He's Home

Brayden is home, this was the best day ever!
Thank you to everyone that supported Brayden in this journey.

Last pday/email-Real men Eat oysters and octopus

Hey, hi, how ya doin?

How is everything going? Hope y'all had a great week. This week was
pretty great for us. We actually had some time that we could spend in
our area. Tuesday we were supposed to spend the whole day with
president Wakolo but due to some emergencies we spent like half of the
day with him. We taught a good lesson with him to Terri and devario who we had a date with this weekend. It went really well and she loved president. That night president took us to a sushi and seafood buffet. I am not really the biggest fan of either of those but I ate some stuff and it was good. But we are all laughing and joking around and president says... Your not a man if you don't eat an oyster out of its shell. Dang that got our attention. So we all did it and it was really nasty! Then he says your not a real real man if you don't eat an octopus! They had these full little octopus out on the table that had tentacles and head and all. We all went for that as well! I can now say that I am a real real man! And the big Fijian will back me up haha. It was a fun day with president. This week while I was on exchanges the Reynolds from pine bluff called and wanted to do dinner with us. They are the family that is super cool and it is the guy I gave the priesthood to. They took us to a Japanese hibachi grill! It was so awesome! They cook the food right in front of you and throw knifes in the air and to top it off the food was way good! Saturday we had to get the interviews done for Terri and devario, they passed and they both were baptized Sunday right before church! President Wakolo baptized both of them, that was his first time physically baptizing on his mission. It was a great day, after the baptism we went straight to sacrament and I was able to confer them and give them the Holy Ghost. It was a great weekend cause we also had 5 investigators to church and they were able to witness the baptism, the confirmation, and church! It was a good Sunday. Good week in all.
I think everything is good. I am having a member help send my bike home and then I might send some things home this week as well if Ineed to. Other than that I think that I am alright.
Thanks so much for the support throughout my mission and the help. You rock mom.
Have a great week and I will SEE you next week ;)
Love you.

time is flying

Hey there!
Well this week was a really good week. We started off on p day by swinging on the rope swing in pinnacle mountain! It was dang fun. 
Then we went on exchanges with the Conway zone leaders. Elder smith and I actually were with Elder Crane all day. It was a fun exchange! We had a good time. Friday we had Elder Kopischke come to our mission! We started talking to call him secretly K-pish! Haha it was great to have him, he is a really good teacher. We had like 6 meetings with him including missionary meetings and stake conference meetings. We also started calling President Wakolo, walk-dog! Haha we were feeling the gangster nicknames this week with the leaders in the church. This weekend was a good weekend and one full of meetings. I was able to ordain the Melchizedek  priesthood on Keaton Reynolds which was a great experience. It was cool to be a part of, they are working on going to the temple. Time is sure flying, this week we are excited cause walk-dog is going to spend the whole day with us on Tuesday. Finding, teaching, all of that stuff! It is going to be great! Then we got time in our area and such to do some work. Well things are going well. Hope yall are doing good as ever. Have a great week! Love ya.
Elder Nielson

History in the making

Hey There,
Well this week was a great one! Monday we went to a trampoline park which was pretty sweet. Then we went to the mission office so that Elder Smith and Elder Johnston could get their I pads and get them all
set up. As they were setting them up President Wakolo comes up to me and hands me an I pad. I was like oh I don't get one I go home soon, he then says, i feel like I dad at Christmas where 2 kids get a present and are playing with them and the other kid is just watching
and it hurts me! Haha but he said it in his Fijian voice which makes it 10 times more funny. So I have an iPad for the remaining 3 weeks that I have left which is pretty cool! It has been fun to play around with this week and try and teach with them as well. Tuesday we went to
Conway and listened to their zone meeting and then helped in distributing the iPads. Then after that we headed to little rock to give them their iPads at their meetings too. Long day that day. Then Wednesday we went to Searcy to distribute iPads there. After that
meeting we traveled to Memphis to stay the night. Then last minute we decided to drive to Oxford so that I could say goodbye to some people there. It was about 5 hours from Searcy to Oxford and I drove the whole way! Long day of driving. But it was good to visit before I go home. Hadn't been there in a year and a half. Thursday we drove up to Memphis to go to the Memphis north zone meeting and do iPads as well as the Memphis zone. So this week we attended 5 meetings with President Wakolo, it was a long week and we were way tired! After we drove back to Little Rock we went on exchanges and I went back to Pine Bluff and worked with Elder Hymas. It was good to be back there and visit some of my recent converts. It has been a long and crazy week to say the least. But also a great time in the history of the mission with these iPads. I was talking to president and he told me that I am very blessed to be an assistant at this time during the iPads rolling into the mission. I told him that I am grateful for the opportunity. We took a picture the 4 leaders in the mission with the iPads! History in the making.
Well I hope that y'all have a great week! Good luck with all the stuff that is going on! Tell everyone that I love and miss them. Talk to y'all soon! Love you.
Elder Nielson

