Bueno, this was an AWWEEESOME week! and can you believe im already turning 5? yikes... I hate how fast its going! So in all my personal study last week and at the beginning of this week I focused on the spirit, and how to have it with us and how to recognize it, so we could be guided by it. And in reality really all it is is just doing what you are suppose to. We were so guided this week, without even knowing it, he really just lead us to those people. First story is that we picked a name from our future investigator list from the previous missionaries just to try to find some new people to teach, we contacted her and just shared something in the doorway, later that way we contacted a guy in a motor had said he had listened to missionaries before and wanted to again, so he gave us his address, and as we were looking for it, it was the same house! he was the husband of the lady we had chose, so then we knew there was something special with this family. we had a great lesson with the whole family, their daughter was super interested and wants to be baptized but isn't married so were working with that, the parents have been a little harder but we still feel there is a reason we ran into both of them that week. Also we visited with 2 other less actives and one had just lost a brother the day before and said how she felt so alone and how she really needed our visit, the other was really sick and the same thing she just felt alone and also really appreciated our visit, it was just so cool to see that heavenly father loves them and knows what their going through and through us he shows that love, and its such a privilege to know he works through us.

 Next miracle! I don't know if i have shared this story but Luis one of my investigators since my first week i was here is finally getting baptized, this week! His mom was super against it so we didn't have permission, but he comes to church every week and reads everyday! And this week his mom finally had a change of heart and told him he could! Prayer and fasting works!! We are so happy! He will be baptized with Andrea and jhastin this week, they are the two neighbor kids we live with sorta. The same family we have fam scrip study with every night. Which is another cool story. its all just one big family that all live side by side, and they are all less active. and this Sunday we had ALL of them go to church! It was sooo great! Oh yeah and this Sunday was stake conference so we had to travel an hour to canete for the meeting, and they had all the members of mala meet and then we took vans. we squeezed 41 people in a 25 person van. IT WAS SO PACKED! but it was so fun we sang hymns as we drove the hour drive. there was about 3 kids on every lap, haha. it was great! but the whole family Escobar came! Then after church when we came home we could hear them listening to conference talk, cause our house is connected, they have changed so much, and you can just see they are all so much happy. Its really making me nervous with transfers in 2 weeks, I love this family sooo much! But yeah we had a great week, and Im loving what im doing more and more as the weeks go on. Im happier then ive ever been! This church is so true! and the change it brings to families in amazing and indescribable! I love you guys lots! Have  a great week! share the gospel!

love,

hermana Nielsen

Well since I talked to you guys yesterday I thought id take this time to send all my pictures I havent got around too!

This is mala mala! :)

Como estan ustedes? Feliz Cinco de Mayo! Este semana fue un otra muy bueno! Mucho milagros y exito!

Im actually writing from Lima today, because i have a doctor appointment today.. Ive had diarriah for a whole week now so they think i have a parasite? or however its spelt, so yeah that should be fun.. But i feel great! :)

First of all, Monday we had a mini intercambio because hna cortez had to go to lima for a leadership training meeting so I had 2 latina hermanas come stay in Mala with me. 2 NEWBS right out of the CCM. They had only been out of the CCM for 5 days so I had to train them!! And do their hour of training during the day too. And.... I got us lost! haha. weird huh? It was at like 8:30 at night and i couldnt see out the bus window so we accidentally passed Mala, cause we have to yell at them when to stop. So by the time i figured out we had passed it we had to jump off and wait on the side of the road for another bus to take us back. haha, the poor hermanas only their 5day in the campo and they get lost with a gringo. BUt I got us home safety after that :) But yeah I had to Train them! That was really weird for me, but it makes me have to step out of my comfort zone cause I actually had to teach all the lessons cause they didnt really know them. ha. SO it was good for me.

  So i dont know if I've ever told you guys but one of our investigators HAD A BABY!! She is 17 and the girlfriend of the Stake presidents son... ha yeah kind of awkward, we`ve been working with both of them. BUT she had a BOY! 

   So there is an Hermana in our ward named Kelly! she is 20 and basically the Peruvian Whitney. Ha she is the only member in her family and her parents dont really support her in the church but she is SOOO STRONG! I love her so much! ANd she is a cheff! so for our service this week we went and helped her make cupcakes and cakes and empanadas. THEY WERE SOO GOOD! And it was super fun!

  Oh before i forget this Wednesday Elder C.scott grow is coming to talk to us! SO I'm excited for that!

