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

Wow where do I even begin... I guess ill go in order.

I SAW THE ESPINELS!!! They are all sooo big now! We had a great little visit, we went to hna kellys house and talked for a little while just catching up. About all those good times working putting the lawn down at thier house in Elko and having a mud fight, the time dad killed there fish. jajaja. and they still remember moms brownies. We talked about all the old missionaries that had taught them, sister little and sister judd, elder prettyman. It was so cool being able to talk to them in spanish! Then I asked if I could share a message with them before they left. They remembered everything about the book of mormon and Joseph Smith, I basically just told them and explained why I was in peru and why I chose to come here and share this gospel. And how with them being friends to me meant so much more to be able to share it with them, and just bore my testimony about how much I love being a member of this church and how much I love being a missionaries and seeing it change families.We then shared a little of lesson 1 read a few scriptures. ANd I invited them to read the book of mormon again. I wrote my testimony in one and gave it to renato to take to college, and made him commit to reading it. ;) It was a super super cool experience! They are a great family and I know someday will find the gospel in thier lives! 

So hna J and I knew combios were coming, and we both made the goal we needed to leave the area better then how we found it meaning have people progressing that if a new companionship came theyd be able to have something to work with, which totally backfired when I found out I was being changed, because we found a FAMILY this week! ANd she came to church! WE also found a single mom that came with her 2 kids who also came to church! Sunday we also were told we had talks that we didnt know about.. lucky being a missionary we are pretty good at always having something to teach. I talked about testimony and how we needed to be strong and imovable in our beliefs even when those people in the great as spacious building point and make fun of us.

So every combio I have a chirstlike attribute I strive to become and this combio was charity and really finding the pure love of christ. And oh boy did I find it here in Villa El Salvador, I LOOOOOOOOOOVE all the members and all our investagators! as I bore my testimony for the last time to all the members and thanked them for all that I had learned from them and that I would be serving in a new area, it hit it.. I cried.... mehhh im so ashamed, but yes i did. I LOVE VILLA EL SALVADOR!

They threw me a suprise going away party with a cake!! IM now serving in san juan in institute.. not sure how i feel about that. ill explain more about it next week.. but now i love you all!!!!! 

Love 

Hermana Nielsen

HEY there!

So I was finally able to get in contact with the Espinels! They called us and they didnt know their address very well so they passed the phone to Renalto, not gonna lie that felt reeeeeallly weird talking to him on the phone, i just kept thinking wait im talking to someone i went to high school with! epecisally in English! and they kept saying my name... ah it almost hurt it felt so weird. But we havent been able to set up a time to go over and teach them. Can you tell them to call us again, we dont minutes so i havent been able to call back... But im super excited to see them and be able to teach them IN SPANISH! 

So for Jaime... I had a long chat with President on the phone and we both agreed our vision in the mission is the temple so if we were to seperate him and his wife so he could be baptized it would be breaking a family so he isnt gonna be baptized soon, we are gonna be patient and wait til his wife agrees to listen to us because we have the hope that they can be an eternal family and make this decision together! So that was a lot of relief on our part. and i feel alot better about this decision.

As for maurico he was working and studying allll week so we werent able to teach him, then he didnt go to church, and said he wasnt reading and we kind of were super worried but we were able to see him sunday afternoon and he had tons and tons of doubts about the book of mormon we read with him 3nefi 11 then 2nefi29 then the scripture that finally just made everything click for him was 2nefi33:10 and he got all excited and was like its true!! It was so cool! And the spirit we had been lacking was defintely there in this lesson! THE SPIRIT WORKS! But we still had to move his baptism back to the 30 cause he isnt ready with everything we have to teach him. Also we have a super cute single x misionera we are gonna invite to the next lesson ;);)

well i looove being a missionary and i you guys tons! have a great week!!