I am a little country

Hey Mom,
How are yall doin? This week i noticed that i am talking like a hick so i decided to open with a yall! I also caught myself saying ain't and all that other slang... i am a little country i guess! haha. This week was a good week. The Trio is going great! we are having a lot of fun actually! i like it a lot. Elder Zwick of the seventy came to our mission this last week, he came and was introducing the I-pads into our mission. The whole mission came together which hasnt been done since i have been here, so it was a special event! Elder Smith and I had to walk around and carry the microphones to all the people who want to comment. Elder Zwick talked to Elder Smith and I like we were his best friends! It was cool to talk to him personally. The missionaries are getting their ipads this week, i am not getting one cause i am to old they said! but ill get over it haha. It is really  crazy that it is June... time is flying by. It really hasnt hit me quite yet that i go home so soon, but i know it is coming.

Well i hope that all is well at home. Nothing much is changing here. Ive gotta work hard these last few weeks. We are gonna be really busy with ipad stuff and stake conference and also transfers I'm going to stay busy.
Love and miss you all and see yall soon!
Love Elder Nielson

Elder Zwick, Brother Hemmingway from salt lake, and President Wakolo

My posterity is growing i now have a grandson in the mission... Elder Mann

Arkansas sunset

Mexican tequito

Well hello, 

Yes the hell week of transfers is over (that is what we call it haha). It actually went pretty smooth. Transfers were kept on the real down low and nobody really had any idea where they were going. It was great to see their face from the stand we are sitting on and see their reaction to the places they are going. It is weird sending off the old missionaries, but cool to get the new ones in. This week we were in memphis after transfers, we were running some errands and getting things finalized. We get this call from some elders in Tennessee, they are fighting and are sick of eachother. So we said we were in Memphis and wanted to come by and talk to them about it. We get up there at like 930 pm and talk to them and sort everything out. So by this time it is like 1030 and we are all the way in Memphis. We were not planning on staying in Memphis that night, so we had nothing to sleep with. The Elders had to extra couches and no blankets at all. Elder smith took the love seat couch cause he is short haha. Elder Johnston took the other couch cause i know that he is not used to the no sleep yet. I decided i would take the floor. It was chilly that night and we had no blankets so i laid down on their rug and wrapped myself up in the rug like a  Mexican tequito! haha it was so uncomfortable, but i had to make it work. Needless to say it was a very long night. 

But we got everything done and we are excited for this transfer, lots of missionaries are happy with their area and are ready to work so we are excited. 

There were some threats that there was going to be a tornado, the skies kinda started turning but nothing ever happened which is good. Tornadoes are nothing to mess with! 

While in Memphis we went to the humongous Bass Pro shop that they built out of the old Memphis Grizzlies stadium! it was so tight! huge!  

Yesterday we went to the River Fest down by the Arkansas river downtown, that was pretty dang cool! there was some tumbler guys that were doing flips on the street! it was awesome. And it was a great place to people watch, all walks of life came together on those streets! haha. 

Well i hope all is going well at home and that yall are having a great holiday weekend! miss yall and i will talk to you soon! 

