The time has come

The time has come to accept defeat... since I was called to lead our branch Primary last November I have not been able to get back to blogging. And now our missionary will be home in 2 days!!!  The past two years have flown by so fast!  As I was preparing his room I ran across this photo he had sent earlier in his mission from Brindisi, on the back he wrote: "Hello...my name is Anziano Nielsen"! 

We are SO excited to welcome Elder Nielsen home!!! We wish all of you could be here to greet him too.  Thank you so much for following this blog, for checking back for updates, for leaving comments, and for all the support you have given our missionary! 

Email November 19, 2010

“this week has been pretty awesome! Not much going on but I'm a missionary and that automatically makes the days awesome!”

One of the new members they baptized told them that she wants to be a missionary just like them! She even brought two of her friends to church with her on Sunday!

They have been really looking for someone to teach and baptize by the end of the year and so far they have some great contacts!

He did a baptismal interview for a lady the other Elders have been teaching and said:
“she should be getting baptized next week so everyone is really excited! She even had a cool experience where her husband was pretty against her joining the church and now he is not only ok with it but he will be coming to the baptism. it was cool for me because she shared her testimony with me and it was awesome! She is a great lady!”

A member set up a gardening appointment and they helped take care of “our little patch in the back of the church”

He shared this experience from an FHE with the branch:
“It was really cool because i had had some questions earlier that i was praying about and brother S in both of his spiritual thoughts answered them! it was cool! I love how aware the Lord is of us and how He gives us the answers we are looking for! it was awesome!”

On P-day he was excited about going to Marsaskala for the rock climbing there, well as he put it “sort of rock climbing, it was still fun though.”

"It's been a great week! We are having a lot of fun and seeing a lot of miracles!"

Nov 12 2010 Zone Conference in Rome!

Elder Nielsen in Rome Italy!
(more about this photo at the end of the post)

When the Italy Catania Mission was absorbed into the Italy Rome Mission on July 1, 2010 the Mission Home that had been in Catania was moved to Rome. Elder Nielsen hoped this would mean a chance for him to someday see Rome, and this week he and his companion traveled to Rome for a zone conference!!  Here is what he wrote about this amazing opportunity...

"This week was AWESOME!!!! I went to Rome!! How cool is that!?

It was cool to see the airport I first saw in Italy after such a long time too. The assistants picked us up and took us to the mission home. It was great to see President and Sister Kelly and the mission home was awesome too. Turns out it was one of the houses that Mussolini built!

It was so nice of them they actually got us a full fledged tour with the hop on/hop off buses. It was so awesome! ...they are two levels and they have an audio track to listen to as well. The narration was in English as was the Crawford's [a missionary couple serving in the Mission Office]! It was so much fun!

The first main stop we made was at the Coliseum! It was so cool to actually see it in person! It was huge! We took some pictures while the Crawfords gave us a history lesson. It was incredible!

From there the next thing we saw was the main house for the government of Rome etc. it was this huge all white building. There is a statue they have out front of a horse rider that is so big at least sixteen men can fit in the belly of the horse! ...there are tons of statues everywhere and they are all so huge! Sitting on top of the double decker bus (which is open air by the way) watching Rome going by was incredible!

From there we stopped at Vatican City. I have officially visited the smallest country in the world! They even had their own postal system.

 ...we stopped at this little street cafe and had some pizza which was cool. It was the classic tourist in Italy experience, we ate pizza on a side street cafe, had people play music for us etc.

Their group included the MP's wife Sorella Kelly,
the couple missionaries from Malta,

couple missionaries from the Mission Home,
the Elders, and other patrons

(he said they didn't have a lot of space for people to sit down

at this restaurant so they packed them in together)

From that we went to St. Peter's Square and looked around. The main thing we did was go to St. Peter's Basilica. It was so huge! And so decorated. We spent a good hour and a half there looking at all the stuff! It was pretty sweet! There was a lot of ancient art that I had studied about that I actually got to see. The whole square was designed by Bernini.

Also there was the famous statue by Michelangelo of Mary with Christ. So that was pretty cool! [this is known as the Pietà ]

After that we went to the Trevi Fountain. ...also there are tons of things we saw along the way. This tour took the whole day. I’m just mentioning the main things we saw. So anyway the fountain. It was so cool! There were tons of people though. We chucked a coin in as the tradition says* and then went and got some gelato. It was cool to see!

