Happy 22 Months :D / No Moose Nielsen, the Sequel

Hello!

Out on the rocks

Well, it's been another great week here on Cape Breton Island! It's always a good time here :P I will see if I can think up some good stories to tell ya for this week:

The Skyline Trail

Monday: Pday! We were given the charge of taking our Zone Leaders around the Cabot Trail, and it was AMAZING!!! The last time we went we were a little rushed, so we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked, but this week we got to take as much time as we needed to take in all the sights. It was INCREDIBLE!!!! Sadly though, even though we went to all the places where you are "guaranteed" to see a moose, I am still "No Moose Nielsen".... I am trying my hardest to see a moose before I leave Canada, but it's just not working out too well for me... One of these days. But yeah, the Cabot Trail was our entire day. It was fantastic

Also the Skyline Trail

The stairs are not as fun on the way back up....

Over looking the Trail

Tuesday: With the ZL's already up here, we decided to do our exchange with them. I worked with one of them for half of the day, while Elder Täufer worked with the other one, and then we switched. It was quite the day. While I was working in the morning, we ran into an investigator who let us know that she is no longer interested in meeting with us (because she just got baptized into another church...), but she gave us this really awesome referral to a different lady who was super interested in hearing about The Gospel! It was pretty great! We taught her a whole lesson right on her doorstep (because we couldn't go in without a 3rd Priesthood), and she asked us for a copy of the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool. The second half of the day was a little less eventful. We helped an older Newfie Lady put in a window AC unit (which took a ridiculously long time, but she gave us Diet Pepsi, so it's all okay... It's a Newfie thing...), and then we went out knocking. It was actually a really cool knocking session. We started a street, and then got some referrals that were close in town, so we just walked over to them, and it turned into a big adventure following the referral trail, and talking to tons of people along the way. It was pretty fun :D After the day was over, we went over to Tim's and got some hot chocolate, and then retired to bed. That was our day.

Gotta do the #selfie face

Wednesday: It was a super long day. We got up early because we had to leave our apartment at 7:00 to make it to New Glasgow for district meeting on time. It's going to be quite the trek going down there for District meeting every week. But, it will be great. Basically our whole day was eaten up with the 6 hours of travel time and the 2 hours of District Meeting and the 1 hour of lunch and all that jazz. We got home just in time to got to Branch Council and then have Correlation with our Branch Mission Leader. It was a long day of meetings. We did get to go out after our meetings and do some Home Teaching. We were just added to the Home Teaching list, and we were assigned 27 families... So that's going to keep us pretty busy.. But it was great. We got to see a good handful of people, so that was great.

This is what Donair looks like

Thursday: We had a bunch of lessons set up, but the fell through... It was a bit of a bummer.. Sorry, nothing too interesting for Thursday. Lots of finding hours though. We had a really awesome institute lesson with Margaret, that was pretty cool. She is one smart cookie! But that's about it.

Friday: Weekly Planning. A bunch of fun, ya know? After that it was another day of going out and finding.. We had supper with our normal Friday night family, I love them to pieces. That was about the extent of our day.

#selfie

Saturday: We got a call from one of the brothers in the branch asking us to come down and help him with a Project for our Branch President down in Mabu, so we threw all our plans out the window and got to go down and do some service. It was a pretty great day. Lots of Whipper Snipping (Weed Eating), and cleaning stuff up. Good times. We also had a really awesome Fireside that we put together. Some people came over from PEI (A senior couple that I served around while I was there) and they spoke, and it was FANTASTIC! I loved it so much! They called it "The Human Story of Church History" and it was great! 

Sunday: Happy Sabbath! It was a great day. We had Church, and then we had to run out to Eskasoni to do Eskasoni church, and then we ran over to North Sydney to a Dinner Appointment, and then we had to run to New Waterford to dedicate some apartments. It was a long day with a lot of travel. I enjoyed it (If you were wondering, which I'm sure you weren't, we totalled about 225 Kilometres, which is about 140 Miles of travel for the day...) 

Well, that was our week. It was a good one :D

I hope you all had a great week as well! I love your guts!

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

Elder Nielsen

Amy (Shu Yao) and I playing Ping Pong

We played Ping Pong for institute :D

Elder Wanlass

Moose warning

What to do if you get attacked by a Coyote 

Pretty optimistic, eh?