Love Elder Nielson 

Trio-Assistants

Hey mom, 

I just have a few minutes to email so i thought i would write you something real quick. This week has been good. Transfers are halfway over. We just barely sent home all the old missionaries, Elder Hadlock, Elder Udall all the guys ive been with my whole mission. It is super weird. 

I am glad that dad is preparing the dirtbikes and stuff i am super excited to ride them! 

So this is kinda crazy, we made a big transfer decision that Elder Johnston (i served with him a year ago here in Pinnacle Mountain) that he is now in a Trio with Elder Smith and I! so we are now trio Assistants! we are part of history, its never been done before. So that is great! 

Well i hope that you have a great week! 

Love you! talk to you soon 

Mother's Day/P-Day

Hey Mom, 

it was great to talk to yall as well on mothers day! I had a good time talking to yall and telling you funny stories. It is nice to see that  our personalities are still the same. It will be fun to go home again. I cant believe that yall like shot down my helicopter pilot idea. I think that would be an awesome job! but what do i know! 

I pretty much already told you all my stories over skype about the drunk lady hugging me and trying to kiss me and the other drunk guy falling in the bushes so all of my funny stories have already been shared! But i have some pictures of the week so i can share those! have a great week! i may not email next week cause we have transfers and it is going to be a busy time! Love yall! 

Elder Nielson 

                                                    Skyping with Brayden

Baptism in Pine Bluff

Elder Smith sleeping while Brayden drives

On Exchanges Elder Marquez

Transfer Board

Hey mom, 

I am doing great! We had a good week. It was really busy but also really successful. We had the family of 4 we found come to church on Sunday, which is great. We had mission leadership council where Elder Smith and President and I instructed to the Zone Leaders on some things. It turned out really good. We set goals for all the leadership to hit some goals that we set an almost all of us got it done! Transfer Board meetings are going good, they are very cool to be a part of. Yesterday we went over to Presidents house and moved some things around on the board. It is going to be a big and crazy transfer. It is cool to be a part of the decision making process. 

Yes i did get the package this week, it was a great surprise! we have eaten a lot of it already, we are always dang hungry! haha. Sounds like yall had a very busy week! No pictures of the new car or of prom? what the heck? 

Other than that is was a pretty normal week. Elder Smith and i have been looking at the apartment stuff and we are trying to decide. We like mountain loft but we just aren't sure. 

Well thanks for all you do, appreciate the package and everything in it. Hope that yall have a great week! And i will see you on Sunday! 

Thanks for everything. Love you.

Elder Nielson 

Smithers and i in our truck that we drive! Nissan Frontier with UNLIMITED miles haha

 

 And Jesus attends this church

Next part of life... Preparing

What is up, 

Not much went on this last week. We went to a trampoline park last Monday! that was pretty fun! This week we went on exchanges in Memphis. I stayed in Memphis, it was pretty sweet. We had a good time. 

Everyday we kind of just play it by ear, we never know what we are going to have to do. This week we were able to have some time to teach which was great. This Sunday we set 2 baptismal dates with this little family here in Little Rock. They are pretty sweet! So the thing with pictures is that we never take pictures haha, so it is kinda useless to have a camera. We need to get better at it, we just never have anything to take pictures of. Elder Smith goes home at the end of August, so he has still got 4 months left. It is really crazy that i come home so soon, i am not at the point where it has truly hit me. but i dont feel that i never want to leave either. I know that once my 2 years is up i need to move on and go to my next part of life. 

This week we start to do transfers. So us and President will get together and talk about transferring people and who should go where. I am pretty excited cause i heard that it is an awesome experience. That starts tomorrow. 

This morning (Elder) Josh Clason my trainer called me, he told me that tomorrow is the day, he is getting married tomorrow! it is so crazy. He said he is going to try to be there when i get off the plane maybe... so that will be sweet! it is just crazy how time flies!  

So for school i am thinking that i just start by majoring in business like i had and just see how i like it and i can always change. Somehow i need a list of classed or something. I have no idea how to do any of this class stuff, i know nothing. So i guess if there is anyway to figure that out. I just need the basic classes right now i guess. 

