[Alright - I confess: The emails we sent Brooke over the last few weeks did not reach her! We were heartsick when we discovered that somehow the incorrect email address had replaced her correct one on my contact list and we had been sending her emails to a non-existent void!! Thankfully we had also sent her packages, letters, and had spoken to her at the airport in the meantime so she wasn't totally without support. Anyway, as soon as I figured it out, I sent her all the emails she'd missed and that's what she's referring to below. Ironically -- HER email to us last week was delayed due to a "Systems Error" and it finally got to us today]
Hurray! My family actually HAS been writing me! This whole time I've been feeling sorry for myself that no one was writing me but all along you've been sending them to someone who has no idea who you are. Wonderful. I hope that you sent the Avatar pictures of Rex to her. [Rex suffered a concussion a couple of weeks ago at a YM activity and we all agreed he looked like a character from Avatar while he was recovering]
Since I had to read about 45 letters from Mom, I don't have much time to write, but I'm sure I'll be writing a hand-written letter later today so I'll get what I can get in now and then continue later. The voice excerpts thing I sent is something I recorded last night since Sister Gossett wasn't feeling too well and we had to stay in. I've never been told that I'm a sleep-talker/walker, but she said that I spent a good three hours moving around my bed and in my bed singing and talking. I think it was that Melatonin stuff I took so I'm going to try and sleep without the meds for a while.
I hope that Rex's face has gone down a little bit. Thank you to Nixon and anyone else who is praying for me. Thank you to Derek for the advice on annoying people. Thanks for the pictures, please send more. Thank you to Dad for the histories of our ancestors. I'm glad to hear that Dahlia has finally found true love. I just hope Jackpot is ok with adoption because we all know Dahlia can't have children naturally.
This week has been a good week. We've usually been able to get out of the house between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, which is a little sad, but when we have gotten out, we've been blessed. Sister Gossett and I set a pretty big goal of 7 baptisms this transfer. Our district leader has been in the area next to us for 5 transfers and hasn't had 1 baptism yet, and just had to drop his only investigator. We feel blessed to be where we are though because we feel like there are people here that are ready to hear the gospel. We have quite a few investigators. We have 7 set dates as of right now, but we think we're going to have to push back at least 4, possibly 5 of them if people can't get married and keep the word of wisdom. We're also teaching 2 8-year-old girls but they don't "count" as baptisms, I guess. We also have people we're teaching without dates yet, we have recent converts and we have people in the ward that are sick or inactive that we visit. It's all very humbling.
There's one lady named Gail Childress who is dying of cancer. She lives up in the "hollers", meaning that we have to drive 20 minutes into the mountains and then drive another 20 minutes on a dirt road even farther up the mountains to get to her house. She's very sweet and has a wonderful testimony. She looks and talks sort of like the old witch in Teen Witch who says, "It's Goolosh." She kept bearing her testimony to us of all the blessings the Lord is pouring out on her as she sat there with breathing tubes and chest pains and barely enough energy to talk.
On Thursday, we also had a tender experience. In the audio clip I sent you I talk about a crazy guy named Larry Gray. While we were there, their friend called saying they were going to the hospital with double pneumonia. Sister Gray told them that the missionaries would stop by and pray for them the next day... so we did. We took Bishop Barton and Brother Bowen and they blessed her and I think we'll end up teaching her.
As we were leaving they told us to go visit a woman in the ward who had just had a baby. We did. She's wonderful. She joined the church a couple years ago but her husband didn't. She's probably 25 or so. She just had her third baby and has been on bed rest since October which has been hard since she's the bread winner in the family. Last year she went to the temple and has such a strong testimony. She's lost over 40 pounds with the pregnancy and is very weak. Her baby was born early, but is very healthy except for she's jaundice. She asked if we would go pray for the baby because she knew we couldn't give her a priesthood blessing. We got permission to go into the nursery where the babies stay and Sister Gossett held one of her hands and I held the other and Sister Gossett offered a prayer. It was a tender and beautiful experience to feel the baby calm down once the prayer started and realize that she had very recently been in the presence of Heavenly Father. It was really, really neat.
One of the little girls we're teaching is half Korean and she's missing one of her front teeth. She's adorable. Her name is Kaylee. We were teaching her the other day and when we talked about the 12 apostles she goes, "the 12 popsicles?". It was as they like to say out here, "PRECIOUS".
Thank you for your prayers and support.
Dad, I recite the 4th Section of the Doctrine & Covenants everyday. I love it.I love you all. The church is TRUE! Share it!
Love- Sis Nelson
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