The most wildlife we saw out there...

Walking the Skyline Trail

The Cabot Trail

Elder Täufer and I 

Off one of the look out points

Elder Hunt doing the smolder

Danger, big waves :P

I'm going to be real here for a second.

Hello Hello!

#GlaceBaySelfie

Well, I'm going to be real here for a second. I really don't have anything exciting or new to write to you guys, so I'm not going to bore you with the details of missionary work this week. It was lot's of finding, and stuff like that. Instead of that, I'm just going to send a couple of pictures that I took with little explanations. 

Yeah...

I love you guys, and I hope all is well. I hope you had a super exciting week, and another one to come!

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

Elder Nielsen

Margaret (Our recent Convert) had a test that she was studying for, so she sent us home with everything that could possibly distract us in her apartment... I had a little fun with her toys. 

Elder Täufer was sneaky and took a picture of me doing a weird face at Canadian Tire. It looks posed, but it totally wasn't.

{from a couple months ago}

This is the Giant Stack of Snow I was standing on a couple of months ago.

And one Smiling.

This picture is pretty much Atlantic Canada summed up in one shot. Glace Bay 

out in Mabu building a Wash House /A lady gave us a bag of Milk, I'm pretty happy about it

May 11/2016

Sometimes, this is just how studies go...

 Hello Family! Well, here we are at Wednesday, a different Pday than normal, but, alas, you are still going to get the same super boring email from me. Sorry, just because days change sometimes, doesn't mean I will :P

Oh, and transfers happened this week. We are both staying put in Sydney, and I'm the District Leader again. That's fun.

Let me see if I can think up anything exciting about our week to tell you;

 A lady gave us a bag of Milk, I'm pretty happy about it.

Monday: It was a sad day. My Little Man Child, Elder Harris was on a plane to Utah. I hear he is doing awesome though, so I'm happy for him. He is going to be great in Utah! Other than that it was a pretty normal pday, and we did all the normal pday things. We had supper with the sweetest little lady, and then we had a Cottage Meeting at a members house. It was pretty great.

Tuesday: Basically Tuesday was just a really long work day. We were supposed to have a teaching appointment, but it fell through, so we just worked all day. We did lots of finding, and got to talk to people, so that was pretty great. But that was about it.

Bag of milk pt. 2

Wednesday: District Meeting. We had to Skype into District meeting in Truro, and that wasn't my favourite thing in the world. But we did it, and it all turned out. Afterwards we had Correlation with our Branch Mission Leader, and then went home to have our Apartment inspected by the Senior Couple. We passed :D After that it was just a long day of work. Good times :P

Thursday: We were all over the place on Thursday. We were supposed to have a teaching appointment in the morning, but it fell through, so that wasn't too fun. After wards, we went out to North Sydney and had a lunch appointment with some members out there. Afterwards we worked in North Sydney and we were able to have a lesson with a less active member out there, so that was pretty good. Later we came back to Sydney and cleaned the Church with a member, and then had institute. It was a pretty good day.

Building a table

Friday: Weekly Planning, and lunch with a member. the Normal Friday activities. We then went on and did lots of finding, and talking to people, and then finished the night with supper with some awesome members. Good stuff!

Building stuff

getting started.

Oh look. We finished the floor.

Saturday: We spent the whole day out in Mabu building a Wash House for the Branch President. We weren't able to get it finished, and it will probably take a couple more trips out there to get it even close, but it was an awesome day. They live in a BEAUTIFUL part of the Island. It was awesome! When we came home, we had a member take us out to get Asian food. It was fantastic.

Sunday: Happy Mothers Day! It was a good day, after church we went and delivered a couple of Mothers Day items to members of the Branch who don't have their own kids. One member invited us to stay for lunch, and then let us skype at their house. They are basically my Mission Parents, I love them. Afterwards we had a supper appointment with a different member, so that was pretty great. It was a good day. I loved getting to see my family! Everyone is so grown up!

Monday: Really, it was just a work day, and nothing exciting happend.

Tuesday: We had a skype call with the Mission President, the assistants, and the new district leaders and zone leaders, and it was basically just to tell everyone what their job is going to be for the next little while. Good stuff. And then we worked for the rest of the day. We had a little mini District meeting with the Senior couple here, but that was it. 

