Franken-pants??

 April 23rd, 2012

 

heh heh, a funny thing happened about 4 weeks ago, the side of my pants tore and we were going to do a baptism. So I went into the library to find some safety pins. Well, wouldn'tcha know it? They had none. So I used that good old fashioned boyscout thrift coupled with dad's Macgyversome abilities to come up with the next best idea! Here's what I thought, "What does a surgeon use to close wounds? stitches.... none..... superglue!!!......nope I'm not that stupid........hmmmm......staples....yeah that'll work!

 

So I grabbed the handy dandy librarian stapler (the HEAVY DUTY kind) and popped it all together! and I went to the baptism as frankenstien. Don't worry I pulled them all out and now there is thread lining the side, but hey, it's better than a baptism striptease!

 

Now for the spiritual side of things, My companion, Elder Mitchell got to baptize an investigator yesterday and I got to confirm! I hardly know her, but she still chose me for some reason. She's a big tongan and my companion is shorter and skinnier than I am. I thought we were going to have to do baptisms for the dead! But he made it look rather simple so everything went well. She's cool. and solid. so she won't drift from the church anytime soon I think. So it'll all be good!

 

Happy Birthday to:

 

Tai Wilson
Matthew Payne

Candice Stanley

Gabbi Nichols

Marisela Solis

Sydney Berg

Leslie Greenland

Donna McDaniel

Sam Beaudry

Krista avance

Jordan Ikeda

Grant Heath

Kody Hinton

Megan Mcghie

Dillan Knowles

Sherrell Savage

Day Cook

Chase Sayer

Daniel Greenland

Tim McDaniel

Caitlin Hart

Bryon and Wesley Geddes

Birthdays, baptisms and gardening

March 12th, 2012

 

 

My companion Elder Nielson had his birthday yesterday and I hung some balloons and signs for him that you gave me. He enjoyed it. I've currently done that for about 5 or 6 of my companions now and I've made their misssion birthdays a little bit lighter. It's so good to see the joy on their faces and know that their birthdays weren't forgotten after all!

 

We also have about three or four investigators now that are interested in joining the church. Tina & her son Zamien, Carmen, and Amanda and her family. The work has picked up here, but alas to journey is without it's stumbling blocks, but most of those we are knocking out of the way, so it's been pretty good. We're hoping to get all of them baptised by the end of this month. It'll be awesome!

 

We also stopped by a 76 year old lady who introduced herself as Mary Little, and we helped her with her gardening. We mowed, pulled weeds, and watered her plants. She was so delighted that she told us we could come back anytime and swim in her olypic sized pool. ......Don't think we'll take up that offer anytime soon, but it felt really great to help her out!

We also made a table for a widow in our Ward. Her husband was making her a table when he suddenly fell ill and passed away, so we took a surprise visit to her house and finished the table for her. She was so thrilled!!! It took us a couple of days, but in the end It turned out great!!! Thank you so much dad for teaching me we to work with wood! I couldn't have done it without you!

 

In other news, Adriana, Monica, Marcella, and Andre are doing really good too, from what I've heard! They didn't lose their house back in Winter Haven and they are still keeping commitments with the missionaries, those Andre is still bieng a punk at times..... It's amazing to see what the gospel does for families and how it's helps and strengthen their faith and trust in the Savior. I am so glad you all are helping others come unto the gospel and I pray you find much success in your endeavors! Keep up the good work! I love you and hope to see you all again very soon!

 

~Elder Nessen  (you can make this a letter to everyone on my blog if you want, but you probably would want to ommit the first part)

 

Happy Birthday to:

 

Tami Proksch

Traci Knowles

Tracy Brown
Mineko

Rob Suckoll

Hiram Smith

Seth Montandon

Tai Wilson

Matthew Payne

Candice Stanley

and

Gabbi Nichols

Fabulous fantastic february finding frenzy!

 Feb. 27th 2012

 

 

This past month President Summerhays gathered the mission together for some new announcements that changed the mission. He talked about many things, and systems put in place to make sure that missionaries are taking care of their cars and apartments. One of which was a new box that would be put into every mission car. They are called black boxes or "Tiwi's". They monitor speed, jarring, braking, location, and even vocals. It's about a $700 investment for each, but they believe it will help save the church money on cars (there are some NASTY drivers out here). And if at any time a missionary goes out of his mission it automatically phones president Summerhays (yes it's a phone too). So a lot of missionaries will be kept under a thumb for a while but I believe it is good. (half that stuff doesn't apply to me anyway, that's probably why I'm so casual about it). And another part was all aisoft guns, bb guns, etc be returned home. This was put in place primarily due to another missionary's unwise actions.

 

He also told us of a new plan, a Fabulous, Fantastic, February, Finding, Frenzy. We've have been concentrating so much on the Ward mission Plan and lessons, that unfortunately finding has decreased, so this month we tried new ways of finding and helping people with service. It was pretty cool, we actually went out and found people at basketball courts after 6pm and invited them to come play with us in a lighted gym. Boy were they happy! We also cleaned yards and helped people with odd jobs, etc. I also had the opportunity to go and do a bible study! The lady there actually served in El Salvador too. But she was from another church. They asked us to help teach the lesson and bear our testimonies! It was so cool! Very Spiritual! We also met a guy that an elder ran into while tracting there, so it was really awesome!

 

Overall everything is going well and I hope to see you all soon! Only 166 days left!!!! btw we are having transfers in a couple days and Fangupo is leaving and Elder Neilson is coming.

 

Happy Birthday to:

 

Dustin Lobato

Tami Proksch

Traci Knowles

and Tracy Brown!!!!

 

~Elder Nessen

Some new changes in Seffner (Feb. 6th)

It's fun out here, we have some stuff going on in the mission right now that Pres. Summerhays wants changed and it's affecting all missionaries. So it'll be interesting to see what he has to say in his meeting coming up. He just recently, started the Family Mission Plan that helps members organize plans, etc to bring people into the church! We probably won't see results from this until way later into the year, but so far it's taken off! So we're eager to see whats going to be happening during this meeting!

 

On the flip side, we ate at a members house yesterday and had some awesome chicken wings! The one we went to prior to that had something called Nutcheese (exactly as it sounds, sunflower seeds beat and ground into a creamy cheese) at her house that she fed us. It was....definitely something I haven't tasted before! Our car broke down too, but we'll be getting it back tomorrow! Backing out of a driveway the radiator broke. fyi for future ventures in repair: NEVER take a car to a dealership to get fixed.......PERIOD!!!!!

 

Anyway love you all and I'll talk to you later!

 

~Elder Nessen