My crazy week! - 3-9-14

Dearly Beloved, 

I don't even know where to begin with all my news from this week. It's been a crazy one! Before I forget my pday next week will be FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have Zone Conference with Elder Clark from the First Quorum of the 70 so everyone's pdays are being pushed back. So don't freak out when I'm not on on Wednesday! 

We started out the week by meeting with our new Stake President, President Huddleston. He seems nice! We were scared because he emphasised a few times the importance of our numbers, and how we need to reach certain goals, and then handed us this spreadsheet with the Elders numbers next to our numbers per each key indicator broken down by ward. I felt SICK! Our work is being directly compared to the Assistant's work! So we came away from the meeting feeling very pressured and nervous but we're ready to work hard and not compare ourselves. Heavenly Father knows we are doing our best :) It's just a horrible spreadsheet! They dislike how much time we spend at the VC too, which is a shame because that's where the Prophet called me. 

We've had many fun times exercising each morning! Me and a Polynesian Sister have been teaching the other Sisters how to play netball! We drew the field and game plans and everything and assigned everyone's positions and the Sisters are getting better at it! We play it twice a week, and we play soccer twice a week, and we run twice a week. It's weird at the Dixie stadium now because the football players are always there doing their practise and we walk past and see a few of our investgiators and our Ward Mission leader out there playing haha. So weird! 

The best part of the week was when W, one of my Teaching Center investigators got baptized. Sister Rizzo and I gave him and his girlfriend a tour back at the start of June. I remember the tour really well, the Spirit was strong and he said he wanted to learn more. We called him on the phone and read the Book of Mormon with him and answered questions and have just been encouraging him. The Elders in his local area put him on date for baptism for Saturday but I spoke to him on the phone a few days before and he told me he wasn't ready and wasn't going to be baptized. I counselled him to continue to pray and the Lord would help him be prepared. On Friday evening the Elders texted me to say that William was getting baptized and he wanted me to speak at his baptism! So I was ecstatic! When I saw him I asked what happened to change his mind and he said he was telling his girlfriend how he didn't feel ready, and she told him that if he doesn't feel like he is being answered that he just needs to change the way he is praying for it. So that evening he knelt by his bed and poured out his whole soul in mighty prayer to Heavenly Father and felt all of his doubts melt away. He said he woke up in the morning and just knew that he needed to be baptized the next day! So he called the Elders and told them he would be baptized! It was so cool! I love seeing these miracles in peoples lives. So I was able to attend in a wheelchair and spoke on the Holy Ghost. I felt like Elder Packer at General Conference giving a talk sitting down haha. 

So crazy story of the week. On Wednesday we went geocaching with Sister Allen and Sister Calves, and Sister Borchert one of the Senior Sisters at the VC drove us in her Jeep with her iPad so we could find the caches. We were searching in some rocks for one of them when I scraped my ankle. It stung a lot but I didn't want to be a baby and complain about it all day so I kept going. It bled a lot and my whole ankle was hurting but I didn't want to stop.

Then on Thursday we worked and it hurt but I didn't pay it a lot of attention. Then on Friday it hurt so much that I couldn't run in the morning, and I was limping around. We weren't in the VC all day, we were just working in our area so we walked and walked and walked and walked. It was getting worse and worse and I was limping and limping and Sister Biery looked at my ankle and was like "SISTER NICHOLLS! LOOK AT YOUR ANKLE!" and I looked and behold it was MASSIVE.  Super huge and red! It was really hot and hurt to touch. So we kept working and walking and I took some pain killers and we taught and taught and found and found and finally at 9:20pm we got home and we went to the Watkin's apartment and I showed them my ankle. They told me to call Sister Center straight away so I did and she put President on the phone cos he was a Vet so he knows stuff! He asked me to describe it to him and told me to go to the ER. I've never been to hospital in my life and then on my mission I go two times so far! I've never had to go to the Doctors as much as I have here haha. So Sister Watkins took us to the ER and there we were until 12:30am. We did have a great gospel conversation with this YSA girl in the Assistants' area. She is interested in learning more, so if nothing else comes of it at least we met that girl in the hospital! Maybe that's why this whole thing happened haha! The Doctor gave me antibiotics and crutches and told me to keep it elevated for a few days. I feel like I slept the whole of Saturday and most of Sunday. On Sunday morning Elder Watkins gave me a blessing and said that I would be healed very quickly. Almost instantly I could get up and walk around and the pain was gone! Like an absolute noob I went out to work that evening and ruined it all and it got huge again! So I went back to bed for another day and a half and yesterday (Tuesday) went back to work. We took another Sister's car though so we didn't have to do a lot of walking and I kept it elevated during lessons. So it's on the mend slowly! It drove me crazy not working, but at least for half of Sunday and all of Monday Sister Hee joined me on the sick couch and we just talked and laughed and watched all of the Doctrine and Covenants disc 3 haha. We ate so much food and talked about our whole lives cos we laid on that sofa for a VERY long time. I got two packages this week, one from Lukey and one from Dad! All the Sisters thought Luke was super cute sending me that package, nice one Luke ;) I see what you did there. And Dad I knew it was your handwriting, and then I opened it and it was a Victoria's Secret bag! I was SO perplexed! I was like what on earth is my Dad sending me from Victoria's Secret!!! Haha so then I opened it and was thrilled at all the delicious smelling moisturisers! You all spoil me :) It made a sick girl very pleased! Thank you! 

