September 28, 2015

Well I have just been thinking a lot about this week and really it is hard not to think of you guys when my companion is a little homesick and is ending his mission. haha I think every missionary goes through that phase when they are ending but it is good expirence. What I am thinking right now is how I am going to end my mission. I still have a lot of time left and I really need to work hard to help these people. haha sometimes it is really hard to see someone ending but then that just helps you learn. I feel like I am developing a lot of attributes and feel like it is going to help me so much in the future. What I tell myself everyday is to keep on working hard until I die. haha but that is how it is going to be like when I get home. And the truth, when dad sent me that last letter with the whole apartment thing I freaked out. hahahaha but it was pretty funny and it gave me some time to think of what I am going to do when I get home. haha but right now I am just going to keep on working and I will think about that later. ha I am so excited to have my trials when I get home so then I can grow and I can learn what God wants me to learn. I can overcome any obstacle and any temptation that comes my way because I know that Jesus Christ lives. That is a knowledge that I will always keep in my heart that our Saviour Jesus Christ lives. Well this week was great and this next week is going to be even greater with general confrence. It is going to be crazy because there will be 3 new apostles. Really I am going to miss all those great men that served for the Lord but I am so excited to see who God has chosen to be his witness. Well this week we have been doing really good and we are teaching the people like crazy. I love teaching the people and it just makes me think of what a difference as missionaries we are making. I love bringing a hope into the lives of these people. Well this week we had transfers with the zone leaders and it was great to go into the leaders area. I went with Elder Cowan and my companion stayed in our area. Well that day was pretty fun and we did some pretty crazy but spirtual stuff. haha but it was great to share my testimony with everyone. It was pretty funny cause everyone was just looking at me and Elder Cowan because we are two americans that are just walking in the streets. Some of the kids here just like yelling hello gringo or how are you but also they start saying words that arent so good. hahaha I think it is pretty funny cause we just start speaking in Spanish to them. Sometimes we ask if their parents are home and they go and call them and we end up contacting the parents. It is really funny how god works sometimes because through small connections brings things to fall into place and those small connections turn into big miracles. I believe the best way to help these people feel the spirit is through their children and through their families. So many people here dont know that the family can be together forever. Every time we contact we bring up that families can be together forever. Even with the people that are kind of hard and dont really want to hear, I see their eyes light up and I know they want to accept it but always we have to go little by little. Wow what an awesome expirence and I love bringing that truth to everyone here. Well that is all I have for this week and I am really happy to preach the gospel. But wow it is almost October. How crazy is that. Oh and also my companion is going home the 6th of October. On the 6th I will have a new companion. Well I love your letters and your love.

Love Elder Nieman

 Making pizza

Eating Chaufa out of a bag...it was a lot of food!

September 21, 2015

This week was good. First I am going to start off with P day last week and yes I bought a suit. I ended up paying with the money that you sent me. The women is going to send it to me the 28th of September. She was super cool and I think the suit will be awesome. She was a member so she gave me a discount to. haha but yeah that is all for the suit. But wow this week was really good and really I love making new friendships with these people. I feel like it will be hard to say goodbye to all of them but hey that wont be for a very long time. I will probably leave in november because this transfer my companion is ending his mission. Well I hope I make the most of it while I am here. Something that I enjoyed this week is that we visited a family and all of them are so awesome. They are very humble and I love teaching them. We started to teach about the things we need to do to preach the gospel. One we need to search the scriptures, two we need to pray for guidance, third we need to fast for the people we are going to teach and lastly we need to open our mouths without fear and preach the gospel. When we were teaching this lesson I felt the spirit so strong and really I knew that he was feeling the same. After he told us that his brother is falling away from God and he is starting to do things that arent very good for someone to do. He paused and he started to think a lot about the things we have taught and he told us that he is going to start preaching the gospel to his brother. When he said that it gave me goose bumps and I was really happy for him that he made that decision. I just hope that he does all those things to help him touch the soul of his brother. Really I love teaching that we can all teach the gospel because all of us have the spirit with us. Sometimes it is really hard to share your feelings because we might be afraid of what they will say. But if we do these four things and we trust in the Lord, he will always give us his spirit to speak to everyone. He will touch the heart of the person but what we need to do is open our mouths and declare of what we know to be true. I love the chance to be a missionary because really I have no fear to preach the gospel know and I hope that I can continue in this path. Well that was pretty awesome this week and also we got to hear from Elder Godoy from the seventy. He was a really awesome person but it was a little hard to understand because he doesnt know spanish very well. His native language is Portugese. haha slaughtered that word but overall he was a funny guy and very spiritual. He taught me a lot of things and I hope I can apply them all. Really I have gotten used to the mission life and I am very grateful to be in this mission. It is teaching me a lot of things and it will be interesting when I get home and how I will do things differently when I get back. Well really that is all for this week and I love the heck out of all of you. I hope your week has been great and really I love all the letters that you send me.