Love

Hermana NIelsen

ps. So i got a surprise email from Elder Bleazard, I guess Pam sent him the email about my lovely fall at the temple.. haha of all the emails... ;P

pss Also Kelly Lopez is the recent convert that we are teaching, and her son is Jorge that isnt baptized that we had all those super hard lessons with, I LOVE HER SOOO MUCH and we are going to the temple with her and her husband this week to do baptisms for the names we helped her find, also her family is gonna be sealed in the temple Dec 8!!!

ANd sonia is the bishops wife, she is also suppper awesome. haha they asked why you were a blue image and i laughed, still havent decided to use a profile picture i see.

well well well... this week when by suppper fast, holy smokes. First off i forgot to tell you guys I FINISHED READING EL LIBRO DE MORMON like 3 weeks ago, I now know its true in spanish too ;) 

so some sad news.. flor our lessactive/investo told us she wanted some time to think about if this is what she really wants. so we are giving her a break, I was super sad.. She was doing sooo good! she went to church 3 weeks in a row and was reading the BOM and praying.. she said she just wished she could take all the things from our church and have then in the cathlotic church... meh.. but we will visit her in a few weeks and hopefully she will feel the difference with this break.

Jaime is doing awesome! He fasted with us and payed a fast offering! I talk to president today about his situation with him wife, and we both agreed we needed to work with trying to get them to get back together and married, because our vision is the temple with an eternal family not just baptism. so we are praying for a miracle with him! He is doing so awesome though, the atonement is soo real! and has completely changed him!

So with Maurico this week he has been struggling with knowing he has recieved an answer that these things are true, he knows they are good but he wants to be more sure. So as I was praying for him saturday night i was praying to know how we could help him, and then as i prayed that the spirit would testify to him that these things he is hearing and learning are true it just kind of hit me! He needs to feel the spirit, i literally just stopped my prayer and had to end it cause I couldnt contiue any more thoughts about anything else so i just sat there thinking about it and the role of the spirit, then I was just kind of meditating over my thoughts and i looked at the picture of whiteny and i on my wall, and i started thinking back to the lessons we had with her. And how her big thing was the spirit, thats why she progressed so fast is cause she felt the spirit, then i started thinking about how every lesson we had with her the spirit was suuuuper strong, probably the strongest ive ever felt it in my whole life. And that alone was the answer, i remember those feelings perfectly. Then it started to bother me how every lesson we had with whitney the spirit was over whelming but here in my mission Ive yet to have a lesson THAT powerful, I couldnt stop thinking about it, and i couldnt sleep all night. I talk to my companion in the morning and said we have to make sure we do everything we can to have that strong spirit we havent had a lesson with him yet, but thats our goal. The spirit is so key, and its not something we are lacking, its there but its not as powerful as it was with whitney,. so thats been my new goal to have those lessons be like how they were when we were teaching whitney. 

 TOOONS of thoughts this week, and thats not even the beginning of it.. Im learning sooo much! I LOOOOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! Everything about it! 

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Hermana Nielsen

ps, Shoutout to Chelsea Decker and Elder Steflik, thanks for the letters!!! :)

Como estan ustedes! 

The weeeks are flying by and  OOOH wow was this a greeeeat week! So first off a little background to my GREAT NEWS! Mauricio.Our miracle. We met him while walking with a member to her house,  he was just sitting in his motortaxi as we passed and out of no where she starts indroducing us to him, saying these are the missionaries listen to them! so we shared a folleto with him with the direction to the church and said he was welcomed to come. Just a simple contact. I guess she had met him once in the market but the member didnt even know his name.This was like a month ago. And the following sunday he actually came! All we had was his address and so the following week we passed by but never could contact him again. so time passed and we dropped him. Well the other day we saw him again in the street and planned another visit with him, we had it the home of the member that introduced us. And it was one of the BEST lessons we have ever had! HE was sooo prepared! He understood everything and before we even asked him to be baptised said he wanted to follow christ in his life and that he wanted all of this in his life. I had to privledge to invite him to be baptised and it was one of the coolest moments ever! Ive invited tons of people to be baptised before but this time i could just feel so much power, cause we both knew how ready he was. He accepted and will be getting baptized the 23 of august!! WE are sooo excited. He came to church again this week and is doing soooo well! I looove being a missionaries! I love seeing so many miracles! LOVE Ya´ll bunches!

