Buried Treasure‏

Family!

Cody is a homecoming king?? haha thats awesome! And amber is now working in Family History, our ancestors must be trying to give us a hint that they are waiting for us to find them! We dont get time to really work on our own family history but I love looking through and seeing all the gaps we have, we still have so much to do.

IM IN A TRIO!! Just for 2 weeks. Hna Zarate came and we are training her so she can open a family history area in ICA, we are going to have 10 hermanas working in family history next transfer! im not sure the details but ill let ya know soon! how awesome is that! Hna zarate extended her mission 4 weeks just to do this, well president extended her mission so she could do this. SHe is awesome, I have learned so much and have loooved having her here. 

This week we taught 33 people! Which means we also created 33 family search acounts. 

Tuesday and Thursdays are our busiest days, Tuesdays we go visit all the zones in the meetings to see how they are doing with there recent converts and motivate them to work with us. Then we go to the temple and have to print out all the names and help all the missionaries and converts get inside the temple on time, tuesday we didnt have lunch til 5. 

So Hna jimenez came with the familia Lopez so i got to help them add all there names in there accounts and then Thursday we got to go to the temple with them to be the work for all there grandparents.Mauricio came too!! He had been struggling a little bit again after his baptism but he wanted to just come and see the temple, well when they came they all started talking to the taxi driver about the church, and he said he was struggling in his life so they invited him to come to the temple with them AND HE DID! He hung out outside with Mauricio and Segundo, our ward mission leader in Villa El salvador. and mauricio was able to share his testimony with him and talk about what we believed, It was soo perfect and I know exactly what marurcio needed, really our testimonies are strengthened and we realized what we believe when WE SHARE IT! The taxi driver ended up spending the whole day there, watched the joseph smith movie and had lunch at the temple with us, he is in the pictures im going to send, he made friends with all of us real quick it was soo cool, He is in the elders area but they have it all set up for them to teach him. He will join this church someday I know. It was soo amazing.

Tomrrow is leadership meeting and we get to talk there again!!

It was a Great week, next week is transfers. Hna muñoz is leaving, Im staying. I dont know who my new companion will be but ill let ya know. I loove being a missionary. Im learning so much in this assignment, its so cool helping others find all there family members, its like buried treasure ;)  LOoOOve you all tooons!!! 

Love 

Hermana Nielsen

TEMPLE with the family Lopez, hna jimenez and addington, Mauricio, Segundo, and the taxi driver

It's Only Half Time!

We had a mormon helping hands service project at the PLAYA! it was super fun! all the missionaries in Lima got to go. 

Zone San Juan 

 Hey family!

So I hit my half way mark last week, and yes I've ben pruposely ignoring all your comments every letter for the past month about it, and what a better way to spend it then at the temple with 6 recent converts! So to celebrate my hump day, I decided I needed a little ¨half time chat¨ so I got out all my notebooks and journals and read through them all. my Personal Journal, my notes from general conference and other missionary meetings, my small plates of Hermana Nielsen, my scripture a day keeps Satan away, personal study notes ect, and it was sooo cool. just to reflect on all that I've learned. Ive learned so much, then to finish the night off i wrote down my feelings towards my mission thus far and the general theme i think ive learned is change and the power of the atonement. From watching people change, seeing myself change, experiencing change like areas and companions, being here in peru away from home. Change is sooo beauitful, and the gift we have that we can change, that we are never set in stone. And it is all because of the atonement, only through the atonement can we change everyday to become better, and when we understand this gift he has given us, thats what drives us to share it, and to use it. EVERYDAY! 

Another thing I wrote down was about a part in the 4th missionary talk that says when everything is taken away, our hobbies, our career, ect who are we? When everything is taken away and we are left just us what qualities do we have, I had written in my journal who I wanted to become at the beginning of my mission, and as I reflected I can see the difference as Ive become closer to that person. being a missionary is the best because everything gets taken away, I'm not erin the 3 sport athlete, im not defined by my facebook or instagram profiles that i would put so much time into, even to the exent of taking away my pretty hair, my cute clothes and makeup. I'm Hermana Nielsen, hair in a braid, grandma skirts, no  makeup, no profile, serving in peru and as I've left all those things behind it opens doors to develop new traits that matter, like patience, and forgiveness, and pure love. Those chirstlike attributes. And its sooo awesome! Im not the same Hermana that i was when i stepped on that plane, niether am i anywhere near the hermana i want to be when i step off, but thats whats so great about change, is that i can be constantly becoming better everyday through the atonement. Ah its so great and so impossible to describe sorry if this makes no sence. I've changed so much, i see it and i feel it and im so ready for another great  9months ahead to continue going up. my time may be all down here from here but im only up! its only half time! We still got the 3rd and 4th quarter folks! Love you all sooo much! 

