We live in a world full of krazy kats!

Momma Nelson said my peeps want an email update....

So, this is for the peeps.

I really should be excited because we picked up a new investigator this week! 

M I R A C L E let me tell ya.

We had lunch with all of the sisters in Corona for Sister Mangums birthday (don't have a picture sorry about that) and we were just having a jolly good time at Chipotle when I checked the phone and saw that we were blown up! 

That NEVER happens.

We had 3 missed calls and 3 text messages from our dear Sister Sutherland from the ward. All I can remember is that one of the texts said "Where are you?? I have a baptism for you!" 

So we called her and told her we'd be there in 10 minutes.

We arrived and met the Kat. Actually, her name is Kathy. It's fine. Apparently they had a very spiritual experience watching an Irish man singing Hallelujah while marrying a couple… 

It's non-LDS related and is going viral? #kray

Well after feeling the spirit through that they watched a fireside on youtube (LDS related) and that was also very powerful and afterwards Sister Sutherland says "Kathy, you need to be baptized..it's time!"

Then we walked in and since she had felt the spirit she obviously needs to be baptized so we went over what she needed to do to make that happen... 

First, we mentioned the interview questions and told her that we will go over those with her (which we did later and she passed) and that she needs to come to church 3 times before she can be baptized. 

She said "So, could I go to the 9 o'clock, 11 o'clock and 2 o'clock wards?" 

We giggled and said that it doesn't really work like that... #krazykool

We closed up the meeting with watching #becauseofhim, obvi, and she loved it and felt the spirit again and cried and still wanted to be baptized... on Mother's Day! (I forgot to add that little detail!) :)

We left all excited and called our District Leader freaking out and having a really good time.

Until Thursday, our next lesson...

We told Kat that even though she already knows everything (she has had the lessons a few times and was active a couple of years ago, just never baptized) that we were still going to teach them again, just in case.

We taught her the Restoration and she LOVED it. 

Seriously, REALLY loved it. 

She had us recite the first vision TWICE... #kray

So, we have this bomb of a lesson, say a closing prayer, oh and we gave her some more commitments to keep and then as we were walking out the door talking about coming to church on Sunday...

*Ladies and gentlemen, please keep all hand and feet inside the car cause we are going for a ride*

She begins to tell us that she doesn't like the people at church! 

She has nicknames for them such as…a man who she claims took everything away from her she calls Steingrabber instead of Steingraber. Oh and there is a lady who is apparently evil (she's really not, she's the sweetest and we love her) whose name is Gaylene and she calls her Gaymean.

And to make matters worse, she goes on a little rant about how she is going to get "Gaymean" in the 
bathroom and give her a swirly... #kraykeepskomin

Sister Tucker and I were walking as fast as we could to the car saying under our breath "Please make it stop. Please stop talking. Why is this happening?"

I literally thought that I was going to have a heart attack at church yesterday because "Steingrabber" sat right next to the door at church so we were both praying that Krazy Kat wouldn't come in swinging. 

Sister Tucker was so stressed she literally developed a zit by the time we were in Relief Society.

Kat didn't end up attending sacrament, but did make it to the last two hours. Relief Society was the best. And by best, I mean worst.

She was talking to the people around her about other sisters and the reasons she doesn't like them and she wasn't doing it quietly. We had all sorts of questions after church from just about every member of the ward.

But it's fine. We're all krazy and we all need to be baptized. Even the Kats.

Needless to say, tomorrows lessons is going to be about charity and that we are ALL children of God.

I'm out of time, but I love you all!

Peace out peeps!

xoxo

Sister Kool

"Me and my girl Amy"

#BecauseofHim

Hello my dear Brothers and Sisters,

So this week there isn't much to write about which is actually good because I really wanted to spend this email focusing on the Savior.

So here's a quick recap before we get to the good stuff:

Sick missionaries. 

No investigators. 

No contact with Sienna. 

Bike was stolen. 

Zero mail. 

In 95 degree weather.

But, still happy livin' the good life.

