Hola Momma!/Everyone

With My Trainer

This week was way good. It´s still frustrating because I cant speak spanish, but its all good. Its weird, because when I left the MTC I felt like I could teach basic lessons in Spanish that wasnt too bad (I can hear Hno Humbert and Hna Pullan laughing at me.), but now I cant say anything. I teach very very basic parts of the lesson in really bad spanish. I dont understand how, but my spanish has gotten worse since leaving the MTC. Anyways.

With Cousin DeeAnn at the MTC

By the way Hermano Humbert, the very first person we met and contacted on the street was named Manuel and also we are teaching a family with a little boy named Manuel. But they are both nicer than your Manuel..haha

This week.. We had to stop teaching Alberto and the lady he is living with, Susana. That is sad. But we have lots of new investigators. 2 with Baptismal dates. So thats good. I already told the family a whole bunch of stuff on Christmas, so I cant remember what isnt on the blog yet..haha

To see why this is funny - see Annie's blog here http://hermanaanaleece.blogspot.com/2013/10/another-fun-week-in-san-marcos.html

We ate tamales for christmas eve with the Bishops family. We watched the kids do fireworks for a while. It was pretty fun. There are a few kids that are learning english, so they like to practice with me. That was nice. I like to hear

 

 

 

 

english because I dont get to very much. Its funny. Im right on the border, so youd think more people spoke english, but they dont. There are a bunch of spanish words that dont exist in other parts of Mexico because they are influenced by English. Like wachar (i dont know how to spell that) means to watch a movie. Mopar is to mop. Basically, if I dont know a word, Ill say the English word with a weird Spanish accent, and about 1/2 the time, Im right. 

I assume this is the apartment

The Facilities

On Christmas day, we hung out with our Zone and ate food and watched Rise of the Guardians in Spanish of course. It was a cute movie. I liked it. Then we got to talk to families. That was my favorite part. 

The next day we didnt know what to do. Everyone slept all day because they had been out late partying the night before. No one was home and the streets were dead silent. It was weird.

New experience of the week: I bought bread out of a car. These cars with bread and pastries drive around playing this really obnoxious song and it drives us crazy. So naturally, we bought some one day. And it was delicious!

We dont get as lost as we used to. But sometimes I forget Im in charge of the map and we accidentally get off the bus like 4 blocks too late..Oops

Sunday we were asked to speak in Church. Well They asked Hna Bautista to speak and me to bear my testimony. It was still nervewracking. Hermana B. spoke about miracles-she used a Neil L anderson talk. It was good. So when i bore my testimony afterward I said "I know that what my companion said is true and that God is a God of miracles. We are all going to witness a miracle when I learn Spanish." Apparently I said everythign right because I got a good laugh with that. Oh and there was a drunk guy at church. So that was interesting. A new experience for sure. And I accidentally became the ward/choir pianist. Should be fun.

Anyways. I cant really think of anything else right now. Things are good. My companion is great and very patient. Love her to death. We got your package and loved it. She says to tell you Thanks very much! She says its very thoughtful for you to include her. 

Love you all. Miss you lots! Send me letters! ;)

Hermana Nielsen

MTC

So, I'm in Mexico!

Hna Nielsen con Presidente and Sis Carreon

So Im in Mexico. Thats cool. Its pretty muhc nothing like I imagined. I wish I had more time to tell you everything. Our casa was trashed when we got here. We spent hours cleaning it. But its not too bad to live in now. Except its freezing. I dont understand. Its warm outside but freezing in our house. especially at night. I sleep with 3 blankets and 2 sheets and still freeze. We have hot water in the shower...for about 6 seconds. 7 if youre lucky.

We have a few investigators. Alberto Garcia. I invited him to be baptized and he accepted. Teresa. Familia Pacheco. Vicky. and Rafael. Vicky and Rafael we found, but the others were people the elders were teaching before they left.My companion is Hermana Bautista. She speaks 0 english..wait. that{s a lie. She speaks a little english. Like 4 or 5 words. haha She is from Distrito Federal, shes 26. Shes pretty nice. we get along pretty well. 

I understand a lot of spanish. My problem is that my brain works so hard to translate that someitmes it gets tired and i accidentally stop listening. but I cant talk to anyone. Its so frustrating. i know that people cry on the inside when i teach my parts of the lesson or pray because im slaughtering their language. Stop signs might as well not exist. people dont use them. it scares me to be in cars with people. especially on buses. the other day our bus driver was texting. no big deal. 

