365 Days

Hi-ya Family and Friends,

     Come this Thursday, I have been doing the Lord's work for 365 days straight! How neat is that? Feels like a great accomplishment. Not everyday is fantastic and easy going whatsoever but like I have said before and what Christ has promised is, It is worth it. Every rejection, every pouring down cold rainy day, every discouraging moment IS WORTH IT! It is worth doing for the eternal happiness for myself, my family, and especially those who have become closer to Christ because of the changing power of the Atonement. Christ's teachings are the perfect way to eternal joy!

     Alright.. so for the update this week. Probably one of the best weeks of my mission but most definitely the best week of my time here in Falkirk.

Miracles we saw:

     Monday: We met with a lady named Leslie. She is one we met a couple weeks ago and her cousin's are in our Branch. She currently goes to the Church of Scotland. We had a wonderful discussion with her and she brought up law of Chastity and Word of Wisdom. She agrees with both of them, besides coffee and tea (which is very common here). But she is interested in the Book of Mormon and other things. She is going on holiday for 3 weeks but we hope to see her after....

     Tuesday and Wednesday were more of days we tried by people. But both days we got in contact with less actives that we have been trying by for a couple weeks. So that is a great plus.

     Thursday: 2 great things. First a member was finally able to come to Kirsty's with us. Since Kirsty has two young girls it can be a bit crazy and this member helped the situation so much and was able to tell her conversion story which is always a big help. And Kirsty's girls sat by me and Sister Ricks and at the end they wanted to say the prayer. So I was able to whisper to them what to say. They thought it was great. They also love "Popcorn popping on the apricot tree" and "Once there was a snowman".  I love those moments and I can't wait to teach my children those things. Then that evening we were able to see Nikki (the girl who lived in SLC). She is so fun and sooo neat! She showed us the scriptures that those in Utah bought her and her school yearbook and everything she had from it. We can tell it had a great impact on her being there. She also dropped us off at the church and came in and gave her a tour of it. She said she hopes to come check it out in a couple weeks.

     Friday: We had a lunch appointment with some members and they had a less active over and we got to meet her and hope to go meet with her and help her with some things. Members totally make the difference in missionary work. They actually help the work move forward so much quicker. 

     Saturday: We were walking to an appointment and this man was walking through the park and we decided to go talk to him. We talked about the Book of Mormon and how it can answer many of life's questions. He said he feels something has been missing in religion before but he is not sure what it was. We were able to teach him much of the restoration on the park bench (some of the best lessons I have had are in parks because we don't plan for them and they are clearly by the Spirit). We hope to meet with him soon, we were suppose to today but he can't anymore. He said he would read the Book of Mormon and texted saying he is planning on it tonight. Pray for him. He seems very sincere and prepared. 

     Yesterday was moves call...... I will be staying in Falkirk and training again! Sister Ricks will be going to East Killbride in Glasgow to be with a sister from her group. I will miss her alot. We got along real well and had some good laughs together. Also she teaches so well and is willing to work. I pray my next companion will be the same. Alright, I wrote a lot this week. Hope everyone has a wonderful week, until next week....

Love

Sister Nicoll   

Food, attractive men, and much more.

Hello Family and Friends,

This week has been a great one! We worked hard and have had some fun experiences as well. So many members were so kind this week about feeding us. Basically everyday we had one type of meal appointment, if not two. Falkirk Branch has been so good to us and we are doing our best to support them in order to help them out as well. Tuesday night was a youth fundraiser night and they have a Karaoke machine at the church. There is a lady named Barbra Bryceland in the branch who went on X Factor and The Voice. She performed and she is so fun to watch and listen too. Very fun night. We also got to visit many less actives and even meet some new ones that we have been trying to get in contact with. And of course we got to do some finding. We did do some finding through members and there are a few that have names of people that they want to share the gospel with. So still working with them. The other finding we did was chapping. And that is where the attractive men part comes in. We have had this part of our area that we have been wanting to chap. There were 2 guys in one night that we found very good looking. One door was for Sister Ricks to talk and she just looked at me and I had to speak because she was too shy ;) I stumble over my words as well but we still invited them to come to Christ but they politely declined. But it was good nonetheless. There was another that was really nice and took a Book of Mormon and said he will try it out. Going back later this week. Another lady we met on the street while it was raining, gave us her address and said to come by anytime. So we have some people in the works. We are still working with Kirsty and helping her find an answer. It is hard because she hasn't come to church yet and we invite her every week. We feel church would really help her. Maybe one day. Hopefully soon. One really neat tender mercy! Yesterday as we were leaving our dinner appointment and waiting at the bus stop a woman pulled over and asked us if we were the Mormon Missionaries. After saying yes she told us she had lived in Salt Lake with a mormon family for a year as an exchange student. She loved the family and took all the lessons but felt it would be too hard for her but feels alot of it is right. She said she knows what we are doing is hard and invited us over for tea(dinner) next week. She gave us a lift home as well. She is way cool and we are all excited to talk more about it. There is my week in a nutshell. A really good study session I had this week was reading Romans 8. Give it a read. I love you all and hope your week is grand!