Okay now before you continue reading, please remove any distractions, take a deep breath and watch this video:

 (For more info go to www.mormon.org/becauseofhim)

It's fine. You can watch it 100 more times. I get it. I'm obsessed too.

Isn't it so good!? The church really rocked it this time. I don't think I've seen a better Easter message in my entire life.

It gave me a whole new outlook on Easter. Normally, I am full of gratitude for Christ dying for us and that through that sacrifice we are able to be made whole by the cleansing power of the Atonement. 

Which I still feel 100%, but this video reminds me that the sacrifice was for each one of us, no matter our religious beliefs. 

That we are all here because of Christ. That nothing would be possible without Him. He is our greatest gift, our greatest blessing. It is through Him we can have eternal peace and joy. It's through Him that we can start over and over and over again.

And do you know what's really cool? He lives. And we will too. We will all be reunited once again, in perfect bodies after this life.

But, we can't take that for granted. We have to act now. We've been given all the tools that we need to be the most successful in this life and the life to come, but we must use them every day. 

We need to be on our knees morning and night pleading with the Lord, trying to align ourselves with His will. We must diligently study the scriptures every day to receive answers and to nourish our souls with the word of God. We must be humble and change, repent of the things we've done wrong and strive to become more like our Savior.

Most importanly, we need to make partaking of the sacrament our number one priority. 

Those 15 minutes are vital to our week. That's the fresh start. That's being born again. That's our second chance when we partake of the bread and water in remembrance our Master and King. 

I don't think that we will ever fully comprehend what the Savior accomplished during His earthly ministry, especially in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I do know that we have the chance to come closer to Him each day by applying His teachings to our lives.

And do you want to know the best part? The Atonement doesn't just cover our sins, it's so much more. 

In The Book of Mormon we read "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities."

Seriously, it just keeps getting better. And that's the purppose of the gospel. It's the hope that we all need in mortality.

I know that my Redeemer lives and it is because of Him that I am here today. I know that the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the same one that He Himself established here on earth, is found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know that He will come to earth once more and that is the day we are all preparing for.

I invite all of you to really ponder your personal testimony of Jesus Christ and how His Atonement has blessed you. I then invite you all to share this video with your friends and in it include your testimony of Jesus Christ.

We are all children of God. We all have trials and heartbreaks. We are all brothers and sisters. And we will all live again.

I leave my testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

With all of my love,

Sister Nelson

(email received April 14, 2014)

We left the 99 to find the 1

Okay party people,

First things first, uhh was conference not the the greatest thing ever!! I was glued to each speaker. I LOVED it! I can't even say who my favorites were because there were too many to talk about and ain't nobody got time for that.

Okay okay okay, so here it is in 38 minutes. Remember a month or so ago when I told you an awfully sad story about Sienna?

After we met with her and bought her all those clothes (that she didn't take with her), Sister Boden and I and Brother Mc Kee tried to find her.  We searched around the park where we dropped her off, but never had any luck. The only thing we could do was pray and pray and pray and trust that Heavenly Father was taking care of her and that she was in safe hands.

So then I got transferred and am living the dream with STL Tucker (that's what she likes to refer to herself as) and there have been a couple of times that we have made a game plan for the miracle of ever seeing Sienna again (remember that Sister Tucker taught her once too), but we sort of came to the realization that we probably weren't going to see her again. For all we knew she wasn't even in the country.

Now fast forward to GCW (General Conference Weekend) we were super excited because we had dropped ALL of our investigators...we had some hope for one, but we really needed a spiritual boost. So we are sitting at conference having a jolly good time, letting the spirit fill our souls when we get a text from our ward mission leader telling us that our last investigator that had a sliver of hope didn't show up for conference… 

I look at Tucker and she says "what should I say?" and I respond "that we have to drop him…that's three weeks in a row of canceling". :( 

We were pretty bummed. Actually more than bummed. We literally had no one. 

Zip. Zero. Nothin. 

And that's really hard, especially when you're in leadership and are expected to baptize each month and are accountable to the APs in front of President purely on how many you've baptized… 

Okay enough pity.

