I have so benefited from the testimonies and faith of so many faithful people here in the south

Well this week was transfer week, so I have a new companion her name is sister haderlie! she is great, she is from San Diego! this is gonna be a great transfer!

I have so much to tell yall this week... some you wont believe and some that wont be so hard to believe! ha ha

Monday started our week, we weren't expecting for sister Snyder or I to be getting transfer calls one because this is my last transfer and two, sister Snyder just finished being trained... but we were surprised with a transfer call! Sister Snyder found out that she was going to sugar hill. sad days :( we had so much fun together! but such is mission life! 

Tuesday came and we had zone meeting... we were kinda bummed that we had an appointment right after the meeting so we weren't able to go to lunch with the other missionaries :( but what happened after our appointment you will never believe.

So we decide to go to lunch since we didn't get to go with the others. we went to this place that our ward mission leader suggested.. super great! anyway, we are getting out food, and I make eye contact with this very nice black gentleman, so I say 

"hi how is your day" he says hi back and we continue getting our food, then we bump into him again and he asks about our tags. so I introduced ourselves as missionaries and told him that we share a wonderful message about Jesus Christ and ask if he wanted to learn more... and he said "yeah, do you have room at your table??" In my mind im freaking out thinking is this really happening... are we about to eat lunch with this man? OH MY WHAT!! 

But, being the "dignified" sister missionary that I am, I reply calmly..."of course come on over."

we ate lunch with a complete stranger and taught him about the restoration.... then we sat and talked about god and Bob talked about his faith in god, it was really a great conversation he has really great faith, he is such a wonderful person. That was totally meant to happen had we not had that appointment, we would have gone to lunch with the other missionaries and therefore not need to have lunch then... and we would have never met bob! how amazing is that! there are no such things as coincidences in this work. the lord has his hands in all  things! We were able to get his info so we could set up a time to visit him again and hopefully begin teaching him... the lord needed us to meet this man so he used the appointment after the meeting as a way to make that happen. 

I LOVE the south! Most People are so willing to talk about their religion and about God and Christ. I Doubt that would ever happen in the west... people are so closed off about their testimonies and about their faith... which is so sad, because I have so benefited from the testimonies and faith of so many faithful people here in the south... and most of them haven't been members of the church! Our testimonies and faith are meant to be shared, that is how they grow! I have really come to learn that as a missionary. We are not sent here merely to learn on our own, but to learn from one another as well.

Wednesday brought transfers, I lost sister Snyder, but gained Sister Haderlie! and she is great, I am enjoying our time together so far. We went and visited with two of our investigators that night and put them both on date for the first of February...! yay! Hopefully we can help them stay on track for that date!

Thursday we put our 9 year old investigator on date for the 8th of February. we are in the middle of teaching him the commandments and I have made up a game to help teach him the commandments... when I brought out the game, he got SO excited! I was so happy to see that! i really wanted something that would grab his attention and keep it... and my board game did EXACTALLY that! I can't take all the credit though.... the spirit had a lot to do with the idea! :)

Friday we weekly planned and tracted and got rudely warned by one lady that the neighborhood was a "no soliciting" neighborhood (good thing we aren't soliciting)  and that we probably wouldn't have any luck because people were at work. I asked her if she had the day off and if that was why she was home and she rudely said "no, i don't have a job and unless you want to find me a job, im not interested." so i asked what kind of work she did and told her that our church has employment specialists that might be able to help her put her resume out to find a job. she wasn't very nice when she said "no cuz then you would just want me to join your church and im catholic and not interested" so i just told her "well actually ma'am we believe in helping all of gods children regardless of their faith"  She didn't have much to say after that. It makes me laugh when rude people don't have anything to say back because you are just being kind. We did find a new investigator in that neighborhood though! :) then we were kicked out by a grumpy man who threatened to call the cops on us for soliciting... i politely told him we would leave... ehhh some people.... i wonder why he was so grumpy, something must not be going right in his life! So sad.

Saturday we tracted some more and we walked into a large group of young black men... upon walking up to them one acted like he didn't speak English while the others quickly hid in the garage, we have that effect on people... ha ha kinda funny! anyway, thinking his attempted "i no speak English" would get us to just keep walking... i looked at him and said "oh, Well what language do you speak?" that shut him up pretty quick and he tried to say it again and i just called him out right there I just said "you are lyin to me." Laughing, he admitted that he was... and then we were able to talk to him about the church... this only led to him beginning to hit on us... so we quickly invited him to visit Mormon.org and walked away.... haha... i just love meeting so many different people... it's great... ha ha!

anyway, that is what my week consisted of... pretty great! makes you want to be a missionary doesn't it! :) well i sure love it! so many memories!

well family, i hope yall are still reading along with me! We are almost done, can you believe it! and it didn't even take us that long at all!

well i hope yall have a great week ill talk to yall later

LOVE
Sister Dannika Nielsen