Aloha From Hawaii! 1 Apr 2013

Aloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooha and Happy Easter.. Yesterday! 

My week at a glance: 

Tuesday: Zone Conference!

Wednesday: Working hard and talking to everyone!

Thursday: Crazy week planning!

Friday: Easter Musical Fireside.

Saturday: Exchange to Makakilo!

Sunday: Easter. He is Risen.

We had a good week this week! The work is going good. Whitewashing is different, but we have CHOKE potential and I think the work is really going to start moving forward this week. I feel like we talked to everyone this week. Which was our goal, but it was tiring. Our ward mission leader used to be the Stake President, and he's also our mission President's second counselor ( I didn't even know he had counselors..) and he's all on board to get everything going. He gave an awesome 5th Sunday combined lesson on missionary work. I was really hoping he'll call us out of the audience and have us bare our testimonies, I just wanted to "Amen" to everything he said. 

Zone Conference was really good. President gave us an interesting statistic. He said that only 9% of people join the church because of the doctrine. So that other 91% join the church because of how they feel. I thought that was super interesting. The spirit really does everything. They taught a lot about how to be a better teacher. And I've noticed that in the scriptures Christ teaches the exact same way that PMG teaches us how to teach! 

We went on exchanges, I went to Makakilo with Sis. Flores. She's been out the same as Sis. Hudson and her trainer had only been out for 5 weeks! But Sis. Flores is 19. She's is so prepared to be a missionary though. We were able to tract into this lady named Debbie. And she came out ready with her gun loaded.  She kept saying all you need is Jesus. But it was so cool how the spirit took over and we were able to teach her principles about the BOM and to see the change in her countenance. It just made me actually realize how far I have progressed as a missionary. By the end we invited her to read 3 Nephi 11 and some pamphlets. She took them, still a little skeptical, but the spirit definitely touched her heart. 

I LOVED Easter this year! In our mission they give every missionary an "Atonement Packet" which basically has all these talks about the atonement. And from studying that I've learned SO much! So this Easter was extra meaningful because I feel like I actually understood WHY an atonement needed to take place. I love this gospel. I love being a missionary. And I love my Savior Jesus Christ. 

Sorry I feel like I really don't know what to say this week! Everything is going good. We'll be seeing miracles and the work is going to progress! 8 Months!? Ahhhh. This is just flying by! I'm just trying not to think about it. 

Have a great week!! 

Much Aloha, 

S. Nielsen 

P.S. The pictures are from the hike we went on this morning!