After conference we decided to search and start with some part member families and some less actives.

So we are driving down this hill, it's actually a real big hill called Masters and every time we see courageous humans either making their way up the hill running or on bike, we look at them and something like "bless their souls" or "get it girl" comes out of our mouths.

So Saturday was a little bit on the warmer side, and so when we saw a cute young girl making her way up the hill we were actually a little more envious than proud… (Another story for another day. It's fine.)

We drove a little further and there was another girl running and she had on those old school Adidas track pants and a big t-shirt. I was driving and said "oh my gosh their are two of them making the climb".

Right before we passed the second girl, I get one last look and go from jealousy to completely flabbergasted and yell "oh my gosh that was Sienna!" 

Now Sister Tucker who is a tad more rational than I am said "no, that was not" and of course, I get all defensive and say "Sister Tucker, yes it is!" #prideproblems

I flip the car around really fast (driving kind of like a crazy person) and have Sister Tucker try and get a good look at her since I wasn't wearing my contacts or glasses (it's fine). She still stuck with her "Sister Nelson is losing it" attitude when my second quick glimpse only confirmed what I knew to be true… 

Yes I am giving credit to the spirit here, there is no other way.

I pull over a block ahead of her and jump out of the car and start walking towards her. Sister Tucker keeps looking at me saying things like "Uh so how are you going to approach this? What are we going to do if it's not her?" Lot's of doubt you know #compunity . 

I just said "I am going to OYM her if it's her or not".

*10 minute warning*

As we are closing in on each other and probably 20 feet away Sister Tucker turns and looks at me with a look of "uh what are we going to do!?" 

I'm focused in on her and like a mad woman stop in the middle of the sidewalk and say "Hi!" 

Now I clearly see her face, throw my hands in the air and say "How are you!?" 

With a not as excited response she says "Good". 

I ask her if she remembers me, which she does and we begin to ask her how she is doing, where she is living, why she is running the Masters hill...and the whole time she is very short, never smiles and is extremely paranoid. Constantly looking behind her.

She tells us that she misses us a lot and she says it quite a few times and with the purest most sincere face. She said she is living with her family again and gives us a looks that we know really means a whole lot of other things. We asked if we could meet with her and she gives us her address… 

Get this…she's in the El Cerrito ward (my new ward). I kid you not. 

That was about it though for our conversation. She told us that we needed to talk to her mom if we wanted to meet with her, but to stop by anytime and runs away… 

Even just writing this now, I'm still shocked.

We honestly didn't know what to do so we creeped on her house (super nice) and of course, expressed all sorts of gratitude to Heavenly Father. 

Both Tucker and I knew after we saw her that we weren't getting transferred.

How cool is that!? Heavenly Father lead us straight to her. We are the two sisters that taught her. She lives in our area. We dropped all of our investigators to find her. We left the 99 to find the 1!

I have 0 minutes left, but I want to testify to you that I know that we are all children of God, he loves us and is ALWAYS mindful of us.

I love you all and miss you like crazy!

Sister Nelson

PS. I have said this before and I'll say it again Homegirl Nelson has a little bit of a pride issue… 

Sister Tucker and I back our car in as much as possible so we don't have to back eachother out. Well, one night Sister Tucker was driving (it's simply a fact that I can back into places that she can't) and there was only one really tight squeeze-of-a-spot left when we got home. So, naturally we switched seats so I could back our baby in. Yeah…it was so close I was unable to get out on my side and had to clime over and squeeeeze out of Tucker's side. I couldn't have fit on my side, even if I could have opened the door. #prideproblems

(Editor's note:  I'm sure the owner of the car next to theirs really appreciated her talent the next morning when he/she couldn't get into their car!)

(email received April 7, 2014)

Love. Compete. Serve. Repeat.

First things first… 

CONGRATULATIONS TO MR AND MRS TRYON!!!!!!!! 

I died over the photos. I literally could not stop crying. I'm still crying. 

SO, SO, SO happy for my two best friends!! 