Can I just tell you how funny it probably is to see me and my comp walking around the streets of mexico trying to navigate the map. You can imagine it and laugh, because its ridiculous. I have to figure out where to go because my comp, bless her heart, cant use the map very well. Also, she doesnt remember names of people or streets. So thats my job too. can you imagine how bad of shape we are in because of that. But its good. We will learn. They play american songs on the radio all the time in public places. but they dont censor the swear words, so thats fun for me. haha

Theres a zoo in our backyard. And Im not joking. The Mexicali Bosque y Zoo is right behind our house. And we hear the elefante all the time. Especially early mornings and night time. haha Its great.

The food has only made me nauseous one time. And it was when our ward mission leader bought us cheap tacos at a restaurant. So we wont be doing that again. I hear that some of the hermanas that came with me from the US have been really sick adjusting to the food. But i havent had problems with any of the food they serve us at members houses.

The only embarassing thing that has happened so far happened at the ward christmas party. A lady asked where <i was from, so i told her Utah. Then she said that Utah is really beautiful, so I said Yeah! I know! I agree! Then my companion told me that the lady was telling me that I was beautiful. So i felt stupid...apart from yesterday, ive seen someone painting their house every single day. apparently you can just do that whenever you want. 

Mom! Theres a lady here that comes every week from California for Young Womens. She says to send the letters and packages to her house and i will get them every week. Other than that, ill get them once a month. and i missed this months time. so i wont get that package you were talking about until sometime in january. (Note from Sherece: Email me if you want her address sherecenielsen@gmail.com)

I think that's all. Things here are hard, but good. Love you all

Ill be on to skype on wednesday at 6 my time. for 45 minutes.

Love you all! Thanks for everything 

Hermana Nielsen

 

My days are numbered..​.

Selfie from this morning

Hola Everyone!

As Grandma would say, my days here in the MTC are numbered. We finally got our flight plans on Friday. And we went to Vegas yesterday to get visa stuff figured out, so we are for sure going to be in Mexico on Monday! Crazy huh? I can't believe that time has gone by so fast! So here's the quick weekly update:

Friday: Happy Monthiversary to me! If that's not a real thing, I just made it one. Also, we got our travel plans this day, so that was great and a good way to end the day. We have to meet the shuttle at 6:30 am, which is so much better than 2:30am like a lot of people. We stayed home from class the first half of the day because Hermana Muir was sick. It was nice to just lay on the couch and study scriptures and not be stuck in a desk for hours on end. But we went to class in the afternoon and taught our investigator, so it wasn't a full day off. haha We tried 4 square in gym instead of volleyball like usual.  4 square is pretty intense. The elders take it so seriously; it's hilarious.

Saturday: We had another teacher from our zone help teach Brother Humbert and I think all the Hermanas fell in love with him. He was super nice and pretty attractive. I think I'm gonna ask him to wait for me. Haha just kidding. I got to practice the piano this day. Lori would be so proud. The Elders from the departing district asked me to accompany them when they sang in church. So that was fun. It was so nice to play a real piano. I play the piano in sacrament meeting, but it's a keyboard and it doesn't count as a real piano.

Sunday: Saw Hermana Costello at breakfast. Then we studied until Music and the Spoken Word and Relief Society.  I was called on to give the talk in Sacrament meeting. So I was up in front of the ward most of the time either playing the piano or speaking. Good times. Sat by DeeAnn at the Christmas Devotional, which was super good by the way! We said goodbye to our favorite district. There were tears. :(

Monday: The district that left had their flight cancelled so they had to come back for a few days! They were so mad, and it was hard to say goodbye again when they left for real, but it was so great to have a little more time with them. We got our travel plans to go to Vegas. We started getting to know the new district of elders better. They are so funny. And the play volleyball with us during gym, so we have full teams again.

Tuesday: Tuesday was hard. Way hard. I felt like I was doing really well with the language and with teaching and Hermana Pullan (our teacher) told us again that we aren't where we should be with Spanish. She pretty much told us she was disappointed and really stressed us out. Plus the stress of everything just caught up with me. The devotional was good though. Elder Cook came! That's 3 apostles since I've been here. And we were scheduled to have 4. But Elder Ballard couldn't make it last week. 

On the plane to Vegas

Wednesday: Longest day of my life. We woke up at 3:30 am and got ready. We had to meet the shuttle to the airport at 4:30. We left the MTC at 5. Got to the airport by 6. Ate and hung out until our flight boarded at 8:15. Then they said the plane had to "de-ice" or something, so we didn't even take off until 9:15. We were supposed to leave at 8:35. We got to Vegas, met with the guy who was chauffeuring us and got some lunch at Del Taco. Then we hung out in the Institute Building listening to him give all his "knowledge" about Mexico. I'm not sure I should actually listen to him though. He told us the water in Mexico isn't actually bad. It's just tradition to not drink it. Also he told us the most important thing was to work on our accents. Apparently, even if we don't know much Spanish, if we don't have American accents, the people will be more willing to listen and they will understand us better. Around 1, we went to the Consulate, got our fingerprints and pictures taken. That's the entire reason for the trip and it took us each about 2 1/2 minutes to get that done. Then we went back to the airport and ate and hung out until our flight boarded at 5:45 (6:45 our time). We got to the Salt Lake airport and as we were coming down the escalators, there were huge crowds of people welcoming missionaries home. They got excited when they saw us coming and we felt kinda bad when their missionaries weren't with us. haha. We got back to the MTC around 9 that night.

