November 27, 2017

HELLO LOVED ONES!

I hope you all had a really great Thanksgiving! We ended up with a really hot Thanksgiving here in the 80's and three meals so by the end of the day all of us were moving really slow. 

We started the week with a meeting in Albuquerque for the sister training leaders and zone leaders and guess who was there?! LITTLE VASQUEZ! She is now an STL and she has been out 9 months! I can't believe I trained her 9 months ago!!! Time is flying by. 

Our meeting was really good and a lot of it was preparation because Elder Christofferson is coming to our mission this week. There will be meetings for the missionaries, investigators, recent converts, YSA and leadership meetings. We are going to try to go to all of them. haha. We are for sure going to go the the missionary and women's leadership meeting so we just have to find some people that fit in the other categories so we can slip in. I'm really excited to meet him though and hear what he has to tell all of us. 

Thanksgiving was spent at dinners and the El Paso parade. The parade started at 10 and ended at 1 pm.... it was so long and there were so many Guadalupe floats. The members down here volunteer as the clean up committee so we spent some time cleaning the trash of the streets but the people were really grateful so they gave us free cotton candy :) Then it was off to the dinners. Nothing to special happened but we met a lot of non member family members who seemed to have some interest and gave us their phone numbers so we could come by and share a Christmas message with them! Hopefully we will see some really cool things come from that.

On Friday after district council I got to see KILLIAN! Laicey made lunch for Sister Hazen and I and all of our companions. It was so sweet to see him! He is doing awesome and just came back into town from Greenland. It was this week a year ago that we started to teach him and now he is a very active member of the church! Sometimes it is hard to be here and I feel like I'm not making any difference but seeing some of my recent converts and how they are doing today makes me so full of joy and all the trials are worth it. 

We started delivering our living Christmas cards Friday night because we got really excited and couldn't wait until today. We received over 20 referrals from members on out first Sunday when we announced it and that was only from maybe five members. So on Friday night we went by one of the referrals and it was a super nice christian family. We sang to them and read the Christmas story from Luke, closed with a prayer and left with another carol. The family referred us to another family and then that family referred us to another family and so on. We went to 5 homes that night and met over 15 people! AND NONE WERE MEMBERS! We felt the spirit so strong as we walked into those homes and testified of our savior. I am so excited for this Christmas season and to share this message with the people here in El Paso. 

I hope you all have a great week!!! I love you all so much!!! 

LOVE,

Sister Nye

November 20, 2017

Hello Loved ones!!!! 

I hope everyone is getting excited for all the food on Thanksgiving! I can hardly wait for stuffing. For those who didn't know I used to eat a box of stuffing after seminary almost every day my senior year of high school. It is da best. 

This week was really great. We are finally out of the woods with the cold and flu and back to normal. We had some really powerful lessons and finally made some breakthroughs with the people we are teaching. For example we have been teaching our investigator Amanda for couple weeks and although she was keeping the commitment we would leave here we could always tell it wasn't hitting her spiritually like we would have hoped. We had a good discussion with our district about what we could do to help her feel the importance of this message on a spiritual level and not just an intellectual level. We decided that the best things we could do was talk about her identity and help her to see the changes that have already taken place in her life since she started to live the gospel. She told us she has notice a change in herself. She is more patient with her coworkers and she is trying to see the good in everyone. She also said she has been praying more and not because she promised us she would but because she is actually finding peace from it.At the end we felt prompted to share a verse from Alma 5

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

She paused and couldn't quite decide what to say. She told us the scripture really touched her heart and she wanted to ponder it for the next week and get back to us. Our outcome was met and she felt the spirit. 

I am nowhere close to where I need to be spiritually but I can see the difference from where I was a year ago to now. My testimony cannot be shaken and every day I try to take upon myself the countenance of Christ. I am so grateful for my savior and all He has done for me and my loved ones. I'm so excited to start this holiday season focused on my Savior. 

I hope you all have a great week! I love you all so much! 

Sister Nye

Sister Nye, Jimmy, Sister Hay and Sister Harris

Sister Nye and Sister Harris 

MLC in Albuquerque

November 13, 2017

Hola everyone!