Let me know. 

Love you Mom, love all of yall. 

Hope that yall have a great week! Thanks for all the support and love. 

Talk to you soon!

I found this picture of Brayden and Elder Smith with his mission president and the outgoing assistant Elder Daley

Busy week

Hey there, 

Our week was good. It was a really busy week though. Tuesday we instructed a meeting in Little Rock with 2 zones there. Wednesday we instructed in Searcy Arkansas to one zone. Then Thursday we were in Memphis instructing to the other 2 zones. Lots of traveling and teaching the missionaries. So an assistant to the president is 2 missionaries that help him carry out the work. Like training missionaries in meetings, we deal with transfers and where people should be transferred. We go on exchanges with zone leaders. We just help president with whatever he needs. We are constantly busy and doing things which is good, but boy it sure wears you out fast! Yeah i am with Elder Harrison Smith, he is from Malad Idaho. He is dang sweet! We get along great. He is going to Byu-I in the fall as well. We were maybe thinking of living together. 

Well i am glad that everything turned out good with the funeral. It looks like a nice service. Which cemetery is it that he was burried? 

Well other than that things are going good here. Just tired haha, but things are going well. I am learning a lot with this new calling i have and am fascinated to see how the mission is run behind the scenes. 

Thanks for all the pictures and all the info about the week. I am glad everything went well. 

Thanks for all you do. Love you guys. miss you. 

Hope you have a great week. Sorry i am so busy haha. 

Love Elder Nielson


So Brayden doesn't take pictures any more... But the sister in the first pic... Her mother posted a picture and sent me these! Love missionary moms that share pics

Plan of Happiness, not the plan of Sadness

This is Brayden's mom.. My father passed away on Sunday the 12th. So Monday we reflected on him and death. I was unsure about posting this then realized someone might benefit. Brayden is a great example to me and gave me some great insight and comfort. What a great missionary I have...(I can say that I'm the mom 😀)


Hey Mom, 

Yeah i must have felt something. I feel like i almost knew that it was coming as well. Surprisingly when President called me i was super calm and at peace. I knew that he was in a much better place. Immediately i thought of the scripture in Alma 40:11-12. Which teaches us about the spirit world. Teaches us that it is a place of peace, a place of rest, a place where they can rest from all care and sorrow. So yes he is in a way better place. And he is being taught the gospel. I now know why i had an impression 1 year ago to send him a Book of Mormon. He will recognize it, he will see the good it can bring, and i feel he will except. I am sad, and feel bad that he could not make it until i was home. But i know that this is called the plan of happiness, not the plan of sadness. We need to be happy, we know that he is out of this dreary and dreadful world. So i feel at peace, and i am glad that i was able to write him before he passed away. I am so grateful that he was proud of me and the decisions that i have made. I loved him and he was a great grandpa, and a good man. I love that we have his truck and things like that to remember him by. I hope that you are doing ok mom, i hope you are taking it well. Remember always, that this is the Plan of Happiness! No sadness in the plan! That all these things make us stronger and bring us closer to our Eternal Father in Heaven. I love you mom and family, and i hope that yall are holding in their. Be strong. 

How was the wedding? What else has been new? 

Being an Assistant to President Wakolo has been so great. I love that Man. He is such an example to me, and so inspiring. I am glad that he trusts me enough to be his Assistant out of 200 other missionaries to choose from. It has been great. We have a week of touring the mission this week and instructing around the mission, i am excited for the experiences and the time spent with President. What things did he say about me? How long did you talk to him? How did you get ahold of him? 

Well thanks for the updates mom, love you so much. Stay Happy! 