*A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome.

After that the Crawfords and Sister Kelly had to get ready for zone conf. but we had bought all day passes for the bus so they just let the four of us take them and finish it off. We decided to just stay up top and cruise Rome! That was really cool too because we got to see Rome at night! It was a blast! Man it was such a good day!!

Before the conference started I had my interview with President Kelly. It was great! He had basically read my mind and started off by answering a bunch of questions that I had which was great. We talked about his plans for Malta and I really appreciated his perspective and the way he is looking ahead. We then talked about my future with Malta. He asked me how I felt about staying there for the rest of my mission. I told him that I will go where the Lord needs me to go but I would prefer to finish what I have started here. He totally agreed and said that unless he gets hit with a bolt of lightning or something like that I will be finishing here! SO I am really excited about that! Then he gave me a really great compliment saying that there are few missionaries who could do what I have done... not only working here but being able to be here for so long and handle the stress of it. I don't know about all that but it was nice to hear! He also told me that every chance I got to tell everyone how cool Malta is.  Malta in a TON of ways is just like Oki! I love it!

The rest of the conference was great too! We had the zone leaders and then the assistants do their spiel.  Also Elder Jones gave his parting testimony and it was great! He did a good job!  Immediately after the conference we jumped into the van with the assistants and they took us to the airport. The traffic was awful! It took us almost two hours to get to the airport when it normally takes about 30 minutes.

We got checked in and everything went smoothly. We worked our way to the gate and on the way met this lady who was really struggling with her luggage and offered to help. She didn't speak any English and after a few minutes we were able to help her know she had to go and re check in to get her tickets. We waited with her luggage that she just dropped in the middle of the hall while she did it. As soon as she had her gate we helped her carry her bags. It ended up being on the other side of the airport and we had to run back to our gate since they were boarding but it was worth it. She really appreciated it. She kept saying thanks in Chinese.

We made it back and got on the plane in time. The flight was great.  We got little sandwiches which was nice. We stopped in Reggio Calabria to refuel and to get some more passengers. So it was different which is nice!"

When they got back to Malta they were allowed to sleep in (to recover from their trip) which he said was nice, and the rest of their week consisted of proselyting, Maltese lessons, Sunday meetings, FHE, dinner with the Branch Mission Leader at Surfside (a restaurant on the water) and Christmas shopping! He also shared this:

"One thing I have learned out here is that you have to be direct! You really have to work at sharing as much as you can in as little time as possible."

I asked Elder N about the photo at the top and this was his reply...
"They are a special contingent of guards called the Swiss Guards (because they are from Switzerland) it's their "calling" to guard the Vatican. Their uniforms were designed by Michelangelo hence their real old time look. Their expressions were like that because one we are LDS and it's their "divine calling to guard the capitol of the church". Also I'm sure they get that "can we take a photo?" all the time. We actually got a LOT of looks from priests and such as we were walking around."

Nov 3 2010

Man I am so blessed! I don't even deserve the blessings the Lord is giving me! I have been so privileged to serve here for so long! I love these people with all my heart! It feels like I just live here sometimes, like as if I was in the military and I was stationed here. But for my job I get to do missionary work which is AWESOME! I love this place!


We just keep working forward doing our best to become more like Christ each day. And as long as we do that He makes up for our shortcomings and mistakes. Man isn't that just awesome!?


When “E” said that she could go build a house she meant that she was so charged with the Spirit [after a Priesthood blessing] and felt so much better that she could do anything, such as build a house.


Saturday in the morning we went to Mdina and Rabat and did some work there. We also stopped by the glass factory and saw them making some awesome stuff. It reminded me of the Ryukyuan glass factory. It was pretty fun!


In the evening we got a call from that guy I told you about a couple weeks ago from Iraq that wanted to take us to the mosque. He asked if we could go and we said sure. It was really cool! We met him in Valetta and jumped on a bus to Marsa. The mosque was sweet! He took us on a tour and let us stay for the prayers which was interesting. It was a good eye opener and cool learning experience. He gave us an English Quran and other book about Islam. We gave him a Book of Mormon in Arabic and had a great discussion with him! It was really cool! He is a good guy! It was a great Sunday evening!


