Sister Summer Nielsen

  Hello family and friends, this week has been a hard one for sure. It was full of my last stake conference, last zoko, and and last Interview. It was so sad and made me stress about how soon I am going home. It may or may not have made me get a stress cold. The amount of times I have gotten sick this transfer is unbelievable. To be honest going home scares me and makes me really sad. I just feel so happy with the people I'm surrounded by.  Stake conference was really good and it allowed me to see members from Köln that I haven't seen in a long time. We were able to go to dinner with Maggy which was so wonderful. I love her with my whole heart. She also translated the meeting into Russian which was super cool. Conferences and meetings are a great time for me to reflect on what I do well and what I can work on. If I have learned anything from this week, it's that there is still a ton of progression that happens after the mission and I'm not even close to being finished w...

  This week was a little bit of a Rollercoaster. I had to give my farewell talk in the branch due to the fact that we have stake conference, fast and testimony meeting, and general conference. I shared the spiritual defining moments from my mission. If you want the talk I will be happy to send it to you. It was a great opportunity for me to look back on my mission and remember the great experiences that I have had.  We had a great lesson with Ali, he is making so much progress. He knows a lot about Christianity and just soaks everything up. My German grandpa is the one that helps bring him to church and lessons and he always brings so much food for us to eat. This week he made us chocolate milk, cake, and Brötchen with cheese. He also wants Ali to be baptized as soon as possible so that I can be here. But Ali's soul means a lot more to me than being there and helping a baptismal count. I want him to wait until he feels absolutely ready and understands the huge promise he would...

  There's not a whole lot to report from this last week. The past few days I was sick and not feeling very well so we tried to keep low for a while. We met with a member and he bought us ice cream. I got through about 5 bites and couldn't eat anymore. He looked at me in the nicest way possible and told me that I looked dumbfounded, bored, and sick. It was quite the roast, but he's super precious so it was okay.  Ali is progressing really well. All of the ward members love him and are always eager to help. He started smoking again recently due to all the stress that he's been dealing with. Our member who picks him up from church taught him about the word of wisdom in his limited English. He decided then that he was going to stop smoking. He prayed that night to have the strength to stop smoking. The next morning he couldn't find his pack of cigarettes. He took it as a sign that he needed to stop smoking and that god answered his prayer. He hasn't smoked since the...

  This was a quick week so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot to report, buttt! We still had so many miracles.  Ali, who we found a couple weeks ago on the street came to church for the first time this week. I was a bit nervous, because he doesn't speak German and no one in the ward speaks Persian. The ward was so good with him and just welcomed him with open arms. During elders Quorum, they translated the talk into Persian so that he could read along. The lesson ended a bit early and so they had him tell his story. Ali used Google translate and told them about his sad past leaving Iran and Ukraine. He explained how we met and knew that if he would've been on a different side of the street, that we never would've met him. He knows that God led him to us. He texted us after and told us that it was the best day of his life. He loved church and had a feeling that he already knew all of the people there. During sacrament, I passed him the gospel art book. I thought if anyo...