88th Week

Well hello there and welcome to the Elder Nielson lounge. Please, take a seat and enjoy your stay.





It has been another hectic week here in the Paramaribo North Area of the Suriname Zone! There have been a lot of exciting things that have happened! For example, due to a unfortunate scissor accident, I'm no longer allowed to use scissors! Don't worry about it though, I have most of my fingers still! Also, I'm no longer allowed to get around Geese either as one bit me and it started a fight. All in all though, we just keep working!





We are pretty excited though as we had three of our investigators in church this weekend and that should me a triple baptism this Saturday. It will be the Babel Family and we are pretty excited about them. They actually got married in the branch down here so they could be baptism and would have been so earlier but we've been trying to help them kick the smoking/drinking/word of wisdom habit. This will actually be my first family baptism so I'm pretty excited about it to say the least: Mom, Dad and Ching (Srnantongo word for child). Other then that we have Brother Zeggen who is still progressing and will probably be baptized within the first few weeks of April. We also have Lena Gordon who will hopefully be baptized in the end of April. That has been pretty cool as we took a member of the ZHV (RS) with us to teach her and she did the best thing you could do! She invited her to church and offered to give her a ride. It didn't work out in the end but it is progress! Other then that we just keep trying to find more and more people which is also the daily the task.








I'm doing pretty well. It has been interesting watch Elder Guinn die (The term we use for missionaries going home). He has done a remarkable job so far in staying focused and doing his best to just work as much as he can. He is kind of crashing a bit right now but I think he'll pull it together and go home with honor. He is definitely setting a good example for myself who'll have to go through the progress in just under three months. I've been studying a lot in Doctrine and Covenants 121 35-44 or so and I've really really enjoyed it. I've learned so much about leadership in God's church and the way it is supposed to be done. I have the feeling that my opportunity to be a leader in this mission will be keep to just my companionship but it still will be very useful. I would suggest such a study to anyone that has to be a leader.





Well, I love you much and I've sent some more pictures. I think I've gained some weight which makes me a bit sad :P but that is okay. We've been running three times a week and I'm doing push-ups every night so hopefully I can combat that a bit. Transfer come at the end of this week. Probably on Friday because of conference and then we'll move next Wednesday. I'm assuming with us losing four dutch elders and not getting any new ones that I'll be staying so don't worry about sending me letters or anything! I hope all is well and I love you much!








Love,





Elder Nathan John Nielson

87th Week

Well we had a pretty good week to say the least. We worked really hard and we tried to do your best and I think so things really played out. We are still planning for four baptisms but they will all be on the 31st of March. We had to bump one back because the guy's wife comes home on the 24th and he wants to talk to her about it first. Good idea though as you need spousal permission to baptism someone who is married!




For my birthday, I guess you saw the photos! The Jansen's came over and brought me a cookie/cake thing which was great and then they started singing me birthday songs in Dutch when we got a phone call. It was Elder Tullis and Lundgren from Koewarasan wishing me a happy birthday. An impromptu birthday song battle began as both groups tried to prove that they knew more birthday songs then the other. I think Elder Tullis/Lundgren were about to win, when the Jansen's called it off and declared themselves the winners. They then promptly left before they could be challenged again. It was hilarious. The letter they gave me was actually from them and it contained a birthday wish and told me how glad they were that I came back to Suriname. Very nice of them. After that we went out for a bit before we ended up at Pizza Hut for lunch which was fantastic also! Overall, it was a pretty cool birthday.

Coolest thing that happened though this last week was District Conference. For district conference, Elder Anderson of the second quorum of the seventy and also a member of the Caribbean area presidency came and spoke four times or so. It was fantastic and I'd include more but I'm almost out of time. To say the least, he really helped me figure some stuff out and I really enjoyed it.




Well we keep on rolling here in Suriname. I miss you all much and I love you all, although some more then others!




Still looking for those Mike-and-ikes!




Love you,



Elder Nathan John Nielson

86th Week

Hallo mijn familie!
Hoe gaat het met jullie? Alles prima? Ik maak het heel goed. Kunt u het geloven? Ik ben 23 deze week geworden. Ik ben zo oud! Bijna dood!