Another great highlight of the week was when S, the man we baptized in Little Valley, came into the VC and told us he had been given the Priesthood! He was positvely glowing :) he looked SO happy and so healthy and so clean! We talked to him for ages about life and it was like meeting up with a long lost friend. It was such a sweet moment. He told us how the other day he felt prompted by the Spirit to wake up and find his Mum and he found her lying on the floor passed out from a diabetes thing. He took her to hospital and her life was saved. He told us that he knows if he didn't quit smoking and get baptized he wouldn't have been able to hear that prompting. The sweetest thing in the world is when your recent converts can see the blessings they get from their faithfulness. It's like seeing a child walk for themselves. I almost started crying I was so happy! I just love him! 

T is still going super strong! We taught him yesterday and he accepted a baptismal date of Sept 27th! He is so excited for it and wants to read the WHOLE Book of Mormon "So he can go to heaven" haha we explained that that isn't what will save him, even though it is a GREAT thing to do. He is doing really well and has such a humble spirit about him. I can't wait for the day he is baptised :) he is so prepared! We have stopped teaching him at his apartment because his 7 other roommates are creepy. We were at his doorstep teaching him and one by one they all joined us (Which is a missionary's dream) but they were just being jerks! One of them was literally wearing a white tarzan type loincloth haha. We were trying SO HARD to just stare at his eyes and then the boys in the background were making stupid and inappropriate noises and it was so hard to teach. Then we said we wanted to say a prayer and one of the boys gets inbetween us and holds out his hands for us to hold hands while we pray. We walked away and were like, we are NEVER coming here to teach again! So we meet him elsewhere from now on #ysaprobz. 

We met a boy named R this week who has been taught by missionaries before but doesn't feel like God is answering him about whether to be baptized or not. As we went back to teach him the second time we were talking about how the Spirit works and then all these other concerns came out. He just opened right up and told us about how his mother died when he was young and this woman across the road adopted him. His mother loved butterflies and when he moved into his new room there were pics of butterflies and he knew it was where he was supposed to be. This family always felt like they should have him and they always knew he would be a part of their family. So they like saved his life, but they are anti-Mormon. So because he is meeting with missionaries they feel so betrayed and he doesn't want to hurt them after all they've done for him. It's such a hard situation. I feel like Satan makes things as hard as he possibly can for people to be baptized. We are continuing to work with him because he is so strong and faith filled that we think he will be baptized and his family will be blessed and softened enough to accept it! 

We had a dinner appointment yesterday with a couple who just got married a month ago. We dinner poached some Elders because this couple lived in their area but invited us over for dinner! They are from Delta and grew up with Justin Christensen! Crazy small world! But we had such a great time together because we are all the same age haha so they invited us back again and again so we have like a set dinner appointment each week with them! Hallelujah! They are so fun and sweet! Then on Saturday Sister Christensen from Morningside texted us and said that we haven't asked her for any dinners yet and she is expecting us to ask for one! So we told her we wouldn't refuse a dinner that evening! Haha she dropped off some dinner for us! It was so sweet! People are taking good care of us! Today for pday we were going to play tennis with Sister Borchert, the Senior Couple Sister from the VC who took us geocaching #bestfriends but then I ruined my ankle so instead we are just going to her house to eat good food haha! 

All my love

Sister Nicholls 

PS keep me in your prayers! 

PPS it is really hard to understand motab's* words when they sing so we have this fun new game where we speak what we think they said and its hilarious! Also if you want uplifting songs you should listen to God So Loved The World and Homeward Bound by motab. They're our favourite right now! 

I LOVE YOU ALL 

* Mormon Tabernacle Choir