July 19, 2010

Dearest Family,

Wow, So this week was really good! again :) We had a few things happen this week. We had splits with our Zone leaders and we had Zone conference get cancelled :( The Splits went really well and we were able to see a lot of incredible little miracles! I was with Elder Falk who was adopted from russia when he was 12years old. I Talked about how natalie always used to say lightning when a storm would come. We could not for the life of us remember how to say that in russian... Natalie do you remember? Mom? anyways that would be nice to know. Elder Falk really is an incredible missionary, we had a teach and I was just in awe at how incredible it went... He is on my new top 5 missionary hero list!

Zone conference was cancelled, I wanted to cry because I love zone conference. Pretty much I just love any time that I am able to learn from President Brown! It is great... He is the man. I guess they cancelled it because there is going to be a new program for instructing missionaries. I am pretty stoked about that. I'll give you guys the rundown once I find out :) haha

So anyways, This week went really well. Meg is doing so great! She took a part of the lesson in our investigator class yesterday and did really well and testified so powerfully about increasing faith and learning about Christ. She is so great, I really wish you guys could come live my life for a day and meet all the wonderful people in Jyväskylä. We had a teach with Jan yesterday as well, She is still doing great. Wow. We have had a few other great teaches... some not so great ones. Lol, this is kind of cool thing. Fred is one of our investigators (there are a lot of people that aren't finnish here in Jyväskylä) He is learning and progressing so well. His girlfriend who is a finn decided to start joining us for the lessons so we started from the very begining and they are learning together... It is great!

Sounds like a party getting all ready for the wedding! I'm not going to lie, I'm not envious of all the work you guys have to do for that! But it will be worth it for Kyle and Jessica! Awww... So They are getting married august 3rd but I still haven't heard in which temple they are getting married! I would be delighted to hear that.

So this upcoming week is going to be great, unfortunately we are going to be gone from Jyväskylä for a couple days for some meetings, but it should be a good learning experience. This saturday is Change call so I will know if I will be staying in the wonderful town of Jyväskylä for 6 more weeks making it a total of 6 transfers here... or leaving. I really am ok with whatever happens, because I know who is in charge and who knows more than I do. :) We had a dinner appointment yesterday and we shared a couple scriptures, one of which was D&C 101:16 I wish you could understand the finnish version because when they say "Be still and Know that I am God" in finnish it says "Olkaa levollisia, Ja tietäkää, että minä olen Jumala" Wow... it just feels so much stronger in finnish haha because of the old finnish plural command! it is so great! but that scripture really hit me. He is in charge of everything, we are here to be diligent and faithful to Him. Remember that!

I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week! Life is such a wonderful thing... I love it!

Rakkaudella,

Vanhin Thomas Neal Nielsen

July 12, 2010

Dearest Family,

Wow, Sounds like an eventful week in utah! The weather has been actually really warm here in finland. up in the 30's Celcius... So Like 86 farenheit.. that is pretty warm for finland, especially because they don't have any air conditioners haha. I think it is quite nice! A member said that the weather man said that 36 degrees is on it's way! that would be a record in finland haha by a lot! lol the member said the old record was like 32 or something. So we will see :) Finland is so beautiful in the summertime! wow... I hopefully will be sending my memory card to you so you can see a little bit of Jyväskylä in the Summertime! ( and winter haha I haven't sent my memory card home for a while)

The ping pong tournament was intense! I placed 3rd haha only beating my companion Elder Pearson. Elder Lytle was 1st and Elder Newman was 2nd. Then we had a really good splits! Although a couple teaches fell threw :( There was even Funfetti Cake! YUM! lol

Elder Bryant is a great guy. He is serving with Elder Quinn (again, he trained him when he very first got in the country and now he is training him how to be an assitant to the president) He is the elder in that "Evolution of a missionary Chain" Just above Elder Quinn. He does live in Wyomning, Evanston (Spelling?) that is a little drive away.

Great that grandma is doing well and that everything great! I hope everything continues going great. It is fun to hear the beginning of your (moms) email that said "I should surprise you sometime and say somethign slike "Life was horrible this week.. I hated it" But that would be a lie" Lol, That is how I feel! I feel like my emails are all the same haha because I just say how everything is great... because it really is! Jyväskylä is an incredible place! Lol Elder Pearson and I got a bit of contacting in this week and were able to see quite a bit of success. I know we should be able to endure always no matter success or not.. but success helps quite a bit I am not going to lie :)

Fun to hear kyle's dream. haha I would have loved to have been companions with Kyle.. Doing companionship study. We were helping this family in the ward move last week and I was talking with him and he said he had a dream that he got another mission call to sweden again and he was trying to figure out how he would explain that to his wife. Lol sounds like both of you long to be on a mission again! I can see why :) Mission Work is the greatest!