Love,

Hermana Nielsen

ps, We had a great week sorry i didnt get time to say much about it.

ps, HAPPPY BIRHTDAY CARLY!!!!! Hope you have a great 10th birthday! Ill have to bring you home some awesome peruivan earings for those newly pierced ears. haha have a great day cutie I love you lots!!

pictures :We had a mormon helping hands service project at the PLAYA! it was super fun! all the missionaries in Lima got to go.

These are back in June at the Hermanas confernence..

All my Hermanas from my group in the ccm. 3 chileans and 3 mexicans and 1 gringa!!

and the Family Toral. All her children and grandchildren in the mission. (She is Hna Galos Mom in the mission, hence my grandma) Hna Toral is the one kneeling in the middle with a Hna hugging her haa. My chavez´s!! my two roomates from the ccm! then and now :)

old pictures with Hna Jimenez

Institutes on FIRE!!‏

My cute little house... or room i guess. ha

and my companion

villa el salvador

FamBam!

Todo esta bien en siooooooon!

SO this was a greeeat week!! We taught 35 stinkin lessons!! 19 of them being saturday alone! 

We went to the temple twice this week with 6 recent converts and they all did baptisms for thier family names! This next week we have plans for 20 recent converts to take to the temple so we will be going 3 times! Its so great how much the missionaries are supporting us and bringing so many people to us to teach! well and because they all want to go to the temple too. ha we were supper busy this week which I LOOOVED because if we dont have people to teach, there isnt anything else we really do but sit around. 

SO cool experience we had this week finding names, one couple who just got baptized were putting all there names and information that they knew in thier familysearch account and one of the names poped up and already existing, and bam just like that we found a whole branch already done with names ready to go, we didnt have to do any searching, we found 11 names to take the temple! WOO! They arent sure how it got there either because no one in their family are members, but hey ill take the miracle!

So something I was thinking about is that really our job is the retaining part, our focus right now is just to make sure all those people who have been baptized STAY! And the next step is the temple. We are fully focused and especialize in making sure they get to the temple right after they are baptized, its a weird change in things because i had been on the other side all my mission with finding and baptizing but its so cool and now i understand how important it is the make sure they continue and are progressing. 

Hey so funny story I forget to tell ya last week, we were teaching an investagator named flora shes a little old lady who can bearly can get around and she is of a different religion, but loves talking to us and discussing about our beliefs, but to begin I had to say the opening prayer and she couldnt kneel so she stood up, and after like every word I said she would say AMEN, but she would like really get into it, it was soo funny and I just kept thinking about Suits on the Loose, haha cody will understand what im talking about ask him.  It was exactly the same. haha. Then afterwards we sang a Hymn and she told us there was a song from her church she really liked and wanted to sing it for us, so she was still standing and then just sings her heart out to us. She actually had a pretty good voice, it was like opera but it was the loooongest song of my life, took up half the lesson. then she stopped right in the middle and said I dont remember the rest and sat down. hahaha.

LOve you all TOOONS!

Hermana Nielsen

PS, dad I finally talked to that Elder from Argentina and he said he is from the ward in Banfield and wants to know if you knew anyone named nancy alvarez? I think thats his mom, but she would have been there while you were serving. 

ps, CHelsea i just read your story from your blog about finding a name!! CONGRATS!!! keep it up! love you!

GAME PLAN: Temple‏

CHips Peru flavored???

FAMILIA!!!

GUESS WHAT??!! The familia Gallegos went to the temple to do baptisms for 30 names from there family!!!!! no i couldnt go... yeah you'd think with this new calling Id be able to, but I felt bad asking cause the Hermanas in Mala that helped them find the names could go. But It was such great news! I'm so happy for them and how much they are progressing! Also the hermana in Mala told me Luis is passing the sacretment every week and going out with the missionaries a ton! That kind of news is better then Christmas for a missionary! SOOO FELIZ!

