March 17 - I COME HOME IN 365 DAYS

Dear family and friends,

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!  So craziness.  I was looking at my ministerial certificate and had this weird lightbulb moment.  My ministerial certificate expires on March 17, 2015.  And today is March 17, 2014.  I come home in exactly 1 year, or 365 days, from today.  So odd.  Time goes by super fast yet slow out here.  It made me have a minor freakout and I decided maybe I just won't come home...haha totally kidding, but for realsies...I love it out here!  I get to talk to people I never would have talked to some of the people I have out here - it's made me realize how judgmental I was before (and still can be now).

But I'm getting better every day!  Okay.  I have a funny joke to tell you all.  This 11-year-old kid in the branch I serve in named Mason told it to me yesterday at dinner:

Why do missionaries have to have such large bladders?

They only get 1 "pee"-day a week.

Haha corny...I thought it was clever, though!

Sister Petersen is just getting better and better at contacting, teaching, finding, being filled with faith - the whole nine yards!  I love being a "mom" haha.  It's just fun to help someone get the hang of things.

This week we set a solid baptismal date with our investigator, Jim, and are working really hard with him to help him reach that date. We are so close to setting a date with this sweet family of two - Teresa and Nielli Cervantes. We are also trying to get the husband of Teresa, Jose, to sit in the lessons with us. We invited Teresa and Nielli to be baptized on Thursday - Nielli said she didn't want to at first, but Teresa said of course! Then the neatest thing happened - Teresa explained to her daughter baptism! And then she said, "it's when YOU know it's true. It doesn't need to be tomorrow! Just when you know it's true." Then Nielli agreed, too!

We also felt prompted to go by a former investigator's house, Paul Woof. He told us he definitely wants to meet with us again! We're going by Thursday at 3pm!

Also, we had the neatest contacting experience on Saturday night - we were walking and almost passed by this guy, but we decided we'd better talk to him. Turns out, a loooong time ago missionaries came and taught him, but he was really young and unsure. He was so excited to see and talk with us, and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and inviting him to be baptized right on the street! He said yes - it was neat because he spoke broken English and mostly Spanish. We Spanglished our way through the contact but it definitely proved to me WE don't do the teaching - the Holy Ghost does. Also, I felt prompted to put a Spanish Book of Mormon in my bag that morning, and he told us he wanted one but couldn't read English! And I had followed the prompting, so I had one in Spanish to give to him. It was so amazing :)

We had a few funny moments this week I wanted to end with:

So, during Sacrament Meeting yesterday at the vet's home, Sis. Petersen was trying to point someone out to me. She whispered, "That guy - the bald one." I look around, and EVERYONE in the congregation is bald haha. In a room full of veterans, describing them as the bald one doesn't do much to point them out. It was funny.

We had a day where we taught two Jim's, tried a potential named Jim, and asked a man named Jim to give a blessing to one of the sick veterans (Jack Brannan, a recent convert of about a year and a half now). We ended up singing a song to the tune of "Old McDonald Had a Farm" but it went like this: "St. Helena sisters had a teaching pool. E-I-E-I-O. And in that pool they had some Jims. E-I-E-I-O. There's a Jim Jim here and a Jim Jim there, here a Jim, there a Jim, everywhere a Jim Jim. St. Helena Sister had a teaching pool. E-I-E-I-O!"

And finally, Sis. Petersen kept feeling anxious while we were driving down the freeway because of a cop following her. After a while she said, "I bet it's vineyard security." I laughed and said, "No way. Is that even a thing?" We reached St. Helena and turned left, and the "cop" passed us...but the cop really was a "vineyard security" car! We said, "It IS a thing!" Haha it made us crack up. Only in good ole' Napa Valley would something like that happen.

I love it out here.  It's the best.  I love being a missionary.  I know this church truly is Jesus Christ's church back on the Earth.  I know the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.  I love my Savior and Redeemer, and I know He lives.  I love all of you!  Have the best week EVER!!

Love,

Sister Nikole Decker :)

P.S. Sister Petersen always says "The struggle is real" whenever she has a difficult time parking or putting on her shoes or anything like that haha.  It cracks me up.  Also, whenever anything super cool or great happens, she just says, "Wow.  That's celestial."  She's a keeper haha.