Love

hermana Nielsen

Today is the independence day for Peru, and I'M SUPER EXCITED! we are having a fiesta in the church with the whole stake and all our zone! Its from 10am- until late late in the night, but we wont be staying the whole time. But they are gonna have all the Peruvian dances that they have been practicing for months, I'M SUPER STOKED! VIVA PERU!

So for last Pday we made TACOS! since hermana jimenez is from Mexico. it was super fun. hna Jimenez and I went shopping with the zone leaders to buy all the stuff, then we met at the church and we taught all the elders how to cook, haha. THEY WERE SO GOOD! Mmm.. Then we also had Peruvian hot dogs. which is a normal hotdog just covered in every type of sauce and avacado. Mmm Mmmm. Oh and to answer your question, masamora is made from the purple corn. The drink that Marlene made for us Its called Chicha. Which I've also learned to love. :) Hey do you know what part of Peru Marlene and her family are from?

Oh hey i think mom  asked me this a few weeks ago, but ITS COLD HERE! I dont know who made me think that peru was gonna be some super hot humid paradise, but no its freezing! Well not like Elko freezing its just constantly raining but its just like mist so we are always wet and freezing. Thank you mom for making me bring that big ole coat! ´Mother knows best´ Its been put to use :)

SO we had a MIRACLE MIÉRCOLES this week! President came to talk to our zone and afterwards my companion asked for a blessing, i had no idea why so we went into the other room and he talked to us, and it was just for strength to keep going she said. I didn't mention this last week but we had a poopy week, everything just fell to the ground, we have been here for 2 months and haven't had anything happen. no one has progressed, and we fell back down to where we were when we first started this area with nothing. so he gave us a little pep talk and it helped a ton. Then he gave hna Jimenez the blessing she asked for, then asked if i wanted one too. So i got one, and it was sooo incredible, he said and promised me so many things that i didn't even know i was struggling with but as soon as it came out of his mouth everything just made more sense and what i needed to be doing better and just everything, afterwards all i could say was just wow.. and he laughed and said yeah i felt impressed that you needed to have one too. I LOVE PRESIDENT!

Then that night we had a great lesson with a new investigator that we have been trying to contact for months now! and he came to church and things are loooking good for him!

THEN! we had a lesson with Jaime who we have been teaching for a while, and we taught the Sabbath day and he told us from this day one he would not miss a day of coming to church, we were in total shock! and he kept his word and was there EARLY for church! YAYAYAYAY! 

Thats all i have time for LOOOOVE YA¨LL!!! 

Hermana Nielsen

I find myself becoming more and more latina or peruvian everyday. First because I saw Hna GALO this week! I was so suprised! (oh i forgot to mention, i was told that hna galo was deported to another mission because something happened with all the hondurous visas) Turns out because her passport was stolen ( when we were together) she gets to be here for 2 or more transfers and maybe even the rest of her mission. Everything really does happen for a reason. ha! But it was great, we talked for about 40 minutes nonstop, and i was able to rattle on about everything! She has been with 3 other gringos since were been together and before she left told me that i was still her best baby and that my spanish was way better then all her other gringos. so that made me really happy ;) Next because yesterday I decided that hna jimenez and I would say our night prayers in English so she could practice. It was my turn, and it was SOOO hard, i litterally had to stop and think and all my words were jumbled, and my english sounded like the latinos when they pray in english because i now translate my spanish to english so all my sentences are backwards or just sound awkward. It was so weird. A couple words i couldnt remember what they were in Enlgish so I had to say them in spanish haha. My companion thought that was funny. And finally because i now love masamora. Its like purple snot and i couldnt stand it my first couple months, but now its grown  on  me and i eat it like a real peruvian! haha.

LOVE YA´LL! 

Hermana Nielsen