Hey there! I'm a worm....

Hey there!

Cape Forchu 

I'm a worm, and I always forget to write this letter, and then I remember right when I have no time left!... Sorry about that... But, I guess I will see if I can remember any fun stories for you this week! 

Monday: It was a pretty average Pday... Nothing overly exciting. We went out to the Cape Forchu lighthouse. That's always fun. Took a couple of good pictures for posterity :P I'm not the best at remembering to take pictures, but I try! After that we went back to work. We were supposed to have a lesson at 8:00, but it ended up falling through... That was a bit of a bummer..

Tuesday: We did a lot of finding on Tuesday. Not too many results, but that is okay, it's going to happen! We finally went back to doing service at the Archives. It's been quite a while since we've gone and done that, so It was nice to go back. After that it was a lot of finding again. We had a supper appointment with a couple from the branch, and to finish up the night we had a lesson with a less active family. Good stuff.

Organizing the Donations for the Refugees

Wednesday: We had District Meeting for the first time in a while. I gave the Doctrinal Discussion this week. I talked about the names of Christ. It went pretty well. We spent a lot of time traveling, so that was most of our day. We tried to get in a little bit of finding in the evening before Branch Council. Not a lot got done... oops...

Thursday: We spent the morning at Beacon United Church helping sort some stuff for the Syrian Refugees that are coming into Yarmouth this week. We have been helping out with that for a little while. We had a bunch of lessons fall through on us, so that's no fun... but we kept going out and talking to people, we will find people to teach! We helped Joey move the last of his stuff out of his old place into his new house. He is officially moved out! So, yeah, that was pretty much our day.

Our little Christmas tree.

Friday: Weekly Planning. Lots of fun :D We did lots of finding again. We went and had a not-lesson with a really cool guy. We aren't going to teach him, but he is a cool guy all the same. after that it was a lot more finding. The Branch Christmas Activity was that night, and, like usual, I totally forgot to take pictures... My bad. But it was fun. The kids really enjoyed it! We had a really weird thing happen. We went out to look at some lights in a park, and this little dog started following us around, and wouldn't leave us alone. It followed us for probably half a kilometer back to our car, so we ended up taking it with us and giving it to some members until the SPCA could come and pick it up. It was almost like having a pet for like 30 seconds, haha!

Christmas tree made of Lobster Traps

Saturday: Again, lots of finding. We took the new couple in our area to meet some less active members. That was fun! They all got along swimmingly! Such fun people. We had a lesson fall through on us again, so bummer, but we survived. 

Sunday: Happy Sabbath! Church was pretty great. Elder Beckman spoke in church and gave a great talk about Fasting and Prayer. Good stuff. We took the sacrament to an old lady that cant get out, and then had a really long lesson with a less active member. The rest of the night was pretty quiet. 

The lights in the park

Yeah so that was pretty much our week. Nothing too exciting. 

Oh, I guess a minor tack-on... Due to some craziness in the District, I am now the District Leader here.  That's interesting. Not a very long break, haha!

I'm pretty sure that is everything. 

Love your guts, and I hope you have a great week!

Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, Eh?

Elder Nielsen

Sunset at the lighthouse

 

 

 

 

 

In case you are wondering, we have talked to 1/9 of the town of Yarmouth

With my comp Elder Beckman

Hey there, Sorry I kinda forgot to write a letter! I will see what I can whip up really quick
I am just going to give you the basic overview of this week, because basically all we did was finding. We had what my mission president called "Le Tour de Faith" and basically all of our contacting standards got bumped up (from 10 hours of finding and 140 contacts to 30 hours of finding and 300 contacts) it was insane. We decided that we were going to win, so my companion and I went ham and ended up with 46.5 proselyting hours and 801 contacts. It was crazy! 
Each day of Le Tour de Faith had a specific challenge or specific goal for the day. I will tell you all about it.


Monday: We had our Pday, and then Le Tour de Faith began. The Monday Challenge was to get as many Family Home Evenings set up with Less Active Members, Investigators, and Members as possible. We had a bunch set up, but only one actually played out... Bummer. 


