Holy Moly! I LOVE ALASKA! - First letter from Elder N in Alaska

 I've been here a total of 5 days and we have done so much and seen so many things as well. On Wednesday I had quite the adventure. I started off the morning by saying my goodbyes to friends and family and then flying off from St George to Salt Lake. I landed in Salt Lake and ran into a guy who would be flying on the same flight with me from salt lake to Seattle so I hung out around him and conversated with him for a little till we boarded out flight. When I landed in Seattle I ran into some other missionaries that were headed to anchorage as well, we had a hour and a half lay over so we all went to go eat at the golden arches (McDonald's) when we landed in Ancnorage we finally got to meet President and sister King and got a couple of pictures with them before our companions picked us up. My companions  Elder Alexander and Elder Merrill picked me up from the airport and we started our hour drive to Palmer . Before we left Anchorage elder Alexander told me its tradition to stop at Kriners. The burgers there were amazing! After we finished eating we headed out because we had a lesson planned back in palmer. We had a Lesson planned with a lady named L and it went amazing! After our lesson we parked and made lots of phone calls and set up lots of of lessons and member lessons. After words we joined  a seventh day adaventist Bible study because we have a couple of friends who were attending it and got a very apostate book they use to do bible study. We then headed home to our beautiful "barndaminum" which is just a converted barn.

Thursday morning we had district council in the morning and got to meet all the awesome missionaries in the district, after we had finished that we had a service project with the Hs. Brother H was such an awesome guy, but he has signs of dementia so we were helping his family move him out so he could be closer to family. It was really fun but it was so heart breaking. At the end of the project we had the opportunity to give him a blessing and I got to anoint the oil which I've never done before so that was exciting. We finished the night with some calls and then went to bed.

Friday was exciting. The virgins, what my companions call us, got to take a trip to pick up our new truck. Elder Alexander was so hyped about that, we got our new truck a 2021 Toyota Tocoma! After we got our truck we stopped and got food at taco King and got some of the best street tacos I've ever had! After we at we headed back to palmer to attend a trick or treat and try to make contacts. It didn't go so well it was about 14 degrees with 10 mph winds! Over all Friday was a really good day though.

Saturday we didn't have a lot planned because it was Halloween and Alaska is actually pretty sketch our President wanted us in at 7. So we had two awesome lessons with. The Thompsons and Larry Wiggins. We had a less fun service project with a lady who was a hoarder. We moved a bed covered in rat poo and pee from the garage to the guest room as her new bed, we also cleaned up a room filled with garbage. After words I was ready for a shower. We then had dinner at a non members house which was really fun he was a super cool guy and became our friend immediately and offered to take us I've fishing on our of our p days.

Sunday we had church and I got to meet more of the members. After church we went to sister Ts to give her a blessing which I got to give! After that we had 4 lessons planed and a weekly report with the ward mission leader. The first lesson with the Bs went really well. Sister B is 87 and her daughter is in her 50s, the second lesson with the Os went well as well. After our lessons we had the other two fall through so we spent the rest the night making calls before we got too exhausted and went home to sleep.

And here we are today, I'm currently writing this email from a laundromat call The Butte washtub which offers laundry showers and pizza. Here we ran into some drunk guys carrying water so we offered help, shortly after we offered help on of them then proposed to elder Alexander I thought it was cute but elder alexander politely declined his offer and got back in the truck. The drunk men then proceeded to stay at us with heart eyes and blow kisses for a good 5 minutes. I don't know if I have already mentioned it but my companions are literally the best people ever they are so great! 

Alaska is exactly what you think it would be. It has snowed 3/5 days I've been here and the warmest I have seen is 24 degrees. The sun rises at about 9:30 and sets around 5:30.

Before I end I have to brag a little, my brother Jeff served in Canada and wanted to see a moose so bad. It wasn't until his 24th month that he actually saw one. Well he i am 5 days in and I have already seem 5 moose, 1 wolf and 3 bald eagles!

 

That's all for my Alaska adventures this week but I'm so excited for the weeks to come below are some pics I've gotten of our great adventures

Howdy Howdy! This week has been pretty spectacular, More lessons more servise and... goat yoga?

 I finally got a good picture of a moose well actually 4 moose, at one of our service projects we saw the huge moose in the back yard probably 70 yards in front of us but I could get a picture because we were working and it was ducking in and out of trees but on the way home we saw a field and down in the field there were 4 moose so down at the bottom is the picture!

