Dianna Pictures - 10/22/09

Here is a note from Dianna's Mission President's wife and a few pictures.

Dear Brother and Sister Nicholls,
Your daughter arrived in Halifax safe and sound. We have already fallen in love with her and so happy she is in our mission. Her companion, Sister Moss, is a great missionary and I think that they will really enjoy working together. Their area is here in the metro. This is a beautiful part of Canada and a great place to serve a mission. We look forward to working with Sister Nicholls and I know she is going to be a great asset to our mission. Thank you so much for raising such a wonderful daughter and for your willingness to share her with us. Thank you!
Sister Simpson

Dianna - Hello from Canada! 10/21/09

I made it safely to Canada! It isn't quite as cold as I was expecting but President and Sister Simpson said that it is unusually warm. I don't know if that is a good thing or not. I just found out about an hour ago who my companion will be and where I will be serving. My companions name is Sister Moss and we will be in the Halifax Metro area. That's great because that means we can go to the temple on our preparation day if we have time. :)

Oh My Gosh!! Anne of Green Gables didn't just stop being everywhere when I left! Last night and tonight I am staying at the Mission home and the room I'm staying in is called the "Anne" room. When they said that I'd be staying in the Anne room I had no idea what they were talking about, until I walked in...! There are 2 pictures about Anne of Green Gables on the wall, a doll of Anne the size of those American Girl dolls, the book is on the side table, and the best part of all is the Embroidered pillow!!! I'm going to take a couple pictures of it so you can see that I'm not exaggerating. It's hilarious!!!I'm just loving the people so far and Sister Moss seems pretty cool, as far as I can tell. I don't actually meet her until tomorrow. The good news is that we get a car!!!! The bad news is that before the end of the year they are supposed to get rid of 13 of the mission cars!!!!And the said Sister Moss might be one of those people who will lose one. :( And they said that when we don't have a car, we walk. I don't think they use bikes here. They might though, we'll see. So I went to the temple this morning and it was a great experience. Wednesday is P-day for my mission so there were a lot of missionaries at the temple. It's one of those small, cookie-cutter temples and man are they SMALL!! The rooms are just so tiny and they filled it up full and with extra chairs. It was still a great experience. Oh, and the person I went through for today, her name was Minnie Nichols! How cool is that!! I just love the temple!

Well, I think that is all I have to say at the moment, mind you I will have something to add 10 minutes after leaving the computer, but I guess that will have to wait. I love you all very much and thanks again for writing!!!

Love,Sister Nicholls

Dianna Update 10/15/09

Here is another update from Dianna - 10/15/09

Hey guys! I am absolutely loving your letters. It's fun getting handwritten ones but it's also fun getting Dear Elder ones because I get those the very day they are written. They print it out and put it in my mailbox. So either way is great. What way is NOT great is email. I only get 30 minutes on it a week and I want to use that time writing to you, not reading stuff....

So, I sang in the MTC choir this week! That was a neat experience! It was actually really fun. This is the biggest choir I have EVER seen. I think it even beat the Mo Tab. It was about 100 Sisters and 6-700 Elders AND you could still hear the girls! The Spirit is just incredible in firesides and devotionals, especially when we are all singing. There are over 2,000 missionaries here, so you can only imagine. You'll even hear people singing from their new language hymn books so it can get interesting at times.Thanks for the prayers. I can tell that you are praying for me. One day was really rough but then I remembered all of the support I had, from family, friends, and Heavenly Father. Being a missionary is fun but can get really rough sometimes because of all the studying and being critiqued when we teach, it can get you down sometimes.

So, my District is really cool we all get along really well. None of us can believe that we leave in just a few days! We got our travel itineraries last thursday evening. The Edmonton Elders and my 2 companions also going to Edmonton all leave Monday morning at 5 am. Then us going to Halifax leave Tuesday morning at 6 am. This means I will have a replacement companion for a day. I wonder what it's going to be like. I heard that I get to call home while I'm traveling. I don't know when, but I guess I will give you a call on tuesday. I'm flying to Halifax with a stop in Chicago. Just getting colder as I move north and east!!!I really hope I don't freeze to death! Also, my bags are too heavy now because they gave us so much stuff. So I will most likely be sending you a package of some clothes. Most of it will be stuff I can't wear anyway. It's stricter than I thought.

OH! I went to the Provo temple. It's a lot bigger than I thought. But it's not as pretty on the inside as the Mesa temple.

Well, my time is up. LOVE YOU ALWAYS AND FOREVER!!!

Sister Nicholls

We received our first letter - here is an excerpt about life in the MTC:

...I got those AMAZING cookies this morning. I haven't eaten one yet but I'm excited! So are my companions! That's right, I said companions. I have 2. They are both going to the Canada Edmonton mission though. We are the only 3 sisters we have found going to Canada and only 2 other Elders going to Halifax. But there are a few that just left for Calgary and a BUNCH of Elders going to Edmonton. My companions are so great! Sister Burgi is the cutest little thing. She is 5 feet and half an inch! She is so sweet. I think it's mainly because she is the 5th of 14 kids! WOW! She is good with people.Sister Weston is 5 foot 9 so we make Sister Burgi look even tinier :) Sister Weston is so fun. She is the odd ball of the group. She always has questions about EVERYTHING. But they're good ones.
We have had 3 mock teaching appointments so far and they just keep getting better, which is good because we did REALLY bad at the first one and were kind of put off. Our spirits are building again though. It's rough working with 3 minds but we hear that we are doing it exceptionally well, so that's good news. Also, we spent an hour in the Referal center yesterday where we call people and confirm that they got the free gift they ordered. Sister Burgi and I only got answering machines but Sister Weston talked to this one guy for 13 minutes! It's pretty scary at the beginning but the more answering machines I got the more I really wanted to talk to someone.
The schedule here is SO busy! We get up at 6 or 6:30 depending on if we are going to shower, then we have to be in class from 7-7:45 and then breakfast, then class from 8:15-11, gym until 12 (LOVE IT! They have the coolest gym EVER!), Lunch, class from 1:15-5:30, dinner, class from 6:15-9, plan the next day with your companions 9-9:30, get ready for bed, quiet time at 10:15 and lights out at 10:30. Phew! Those class chunks are broken up every so often for Large Group Meeting or teaching appointments. But my teachers are really fun! They are Brother Vallett (rhymes with Ballot) and Brother Brame (rhymes with frame). They have helped me a lot.

Dianna has arrived at the MTC and has completed her first full day! Here is her address - I'm sure she would love to hear from you.

Dianna Nicholls
MTC Mailbox # 137
CAN-HAL 1019
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793