Tuesday: The goal for Tuesday was to invite as may people to baptism as possible. We talked to about 120 people that day, and invited 43 of them to be baptized. We won the challenge for that day.


Wednesday: The challenge for Wednesday was to come up with the most creative finding idea possible. We decided to tie a whole bunch of Christmas Pass-Along cards to balloons and hand them out to people on the street. It was awesome! People thought it was hilarious and loved it!


Thursday: The challenge was to teach as many ten minute restoration lessons to people as you could. We started to run into a slight issue... after the Tuesday challenge, people started running away from us on the streets... Like, literally dropping whatever they were doing and running. It was actually pretty funny. But it made talking to people a lot harder... We talked to about 160 people, but we were only able to teach 10 lessons... 


Friday: The goal was to hand out 5 copies of The book of Mormon. (We were only able to pass out 5 because the mission is running low right now.) We did that in about an hour, and then kept on going. We talked to about 206 some people that day. 


Saturday: The goal on Saturday was to invite as may people to church as possible. We were so tired after the week we had been having, but we just kept on going. We talked to about 130 people, and invited 61 of them to church. It was pretty great.


Sunday: We went to church, and rested.


Overall it was a pretty great week, and, like I said we ended up with 46.5 hours of finding and 801 contacts. (In case you are wondering, that means we have talked to 1/9 of the town of Yarmouth.)


Yupp, so that was my week. I hope you guys had a great week! 


Love ya!
Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, eh?
Elder Nieslen

It's great to be teaching people again!

Hello hello! Another week as come and gone in the Canada, Halifax Mission! It's already that time of week again, can you believe it?

So, I will see if I can think up some fun stories for this week!

Monday: It was pretty normal. Had Pday. We fixed the computer here at the church, so it doesn't take a total of for hours to email, so we actually get to have a Pday again! It's pretty awesome! After Pday was over, we went and knocked on some doors, and tried to get in contact with some former investigators. We finished up with a lesson with some less active members.

Tuesday: It was actually a pretty awesome day! We were supposed to drive up to Greenwood to stay the night with the District leader before Zone Conference in Dartmouth on Wednesday, but we really felt like we needed to stay in our area, and work here, and just drive up to Dartmouth Wednesday morning. So we called the DL and told him, and he told us to stay here, so we did. That night (at exactly the time we would have been driving to Greenwood), we knocked into someone who let us right in and we are now teaching him! It was pretty great!

Elder Beckman and I decided to take a picture before we left Halifax the other night, because we never actually get to see the temple at night!

Wednesday: We left Yarmouth at 5:50 so that we could get to Dartmouth at 9:00 so I could practice with the group for a musical number. Zone Conference was pretty great, it always is! This is going to be a crazy transfer! Lots of changes happening in the mission! After Zone Conference we had interviews with President Pratt. Good stuff. We had supper in Dartmouth at a SOLID seafood place, and then drove the 3.5 hours back to Yarmouth.

Thursday: We basically just worked out butts off trying to play catch up after losing a day to Zone Conference. Yeah, that's about it, tons and tons of work.

This is from when I saw Emile at Transfers. I promise he is happy,
 just not great at smiling, haha!

Friday: Yeah, so last week when we went shopping, we started talking to this guy in the check-out line that was from Jamaica, and had met with JW's over there. We had a really awesome conversation with him, and got his phone number. This week we were able to set up another appointment with him, and, we are now teaching him! It's pretty awesome! It's great to be teaching people again!

Saturday: Yeah, another day of just pounding the pavement. It was pretty crazy! Lots and lots of work. 

Sunday: Happy Sabbath! We spent the whole day meeting with shut-ins and less active members. I would call that a good day :D

 

So yeah, that was pretty much our week!

I hope you are all doing fantastic! I love your guts!

Have a great week!

Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, eh?

Elder Nielsen

 

P.S.Oh Yeah! And Before I forget to tell you, because I have forgotten every week for like, two transfers now, Gina Eves sister is serving here with her husband. Elder and Sister Excell are the Branch President and wife in the Halifax YSA branch. It was an interesting little connection that Bishops Sister in law was here in the mission.

