I know God answers prayers!

Hey Family!

i love you!

Can i just say how excited i have been to email y'all this week!

We have a baptism coming up on the 30th of june and we are so excited! but before i get to far ahead of myself, i want to tell you about my week!

so on Monday night we decided to stop by a part member family home after an appointment fell through. We went over there and the wife (not yet member) answered the door. she was a bit hesitant, but she let us in! we sat and visited with her a bit and found out that she is Methodist and was actually offended by some sister missionaries... that explains the hesitation... :) anyway she felt that they were telling her that what she believed wasn't true and that it was all wrong... she said that she had received confirmation that she needed to be baptized in the Methodist church... so she did it... and she wanted to know why our church was different than hers and why she needed to be baptized again... im sure the sisters object wasn't to offend her but she took offense in their explanation... and there fore, stopped listening to them... her heart was hardened and everything after that, that they would try and explain was not getting through and was only making it worse and making her more and more angry with them....

when we went in there, we simply... (and i say we, i can't take credit, it was all by the spirit) but we went in and championed her for her strides in her religion and in her great faith in Jesus Christ... we acknowledged the similarities between hers and our church... and really just built a relationship with her based on understanding one another. she invited us back for lunch on Wednesday and she said "maybe you girls can help me understand what the other sisters tried to explain and you can tell me how our churches are different."

Wow, what a neat experience i was very pleased with how that went! i went home and prayed that we would be able to follow the spirit and help her understand with out offending her... so i excitedly waited for Wednesday!

So Tuesday came and with it we were able to teach Sunshine again! we taught her the Plan of Salvation! what an awesome lesson.. the spirit was so strong! I LOVE teaching this lesson! because every time i do my testimony grows and i see just how much our heavenly father loves us. I love being able to help others understand it too!

i am really excited for Sunshine to be baptized!

Finally the day i had been waiting for Wednesday was here!

we met with Sister Suter (the lady from Monday) for lunch... we visited a bit and then i just began asking her questions... completely by the spirit... i asked her more about her conversion the the Methodist faith and and how she knew that being baptized was what she needed to do and she explained classic signs of the spirit! it was great! now we had somethings to work with! i asked her what it was about our faith that she didn't understand and she talked about Joseph Smith and prophets... so then an simple object lesson that helped explain prophets popped into my mind that i had learned from one of my previous companions... so i quickly put it to use... i held my fist (representing god) out and told her to place her fist (representing us) under mine... then i would move mine around and instructed her to follow my fist with hers... after she tried to follow mine with no success.. she was like "ha ha right that's not gonna happen" so then i took out my pen (representing a prophet) and told her to take one end in her hand and i would take the other and then we were able to move our hands in harmony... then i explained that a prophet was a direct link between the lord and us... he receives revelation that if we choose to follow, we will be-able to move in harmony with the lords will... and after i had showed and explained to her that... her reaction, or rather the spirit that followed her reaction was incredible! She looked at us and said "wow that makes perfect sense!" and when she stated that the spirit filled the room and hit me so hard! i was amazed! we went on to tell her that we don't worship our prophets just follow them and the answered the question that she was about to ask before she even asked it! and then she asked "well how do you know if your prophet is a true prophet and not just some guy telling stories?" and we told her that we can receive our own personal revelation form the lord... and explained that it worked the same way that it did when she received the confirmation to be baptized as a Methodist... and she understood completely! Wow the spirit helped us out completely! i was so grateful that i listened really hard to the promptings i was receiving!

I know God answers prayers! He helped me to teach by the spirit and really listen to what the spirit was telling me... and he is preparing her heart too!

she told us the she was actually listening this time and that is why things were making so much sense... her heart is being softened... and we can take NO credit there either... the lord softens hearts! we really can take very little credit for the work we do out here... glory be to the Lord!

Some other neat things that happened that day was, while we were headed to another less active members house i got the prompting... " go see the opera lady!" i only knew this woman as the "opera lady" because when we met her a few months ago she was rushing out the door to an opera and told us to take her address and come back... well i got the prompting to go and see her... so before we went to our next destination we stopped at her house... she opened the door and welcomed us in and gave us water :) we visited with her and found out that she had actually met with missionaries before... in new york where she is from! she told us that she wanted us to come back and have lunch with her and meet some of her friends! so we are going back on Thursday this week! wow what a neat day it turned out to be!

Thursday was pretty uneventful not that there weren't small miracles throughout our day, but it was a day of more appointments that fell through... but we did have lunch with one of our members and her 5 girls. watching them all play together and fight... ha ha reminded me of our family :) i loved it! and this sister kept apologizing for their fighting and being crazy, but i just told her that i totally understand... i come from a family of all girls... and she was like "oh that is awesome then you know what it's like!" ha ha she is such a sweet sister and such a good mother!

Friday came and went just as they always do... we spend most of the day planning for the upcoming week!
Saturday we planned to do a church tour for sunshine... and we couldn't get a hold of anyone with keys to the building so for half an hour we were outside the building calling everyone in the ward to find a key so we could get in the building... i just had to laugh at this little mishap... i knew that everything would turn out... and it did:) the church tour went great!
i had fried Okra for the first time! Wow that is some good stuff! also... i didn't tell you in my last email, but i finally saw FIREFLIES for the first time last week... fireflies are now my favorite insect! ha ha! and the stories are true... their guts really do glow when you squish them... you know i had to try it! ha ha no, in an attempt to catch one i injured it so i had to put it out of it's misery... i was so sad Fireflies are almost enough to make me move back here after my mission... but the humidity will keep me away!
Sunday sunshine came to church! yay! what a great accomplishment. a missionaries heart drops when their investigators don't some to church... but they soar when they see their investigator walk into that building! what a great feeling it is to have an investigator at church! The worldwide leadership broadcast was last night too... i hope yall got an oprotunity to watch it... if not watch it online it was great!
so that was my week! pretty fun stuff! so now on to the really exciting part of my email!  
In an effort to help sunshine read the book of Mormon daily, we took some coloring pages out of a coloring book that i have and we put a grid on them and made her a reading chart. we figured out that there are 239 chapters in the book of Mormon this is really exciting... why?... Because tomorrow Tuesday June 25th 2013, i will have 239 days left on my mission! i have really thought about this and i want to invite y'all to do a book of Mormon count down with me! if we read one chapter a day, we can have the book of Mormon finished by time i come home!!!! I really feel that as we do this as a family that we will grow in spirituality and love, our testimonies of this gospel will grow... and the Book of Mormon is always a good read!

So, family, WILL YOU... read one chapter from the book of Mormon as a family each night, and pray about it and ask our heavenly father if it is true?

As a representative of The Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, i promise and i am confident that the Lord will tell you of it's truth, your testimony will grow, your faith will increase and you will love your families with more love and you will be filled with His spirit! I know this with all my heart! I have seen it in the lives of those i associate with here in Georgia, and i know that the lord is no respecter of persons he will give unto all his children that ask!
"... and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost>" (Moroni 10:4) I KNOW THIS GOSPEL IS TRUE!

I am even going to start over and do this myself.

I have truly come to LOVE the book of Mormon while Ive studied it over and over and taught about it and testified of it to many people... i KNOW with all the surety of my heart that the Book of Mormon IS the word of god, and it does in fact go hand in hand with the bible... it testifies of our Savior Jesus Christ. I have explored the evidence myself, and found it to be true... no one can take this testimony from me... i know it to be true and i love it!

i love yall untill next week  

Sister Dannika Nielsen