Love

Sister Nicoll

Sister Ricks and I near Callendar House.  Yes I do know the man in the background.  He is a man we used to teach and showed us a bit of Falkirk

Motivation!

Dear Fam and Friends,

Looking back on this week alot of things came down to motivation. First thing is we got to have another All Scotland Conference! I love seeing so many missionaries and getting so much inspired counsel. This meeting was about finding. The biggest topic was finding through those we already teach. So Sister Ricks and I have been striving to ask all we meet with for referrals. We do it in a better fashion the just asking for a referral. We were taught to do it by asking who could benefit from the gospel or who has had a life changing event. A couple people had others come to mind, so we are praying they talk to their friends and we are able to help them come unto Christ. Then next thing was exchanges. This time I went to Bathgate and was in a trio with 2 sisters that have only been out for 2 1/2 weeks. Not that they need to be motivated but I had to encourage them quite a bit because they had a daunting task for showing me around and getting places and doing things and being a very new missionary. But I feel the exchanged showed them they can do more then they thought and help motivate them to keep doing more and more to stretch themselves. Then Sister Ricks and I thought about what has been motivating us. Sometimes it can be about numbers. I hate to admit it but it can be. We noticed that those are the times we really get frustrated and down. So this week we will be keeping track of what we do but not talk about numbers or how many lessons we did but really focus on people. Don't go thinking we are bad missionaries... we truly care about all those we work with but we can focus more on it. Neat story... We picked a street to chap and as we were chapping and muslim teen invited us and we were able to talk about our different beliefs. She is one of the sweetest and most spiritual people I have met. We loved her. She is very strong in her faith but it was so wonderful to see her point of view on things and come away with more understanding of others beliefs. I love this work and the truth that I am able to share each day even if there are many people who use their agency to reject it. I love you all and hope you have a lovely week.

Love Sister Nicoll

“Let the light so shine”

Monday, June 3, 2013

Dear Family and Friends,

This week we have been soaking up as much sunshine as we can. I think about 4 out of the 7 days was sunny. One day it was so warm we didn't need a coat. Lovely! As for the work... not so positive this week. We were on exchanges Tuesday-Thursday and I served in Falkirk with Sister Caswell(she has been out for 1 and half weeks) and guess what? Ever appointment fell through besides one. It was humbling because I realized how well we had it and how much the Lord was helping us up to that point. So it was a good 3 days of finding. Which is something we got to do more of because 2 of our investigators are no longer learning because they are not keeping commitments or doing anything to try and know for themselves and progress toward baptism. BUT I am still loving Falkirk and the work. Sometimes we just need these weeks to be humbled and push us to work . Something from study that I loved is a story in Preach My Gospel about testimonies.

Brigham Young was not baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

during the first year of his learning about the restored gospel. But of his conversion he said:

“If all the talent, tact, wisdom, and refinement of the world had been sent to me with the

Book of Mormon, and had declared, in the most exalted of earthly eloquence, the truth of

it, undertaking to prove it by learning and worldly wisdom, they would have been to me

like smoke which arises only to vanish away. But when I saw a man without eloquence

or talents for public speaking, who could only say, ‘I know by the power of the Holy Ghost

that the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith is a Prophet of the Lord,’ the Holy

Ghost proceeding from that individual illuminated my understanding, and a light, glory,

and immortality were before me. I was encircled by them, filled with them, and I knew

for myself that the testimony of the man was true”

Never underestimate the power of your testimony plus the witness of the Holy Ghost. I love you all and have a great week by serving someone in need :)

Love,

Sister Nicoll

GOD SQUAD!‏

Hi-ya Family and Friends,

 

Of course it was another good week. Not everything was perfect but all in all it is always a good week. Or we can always find some things good about it. Last Monday we went and saw the famous Falkirk Wheel (famous in Falkirk at least). I didn't read up on the history of it but you can ride a boat in the wheel. Somehow it connects two canals. But of course we cant ride in boats..... so we watch the wheel turn hahah. Still neat to see. Today we are going to see a mansion of some kind. It is called the Callendar House.

As for the work... One neat story. At night we plan on who the Lord has prepared for us to meet. This past week Sister Ricks had a good feeling about finding a young mom as we were walking to an appointment. Well Lo and Behold a young lady with her boy were walking. We talked to her about forever families and got her info to teach her more. She has not been home when we went by, so we chapped 5 aside. Her next door neighbor was leaving and told us to come by next week. So we have two people that we may teach. But it is always nice to know when we are doing what the Lord asks and we are in the area we are suppose to be in. Which leads to the title of this email. As we were leaving a ladys door step (she was not interested ) She yelled to her friend who was standing by the car and asked him why he was not coming up. He replied "You were talking to the God Squad". We had a good laugh with them about it. Sister Ricks and I want to make shirts with that on it. Mostly because we like being recognized as people of God. One lady we are working with is searching out if there is a God and wants to believe. She said if she comes to find out that this is true then she will be baptized and committed to June. That is very exciting and will do our best to help her do the things she needs to sincerely to know. We love her so much already.