 

One day I am going to be good at this, but that day is not today....

Hello!

Looks like the Doctor is hanging around Yarmouth

I guess it's that time of the week again where I need to think up things to say in a weekly letter home! One day I am going to be good at this, but that day is not today.... 

Yeah, so this week was Transfer Week, that's always fun. So a couple of adventures came from that. So yeah, we will see what I can actually remember... It's also the first week of the transfer which means that I didn't bring my old planner, so I basically have no brain from last week... oops... I feel like I say that about ever six weeks or so :P

Monday: It was Elder Ashby's last Pday in Yarmouth, so we had to think up something fun to do... We kinda failed at thinking, so we decided to go bowling. That was pretty fun. Other than that, it was a pretty normal day.

Tuesday: Not much going on that I can remember... I wish I remembered to bring my planner. I know that we had supper with a lady from the branch. That's about all I can remember from Tuesday.

Wednesday: We were supposed to have an extra hour of planning to get ready for the new missionaries, and transfers and what not, but Elder Ashby realized that he hadn't even started to pack yet, so he packed while I cleaned the house... That wasn't so much fun. But it got done. We got to do a little bit of finding before we had to leave at 5:00 for Sackville. The Zone Leaders told us to leave Yarmouth at 5:00 to get to Sackville by 9:00, but when we were on the road we realized that we were going to get there at about 8:00, so we decided to make a little stop in Hammond's Plain to see Emile and Peggy (The man I baptized in Sackville and his wife). It was so awesome getting to see them! Emile about died when he opened the door and I was standing there! It was fantastic! I love them so much :D We got to spend about an hour with them before having to head to Sackville. That was pretty much our night. I stayed in the Sackville apartment, so it was kinda like old times :D

Thursday: It was a long day of driving. I stayed with the Sackville Elders for the morning, and then went to the Temple at 2:00 to pick up Elder Beckman. After we had picked him up, we went back to Sackville to put all his stuff in our car, and then hit the road back to Yarmouth. We basically just spent the rest of the night driving home to Yarmouth and then having supper at 9:00.

Friday: Weekly planning. After planning we did a ton of finding. Like a lot. We had to play catch up after the week, so it was a ton of finding.

Saturday: About the same story as Friday, still trying to play catch up.

Found this on a stop sign... Did we stop Kony?

Sunday: We got to go up to Annapolis Royal for the broadcast of the Temple dedication in Montreal. That was pretty awesome! I loved it! After that we came home and did a lot of less active work. That was pretty well our day.

That's about it for this week. Hope you all have a fantastic week!

Hockey hockey, moose moose, maple leaf, sorry about that, eh?

Elder Nielsen

Sometimes service projects can be pretty fun :D

Well Hello there!

Well, I guess I will actually get around to writing a blog letter, because I know you are all chomping at the bit to see what is going on in the exciting life of Elder Nielsen!

I will see if I can think up anything for you this week :D

Monday: Pday... again, nothing too exciting. We bought milk, that was about it. We wrote our emails, and did normal pday stuff like laundry and junk. We are pretty boring people for pdays... after pday we knocked on some doors, and called some people out of our area book. I'm pretty sure that was about it for Monday.

This is a cream puff... Not your average cream puff..
They are $2.00 at this little hole in the wall bakery that we found in the boonies

Tuesday : Tuesday was a pretty normal day. We street contacted in the morning, and in the afternoon we went and did service at the Museum Archives. We had a lesson with a Less Active member. We went and got the oil in our car changed, always a good time. We had supper with some stellar members. We knocked on some more doors. We had branch council. To finish off the night we had another lesson with a less active member.