And that puts us at today. I hope I didn't bore you to tears. 

I love you guys so much, I hope you have a great week!

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

Elder Nielsen

Letter from April 4

This is me with Margaret a few weeks back. She was filming something to send home to her dad

Well, I guess this is awkward, Wednesday was the last time I wrote, so I don't think there has been much to fill you in on since then, but I will see if I can imagine up anything super exciting for the week. (Also, I don't have my planner from Last Transfer, so I will see what I can actually remember.)

Monday: It was a normal work day because we had Pday on Friday. The new transfer schedule is weird. We went and did lots of street contacting, and knocked on some doors. We had a supper

appointment with a sweet older lady, and then finished the night with some area book work.

Tuesday: It was pretty much a normal work day. We went and did all the normal missionary work stuff, we knocked on doors and talked to people, and all that jazz. At 5:00 we got our transfer letters and found out that Elder Lerminez was getting Transferred to Summerside, PEI, and I would be staying here in Sydney to train a new missionary. Afterwards we had and hour long district meeting, and then the senior couple here took us out to get Blizzards at Dairy Queen (a little ironic with the weather we have been having lately)

Wednesday: Well, it was Pday, and Elder Lerminez was getting transferred, so we had to take time for him to finish up packing and getting ready to go. We had a lesson in the middle of the day with one of our investigators, and she is doing great! She had a really cool experience reading and praying about the Book of Mormon, and she says that she knows it's true :D I'm excited for her! We said goodbye to Margaret, and then got all of Elder Lerminez's stuff packed into the car, and travelled down to Truro to stay the night with the Elders there.

Thursday: Transfer day. We got up Early because we had to be at the meet up point by 7:30 for the Transfer Van. We got there, dropped Elder Lerminez off at the van, I picked up Elder Harris got back in the car and started the eternal journey back to Sydney. We had just passed Antigonish when we got a text from our Zone Leaders asking if we could stop in New Glasgow on our way in because they had to give us our insurance cards for our cars (which are kind of important), so we drove back into Antigonish, and waited for the New Glasgow Elders to come and meet us there. After almost an hour, we were back on the road headed to Sydney. We got back to Sydney at about 1:00, ate lunch and then were able to get out and go to work. We pretty much worked the rest of the day, and then went to institute that night.

A brief Bio about my new compaion: His name is Elder Harris (Elder Patrick Harris if you want to stalk him on Facebook), and he is from Fort MacLeod, Alberta (making my 3rd of 12 companions to be Canadian). He is a pretty cool guy. He is 20, so he came out a little later, and he is a lot more mature than an 18 year old greenie, so I like it!

This is the #Hallelujah booth out on the street :D

Friday: Weekly Planning. It was a little longer than usual, just because we had to go through all the explanation and what not, but it was a really good planning session. We had our lunch, and then Went out to work. We got to try a bunch of different things for Friday. I can't actually remember everything that we did, but I know we went out knocking in the rain and got soaked. It was fun stuff. Haha, we knocked into a psychic medium, that was pretty funny! She gave us her weather predictions. It was pretty much the most hilarious part of the night.

Saturday: We did service in the morning for a member, and then GENERAL CONFERENCE! Yippie! I love conference. Then we went and had lunch, and and did some other stuff, and then went back for GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! And then we had supper, and did 12 week training, and then more GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! It was a good day.

Sunday: We went to a Pentecostal church in the morning, that was pretty fun! And then, you guessed it, GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! And then we got our area book, called some people to remind them about GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! and then did our 12 week training. Then we watched the last session of GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! I loved conference this time around. It was so powerful, and I learned a lot of awesome things! 

So yeah, that was basically our week. Sorry it was kinda lame, haha!

I wish I had some cooler things to tell you, but I don't.... So, that's all you are getting. 

I love your guts, and hope you have a great week.

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

Elder Nielsen

Last weeks letter

This is the only picture I have for this week. It's me be attacked by one of those wild Canadian tree walruses

April 18, 2016
Hello Hello!

Look at that, Abracadabra, it's Monday again! It goes way too fast, it's not even funny! I guess I will see if I can think up anything super exciting to tell you guys for this week. (I forgot my planner at home today... That is happening more and more lately... I need to stop to do that....)

