Love the People you Serve!!!!

hey fam!

Hopefully Sister Flock got ahold of you last night to tell yall why i didn't write you yesterday! but if not, I was right in the middle of emailing yall and the computers went down. so we got permission to email today!

So this week has been a struggle, quite honestly.

On Tuesday we were selected to join some other missionaries that president selected to come to a special training by a brother from the MTC his name is Brother Zeidner. he taught on the importance of loving the people that we serve... what we can accomplish with love... it was the most spiritual meeting I have ever been in thus far on my mission. I was ready to go out and love people! it was amazing! We have been employing this in all of our appointments and we have seen miracles! it has been incredible. That has been the great part of the week, but we have talked to many people and we have plenty of potentials but all the appointments that we set up fall through... its been really hard to feel effective when we aren't getting in with anyone.

So we are really focusing on the less active mambers in the ward, reaching out to and helping rescue them. Less active work is some of my favortie work. these people already have a testimony, we are there to fan the now smoldering embers of what once used to be a flame, into a glimmer of hope and then into a flame of testimony. help them become reconverted to the gosple. the progress with them gives the same thrill as helping someone prepare for baptism!

We are working with one lady who has tremendous faith, but somewhere she got offended and swears that she will NEVER step foot in the church again... but the other day when we were visiting her she said that she might come back one day... that one day could be this week, or it could be five years form now. we never know, but the lord does, and he uses us to help that along. when ever it is, that will be such a great day! I love her so much and i want to see her come back to church and watch her life be transformed... and i know that the gosple can do that for her! 

ATAYA guess what! do you know a Riley, he was in your math class with you. in Mr.  McCulloh's class he was friends with Brandon lee and Michaela... well guess what. he is serving here in my zone! yeah oh my what! ha ha

we figured out that he knew you when he told me that I looked just like one of his friends in highschool I asked where he went to highschool and he said twin and I said your friend's name wasn't ataya was it... and he was like YEAH IT WAS... oh my what! such a small world! ha ah I gave him your email address(i hope that's ok) so maybe you will get an email from him on Monday.... and I have his but it is in our apartment so ill get it to you next week. but how crazy is that!

Well im not really sure what the lord wants for me to learn from all of this opposition we are facing, probably patience in his timing, but i keep pressing forward hoping that he will bless me as i remain diligent and obedient. i know he will, so i will continue to press forward having a perfect brightness of hope! because as nephi says i know that the Lord will provide a way for me to accomplish his work. so i will go and do!

Thanks for telling me about the sister who reads my blog. i don't know what you are putting on that blog, but it must be some pretty good stuff ha ha!!  I want to meet the missionary in that blog she sounds fabulous ! ha ha I was beginning to wonder if i was making any sort of difference out here, my physical misson may be limited to GA but i guess it's effects are limitless! how cool is that!  that was pretty neat. i guess if i can help uplift and edify anyone thorugh the spirit, i have fullfilled my purpose!

Im so proud of Tenna! she is so adorable in those pictures. all the sisters just love her pictures and think she is the cutest thing! i have to agree! no one has a cuter little sister than i do! ha ha well family i hope that your week goes well and i love yo all so much!

untill next week

PS: uh, i don't know what is wrong with my debit card, but it hasn't been working, will you look into that for me?

love ya

Sister Dannika Nielsen

photos...photos photos

Question?????

SO...I have been thinking a lot about prayer lately and i thought i would get Dannika's take as to how she would answer this question....see her wonderful response!!!!

My Question:

Ok….Missionary!!!!!

How would you answer this question…We are taught from youth to pray to Heavenly Father and ask for what we need and want....but then we are told to pray for God's purpose.....If God has a purpose, and you are supposed to pray for his purpose, how are you supposed to pray for what you want and think you need….say like…I want my brother to be better and not have cancer anymore…how do I pray for that, if it is heavenly father purpose for him  to not get better. Or do you just pray a generic prayer for heavenly father to let his will happen and for me to be ok with his will…

Dannika's response...and i must say a pretty good one!!!!

Well, i would say that you pray in faith that he gets better, but also pray for the faith to accept the lords will... The lord wants to see if we will put our trust in him. Just because he carries out his will doesn't mean that he doesn't care to hear what we want, sometimes he does things to test our faith and see if we will ask and believe that he can change the situation, and sometimes he does perform the miracle that we ask for and sometimes he doesn't, but, it doesn't mean that we stop believing because we didn't get what we wanted. everything he does is a test of our faith... we are here to walk by faith rather than by sight!

Abraham 3:25 and we will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the lord their god shall command them.

The lord wants us to plead for the things we want, and think about the things we need, but he also wants us to accept his will when things don't turn out the way we expected.

His plan in better than what we have planned and he always attaches blessings to what seem like mishaps in our lives. our job is to seek the blessings by turning to him for comfort, trusting him completely and exercising our faith to accept his will.

If i only take one lesson from my mission, it would be to trust in the lord... ive had to lean and rely on him so much out here and im certain i still don't do it enough... but in the instances that he was the ONLY one i could lean on, i came out a better person because of it! I am only a normal person, but as i trust the lord, i can become what he want's me to be and even though it is hard, i can accept his will more readily

I hope that maybe shed some light on your question... maybe not... but that is just what came... idk

 sounds like you had a pretty great week full of awesome suprises and miracles.. that is great... now could you send some of that my way... ha ha :) 

 have a good week

i love you mom 

The Lord works miracles and he allows me that comfort!

Hey family,

this week was pretty interesting!

after i had talked to you all on Sunday i was feeling pretty home sick so i asked one of the elders to give me a priesthood blessing so that i would be able to concentrate and have some comfort. no big deal, don't be to worried, because the lord works miracles and he allowed me that comfort! the lord is good! i am so glad to be serving with worthy priesthood holders who are always so willing to minister to me when i need comfort!