I'll stop the dutch there. Serious though, how are you all doing? I hope you are doing well. I've been doing really well this last week which was a great blessing. We worked really hard and we did our best to follow the spirit and we saw, once again, the blessing of God. Saying that though, I can't believe it is my birthday again on Thursday and I'll be 23. I'm so old! In Suriname right now, I am the oldest Elder in terms of life and almost in terms of on the mission time. What a crazy experience it has been.
Say that though, the biggest blessing we saw this week had to be the amount of member work we were able to have. Member work has always been a struggle with me as I just haven't been able to get members to come out and work with us. Since we've got to this new area though, we've been averaging just about 9 member lessons a week which for Suriname is a lot. I haven't really compared us to anyone else but I'd think it safe to say that we are on the high end of the spectrum right now. A long with that though, we've had multiple instances of being led by the spirit to say exactly the right things at the right time which is a huge blessing because sometimes you are just left thinking, "now what?" It really has been a good week to say the least.
As I told my Dad last week, and he sent it out to you, I've been keeping my thankfulness journal this entire week and it has been a cool experience. Sometimes, it is really hard to think of things you are thankful for but nonetheless it is still possible. Always possible. I find when I struggle to find something to be thankful for all it takes is a bit of time and a little pondering and then I can always think of one.
I also had a cool experience studying the scriptures this week. I've really tried to incorporate pondering into my studying and so I've been working with Enos 1:3-4 trying to figure our how I could work such a desire into my life. Knowing, of course, that a powerful desire can and normally does lead to a great success. As I was pondering it this morning I was prompted to follow the footnotes and I discovered what I think is a spiritual truth. You see, we all try to satisfy our hungers. Whether that be a spiritual or a physical hunger. It is such a powerful influence that in the times of old, women in Jerusalem actually killed their babies and then ate them to satisfy their hunger. Sometimes though, we satisfy our hunger with bad or temporary things. For example, a child will eat candy or ice cream to satisfy the hunger instead of cooking something to eat. What this leads to though, is a temporary fullness or you could say an empty fullness. So it is with us spiritually, if we are so busy trying to satisfy our spiritual hunger with sleepy scripture study or impersonal prayers then we will eventually lose that desire to achieve more, to be better. Instead we just satisfy our spiritual hunger with candy. Rather, we need feast upon the scriptures and wrestle with God in mighty pray in order to satisfy our spiritual hunger. Doing so can lead us to develop an desire to achieve Celestial Glory and become everything that we can become. I hope that makes some sense as it really hit me powerfully and I just wanted to share it with you.
All in all though, I'm doing great and I love you all very much! I'll talk with you next week!

Love you,
Elder Nathan John Nielson


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85th Week

Cools bits for the week. I started a thankfulness journal. I remembered a talk given by President Eyring where he talks about writing down the things every night that he is thankful for. So I've been doing that. It has been pretty cool as I reflect upon the daily things that I am thankful for. I've been doing it for a bit and I've really enjoyed it. It'll be nice to come home with a whole book of things that I'm thankful for.



We also found a new investigator this week that we have great hope for. Her name is Lena! She says that the day before we showed up her boyfriend of two years left her and she was praying to God to show her the way and we appeared! Pretty cool. We are hoping she'll be baptized on the 31st of March.



Well things are going pretty well and I'm ecited to be an uncle so things are great.



I love you much!



Love,



Elder Nathan John Nielson

84th week

About the area, it is a pretty good area and I like it so far. It is a big one which has always been difficult for me as I've always been in smaller areas besides one other transfer. I'm pretty excited about it though because on Thursday it was Elder Guinn's birthday, my companion, and so we went to Pizza Hut to celebrate. It was the best pizza I've had in almost two years. :) Funny story about his birthday, it was our first morning in the apartment and the elders before us had left some pancake stuff. So I thought, I'm making pancakes and I'll make Elder Guinn some. It just so lucked out that it was his brithday! How fortuante I just didn't eat them all!



We current have four investigators that are planning on being baptized here soon. We have:



Family Babel which contains Dad, Mom and Child. We are pretty excited about them and they are getting married on Saturday and then baptized the next saturday. They are doing really well and were actually at the church 30 minutes early which means they beat all the members. Should be a great baptism on the 10th



Alisha Schipper is the 13 year old granddaughter of a member who now lives with her Grandmother. We are pretty excited about her too and she is looking forwards to baptism on the 17th of March.



My companion is Thomas Jordan Guinn from Brigham City Utah. He actually goes home in April and he is a great elder. He has been in the area before and so he gets to show me around. I'm expecting good things from this companionship so we are happy about what is going on.



Well, I love you much and miss you too!



Love,



Elder Nathan John Nielson
Well for a short short story hear it is.



Short story of stories, in the area doing pretty well. We've got four people that are pretty in-line for baptism for the 10 and the 17.



Got to his new area…. Yeah on thursday night. Pretty nice, I like it so far. Companion is good too. He is from Brigham City Utah but has also lived in Texas and Nevada. It is Elder Guinn.



It was really hard this last few days with the Dutch. It isn't coming back as fast as I hoped but I'm working on it.