J and L were confirmed this week. As expected they had a very difficult week. J had the cravings to smoke and even asked her son in law for a cigarette but L got there just before he handed it to her! YAY! She was so disappointed in herself. But she made it so we are proud of her! L also had a hard week. But they made it through and both enjoyed being confirmed yesterday. J went home after Sacrament Meeting because the Spirit was so strong that she was overwhelmed haha! But we had a great evening with them on Saturday. We took them to the Visitors' Centre and we watched the Prophet of the Restoration film and it was so good! I loved seeing Fiona Smith from Ilford in it :) J cried at the end and couldn't believe that someone would murder Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith! Even her husband was crying. Now let me tell you about her husband. He is so inactive and has many word of widsom problems but we invited him in for the after-baptism lessons and he's doing well! He feels fatherly towards us and looks after us. He's gone fishing the last few days to try and catch us some fish to eat - super cute. Anyway it was a great evening because we showed them around the VC afterwards and J started crying again because she said she will miss us so much now we don't have to see her every day cos she got baptized! It was so tender! She had her temple recommend interview yesterday to go do baptisms and she wants us to come with her! We'll see how that goes! We love her! Anyway after the VC they surprised us by taking us to Denny's for the evening! It was our second dinner of the evening haha! It was great though. They are so kind! We couldn't finish it all and so took it home in a box and ate it for our breaking the fast meal haha! The C's are doing SO well!!! Every time we go round there they've corrected one of their bad habits without us even addressing it! M has given up smoking since Jan 1st in order to baptise his daughter in April! They are doing so well! We love them so much! As usual Saturday contained many miracles! Saturday just seems to be the best day of the week (apart from P-day obviously) and we found two new investigators by contacting some referrals we were given. One is a 9yr old girl who lives with her less active mum in a trailer park. While we were there we ran into our friends the Jehovah's Witnesses who gave us a dirty dirty look! It was funny because they were knocking on doors, going from door to door to door and we walk right in that trailer park, mosey on up to the door we had a referral for, stand there for 10 minutes sharing the gospel, praying, reading and laughing, and walk away with a new investigator mincing right out of that trailer park while they're still knocking on doors and had seen the whole thing. They weren't our biggest fans that day. But we love them! They are good people! We also contacted another referral and he was just dying to see the missionaries but it turns out he's on probation so he wont be baptised for a long while. But we will teach him and he seems golden apart from his criminal record haha. While we were out walking the other day we walked past this Mexican household that is like almost next door to our house and we've spoken to the people and given the Spanish Elders their details. It's funny because I don't know if it's because we're girls or because they don't really understand what we're trying to say but they seem interested in our message when we're there. But then we send our Spanish Elders over and NOBODY wants to hear their message. It's happened time after time after time. So we apologized to the Elders for keep giving them rubbish referrals and they were like SISTERS!! Dont say that! We've got 2 new investgiators this week that we found when we were going or coming from contacting a referral you gave us! So keep it coming, we appreciate them so much and keep doing what you're doing because you must be doing something right. It was so nice because we felt so bad that nobody we give them wants to listen. Anyway we walked past this Mexican house and three little girls out playing on the grass called out to us and said "What's your names!!" and we told them and they told us their names and asked us where we live so we pointed to our house and they pointed to theirs and then they said "You're really pretty!" and we laughed and said thank you and that they were too and asked them if they'd seen the boy missionaries before and they said they hadn't. So we contacted the Spanish Elders and told them to go back to the house and be more pretty because apparently that works with them ;) They were such cute little girls though and so confident!
So New Years Eve was such a distracted day for me! I kept thinking about what you'd all be doing and it was so hard to focus haha! I hope you like the pictures of me at 5pm our time so 12am your time! I was having a party in my head :)
Our New Years Eve was great! We worked all day up until 5pm when we had a district activity. We met in the Elders' Stake Centre and we watched......TOY STORY 3!!!! Watching movies with missionaries is probably the funniest thing in the world to do. We are so immersed in the Gospel that watching anything even slightly worldly like Toy Story was so crazy! And of course we can't watch it without shouting out Gospel parallels. The best one was Sister L. We'd got to the part in Toy Story 3 where they are falling towards the fire and about to die all because they didn't trust Woody when he said that they were supposed to go in the loft not in the rubbish and she goes "They should've listened to Woody all along. He's the Priesthood holder!" and you had to be there it was just #missionarylolz. And they were falling towards the fire and we're like "Oh that's outer darkness for sure!" and all sorts of banter. It was a good evening.