This week really has been wonderful and I just keep loving being here in Jyväskylä!

Sorry this email is so short! haha But everything is great here in Jyväskylä!

Love you all,

Elder Thomas Neal Nielsen

P.S. wow... I kinda over-used the Exclaimation mark! ;)

July 5, 2010

Dearest Family,

Thanks for the wonderful birthday packages and the letters! I had quite the exciting morning opening them up and I was sooo excited about the general conference CDs thank you all so much! Fromage, That face stuff was exactly the stuff! wow... I was scared that walmart quit producing it :) Thanks for your diligence in searching out and finding all those Treasures for me. Thank you all for your letters and words of encouragment, It is has been a great birthday so far. Lol our schedule is all over the place, Personal study here, Companionship study there etc. Today we are pretty lucky, because we had Splits planned for tommorow with our district leader, then he found out it was my birthday and got permission to come here for a little more than the 24 hour normal thing. So We will be spending a little bit of p-day together! I think we are going to have a ping pong tournament :) I might be a little rusty because I haven't played since Last beating Mom (or am I remembering that wrong... I actually think I got owned 7-21) Anyway that should be fun. Then another cool surprise was a less active we stopped by last week wants to start meeting, so we will be teaching him tonight. Haha guess what else? A Member (Mrs.K) Baked us a cake and after sacrament couldn't wait to show us (it was fast sunday) so she took us to the kitchen and said "Happy Birthday America" lol it was a cake of the american flag with blueberries as the stars and strawberries and white frosting and the stripes. She is great! So I believe that will be doubling and my birthday cake today! lol I didn't get a picture until we had eaten half of it (after our fast) haha It was delicious. It is just crazy how little things like that happen, even not very important things like a birthday cake. I felt Loved :D

Wait, what happend to julia's foot? Glad to hear it is healing. Tell grandma and grandpa thanks for the thoughtful card. She shared a very powerful story about Ted that really was inspiring. I hope she is healing well from her surgery. Haha I love all the stories you all shared... Dad's story takes the cake though... That is just funny. Ladd is such a great guy!

So I guess I'll go through our last week. It was so incredible. Elder Caussé (from Paris) From the area presidency came to finland on a "Mission tour" He talked about a lot of increidble things when he was in our Zone. Elder Pearson and I shared a success story about meeting someone on the street. The next step of missionary work was pretty much what Elder Caussé focused on, Teaching the first lesson and focusing all our lessons on baptism. He took us up to the front and we all together went through the steps of how we are going to get Kit (The lady we met on the street) to understand our purpose and feel the holy ghost from the very get go. Really good, now I hope we can do that! Our teach with her is tommorow. Elder Caussé is a really great guy, I talked to him a little bit about Kyle's mission... I don't know if Kyle knew this but his mission split and the dutch speakers became the Brussels belgium mission and The french half became part of the Paris mission... I think! That was a really enlightening meeting.

We have had a few really really good teaches! I love Jyväskylä so much because the members are such great missionaries and the are always willing to help and that helps our investigators soo much! They are all doing great. Meg is doing wonderful! Jan has been praying about baptism and I know she is going to get her answer about Joesph smith because she has such a genuine desire! Wow. This last week we had a meeting with a potential investigator that went really well, He prayed :) he said he felt something! I love it!

We are also so lucky here in Jyväskylä because the ward loves missionaries so much that they always want to feed us and make us fat! haha We have a lot of dinner appointments... Almost too many haha. Yesterday we were with the Jensen Family for dinner and They love you sarah! haha Elli really liked the skittles and I gave them your address and I will hopefully get theirs to you soon. Elli is off to a horseback riding camp for the week, She is pretty excited. The Jensen family really are such great examples of faith in the Lord... Wow I love them.

Such a great week, and this next week is turning out to be even better as we have like 3 potential investigators that want to meet! Small and simple things, great things come to pass. I love this work with all my heart and I really am grateful I have such a wonderful famiyl that supports and encourages me. Your letters were amazing!

I love you all and Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Vanhin Thomas Nielsen