  So one of the miracles we had this week was with a part family. We didn't have plans to visit them it was just a random visit but the whole family was home. they have 2 daughters that are members and super strong, one is preparing for a mission but the parents have never wanted anything to do with the church. we just kind of chatted with them about their opinions and they seemed pretty open with us and just said it wasn't what they wanted but if their kids did they didn't care. we still invited them to church but they didn't really except. We passed by Sunday morning but they still were just kind of like nahh.. BUT this Sunday THEY CAME! only for the last 10 minutes of the meeting but since it was the testimonies, Andrea one of their daughters went and bore her testimony and said they today was a special day for her because her family was all here in the church, they she basically said how badly she wanted her parents to be baptized so they could have an eternal family and oh man it was a heart ripper if that didn't get then, their own daughter pleading. BUt yeah so were are excited to start working with them!

 IM out of time but im going to call this week to plan a time! so be ready! Love you all! and see yeah next Sunday EEEEEEK!!!

wow wow wow... is about all I have to say. This week by far has been the best week of my mission. I cant even begin to describe how awesome Hna Cortez is, she´s got something cause we have had more success then ever, and families we have been trying to teach my entire time here let us in with open arms, I was like wait is this the right house.. SHe is good luck or something.This week we had 18 lessons with members and 16 with less actives and recent converts. How, I have no clue. AND we traveled one day and didn't work Sunday cause hna Cortez was throwing up. so all that in 5 days. Yeah it still blows me away. I just feel like we are both on the same page, she is like me where she wants to make sure they stay in the church, I knew what I wanted but Hermana Cortez knows how to do it, and its working! She is really teaching me how to teach the people and not just the required lessons. I wish I had more time to talk about it. But yeah she is awesome, and I'm completely changed as a missionary in this last week. AND I'M HAVING FUN! Its so much more fun this way! Ah yeah things are so great! ha

So with the family we are reading the book of Mormon with has turned out to be a huge success. I didn't realize how much i missed family scripture study, we read with them every night now at 8 30 and we live with them so its perfect. One night a friend was over and read with us, and he was really interested we gave him a pamphlet and invited him to read the next day too. The next day he came back and had read the whole thing and wanted to know more, he also kept saying him and his people, we finally asked who was his people, and he said he lived over the huge hill in a tiny community and that they all wanted us to come and teach them too. We are still not sure if this is real or exist cause its not technically our areas, So we are not really sure if we should be excited or scared... haha but he came to church and we are inviting him to be baptized this week!

Everything is just going so perfectly, we were so blessed with a week of miracles, and I LOVE what im doing right now as a missionary! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

- Hermana Nielsen

HAPPY EASTER! Looking and sounds like it was a fun simple family time kind of day. Easter doesn't really exist here. Or how it does in the states. We didn't do anything special or even have church talks about anything so I completely forgot it was even Easter. Kind of sad, but its all good. 

   So this was a crazy week! First on Tuesday we got word that we were having Emergency transfers, which we were kind of expecting because some chico in the ward admitted his feelings for hna galo and so she had to tell president, and the kid had just had his interview with president for his mission so that must have been awkward too. haha. Then Wednesday we traveled to Lima for Migration, Im official in Peru finally! Got my Peruvian Id and everything. ;) And we didn't get robbed this time thank goodness. 

 That night Hna Galo said all her goodbyes to all the members and converts, then we left for Lima again Thursday morning. My new companion is Hermana Cortez de Texas. She´s been out 11 months and speaks super good spanish, her grandparents are Mexican so she had known a little before. She actually roomed with Tori ackerman at BYU too, ha. BUT SHE IS AWESOME! I learned more from her in my first 2 days then I think I did in all my 2 transfers of training. which yeah by the way, IM OFFICAL NOW! All done with my training! YAY! But yeah shes awesome, she teaches so well and the spirit is soo much more powerful in the lessons then we had had in the past with hna Galo. Hermana Galo was great but she´s one only one month older then me in the mission so she was still learning everything too. IM SO excited for this next cambio! I was super nervous to lead the area but I can actually see how much it has helped! Im way more confident in my spanish and in my teaching. I finally feel apart of the work and like I'm contributing to their progression. Its finally starting to become FUN! I struggled for a while trying to find the fun. I made it through preseason in the ccm and now it game time in the field, I was on the team but sitting the bench watching it all happen, id get my few minutes here and there but never scored any points, Iwas a bench warmer. which as we all know is not fun, and something I do not like. And now I feel like im actually playing and scoring points and helping win! Which is FUN! :)

Cool experience real quick, the family we live with is inactive and 2 of the kids are not baptized yet, every missionary that has come through Mala had been working with them, but last night we had a lesson and it was the WHOLE family which has never happened since I was here. My companion started with praying as a family, then when it was my turn to talk I saw that they had one of the papers they passed out at church on the table and it was a family goal to read the book of Mormon 15 minutes a day and finish by the end of the year, I gabbed it and started talking about it and explaining it then shared my experience with our family and how as a child of the family I could see the difference it made in the home and between us siblings and bore my testimony of it. then we closed with a prayer and then as we were leaving I had a thought come to mind that we needed to read with them right then. so I asked if we could start with them right now. then we all read 2 versus each and  they asked us to come read with them the next night again, so we are super excited and they are too! It was so great! probably one of the coolest experiences so far!