Love Elder Nielson 

Butterflies

Dear Mom,
Well these last 2 weeks have been so crazy! I guess to start off i had a
really good birthday last monday! It was actually dang fun. We played cards
with our recent convert family in the morning and had lots of fun and smack
talk. Katrina told me that you pin money to you that you get to your shirt
and during the day on your birthday people can give you money! it was such
a genius idea! I made 30 bucks from doing that. We hung out at the Reynolds
home that night, hung out with John which is also a recent convert, he gave
me this awesome shirt off of his back haha. I do not feel older just get to
say i am older haha. In the month of March our zone, the Little Rock Zone,
hit the goal of 16 baptisms right on the head, it was awesome! they are
great!  Well here is the craziest part. So i have 2 more transfers left, i
was expecting to get transferred back to memphis to be a zone leader over
there. Friday night i get a text from President, he said to call him as
soon as possible. My heart drops... i thought someone died in the family,
or something crazy was going to happen. It took me awhile to build up the
nerve to call him. i call him and then he asks if we can speak in private.
That just added to the butterflies! He asks me a bunch of questions about
my leadership and how i was able to inspire the zone to hit goals and all
this stuff. I was wondering what the heck was going on the entire time. He
then says, Elder Nielson. I would like to extend the call to be my new
Assistant. BAM! that came out of no where! i go home in 2 transfers, why
would i go Assistant? But i said yes. So Sunday i had to leave at 2 oclock
to go up to LR. I am going back to Pinnacle Mountain also By the way, so it
is to an area that i have already been before. Yesterday all the way to
thursday we have to pick up people, drive across the mission. Send
missionaries home on the plane, pick the new missionaries up... it is a lot
of crazy stuff that i have to do now, we are doing behind the scenes work.
So that is what is up. I am now going to be even more busy! Yesterday we
had no pday at all. But i am very grateful for the opportunity which i have
to be an AP. So that is the news update. I hope you understand all of that
haha. Well i hope that yall have a great week! The baptism of Josephine
went great! i am sad that i left Pine Bluff but i know that i will be back
someday haha. Love you.
Elder Nielson

Happy 20th Birthday Brayden

Thanks to WONDERFUL members I got these pictures plus this message:

"We are so blessed to have your son serve his mission with us. Here's some birthday pictures we took tonight I figured you would love to see him "

Then he emailed a short letter attached below: 

Hey mom, sorry that today I wasn't able to write much or anything. We went to email this morning and the email website was down... Just my luck on my birthday! So I am writing on a members I pad and it is super hard to type with. We did have our baptism but I will have to send the pictures next week. She is so cool. Today we hung out at Katrina's house and played cards and then went to eat at chilies with a member here. We used the balloon launcher! It is awesome. I had a really great birthday. I will make sure to send pictures and things next week! I love y'all and thanks for the package and things from everyone! I loved them. I will tell you more about it next week. Sorry again... I have the worst luck ever! Love ya

She is cash

Hey there, 

Things are going good! We had a good week. We had our Zone Meeting that went really well, and we also went on exchanges this week. I was in Camden for the day! Nothing too crazy happened, other than we almost got in a pretty bad car wreck but we are pretty sure angels were helping the other car not hit us! haha. It was my fault, but this lady had to like swerve and slam on her brakes. We were in a hurry so i just drove off, as i was driving i see this car coming up on us really fast. We stop at a stop light and this car honks its horn and is acting all crazy and this big black lady pulls up next to us and starts yelling, "What the heck were you thinking!" hahaha and i was like my bad. I just looked at her and she was like ugh! and then drove off. It was pretty dang funny! she wasted her time just to chase me down. She probably wanted to fight me! ha. Other than that nothing too crazy happened. We are still teaching Josephine, she is cash. She came to church and is getting baptized this Saturday! Waysee Porter also came to church and we are going to try and see if he wants to be baptized on Saturday as well. we are praying for it. 

Dang i am pretty dang Jealous that you were able to go to Shade and Paiges Reception! I bet that was crazy! I am glad that everything went good! This week is the last week in march, our Zone needs like 6 more baptisms and confirmations to be able to hit our goal of 16. We are really stressing about it but i feel that everything will go well. We are looking like we will hit it.