Sealed for all eternity what a beautiful thing :) 

I can't lie though, when people ask me what was the hardest part of my mission, I will hands down say missing #MalAndTyguy'swedding... Love you Pally.

Okay now on to the less depressing…actually it could definitely be more depressing. Yesterday I sent in the worst numbers of my mission. 8 zeros ... I can't believe I just wrote that. We dropped  A L L  of our investigators yesterday because no one came to church and so no one is progressing and so Sister Tucker and Sister Nelson just about died. It's fine.  

So this week is going to be straight crazy. We've got MLC on Thursday, ZDM on Friday and TRANSFERS on Saturday and we are just going to be finding ALL week!! #PrayForUs

However, I decided to try and make this week's email sups exciting since I didn't send one last week and I've been kind of lame… 

Here. We. Go.

Monday: Lame sauce. Haha Jk. Well sort of, it was just P-Day so nothing too cool happened. Except I was writing little notes to some of the sisters in the mission and I thought I was being SO funny by writing "HAGS" at the end of them. When I went to show Sister Tucker how lucky she is to have such a funny companion she looks at me and goes "Did you mean to write HUGS?" 

I looked at her for a really long time and said "Pleaseeeeeee tell me you know what HAGS means!" 

Dead silence. So obviously I texted everyone in the zone making sure I've still got my cool. Don't worry, I've still got it. (If you are one of those who doesn't know what HAGS means, please see photo below.)

Tuesday: Also nothing super cool except to explain the next photo... (sorry I'm officially boring). Sister Tucker and I get really tired from meetings and exchanges all week so we frequently take little napsies at lunch. Well after Sister Nelson eats she gains all sorts of energy and gets a tad immature…it's fine. 

I started this new thing that when Tuckdaddy is either sleeping or praying I take the lamp and shine it right above her face so she thinks she is about to have a miraculous vision... Let me tell ya, she sees that pillar of light, exactly over her head.

Wednesday: Oh man I only have 20 minutes and I'm only to Wednesday! You can blame my momsie for that. ;) Well Wednesday was super fun because we had to go to Menifee to take care of some STL business, but we had no miles to do that. So! We called up my main girl Amy and she spent the whole day with us! 

It was super fun. Sad though because we tried to stop by all of our investigators houses to get a MPL and we got nothing... It's fine though. 

Thursday: This was a rough day because it was weekly planning. I don't loveee planning for the week because it takes 3 hours and it's really boring. So we decided to take a break and check the mail… 

Tucker got a package, an envelope and a letter. Nelson got nothin'... It's fine. 

Just a reminder: I'm over here in the HOT sun serving the Lord! And I LOVE getting LOVE!! 

Well Tuckdaddy's mother was kind enough to send all sorts of fun things including silly string. I think you can see where this is going….

Tucker has to go to the bathroom.

Nelson see's the string and get's all giddy. 

She hides around the corner all excited to scare Tucker. 

Get's a little too excited and starts to doubt the funniness. 

Decides to stay seated at the table with the string underneath. 

Tucker comes back and is interrupted mid-sentence with a mouth full of nasty. :)

It's fine…it was funny.

Friday: We went on exchanges! I went to lake Elsinore to be with Sister Staker and we had so much fun!! She's such a sweetheart. We put someone on date, got all excited, had some laughs, then went back to normal life... Haha "normal life" that'll be the day.

Saturday: Now I only have 11 minutes and I really need to send all these photos I'm talking about. We were able to volunteer for the Stake Youth Conference which was the Special Olympics!! It was such a blast. Those athletes are the sweetest spirits. So happy no matter what happened. All we had to do was ask their name with a smile and they were jumping on us telling us we were their best friend. 

I loved it. 

Sister Tucker and I were quite emotional the whole time... #sisterproblems 

Okay so the whole spiritual aspect of my life is missing in this email…so sorry. But, just know that we are full time servants of the Lord and we LOVE it. We are coming closer to Christ each day and pray that all of you are too. :)

Mucho grande love,

Sister Nelson
(email received April 7, 2014)