Tuesday we met a sweet lady ! my comp had a prompting to do some contacting in some neighborhoods but since she doesn't know the area all that well yet, it was left to me to pick one to contact... so i did.. .and we talked to some people, but nothing to promising. once we finished in that neighborhood a thought came to my mind "Go see N***" (she is a potential that we have) This was an odd prompting because i was pretty sure she wasn't home from her vacation yet. she was leaving for 2 weeks to see her mom in Rome Ga. but i decided to do it anyway and if she wasn't home we could contact in her neighborhood. so we drove up the street to her "hood" and i saw her standing outside talking with a friend so i drove past thinking i didn't want to be rude and interrupt her... so about the time i get to the next street i have a thought pop into my head this one a bit mor forceful than the last "turn around and go see N***!" then i thought to myself... am i gonna regret not turning around? the answer was immediate"YES" so i turned around and pulled up in front of her house. Still nervous about interrupting her i forced myself up her drive way and talked to her.

Turns out she ended up not going on vacation because of car troubles and the friend she was talking to was helping her out by giving her rides.. and this was our investigater! she asked us what church we were from and what we believed in and then she said she was 30 years old and had a family and needed to find something that she believed for herself. She asked us to come over next week and teach her more. we introduced the Book of Mormon to her and she seemed pretty intrigued. she said she wanted to discuss why we had to die for adam and eves sin... PERFECT... we have an app for that... and it's called the plan of salvation! wow! im sure glad i followed that prompting!

This week we had to hand off one of our investigators to the elders who are over the Young single adults... bummer but it's better for him because now he can be fellow shipped by people his age...  Stanley G Ellis of the 70 came and spoke at our zone conference! that was way neat... he is form burley!!...  i had my 4th run in with a roach... this time thankfully it wasn't crawling on me... but still just as creepy!... we experienced a baptist bible study complete with speaking in tongues and everything! it was... well it was interesting! weird! but i felt the faith of those four baptist sisters! and they are a great group of women! Gloria is the one whos home it was in and she welcomed us right in and they all started talking to us like we were long time friends it was so great... they taught from the bible, ended with what they call manifestations of the spirit (the speaking in tongues part) and then they gave us an opportunity to teach... they asked us questions and all took a book of Mormon! it was great! we are going again next week too. and hopefully they will come to church with us!... we also went to a Methodist funeral... that was interesting... no tongues were spoken, but the preacher was very theatrical! ha ha and i swear i even heard him stomp his feet a couple o times during his prayer as he felt the spirit... then this morning we and some other missionaries went and toured the hindu temple that is here.... wow that is such a beautiful building! ill be sending a post card from it  when i can get some stamps! it was breath taking. we got ot go inside and see all the different gods they worship and got to take part in one of their ceremonies... it was so neat... I love this work so much it has opened my eyes to so much  i love it
it's been a pretty eventful week

Hope yall are having some fun

i love yall

Sister Dannika Nielsen

P-Day trials...

It was so awesome to talk to you yesterday 45 minutes is just not long enough!

well this coming week looks pretty good, we took on a couple new investigators that are showing some good potential... so hopefully we can get some of them progressing.

So we had quite the little adventure this morning... our washer broke this morning so we had to take all our laundry to a Laundromat... then we took the wet clothes put them in our trunk and went grocery shopping... but on the way there the Tiwi (devise in our cars that track our driving) gave me an aggressive driving violation for no reason! so we pushed the call button and talked to a customer service rep in the parking lot of walmart. he tried resetting our Tiwi like three times and it took him almost an hour and he still didn't get it fixed... ehh so finally we went shopping and by this time it's 1:00 we got our groceries and went back to our apartment threw our clothes in the dryer and cleaned our aprt. we have a member of the 70 coming this week to our zone conference and he is gonna be doing random inspections so pres said that we needed to deep clean our aprts. because of all the drama this morning, we missed out on going with our zone to Stone Mountain :( sad days... but finally we were able to make it to the church to email...it's been a pretty stressful Monday... ehhh one of those days that I can't wait to crawl into bed... anyway ill stop complaining...

I hope that you all are having a good Monday and hope that the rest of the week is good to.

talk to yall later 

Weathering the disapointments....

 :( 

Well, this last week was not one of my favorites. 

let me start from the beginning. So transfers happened i got my new comp her name is sister cefalo and she is great! but i'm afraid that i am not teaching her all she needs to be a good missionary, because this week was so rough. So first off, i rained ALL week long so that made it hard to contact anybody... all the appointments we did have fell through and the backups for them were not home... then they changed our district on us so we are no longer with the elders and sisters that we were originally with... that made me sad, cuz i love them so much...  and then, our baptism didn't happen.... i was so certain that everything was gonna go great... but she decided last minute that she wasn't ready for baptism and she dropped us... wow, talk about heart break... after we got in the car, i just couldn't hold it in anymore, and i just cried.... we worked so hard with her and felt the spirit so strongly with her and i KNOW that she knows that it is true! there is no doubt in my mind that she knows it is... she told us that she did and the spirit told us that she did... and to see her know this and turn away... wow... devastating! What did i do wrong, what could i have done better... did i not have enough faith??? ehh... this work can be so frustrating sometimes... So needless to say, this week hasn't been the greatest... and im not so sure i can do this whole training thing... i just don't think im cut out to be a trainer... it seems like things just keep piling up.... 

So i am so excited to talk to you all next week... that will be t he bright spot in my week! I need some happiness! 

I am doing alright though... not depressed which is good, just frustrated... and i know that i can get through it

well family talk to you on sunday... i so look forward to it!

BYE'

Sister Nielsen