Well I love you all so much! have a great week!!!

Hermana Nielsen

Well this was an interesting week, it was a slow start but we came out on top!

Monday morning hna galo and I ran, and i felt way more tired then usual, and my legs just ached, then we emailed and during lunchI started getting a headache, I knew it was just because i was dehydrated so I endured through the rest of the day. For pday we went to a zoo, which was actually pretty cool, only had like a few monkeys, llamas and lizards but had cool spots for pictures. ha. We also hiked to this white Jesus statue on top of a hill it wasnt very far but my head was throbbing and my legs felt like they would give out any minute, but being stubborn I didnt tell anyone and just kept going. I made it through the entire day, but after we got off the bus and started walking home the pain and throbbing was getting really bad, I told myself it was just a test to see if id still work through the pain, but when we reached our house I layed down for a sec and i had never had my head hurt so bad before. My head also felt like it was on fire so i was trying to cool off with water and the throbbing kept getting more and more stronger. I was literally laying on my bed tossing and turning moaning trying to find a spot where it didnt hurt, but it didn't stop. hna galo called the elders to come give me a blessing, afterwards i was able to relax enough and fell asleep and the pain left.BUT then that night I woke up with diarrhea. So that took up the rest of the night... 

   The next day was interviews with president. My head still was throbbing a little bit but was bearable, but during my interview i was just fine then all of a sudden i had a huge heat flash, and i just broke out in a down pour of sweat out of no where! literally sweating like i would in a basketball game. My neck and face. President obviously stopped and asked what was wrong and then said i had a fever so the rest the interview he played doctor and told me what i needed to do to get better... i was super bummed my interview got ruined... 

OH and I had to chug this nasty electro water stuff... A TON OF IT! It tasted like sugared saliva... 

 So I wasn't allowed to go out and work that night, which  was a blessing cause I had diarrhea again and wouldn't have been able to anyways. ha ha. its passed I can laugh about it now. ha. but heavenly father is so giving and blessed us with an opportunity to still work! The member we live with asked us to come over and share a lesson with her friend she had over, so technically we didn't leave the house ;) And he ended up becoming a new investigator! WOO! I was really happy cause I felt so guilty.

Then Wednesday. Oh man Heavenly Father blessed us so much. We were able to make up for our lost time in those 2 days, and had a VERY successful day! AHH im out of time. but we also had an intercambio with hna rivera again. I LOVE HER SO MUCH! and learn so much from her every time. Well I Love you guys! This is my last week with Hna Galo, cause changes are next monday. Hope all is well!

love

Hermana Nielsen

First of all, I just want to say how happy and proud I am to call you guys my family. Especially mom and dad, you guys have raised me and our family so well and I am so thankful for all the late night family scripture study, even when  I was asleep or wanted to go out with friends and for having family prayer every morning and night. It was a thought that came to mind during conference. A lot about building strong foundations because things are about to start and are getting rough in the world and we have to hold strong to our standards and I'm just so thankful i was raised in a home where i could build my strong foundation. SO THANKYOU GUYS! 

   Speaking of conference. WASNT IT SOOO GOOD!? I was able to watch saturday in English which I thought was the best sessions, but probably because sunday was in spanish with english subtitles that were super fast and i couldnt read quick enough and it was also 2 sentences behind the spanish so that through me off when i did understand parts and i also couldnt take notes and read at the same time. But i agree Bednard´s was one of my favorites! and also Elder Andersen´s. So great! And it was awesome cause this week basically all we did was just teach about prophets and testify that we do have a living prophet today and give out invitations. we had 7 investagators come! ANd im so excited this week to go and hear about what they thought! 

Other then that the only big news, which is pretty big, is that FAmilly Gallegos has a date for MARRIAGE! may 10th! as soon as they are married the parents can be baptized finally with their kids! They are so awesome! I feel like home when I'm in their house. I also always think to myself, Man dad would LOVE this family and can just picture how obsessed he would be with loving them haha. Their dad is a big jokster too so dad and him would be great friends! haha. But yeah we are really excited for that. Its after Hna Galo gets transferred so she is really sad, but hopefully we can both  be there when they get sealed as a family in the temple! 

Well that's all I can think of for this week. I love ya guys sooo much! I saw a few pics from the Choralier trips, Cody looking pretty stud like as always! ha. Hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Hermana Nielsen