SO ive been thinking alot about this new calling and realized all the hints id had earlier that this is where I need to be. First back in Mala I remember reading a missionaries letter and they said that the work is hastening on both sides, and that always stayed in the back of my mind. Then with the Rosa in Mala with her son that had passed about we talked alot with her about family history in the charcla that day, then in VIlla when I was asked to give a talk, and got to pick my topic, I chose family history. yeah of all the things to talk about? Then finally 2 weeks before transfers we had a family history training in the stake we went to and there was a video that just totally motivated me. (https://www.lds.org/topics/family-history/family-discovery-day?lang=eng)  and afterwards I told Hermana Jimenez i wanna do family history. but it was funny cause i said but not now, but after my mission yes! then i got called here, so yeah I know this is where I need to be. 

SO for this week not gonna lie i was a little compo homesick, yeah right after i explain that this is where i need to be, its just a huge change in work and im not use to it yet, but hermana cook got sick so we traded companions and I got to go out and work and it was soooo greeat! I missed walking all day and teaching! so that was a blessing for me! haha not for her. 

thats all i got for this week! I love you all soooo much!

Love

Hermana Nielsen

  

Ps, My companion makes me Banana liquados every morning...  I love her!!

Pictures: The hermanas of our ward,  from Ecuardo, Columbia, and chile. They like picking on the gringa.

Goodbye August Hello September

FAAAAAAAAAAAAMILY!

COMO ESTAN!!! Well I guess I should explain a little about my new area... I have my own office, laptop, tablet, and we go to the temple twice a week. wait I'm a missionary.... CRAAAZY??? Its still soooo weird for me. My first thought was that it was some kind of punishment, that I wasn't working hard enough in the field so President had to put me in an office, but what we do is really cool. So basically we are called the Hermnanas de Instituto, but we work specificlly with Family History. All the misionaries in Lima bring thier recent converts or less actives and we teach them about family history, help them find names, then take them with us to the temple every week to do the baptisms for their own families. We go to the temple every tuesday and thursday with the recent converts and the Missionaries who taught them, and everyone wants to go to the temple so its great motivation for the missionaries to help their converts. We also work with institute and the youth to get references, and pretty soon we may be teaching a class for institute.

OH my companion now is Hermana Munoz de CHile, we also were in the same group from the ccm! She is great! 

We share a ward with 2 sisters and only go out Mondays, all day Friday, and all day Sunday. 

So this week we had a meeting with the director of Family History of the AREA, so we had to go into the center of Lima where the area office is, which is right by the ccm!! we got to wave to all the missionaries! Thursday we went to the temple with 3 recent converts and 4 elders to watch them perform the baptisms. So that was fun! I hadn't been in that part of the temple since trek... I forgot how cool baptisms for the dead is!

ALSOOOOOOO!!! I called presidente and he gave me permission to go to the baptism of Maurico!!!! He said he usually Never gives permission to go back to old areas, but if i could tie it in with family history i could! So it worked out perfectly because he will be coming in with us to do his family history! now so we went and did an invitation and invited him to sign up for institute! It was soooo goood! He is soo awesome! His testimony! ahh! he is golden. And everyone came, so I got to see my old ward and friends!! It'd only been 5 days and they acted like we hadn't seen each other in years! I love them so much!!

Also guess whose in my zone now??? HERMANA CORTEZ!!!!!!!!! I almost peed my pants I was sooooo happy! She only has 3 months left so we´ll most likely stay together these last 3 months! I MISS HER SO MUCH!!!

Tomorrow we have to go to the leadership meeting and give a little speech about what we are doing now, then in the next month we have to visit every zone and train all the missionaries how to work with their recent converts to work with us in family history,  Its a totally different world or working, but I know its where I need to be. 

I love you all tons!!!

Hermana Nielsen

PS, dad could you sent me your number of membership in the church, also mom's. THANKS!

PPS, i called for my card again and it still doesnt work... MEH!!

Hermana JImenez Y Yo

Matargente with all the Elderes...

Hna kellys great grandma, she is 96 or something and sooooo funny! I love her so much! She was really sad when I left.

and the family espinel!

All my Friends!!