 

Before I start, I just wanted to say earlier this week we got put on a restriction for missionary work, we can no longer go into homes like we were able to do. We now do almost everything remotely over zoom. We are still aloud to do service but the service has to be outside. The one thing keeping our sanity is that we can still drive around and stop at the three bears for the occasion soda. So after all that p day is gonna be kinda lame today since we can't meet as a district or play basketball at the church, send me an email back I'd love to talk with you guys. Any way this is how my week went .

Tuesday a legacy came to an end, Monday right after we finished our laundry at the Butte Washtub we got a call from a member named Bro. Clawson saying he had an extra washer and dryer that he was gonna give us. So Tuesday morning we drove up to his house and got them and brought them back to our barndaminum. After that we went on our last exchange for a little while. We lost elder Merrill and got elder Swartout for the day. After lunch comp study and personal study we had a super fun activity with the primary kids, we got to dress up as the 3 Nephites and bear our testimonies from their perspective! I think i have pictures ill make sure those go out as soon as I can!

Wednesday was really good. We had a lesson plan with L again at the Mullins house Which is about a 5 minute walk. After a little bit of persuading Elder Merrill and I got Elder Alexander to walk there with us. We took our nice 5 minute walk in the 17 degree weather (which is quite nice because the wind had stopped) and got to Sister Mullins house. We got there and when we got there L wasn't there, so we waited for a little bit but she never showed up, so we had to trek back up to the barn. We had another lesson plan fall through which really got our hopes down and we were all kind of down, but then we got a call from the Thompsons saying they had service we could do, so we hopped in our truck and went over, the service went amazing and after were done she made us cookies and hot apple cider and they were so so good! She then welcomed us to dinner on Saturday and said we would love to come. We finished our night with a lesson with LL, as usual the lesson went amazing the spirit was so strong that her family started joining after hearing what we were saying.

Thursday was a crazy busy day. We started off buy helping our good friend Brother Allred move a huge Soapstone Furnace which was so crazy heavy, after our service with him we drove over and joined our district for a service for a hoarder. It was super fun because everyone was there and we are all really good friends but it smelt soo bad. After about an hour and a half we ran home got cleaned up and ate dinner and headed over to the Owens so that we Could start our Facebook live. It went pretty well not as good as our other live but it was still super fun. After our live we hustled over to the church for our Bible study, but this time people actually showed up which was awesome. To end the night we went to check the mail at the post office and I got my first package! But that's not the best part, we ran into this super nice lady there and we talked to her for a bit she even offered to start writing us letters because she saw that none of us had any. She thought we were super awesome and wanted us to come meet with her more, it was pretty heart breaking to find out she was part of the fishhook area, but we sent her contact over to the fishhook sisters.

Friday we had an amazing miracle. After we had sent that contact to the sister we headed home and went to bed when we woke up we had a text from some sisters in Oregon. They had a non member friend who had moved right into our area so they sent us her information and we were able to meet her that night. She was super nice and loved us immediately. She wants to keep meeting with us and after p day today we are meeting with her again.

Saturday was super awesome we had three service projects, but our second one was probably the best, I think this is the story you have been waiting for. We did service for L who does goat yoga. So after we were done she let us play with the goats, and let me tell you a goat on your back is the best feeling ever! She also had a rabbit which probably weighed the same as my neices! It was crazy. Anything else we did doesn't even come close to compare to that. Saturday was the day we got the heart breaking news that we would no longer be able to meet in person or have church meetings, we are doing what they call a physical distance so we don't have to be on lockdown but we can't be near anyone for to long so we can still grocery shop but we can't go into members houses.

Sunday was weird, we had church over zoom which was awesome our bishop gave an awesome talk about the sacrament and the Atonement, then we went to Sunday school over zoom, and then the weirdest part was all the lessons we had planned got moved to zoom which was a first for me but all the lessons went pretty well!  

I really appreciate all the support and love you guys give me! I love you all so much! 

Sincerely your favorite Elder,

                                                   Elder Nielsen

Ps the elder in this picture is Elder Hoopes. He is so freaking cool! 

The 3 virgins:Delaware is fake

 This first section is for everyone who doubted my conspiracy theory that Delaware is fake. Last night we had a wonderful dinner with a lady B. At this dinner we were trying to get to know her a little bit better, so we asked about her kids. She then started telling us about her daughter who moved to the east coast, she was trying to moved to Delaware but ended up in Rhode Island , these are not my words these are sister her and her daughters ,because "Delaware is fake". So my conspiracy is confirmed.