I have literally no clue what this email will contain. I am pretty drugged up from my cold medication. Having a cold on a mission is kinda the worst because you are still capable of working so you just have to keep fighting through it and hope and pray that it will go away the next day when you wake up. That hasn't happened so far but maybe tomorrow. 

Sister Harris was sick all week which is how I got sick but luckily Sister Hay is doing great and keeping us afloat. Every single night we would get home and all of us would just crash from exhaustion. 

I really learned that Heavenly Father will help us get done the things we need to if we keep going and put one foot in front of the other. There were a lot of times this weekend where I wanted to stay in and I felt like I couldn't keep going but I prayed that I would be able to work hard and somehow the Lord gave me the energy to make it through our hectic weekend. This work is so important to me and it has changed my life. There are so many people that need to feel loved and need service and it brings me so much joy that I get to be an instrument in Gods hands to bring this message to his children here in El Paso. 

The L family is doing really good. They finally made it to church yesterday and I was so happy I could have cried. They showed up late and I was so bummed. I thought they weren't coming which would have meant they couldn't be baptized and my heart was just breaking but they walked in right when the sacrament song was being sung and it was the highlight of my week. They have all been reading and praying which means their testimonies are growing!

Funny story for the week. We went to teach our new investigator Manny who is just a nerd 100%. There is no other way to explain him. Anyways he is atheist and his prayers are slightly awkward just because he has never had a relationship with God before. At the end of his lesson he closed with a prayer super similar to this "Hey God, its me manny. So uh thanks for the sisters, they are pretty cool I guess. Oh and thanks for the peanut butter. I didn't realize how much I missed it...."

And to top it off he came to church yesterday with his little hospital mask on because he told us his allergies were bad from the weeds in El Paso.... love the kid.

Sorry this is a weird email. haha. Just know I love you all a lot. 

Love,

Sister Nye

picture of me and my favorite mini van Mama Blanca

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Nov 6, 2017

HELLO LOVED ONES!

I have a testimony that Heavenly Father hears our prayers! A couple weeks ago my mom told me that Sydney Harris (Dad's friend Randy's daughter) was coming to this mission and all I wanted was to be her companion but I knew the chances were super slim, like pretty impossible. I had been in my area for 4 transfers already so if I were to train I would be washing a new area and sister Hay and I had only been together a transfer so it was even more likely that I would just stay with her in 4th ward. Well last week when we got called to train together in 4th ward and stay STL's I kept praying that Sister Harris would get sent to us if it was in Heavenly Fathers will. On Tuesday that transfer van was 2 hours late and I was getting super anxious. I was talking to one of the sisters leaving when a little white van drove up and a girl with blonde hair looking super confused got out. I RECOGNIZED IT WAS SYDNEY!! I ran to her and gave her the biggest hug. She was the only english greenie coming down so I knew she was in our companionship. She has been such a miracle and make us laugh all the time. She is super prepared and right from the start was an awesome teacher. I'm going to enjoy this time with her because trios never last long in our mission.

This week we were super busy which was awesome! We taught a bunch of lessons and saw some pretty cool things happen from following the spirit. There were 2 days this week that we forgot our area book with all the addresses for members and former investigators and somehow every time a lesson would fall through and we needed to stop by a former I would remember the street name and get close enough that we could recognize the house and there was always someone home willing to hear our message. I was super stressed this week and I know Heavenly Father was really helping me out and trying to give me guidance and comfort.

A scripture I have been focusing on this week is Mosiah 2:20-22

20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

I am so thankful for everything God has given me. I am constantly overwhelmed with the love he shows for us and although the world is absolutely crazy right now I know He is aware of us and if we follow our Savior we will be blessed. I know there is a plan laid out for all of us and the trials and heartache is for our benefit and growth. 

I love you all so much! 

Love,

Sister Nye

1. little Sam, an investigators son.

2. our last picture with hna Sinabaldi before she got sent up north to her greenie

3. THE TRIO

4. Sis Harris sleeping while we had to make zone phone calls

5. late night tracting

6. My cuddle buddy