In study this morning I was reading 3 Nephi 11. In verse 15 it tells about how Christ made time for all the people to feel the prints in His hands and feet. We all know that he was there for a while to allow everyone to do it. But then I got to thinking how Christ still uses His time to only focus on us. Everything He does is for us and is caring for us at every moment. Same with Heavenly Father. It made me think about what do I focus most my thoughts and time on. It changes things when I know they are spending all their time on me and it makes me strive to do things more for them. That is all my thoughts on this week. I hope you all have a grand week.

Love,

Sister Nicoll

Falkirk Wheel

Us in front of Falkirk Wheel

Do you know what I love?

HI-ya Family and Friends,

So as many of you know Sister Ricks and I will be staying together for at least 6 weeks. I am excited! She is a great missionary and we get along well and that is always a huge plus :)

In answer to the subject line... The example and teachings of Christ. I love how the organization of His church is perfect. The people within the church however are not (still love them too) but the organization of it is. I absolutely just love it. I realized that as we have been working with people in the Falkirk branch and how they are willing to help and fulfill their callings. Callings are definitely called of God to continue His work.

I read a quote by Elder Bednar this week that goes something like this: "People's conversion is not up to you. You are called to open your mouth. Conversion is up to the people hearing and the spirit." An encouraging and kind of a relief giving quote.

We got a call from William saying he has been feeling really ill and just isn't feeling up to meeting anymore. We will keep in touch with him but it is sad to hear. But we know God is aware of his needs and will help him and we did all we could.

There are a few other people that we are meeting and teaching but no one right now that has a date for baptism. We will be inviting some of the people this week. I am excited but if they don't accept we will still pray for them and work with them. This gospel is not made for just some people, it is made to make everyone's life more meaningful and joyful. But some don't see that right away. But we will keep on keeping on.

One last neat story. A few weeks ago and lady came up to us at a train station and said she has lived in Scotland for 6 years and has not been to church. She was baptized back in the philippines  She has a young boy and we invited ourselves over( as missionaries do). We have meet with her a few times and yesterday the Relief Society president took us and her and her boy to stake conference. She really enjoyed and her boy said he wants to go next week. God puts people in our paths and I love it. Hope you all had a wonderful week as well. I am off to go see some beautiful sites in SCOTLAND!!! 

Love,

Sister Nicoll 

A week of traveling! Loved it!!!‏

Hello Family and Friends,

 

It was sooooooo nice to talk to all of my family and friends yesterday! It is so nice to feel the love coming to me from Arizona. But weirdly enough I realized how much my heart is becoming attached to Ireland and Scotland. And I know it is because my testimony has grown the most here and it was been the most life changing and most wonderful experience. I am still by no means the greatest missionary but I do my best and learn from the mistakes that are made and through this grow closer to my Saviour and help others do the same. Being a missionary no doubt has the greatest benefits.

Okay so as for this week... We were able to go to Edinburgh and Glasgow. I already told you about Edinburgh (mom it is pronounced ed-in-burr-a) last Tuesday. On Wednesday we got to go to Glasgow for training since Sister Ricks is new. It is called Smart Start and the Zone Leaders in Glasgow did the training for us and two other sets of sister missionaries. We mostly just role played for 3 hours but it was very helpful and that day was able to apply what we learned. Wednesday afternoon we met with a man who is atheist humanist. During Smart start we talked a lot about applying How to Begin Teaching and when we met with this man it was perfect to apply. He had lots of deeper doctrine questions. We knew we shouldn't and couldn't answer them so we started with just telling him that our purpose is to help him know that he has a loving Heavenly Father and testified how we knew about God. And told him that many questions he has can be answered in the Book of Mormon and Bible and from latter-day prophets. We were a bit flustered at the beginning with him but once we started testifying of our purpose and inviting him to know for himself, I could really feel the spirit in the lesson. It was wonderful. My testimony grew about sharing our testimony. I love it. We met again with William. Now William is an older gentleman and forgets to do the commitments that we extend to him. So this week we listened to the Book of Mormon with him and it went well. But we know he hasn't been praying. So this time we invited him to pray (we did in the past but he refused) This time we were more persistent  He ended up saying the prayer and it was simple and wonderful. After he said he felt he was really talking to God. Precious and spiritual moment. See why I love Scotland? 

Well that about covers it all. I challenge you all to pray and act on your prayer of having missionary moments. It is the best feeling. I love you all so very much and I am very very excited to see you all in 7 months!

Lots of Love, 

Sister Ashlee Nicoll

A view from Linlithgow palace

Sister Ricks and I on the very top of the Palace

Sister Ricks and I after a very rainy day

Us and Elders from my last distric