The district loved my Percy Pigs, THANKS BE TO TEDDY GAN! When one of them wanted one they'd shout out for a PIG and I'd throw a pig at them haha. We then played apples to apples until 9pm and just laughed until we cried. It was a great evening. Then Elder L the district leader informed us that New Years Day was supposed to be like Christmas Day only without the presents or the Skype, so we had to not do any missionary work. Why didn't he tell us that before 9pm the evening before?!1 We'd booked our whole day up with missionary activtiies! So we cancelled a few of the lessons but wanted to keep some of the ones that would be hard to move. So overall it was a really HARD day because the mission had put on activities for us all day, so because of where our appointments fell, we had like two hours of fun followed by an hour of missionary work, then two hours of fun followed by an hour of missionary work, then two hours of fun followed by misisonary work followed by fun. So I didn't know if I was coming or going! Missionary hat on, missionary hat off, missionary hat on, hat off etc. So in the morning we went to the Dixie State University football field because we were doing sports! The Elders had the football field and they played a huge game of football called the Daisy Bowl hahahhaa because it was a take off from the Rose Bowl that college football does on New Years Day. The AP's gave a coach-like-pep-rally-speech and all the Elders were down on one knee listening. They had a big bowl of daisy's for the winning team. It was so funny! President and Sister Center were the referees. The Sisters all played soccer and frisbee too. It was a good morning. Me and Sister L ran up and down the bleachers to do our legs some good. I don't know if it did good or BAD because it HURT SO BAD for the next few days! I think I wana do soccer when I get back to BYU! Then we had a lesson with D so had to change super fast into missionary clothes! We committed him to baptism then it turns out we have to hand him over to YSA Elders so it's not even going to be a baptism for us but it's all good because he's coming unto Christ no matter what. He's doing so well!! Then we went back to the Elders' Stake Centre and watched Despicable Me 1 with the district! It was so funny again! We had pizza and stuff too. Then we went back to missionary work for a few hours and taught a family who are riddled with drugs and problems and are ready to divorce but are trying to work things out. It went well! Then we went to dinner at the D's (who BTW it was their apples to apples that we were playing with the night before. They gave us permission to break into their unlocked home on New Years Eve and steal their apples to apples game for our district activity hahah!) who we LOVE! Sister D went and bought me some lipgloss from Victoria's Secret because I ran out ages ago and miss it and don't feel like a Sister Missionary should go in there haha! So she heard me say that and then went and bought me some! She drove past us on the street the next day and stopped the car and bibbed and we ran out into the road and she handed me two of my lipglosses! I love her! Anyway after dinner at their house we went to our Zone Activity in the Institute Building on Dixie Campus and played games and watched Kung Fu Panda and Ephraim's Rescue.
It was so funny! Seriously missionaries are the best people to watch movies with. Everything has a Gospel parallel. Also there's this Elder from Alabama with the strongest southern accent EVER. We were watching Ephraim's Rescue and there's this bit where they're in England and there's this British girl with long blonde hair and he shouted out in the strongest southern accent ever "Sister NICHOLLS!!! YOU DIDN'T TELL US YOU WERE IN THIS MOVIE!" and everyone cracked up so much! Then they mentioned something about a stodgy soup and he was like "SISTER NICHOLLS!! WHAT DOES STODGY MEAN?!" and I was like "I'll be holding a question and answer session after the movie is done". It was such a good evening. I love the Elders and Sisters in this mission. Even though it was so nice to spend the day socialising with other people our age, it was so exhausting switching on and off from misisonary to relaxed. It honestly felt SO good to just work hard again Thursday onwards. It's so hard taking time off because you remember home and it's hard to get going again. So it was nice but I'm excited that we don't have another day off for a very long time! It felt so good to work again once New Years Day was over.
So Sunday (yesterday) I was fasting to just feel happy and close to Heavenly Father and to know how He felt about me. I said that I just wanted to feel like I feel after I have a Priesthood blessing even though there was no Priesthood there to bless me. But I asked that through my own faith and through His Priesthood if He would bless me to have the weight lifted from me and to feel happy and close to Him. As soon as I said it I felt as light as a spring morning and could see myself as He sees me and it was magnificent. All day I felt amazing and happy and ready to face everything that missionary life throws at me. I truly experienced a miracle through my own faith and His power. I felt so light and happy allllllllll day! I knew that I have nothing to worry about and that I'm precious in His sight, and I felt so strongly His gratitude to me for giving up this part of m life to find souls for Him. It was so wonderful. Because of it I learned that we are all so precious in His sight and that we only need ask Him in faith and He will give. We are often so much harder on ourselves than He is on us. We have been in some houses this week that really have problems. Washington has quite the drug problem and a lot of trailer parks that are so run down. I have just felt so happy to be raised in the family that I have been raised in. We have taught some really hardened people this week and the contention in their families hurt the Spirit with us. I just had my eyes all filled with tears as I thought about how blessed I am and how much I love my family and our house. I wouldn't change anything for anything. I miss you all so much but I know that I'm needed here for 15 more months! My new year's resolutions are to work, to love and to change. Every single day. To love everyone and to love myself, and to work so hard everyday that there's nothing I can do more, and to change myself and those I meet every single day.
I love you all forever! Thank you for all the support!
Sister Nicholls
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