Week :Getting sick...again. But I'm Grateful 🙏 (forgot to send this last week)

 Hey everybody!

These past weeks have been very interesting. I do believe I've had one of the most, if not the craziest, week of my life. I also didn't realize that I haven't sent an email in a while.

Thanksgiving was awesome! We had a traditional/Samoan Thanksgiving dinner with real good food from the Danielson and Fanene family. In the morning we played football with a big group of members from another ward. For a time they had me quarter back which I was kinda trash at . But boy was it fun! I haven't done a turkey bowl in a while.

Our mission president gave us specific guidelines on how to handle holidays. He basically said not to go visiting families unless we have an appointment. Other than that we are to keep to ourselves and let the families enjoy themselves. I really appreciate a mission president who recognizes the urgency of missionary work but respects the need for sacred family time. It also gives us the opportunity to talk to families which was awesome.

Most of our missionary efforts in the last few weeks have been pretty successful. We got to meet these kids at a lower income housing where they just openly said they wanted a Book of Mormon. So now we're trying to teach them and their families!

The two boys who are on track to be baptized, Ricky and Tino, are going to get baptized next week Friday. We just had their interviews today actually. I'm excited for that. I spoke at a baptism the other day for this one 8 year old girl named Tanaya. Baptisms are the best!

Around Thanksgiving time I started getting sick with a cold and that wasn't fun. It went on for a couple of days which really sucked. And just recently I got sick again! 

We met up in person with some members who were going to have us over for dinner, but they said they wanted to just take us out for lunch instead. And I got a katsu chicken plate. Now I'm no cooking expert but I'm pretty sure the chicken wasn't cooked all the way or the Mac salad was old, either way I got food poisoning. Now I've never had food poisoning before. It's not fun. Neither is it pretty. 

As of now I've been feeling better thank goodness. But man I hate when something like getting sick takes time away from being outside and helping people . I talk about how little time I have left as a missionary (7 MONTHS!!) and I get sad when I think about how much I could better use my time. But the other day, I thought about a really profound thought.

There Are some missionaries I know who have some really life changing health problems that they likely deal with for the rest of life. As someone like me who likes doing athletics, being outside, and tries to work hard, that's something I couldn't comprehend. And so my heart goes out to everyone with these issues. And so even though I may have had a slight cold, have a sick stomach for a little bit, or sometimes feel tired, there's always room to do the best you can.

So for the rest of my mission, I'm going to use every ability I have to urgently serve others and to be where I'm needed. Because that's what I'm here to do.

It's honestly been a great couple of weeks. Hon-west is a pretty awesome, unique zone. It's fun serving with Elder Ethan Walker. And it's fun being part of the Samoan culture! 

Lots of success stories are coming up and I can't wait for it. Fa'afetai lava! 

Much love, Elder Nielsen