Anyways, life here in Palmer Alaska is AMAZING! The scenery is so beautiful i take 1000s of pictures everyday, ill try to send as many as i can but gmail will only let me send a few. The weather has been so weird lately. It has usually been in the high tens like 15-18 degrees in the  days with lows of 0-6 at night and morning, but we had a huge rain storm that rolled in and melted almost all the snow and then a blizzard came through and doubled the amount we had before! The one nice thing about snow is when it is overcast the heat gets trapped in, so last night it actually reached about 35 degrees and today its in the high twenties, so I cracked out the short-sleeves and a sweater and I'm enjoying the warm weather. My week wasn't as hectic as it was last week but it was still pretty good!

Monday was P day, which was amazing we played basketball and I ended the day by calling my family, I got to talk to my parents and my siblings and I also got to talk to my grandma and grandpa Pugh and my grandpa Nielsen which was such a great way to spend my Pday.

 

Tuesday was quite the busy day we had 3 member lessons, and a 2 hour service project all three of the lessons went amazing and the service project was not bad. We had helped a couple empty a storage unit that was filled with garbage to their shed in the back yard but other than that it was just a normal Tuesday.

Wednesday was pretty fun we had an exchange so we lost elder merrill for the day but gained Elder Cazier. We had our weekly lesson with L which went super awesome. We discussed 3 Nephi 18 and taught about the importance of the sacrament. What was really neat about that was i was the one who lead the lesson! It ended up so well, she even prayed at the end and thanked our heavenly father for the book of mormon. After our lesson with L we had a member lesson with B and then after that lesson we drove to the stake center to give the Sisters in the fishbowl ward blessings, which went amazing, the room was filled with the spirit and after words they told us how meaningful and how much they needed to hear what we said was. That was a great way to finish our night.

Thursday was a crazy crazy night! We had 2 lessons early in the morning, sadly only one of them went well. Our lesson with L went the same as it all ways does. He lies about knowing the book of mormon and doesn't keep commitments, after talking to our bishop and ward mission leaders we found out that he has been meeting with the missionaries for 30 years! We came to the conclusion  we are going to drop him which is rough. Out later lesson with S went super well! She even wants to start coming back to church! Later that night me elder merrill and elder Alexander went live on facebook with the Allred family! The live went really well untill me and elder merrill got pied in the face. It actually wasn't that bad but the cream smelt really bad. After our live we had to hustle to the stake center for a Bible study that we were hosting, sadly only one person showed up, our ward mission leaders. After that sad show we had to run again to a surprise lesson with an inactive member who called us because he was with a nonmember we had been trying to teach so we ran over there and had a lesson from 8:30 to 9:15 which was a pretty cool way of finishing our night 

Friday we had a lesson with a non member  who teaches goat yoga. When we got to the lesson she was in a emotional wreck. We had come to find out that her husband threw a huge fit hid her keys so she can't go to church and threw her bible and book of Mormon away. We comforted her and taught an amazing lesson and after she told us how much we mean to her and how thankful she is. After our lesson we had another exchange and we lost elder Merrill but gained Elder Reeder for the day. Which was fun because for service we put up Christmas lights for a lady which reminded of Christmas at our house, after that we had a lesson fall through so we made phone calls untill our lesson with a young couple and their kid. After our lesson we went and dropped elder Reeder off and got elder merrill back

Saturday was really fun, we started off the day by attending a baptism which was awesome untill I got a call from the bishop asking if i could give a talk the next day. After the baptism we had yet another exchange and we lost elder merrill again but gained elder Chavez for the day. We didn't have any lessons planned for the day so we found stuff to do, we went to two different farmers markets and mingled with people there which was very fun and then we had a nice dinner and finished the night by dropping off elder Chavez and getting elder merrill.

Sunday went better than I thought, Elder merrill and I both gave talks he talked about grace and I talked about baptism. Everyone told me i did a really good job which scares me, because now they are gonna rely on me more. After Church we had a really awesome breakfast for lunch at a members house. His name was brother H and he was hilarious! After lunch with him we had a lesson with P and A again which is always delightful. We then brought the sacrament to sister G and gave her a lesson which went really well. After our lesson we sped over dinner with the sister who says Delaware isn't real and had a really nice dinner with her, after our dinner we had one more lesson with the Ms. The lesson with them was really cool because I found out that they were related to Flo Bowers, a older woman I used to visit a lot back at home and do service for. It was reallg cool talking to them and getting to them a little more.

And that leads us to today, I woke up this morning after the blizzard had hit to about 6 inches if brand new snow and lots of ice on the road. Nothing crazy happened this week but we are at the famous Butte washtub were Elder Alexander was proposed to so maybe something is in the works. Also a little note the reason we are called the 3 virgins is because we went to a lesson with someone from a different religion, and he opened the door and said ahh the 3 virgins are here come on in.

Thats all that's happened this week I am so grateful for all your support I love you all so much! 

Love 

         Elder Nielsen.