Elder Nieman

 The sons of my pension

The train

September 14, 2015

Wow I think the highlight of my week is happening right now when I am reading the letter from mom. Congrats to Parker Lowe. Woooooooo That is so awesome that he got baptized and I really wished I could be there but really it is so great that he made that step to follow Christ. You are the man Parker. I hope he knows that I am so happy for him and I hope he keeps on doing the things that he is doing. Well that was probably one of the biggest miracles that happend in my week. It makes me think about my baptism and then it makes me think of the people that we have baptized so far. It really fills me with joy and that motivates me to help more people make that decision to be baptized. Well so in this week there hasnt been a lot of things going on but like always I love searching for the miracles. Well let me tell you all that every week in the mission is different but that just means that you are recieving different kinds of answers to your prayers. This week was kind of hard because we couldnt find some of our investigators. I am sure that we will find them this week but this week nothing. haha but that is how it is. Well this week we got to contact a lot and really I love to contact the people here. Sometimes the contacts are super great but then others no. hahaha it is super funny sometimes because I feel like Elder Calhoun in the Best Two Years. Running around trying to make people listen. haha Other times the people just laugh because they have never seen an american before. haha When I started my mission that offended me but now I just laugh with them. Really I love looking back on the things I have been doing last year. This time last year I was preparing to leave for Peru and I had no idea what I was going to do. I had a lot of fear to preach the gospel but now I see the bigger picture. In many ways the Lord shapes us. It may take a year to shape us or it might take our whole lives but everyday we are trying to become like him. We make mistakes but that doesnt mean that we dont have hope. The Lord helps us out so much and sometimes we forget to thank him for the people we are right now. I felt like a year ago I was an 18 year old that didnt really know what to do with his life. But now I see what our heavenly father wants me to do. It is something so amazing and big I cant explain the feeling. Well back to the contacting. I have had many moments in my mission where I had to contact a lot. So many different children of our heavenly father. So many souls that we need to help. It is something overwhelming but the expirence is something that makes it all worth it. Well this week we were contacting and we ran into these two women. It kind of caught me by surprise cause my companion just stopped in his steps and started talking to these random people. We had an appointment we had to get to but we contacted them. They were really good people and really wanted to hear the message. We start to talk to them of what they want to do in this life and what they want to accomplish. They told us that they wanted more unity with their families. What a great moment to testify about the eternal family. So we start teaching about that and they seem like they want to hear more. We have an appointment this week with them and I am excited to see how that goes. This week has been great and I am so happy to be teaching everyday. Well this letter is going to be a little short but I love you all and hope you have a good week. Also happy birthday to Brooks this week. I am sorry that I dont know what day it was but I know that it was this week or the next week. I hope that he knows that I love him and I hope that he knows who I am. haha Wow one year and when I get back he will almost be 2. How crazy. Also to answer your question dad. That is Lomo Saltado and it is super good. I love it and I hope you will be able to cook it. Also Jacky and Jasmin are cousins and they are doing great. They went to an activity and loved it so that is really great. Well that is all your questions I think but I love you all and talk to you next week.

Elder Nieman

Zone Central

September 7, 2015

Well there goes another week of the mission. I swear that every week goes faster and faster but when I am thinking about the time it goes super slow. Well this week was super fast and really there wasnt a lot of things that happend. I have a few things that happend that were awesome so I will just go ahead and tell you my expirences this week. Well first off I feel so awesome being a missionary. I realize that where ever I go I am always an example to everyone. I kind of got used to this but when I started thinking about it every time we are walking in the streets we have people looking at us and at times they come and talk to us but the thing is that they are always looking. Well yesterday in sacrament meeting the members were giving there testimonies and everything was good. Well I see this boy stand up. He is probably 7 years old and I remeber that earlier in the week that we ran into him one day and he was crying. I asked him what was wrong and he only told me that he didnt feel very good and felt lonely. So all I did was give him a hug and told him to go to his house to find his mom. Well he goes and this sunday he gets up to bare his testimony. He starts telling the expirence of me giving him a hug and when he went home he started to read his scriptures. He starts to testify that the scriptures give him comfort and that he can always read them when he is lonely. Also after that he started to thank the missionaries and started to say that he wants to be a missionary when he grows up. That touched my soul when he said that and really I felt the spirit so strong. I am so glad that we were able to find him and help him out a little. That was something really awesome and it was a reminder that I will always be an example to these people no matter how old they are. Also this week we got to find two new investigators. Their names are Jacky and Jasmin. They are really awesome and at first when we started to teach they were kind of hard to teach because they didnt really want to listen. But when we started to explain a little bit more of what we believe, they started to accept the teachings. At the end of the lesson they told us that they thought we didnt believe in the bible or God. hahaha It is so amazing to see how so many people think differently about this church but that is why we need to preach every day and help them understand the truth. Well I am so grateful for the spirit that helps me testify of the truths of this gospel and so thankful for my calling. I hope I can continue like this until I end my mission and then after my mission I can continue testifying of the truth. Well that is all for this week and I hope you week is great this week. I love you all and talk to you next week

Elder Nieman

Here's a little extra note that Josh wrote to his Mama and Papa :) 

les amo mama y papa. jaja La mision es lo maximo y espero que siga asi. siento el espiritu cada semana y espero que pueda seguir ensenando a la gente haha well there you go some of my spanish. It is reallly cool cause I can speak spanish. haha

Peruvian food is probably some of the best food I have ever tasted. Well at least most of the food. haha but I love Lomo Saltado. That is my favorite thing