Monday: Pday. We played street hockey with some people and that was pretty fun. I'm getting pretty good at street hockey, so I'll have to bring it home with me. Other than that, it was a pretty normal pday. Nothing too exciting.

Tuesday: We were still being taxied around by the other Elders because they car fixing place lied to us, and didn't have our car ready when they said they would, so that was a bit of a bummer. But, we made it around and got to talk to some people, so that wasn't too bad. 

Wednesday: Basically we just spent the entire day in meetings. We had our district meeting, followed by lunch, and then a correlation meeting, and then we had to go pick up our car, and then we had to to 12 week, followed by a little bit of time to proselyte, and then supper, and Branch Council, and then correlation with the branch mission leader. We basically were in meetings the entire day.

Thursday:  Basically a normal day of work. Lots of talking to people and stuff like that. Nothing too exciting.

Friday: Weekly planning. Lots of talking to people, and trying to get stuff done. Nothing too exciting for the day. We hunted down one of our investigators that had disappeared off the face of the earth, that was pretty great. We are meeting with her again, YAY!

Saturday: We were out looking for people all day. We knocked on the door of some Former investigators, and there 40 year old daughter answered the door and told us that they were dead... So yeah, that was awkward. But, yeah. We got to talk to lots of people, so that was good. We played street hockey again, and then finished the night with supper at a members house.

Sunday: Sabbath. Good meetings. We had a lot of lessons with recent converts and Less acitve members, so that was really great. Other than that, it was a pretty relaxing day. 

Well, that was our week. I hope you all had a great one!

Love ya!

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

I love Hockey, I hope you know that.

The District

Hello, so this week is going to be a short letter, because we are going on the Cabot Trail for Pday, and we have to get going like ASAP if we are going to make it back before midnight! (We are going to visit less active members, and some referrals, so it will be a Pday mixed with a work day.) I'm pretty excited to head out, I hear the Cabot Trail is pretty awesome!http://www.novascotia.com/explore/top-25/cabot-trail

Elder Harris at the Computer

So yeah, I will see if I can think up any exciting stuff from our week for you;

I found a bunch of Lady bugs :D

Monday: Pday, it was pretty good, we had to rush everything that we were doing so that we could make it back for a supper/teaching appointment at 4:30 with some members, so that was fun. The mission is doing this initiative with the members called "GatorAid", so that's pretty interesting. Afterwards, it was right back to work, knocking on doors and doing the missionary thing :)

Tuesday: It was a long work day. That is pretty much all we did. Lots and lots and lots and lots of work. It was awesome! We have a lot of appointments set up for this next week, so we are hoping that they turn out!

Wednesday: We pretty much had a long day of meetings. All our district meetings, and correlation meetings and what not. It was pretty tiring. We had a going away party in the evening for one of our YSA who is moving back to Halifax to go to the YSA branch there. We are sad to see him go! Yeah, that was pretty much our day.

This is Elder Taufer, he is a little crazy

Thursday: We helped take the YSA's luggage to the bus stop first thing in the morning, and then right after that, it was back to work. We put in a lot of hours on Thursday. It was a pretty good day. We were supposed to have a lesson, but the lady got sick, so it didn't turn out..

This is how I look when all our appointments fall through.

Friday: Weekly planning. We also had lunch with a member (Donair Pizza :D) Followed by, you guessed it, lots more work hours. We had a GatorAid appointment in the evening, and that was about it.

Saturday: It was a pretty relaxed day. We worked in the morning, and then went and played street hockey with some members (and non members that showed up) It was a fun game. I love Hockey, I hope you know that. If I had had hockey back home, that would have been pretty cool. After Hockey we went to a couple of appointments that we had set up, but they all fell through... It was one of those days... And to finish it up, we had supper with our awesome Saturday regulars :D

Sunday: We had church, which was awesome! A lot of members who hadn't been to church in a  long time showed up, none of it was scheduled with each other, it was just out of the blue they all decided to come to church on the same day! It was awesome! WE had a lesson with Margaret,

Margarets Plan of Salvation

and then had another GatorAid lesson. We finished up with the New Missionary Skype call with the president. It was a good Sabbath

So yeah, that was our week! I hope you are all doing awesome! I love your guts!

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

Elder Nielsen

we bought googly eyes, and I have been hanging these up all over the apartment