We got some great news too! We found out they are going to send us to Rome for this next zone conference! And the couple missionaries are flying us in a day early so we can take a tour! I get to go to Rome! How cool is that!? I am really excited! Something fun to look forward to!

Oct 27 2010 Qormi Bread Festival

This week in their lesson with a new member family, they taught about eternal marriage and priesthood blessings for children; and the father set a goal to be worthy to receive the Priesthood and then take his family to the temple! This family has really become “family” to him; he said “It is so fun to have a "family" here. [The father] in his prayer over the food asked a blessing on us calling us “their Elders”. Also they told us they are our family! It's really nice to have people here that appreciate and love you!”

Qormi is famous on Malta for their bread so they have a big festival to celebrate and they got to go to it. He said it was raining really bad and they were afraid they were going to cancel the event but luckily they didn’t. They had these huge awesome pizza-like bread things covered with traditional Maltese food. They are called Ftira.

Here’s his description of the weather that day and in general…

“We sat under this tiny canopy thing and ate [the ftira] and watched the roads turn into rivers and the lightning strike. The weather here is so sporadic, it will be so dark in the afternoon because of a storm that you need a flashlight and then within five minutes it's completely gone and there isn't a cloud in sight! It's weird! So that was going on the whole time, but it made it fun! We got really wet! In fact I just looked outside and it was perfectly sunny when we got here and now it's pouring. Sheesh.”

He shared how difficult it can be to find people on the street who are willing to listen:

“…we did our usual walk along the board walk. We actually didn't talk to anyone. We tried of course but no one wanted to listen. Do you know how rare it is here for us to get lessons on the street? Very! It's ok though we still keep trying and of course I know that no effort is wasted.”

He also commented on one of the blessings of serving in the same place for so long (9 months now!):

“It has been so cool being here for so long and seeing the church steadily growing with new converts and people coming back!”

Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Rome Italy Temple!!

Because Elder Nielsen is serving in the Rome Italy Mission we have followed the progress of the Rome Italy Temple with great enthusiasm.  So we are very happy to share on this mission blog the thrilling news that construction has officially begun with a traditional groundbreaking ceremony that was held on 23 October 2010!

Here are a few links if you are interested in learning more...

President Monson Breaks Ground for Rome Italy Temple
(official Church News article)

Note of thanks:
All of the information and links below are courtesy of being on the Rome Italy Temple Mailing List, a service provided at this awesome website: http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/lists/

"In conjunction with the groundbreaking ceremony held today for the Rome Italy Temple, the Church has launched an official website revealing details of the plans for the temple complex, which will feature a stake center, patron housing facility, family history center, and visitors center, all surrounded by meticulous landscaping. An inspiring video presentation has been created, which displays the future complex from a variety of angles."

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
http://tempiodiroma.chiesadigesucristo.it/en/

VIDEO PRESENTATION:
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/rome/video/

ARCHITECTURAL RENDERING:
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/rome/

SITE PLAN:
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/rome/construction/

I also want to say how much I personally love the temple and how grateful I am for the many blessings that come through temple ordinances and covenants.  Attending the temple often is something we REALLY miss while living here in Okinawa.  It was wonderful to live near so many temples in Utah, now to get to the closest one we have to fly several hours by airplane, so we are saving up and working toward that goal!

To learn more about LDS Temples please follow this link:
Purpose of Temples

"Was there ever a man who truly loved a woman, or a woman who truly loved a man, who did not pray that their relationship might continue beyond the grave? Has a child ever been buried by parents who did not long for the assurance that their loved one would again be theirs in a world to come? Can anyone believing in eternal life doubt that the God of heaven would grant His sons and daughters that most precious attribute of life, the love that finds its most meaningful expression in family relationships? No, reason demands that the family relationship shall continue after death. The human heart longs for it, and the God of heaven has revealed a way whereby it may be secured. The sacred ordinances of the house of the Lord provide for it."
~Why These Temples? By President Gordon B. Hinckley

"The temple will provide direction for you and your family in a world filled with chaos. It is an eternal guidepost which will help you from getting lost in the 'mist of darkness.'"

~ Gary E. Stevenson, “Sacred Homes, Sacred Temples,” Ensign, May 2009, 101–3

More photos part 5 of 5