Wednesday: Remembrance Day.Did you all wear your Poppies? Probably not if you don't live in Canada.... We had District meeting in Annapolis Royal like usual. We started about an hour late because when everyone showed up, we realized that nobody actually had a key to the building, so the missionaries who used to be the Annapolis Royal Elders went around until they finally found someone who had a key to the building to come and let us in. That was super fun. We finally got back to Yarmouth just in time to have a lesson with a less active member. It went pretty well. The branch here had a Remembrance Day Supper at the church, so we spent a good amount of the evening setting up and attending that. It was really good. Turkey Dinner is always a treat! To finish up the night, we had, wait for it, another lesson with a less active member! It was a pretty good day.

Fire Selfie

Burn!

Thursday: We left pretty early with a member to go and do a service project in Wedgeport, about 25 minutes from Yarmouth. What kind of service you may ask? Well, we went out to a good friend of this member's home, and we burnt all the brush in her back yard. Sometimes service projects can be pretty fun :D It was a good time, and Elder Ashby got to burn his Year mark shirt, so that was pretty great. We got back to the apartment to find out that they had done some painting in our apartment, and fixed a leak in the ceiling, so we couldn't use the shower... We had to smell like bonfire the rest of the day. We had supper with a member of the branch. Our Mission President wanted to get to know all of the new members, so Joey had a Skype call with him that evening that we got to come with him to. It was pretty cool :) That was pretty much our night.

Friday: Weekly planning.. More finding, lots of knocking. We had supper with some members, they are such a fun family :D and then back to finding. A pretty uneventful day.

Saturday: LOTS of finding! We spent a lot of time out talking to people. We had a lesson with Joey in the afternoon, and then went back to finding. Again, pretty uneventful day.

I decided to start a photo series called
 "Weird ways that my companion falls asleep"
.. But I only got a couple of pictures...
I call this one "Falling off bed, still fully clothed."

Sunday: Transfer letters. I am staying here in Yarmouth and my companion is getting sent to Woodstock, New Brunswick. My new companion is going to be Elder Tanner Beckman from Arizona. That makes 8 out of 10 companions American, haha! Yeah... Other than that, it was a pretty good Sabbath. Not much to say.

And I call this one, "No study, just shoe pillow". Art right there.

There ya go, that was our week!

I hope everything is going well with you back home :)

Love your guts,

Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, eh? *Nova Scotia Sucking Noise*

Elder Nielsen

YAY!

 

 

Sorry my week was so boring.... I hope yours was better!

Hello!

So... As I begun to write this email, I realized that I don't have a brain (Planner) today, so this is going to be fun trying to remember what I did this week.

Monday: Pday... About the same as always. Nothing new and exciting. We shopped and wrote letters, and ate food, and then we went and tried to talk so some people. It was a pretty average day.

Tuesday: It wasn't as productive a day as we would have liked. We did service at the Museum Archives, and then tried to get things put in place to meet with some people.. That didn't really work out. We had supper with a family in the branch, and then went and tried to knock on doors. Just so ya know, it gets dark here at like 5:30, so knocking is terrible now... But we tried anyways. Not much luck there. So we finished up, went back to the church, and had some administrative work that we finished up.

Wednesday: We had District Meeting in Annapolis Royal even though there aren't missionaries there any more... I guess that's not really true because they just put in a senior couple there, so there are missionaries again. After District Meeting, we started an exchange with the Zone Leaders, so I ended up going to Kentville. We did a couple of things that day, but mostly Zone Leader stuff, and calls, and it was all very long, so I wont bore you with the details. But yeah. That was basically the day.

Thursday: Still in Kentville. We studied, and went street contacting, and visited some members, active and less active. We knocked a little bit, and made phone calls to some former investigators. Basically everything that a missionary can do, we did it. We had supper at a members house, and then ended up driving the 2.5 hours to Weymouth so that I could be picked up and then drive the rest of the 45 minutes to Yarmouth. It was a long day of driving.

Friday: Weekly planning. After that it was again another day of normal missionary work, and finding.

Saturday: See Friday and subtract Weekly Planning.

Sunday: Church. It was a pretty good service. After that it was back to our normal Sabbath Activities, we visited some less actives and shut ins, and all that normal stuff. Yeah, good times

 

Sorry my week was so boring.... I hope yours was better!

I love ya'll, have a great week!

Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, Eh?

Elder Nielsen

Ghost Chili Peppers... BAD IDEA....

Well, I am on early today... Which is weird, so I guess I will write this letter now :D

From a while back. Elder Ashby and I had a combined birthday with some members

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Things have been pretty quiet this week. Nothing overly exciting. I will see if I can remember anything interesting that happened this week, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly talking to people... We will see

The Ghost Chili Peppers

Monday: Pday. Mostly writing emails.. We didn't have money to go shopping, so... yeah... We pretty much didn't do anything.. Haha! Monday night we went out and talked to some people.. Knocking isn't so much fun now that it gets dark really early, and the only time that is good for knocking on doors is in the evening, so it is 6:00 and pitch black.. Not so much fun. Oh... okay, I lied. Something interesting did happen on Monday. Our District Leader and his companion came down for a surprise visit. For a bit of a "Bonding activity" that night, he brought down some Ghost Chili Peppers... BAD IDEA.... We got them all prepared, and each ate a full one. In about 5 mintues, between the four elders that were there, we downed a full 4 liter of milk... Those things burn like none other... OUCH!!!! And the full effect didn't hit until later that night. I was up all night with stomach pains, and the DL and his Companion were throwing up all night... Not so much fun. That was a bad idea. Don't do it.

Tuesday: Our plans got kind of shaken up because we had the DL there, so we had to make completely new plans. one of us did the plan that we had already made, and the other had to go and do something else. And then nothing really got done anyways. The DL went home at like 4:00, so we had the rest of the night to work by ourselves. We had supper with some members, and then went and knocked on some doors.

Wednesday: We had District meeting in Annapolis Royal for the last time this week. They took the missionaries out of Annapolis, and are moving them to Greenwood (Not that all these places actually mean anything to you guys, but.. yeah...) It was actually a really big change. They are closing Annapolis Royal for missionaries, and so they moved the Annapolis Elders to Greenwood, the Greenwood Sisters got moved to Sackville. So we lost the only sisters in our district. We stopped at a little restaurant called "Sunken Dory's" for pizza after District Meeting, and picked up the two guys that work there as Potential investigators for the now Greenwood Elders.. It's funny how things start happening when they close an area, haha! We had supper with some HILARIOUS members, and then had our Branch Council meeting. We finished the night by visiting some Less Active members.

Thursday: It was actually a really slow, quiet day... Nothing big.. Lots of talking to people. We had a lesson with a potential fall through. She didn't show up, so that was a bummer. We went and read the Book of Mormon with a less active member. I love reading the Book of Mormon with people, it's my favourite :D

A photo of a photo... I got stabbed in the neck while helping Joey move.

Friday: Most of the day was spent out trying to talk to people. Not much success. Friday was the day for Halloween parties.. We had our branch Halloween Carnival. That was really fun. We ran a beanbag toss booth. Fun stuff :D

Saturday: Happy Halloween! We went out and tried to street contact in the morning, but the streets were absolutely dead. It was crazy how there was nobody outside. We had Brunch (which turned into an all day event... it was crazy!) With a less active family. They are fun :D We had to be in our apartment by 5:00, so we made a quick run to Bulk Barn to stock up on Candy for the trick-or-treaters... That we didn't have... So we have a bunch of candy all to ourselves 

Sunday: Oh man.... So nobody remembered to tell the Missionaries that the time change was happening, so we got up and studied and got ready, and came to church to set up the sacrament, and then... Nobody showed up... And we were getting really worried... and then about a half hour later the Branch Presidency finally showed up, and we found out what was going on... so I missed my extra hour of sleep.. I wasn't a happy camper about that one, haha!  But yeah, other than that, it was a pretty normal Sabbath. We took the sacrament to some Shut-in Members, and visited some less active members. That's about it. 

So yeah, that was our week, super exciting, eh?

I hope everyone is doing well, not too many injuries or anything like that.

Love your guts, have a great week!

Hockey hockey, Moose moose, Maple Leaf, Sorry about that, eh?

Elder Nielsen