Showing posts with label service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label service. Show all posts

Monday, November 21, 2011

Week 63: November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving + Transfers

Thank you all for your letters, it's good to hear from everyone. I am jealous that you all are going to enjoy Thanksgiving and the feast that comes from it.

This week we worked a lot with the members in our area and found some pretty good success, the work always goes smoother when you use the members. We possibly have some baptism's coming up at the tail end of December, but that is a fair distance away in terms of the preparation of the investigators. It would be awesome however to have someone baptized on Christmas Eve and then confirmed on Christmas day! That would be a memory that nobody could forget. Around this time of year here people are out of school and on Christmas break, as of right now most of the schools have finished for the year and those schools who haven't finished yet are soon the close in the next week or so. The holiday season is basically the same here than there which is quite interesting.

Yeah last week was quite disappointing, basically all of my proselyting materials were stolen, which is quite humorous because there is no profit that a thief can have from scriptures, pamphlets and church produced DVD's unless of course He decides to read them and turn a new leaf. I have ordered a new pair of scriptures through the mission office but I will not be taking those out into the area at all, I now have an economical bible that I will use to proselyte with, and if somehow that one gets stolen it wont be too much of a loss. I will probably not be sending any more pictures until I can save up to get a cheapo camera again, because I definitely want pictures to remember my mission from.

We did some service out in the village this week where we built a wall out of homemade bricks and some makeshift mortar, it was a really cool experience. The Family we did it for was so incredibly grateful for our efforts and fed us a nice lunch. We always like to do service because it definitely helps out in the missionary efforts, directly after service you will see referrals coming out of the wood work and people to teach like crazy. Also it fills in the morning hours, which are usually awkward times to proselyte during.

Transfers are this week, nobody is leaving the mission this transfer and nobody is coming in. I personally hope that nothing is going to change, I would love to have Elder Scicluna as a companion for another transfer. We really work well together and have a lot of fun at the same time. Also the other guys in the district too, I hope nothing changes with them, we just have an awesome time together and we all work hard. Whatever happens is what happens though, I won't be sad if anything happens, change is good. Whoever you serve with and wherever you serve doesn't really matter, it's just a privilege to be able to do this king of work that really matters the most.

Brian, Ariel, and Ava I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving in Georgia, I am sure it will be fun to visit all of those cool places around the Atlanta area again. And for you Brian and Ava for the first time it is going to be a blast. Hey Callaway gardens although we only went there once was Awesome! those Christmas decorations were incredible, that will be a really cool experience.

Mom and Dad, good luck with work and the house search! and also have a great Thanksgiving weekend, I know that you will all have an amazing time!

Colin, I will keep you in my prayers as you are seeking for a sweet job. Have a ginormous feast this week!

Love you all so much,

Elder Chase B Nielsen

Monday, November 7, 2011

Week 61: November 7, 2011

Serving in South Africa

The first two pictures are jakaranda trees, purple in color that bloom in late spring here. Since it is the last time I will be seeing these trees i have decided that I needed to take some pictures of them. The last picture is quite typical to Africa, when you make a mistake, make the best of it. I can imagine what these guys thought when they ruptured this fire Hydrant by mistake "WOW, this thing is gushing large amounts of water at an incredible rate, good thing cuz my hands are really dirty".... and then later one asks the other how are we going to fix this? This is probably one of the reasons we mysteriously have no running water at our house for days on end. Gotta love it

This past week was great, every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday we have an opportunity to do service for Members and investigators. On Wednesday we did service at the Binta's, a part member family who we are sometimes fortunate enough to teach. We are basically clearing their Simba grass and weed infested backyard in preparation for a vegetable garden. It proved to be tough work, which is good because we are building up some nice hard hands. We know that it will be a blessing for them once we have completed the almost endless amount of work. On Saturday we went out to the villages and did service for the Mamoza family, there we are busy moving dirt into the foundation of the house that they are waiting to complete, that too hardens our hands a bit.

Yesterday we had 7 investigators come to church, and the other guys had 10 so there was a total of 17 investigators attending church yesterday, that's a pretty large amount of investigators to teach in the Gospel Principles class. It's a good thing that I taught the Sunday School class, and we also had our lesson on the spirit world, and funny enough tonight we are holding a Family Home Evening and we will be teaching about the spirit world.

On Friday we are holding a baptismal service, we are really excited for that! Hopefully more baptism's will follow this one, we have really put in a lot of work in this area. This week we plan on finding a whole slew of new investigators, we have struggled a bit in the past weeks finding new people, but we have been kept busy with all of the appointments we have set up.

I think the house you are thinking of making an offer on is a good house, it looks very nice. It's much like the house on Se 47th, as far as the rooms to bathroom ratio. However this home seems to have a bit more room inside. Whatever you feel is the best home for you two I am completely happy with.

Glad the Vandals finally won, for some reason they always, always have to make it hard for themselves to get a win.I guess that's why they are a fun team to watch, cuz if they win it comes down to the wire.

Love you all So MMUCH,

Elder Nielsen