Guess where we are?

Today is pday and it's been great but we are so so so so so tired. It was great to get Dearelders from Tai and Derick. I miss you guys! Love you all. Can't wait to talk to you at the airport and again on Christmas.

Yo sé que el Evangelio de Jesucristo está en la tierra ahora. Yo sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero. Jesucristo sufrió por nuestros pecados. Podemos ser feliz y recibir perdón! Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial y Él tiene una grande plan por nosotros. El Evangelio nos ayuda vivir con feliz y paz. Nos muestra el camino a volver a Dios y ser feliz para siempre! Le amo la Iglesia de Jesucristo con todo my corazón. 

Love you all!

Talk to you soon!

Hermana Nielsen

Hna M's Mom sent us a tree!

 

 

Just another normal week at the CCM

A picture from yesterday from elder B's camera

Hey everyone!

Just another normal week at the CCM. If normal is a thing when you're on a mission. Here's the "journal entry" update:

Friday, after we talked it was a pretty normal day except during additional study, one of the Hermanas had a panic attack. It was super scary because none of us knew what was happening so we didn't know what to do. The elders gave her a blessing and I pretty much sat and held her/ comforted her until they could get the security guards there. They were a big help in calming her down. Then they took her to the ER to be safe. She got home that night about 12:30. So all is good. 

A bunch of people in our zone

 

Saturday: We taught Elders from another district and they gave us pointers on how to teach better.

Elder B likes to have his picture taken.

Sunday: Love Sundays! Hna Muir and I are the new music directors so I get to play the piano in Sacrament Metting. Still having sacrament in the Bubbles. Fast sundays are good, but hard because we don't eat until 5. But Mission conference was pretty good.

the bubbles where we have gym and sacrament meeting

Monday: Nothing special.

This is what the Elders do during Films on Sunday. That's where we watch movies after the devotional. We watched Legacy and they were bored so they drew in my notebook.

Artwork done by Elders B, B and R. One would draw the head, someone else would draw the body, and so on

 

Tuesday: Our devotional was supposed to be given by Elder Ballard, but it snowed a LOT this day, so they asked Bruce C. Hafen to come instead. It was still good. We've had to make a new rule in our apartment to keep the toilet lid closed all the time...because I may have accidentally dropped my nametag in there...it was gross

 our view on Tuesday morning on our way to class.

Wednesday: Today, our teacher, Hermana Pullan told us that we are not where we should be with Spanish. So that was sad and frustrating. Especially because we've been working a lot harder on HSI (hable su idioma/speak your language) recently than we have. She has been pretty tired and upset lately too, so she wasn't very nice about it. :( Oh well.  I was super excited all day that DeeAnn was coming. I looked for her at dinner and was really upset that I didn't see her. But, when we were heading back to our apt to get ready for Gym, the New Missionaries Meeting was just getting out. So we creepily waited outside until I saw her. I attacked her with a hug and it was great. Then gym was great. 

Hermana R during planning time

 

Today: The temple is closed, so we had a lot of free time this morning. We started our laundry around 7:30 and cleaned our apartment while our clothes were washing. Super gross story for you all. I know that you don't want to know this, but you'll be fine. haha. For this last week, our shower has been clogged. So whenever we shower, the water doesn't drain very well and it's super slippery. It's gross. Well today, I unclogged the shower drain. and it was NASTY! It obviously has been collecting hair for a very long time. So that's gross. Anyways, then we had study time. Then lunch. Now here we are. :) Oh yeah. I saw DeeAnn again about 15 minutes before I started emailing. She says to tell everyone "hi" and that she's doing good. When I saw her last night, she had the deer-in-the-headlights look. She was kinda confused about everything. I would not want to go back to that day. Today, she seems a little better. But she's still in that "what is going on" stage. It's all good. She'll be fine.

 

Ignore the weird look on my face. I really was having a good time. this is at lunch today at Burger Supreme

My lunch today. We get to go off campus on Pdays

 

I can't wait to get to Tijuana if only to be warm! It is SOOOO cold here. And icy. I haven't fallen down yet. But I'm sure it'll happen. Things are good. Still haven't got our travel plans. Hope they come soon. I'm getting nervous.

Love you all. Thanks for the letters and emails. 

Hermana Nielsen