So i have 7 more days of being a teenager, i want to do something crazy! haha but i probably wont, ill probably just go knock on a rich persons door or knock a door at like 9 oclock, you know... the craziest things you can do as a missionary! haha. Anyways... i hope that all is well back home. The temperature is going crazy here, it just keeps going up and down and raining and stopping and being typical Arkansas... i am sick of it haha. I want it to just stay nice cause that is good for missionary work. Hope that you have a great week! ill talk to yall on my birthday next week! Love ya. 

Love Elder Nielson 

Birthday temple trip

Hey Mom, 

So yesterday i went to the temple so that is why i am emailing today! i am not going apostate or anything! haha. I am doing very good. Our week was a long one but it was full of good stuff. Some changes came to the mission and things and we are excited to see how the work changes. We need to as a family go back to Pine Bluff and visit Katrina yall would have a blast! We are still working with Josephine, she is planning on being baptized on the 28th! She is soo dang solid. It was one of those missionary stories that you hear of where she was praying for guidance and help and then we knock on the door and she just is running with it! We just taught her this morning and we watched the Restoration video and she loved it and says she believes Joseph Smith is a prophet! Big deal. She is way solid. I call her grandma because she is just like a grandma, it is great. I went on exchanges with the Assistants this week, they said i probably am leaving Pine Bluff in April which stinks but that i am staying a Zone Leader and going somewhere else... i am going to die as a zone leader it looks like, freak! 

Other than that all is well! It is dang warm today, i am glad cause i am getting sick and tired of the rain. thanks for everything! Well i am going to go live it up and do something crazy cause i only have a couple weeks of being a teenager!! 

Peace! 

Love Elder Nielson


From Brayden's mom:
Today we received the official email saying Brayden is coming home on June 30th with his travel plans and arrival time!!!! We are so excited! The end is near😃

Overcoming addiction

Hey there! 

Our week was really good. We got snowed in a couple days that made it really long but other than that it was good! Yeah this week we had mission leadership council. At those meetings we talk about the mission and council about how we can help the mission have success and things we need to focus on and all that jazz. It was a good meeting this week, a member of the 70 came and talked with us and gave us some ideas. It is cool to be in those meetings and see how the rest of the mission is doing and how we can be better in our zones. No Elder Crane is not in our Zone, we were hoping we would be but he wasn't. I do know who sister winn is, we went to high school together. She just went home a couple weeks ago. That really sucks that everyone was sick! that is a rough week. 

So we have some great people that we are teaching. They are super prepared. It is just the dang Word of Wisdom that everyone struggles with. Satan has a grasp on that part of their life, they feel that they need that stuff to survive or get by. It is hard to help people to overcome those addictions. We have some dates scheduled for the 28th of March and we are working towards that. Things are going great, the zone is doing well and everybody is working hard. Well i hope all is well for the family. I love and miss all of you. I have no idea what i want for my birthday! I have been trying to think and i cannot think of anything! if i was home i could think of some stuff but not out here. so idk. Well i hope that yall have a great week! and that blessings come upon you! thank you for the prayers and support. Love yall! 

Elder Nielson 

Snowing in the South

Hey! 

So this week was a pretty good week. Monday we had some bad icey weather, so we had to stay in all day which was way boring! Then tuesday we were able to go out and teach. Wednesday Elder Hadlock and i had to go up to Little Rock to go to transfers, all Zone Leaders are supposed to be there.During the meeting in the morning it started to snow! It snowed all day long! In Pine Bluff we got 7 inches of snow! It was coming down! I seriously felt like i was back home with how much snow was on the ground. People were sliding off the roads and driving 10 miles an hour everywhere, the whole place almost shut down! They haven't seen snow like that in a long time! So we stayed in a couple days this week bored out of our minds so it was kind of a long week. Nothing much else exciting happened this week. We are still working with the Weaver family, they came to church and are making small steps of progress. We are working with others and trying to have a big teaching pool. It is crazy that it is already March! I only have till March 30th and then i turn 20! I only have 28 days of being a teenager left! ive got to think of something crazy to do. Things are going well, just pushing on through. I hope that yall back home are doing ok and are safe. Thanks for everything. Hope that you have a great week! Love Elder Nielson