure that we are allowed to teach him without permission from our mission president. In my last area, the other elders in my ward were able to teach the Muslim people but weren't able to baptize them without permission first, so we'll see how it all goes!

I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Dedrickson, who is in the Roseville 1st ward, this week. We had a bunch of really cool experiences. It all started off with us riding our bikes and a lady drove up asking us if we were Jehovah's Witnesses. We told her that we were Mormon missionaries, and she said that would work. She told us about her 30-something year old nephew that she just dropped off at the park because he has gotten really deep into drugs and she isn't sure what to do. We went and talked to him for a bit, and he didn't seem very open or interested, but as we talked to him some more he opened up and at least took our number.

The next experience, which was probably the coolest experience of the day, happened at a place that we were at for lunch. We weren't sure what to get, and we were taking a bit of time to choose, so we let the older couple behind us order before us. They gave us a couple of suggestions of what to order, and we were able to chat for just a second. We thought they were really nice people, so we asked if we could sit next to them to eat. We were able to talk to them about our purpose as missionaries as well as what we believe in. The husband didn't seem very open, but the wife was pretty interested. We were able to leave a Book of Mormon with her, and she told us to look her up if we were ever in Lincoln! One of the coolest parts is that we almost didn't ask if we could sit by them, because we were kind of nervous. We got over our fear though, and because of it we were able to have an awesome teaching opportunity as well as leaving someone with a Book of Mormon! 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ethan Nielsen

Greetings from Roseville!

So it is definitely weird getting transferred after being in one area
for a couple of months. It is kind of hard to learn the new area as
quick as possible, but I'm trying! Roseville is a really cool place,
and I have really enjoyed it so far. The ward is awesome, and the Ward
Mission Leader is really awesome as well. He is very involved in the
work, and I am really happy about that. The Bishop is new, but he is
focusing on reaching out to rescue those that have not been able to
make it to Church in quite a while, so I am looking forward to being
able to get a lot of work done!

We have a baptism coming up this week! Her name is Rachel, and she is
a really awesome lady. She has a bunch of tattoos, and she used to
drink and smoke and a bunch of stuff. She really turned her life
around in just the month that she has been meeting with the
missionaries, and it is awesome! Her baptism will be this Saturday,
and Elder Herrador will be baptizing her. We also had a really sweet
experience with another investigator. We went to visit her in a rest
home, because she gets really lonely and down a lot. We shared a
spiritual thought with her, and started talking to her about baptism.
We weren't planning to, but that is the way the conversation went. We
were able to set a baptismal date with her for November 30th! It was a
really cool miracle that we were able to witness and be a part of.

Some news from my last area - the Tempo Park Ward: Bob and Lois's
baptism date got moved up to the 23rd of November, and so I am looking
forward to going to that. Elder Peek, my last companion, also told me
that Bob wants me to baptize him! Elder Peek is going to baptize Lois, and
I am going to baptize Bob! It is going to be an exremely cool
experience, and I am really looking forward to it.

Love you all!

Elder Nielsen