The Cockroach in the Shower

Panorama of Zona Magnolias, in Lima Peru

Dear Family,                                                                                                                          April 22, 2013

So the keyboard I am typing on today doesn´t really do capitals so well, so sorry mom, or whoever else take a turn editing my letters...this one is gonna take some work.

That story was so great! We have missed appointments literally every day, and some days it is every single appointment all day. It can be discouraging but we just keep at it. Dad asked if there was anyone I could ask you all to pray for other than me. Interestingly, while I was in the temple I honestly couldn’t pray for myself. I just couldn’t come up with anything to pray for to help myself or help with things, so I prayed for you my family, I prayed for Darci and Joe, I prayed for Braden in finals and his other pursuits, I prayed for Kolby and his upcoming decisions, for Melissa and her problems with being excited about dances )love ya sis ;) I then prayed for my companion and our investigators. Really it was a really good prayer. I felt great afterwards and it was like normal again. Since then, I’ve been trying to focus on others when I pray. Prayer is a lot like the priesthood like that, its best used when we use it to bless others. Anyway, we have an investigator family, the Ramos family. The wife can’t get a paper for her marriage from her district and also her sister had a pretty serious accident a few weeks ago. Her sister is in a neighboring ward, but Maritza is just really buried in all of this and can´t think of getting married anytime soon. They’ve been investigating for about 4 months. Their daughter (about15) didn’t believe in God before they started investigating and is starting to try to gain a testimony, but Satan is working really hard on this one, I just know it’s because they would be soooo strong if they could be baptized. So yeah, they could use a few prayers for strengthening their faith.

My companion is still pretty fresh and so there’s a lot of things that we both learn as we go. The biggest thing is that he is good for me and I for him. He doesn´t know English hardly at all, but it’s a mission goal to learn, so we try to teach each other. The biggest achievement so far with him has been learning to pray in English. We made a sort of card with common phrases like ¨we ask that thou wilt bless¨ and then other things that he might say afterwards. The main thing is trying to synthesize his own prayer, but with English words. We get along well. He went to college to be an advertiser before, and college starts at 16 or 17 here so he’s almost done even though he turns 20 on the 2nd. He comes from 4 hours north in Barranca and so he knows the metro area of Lima pretty well, just not the Lima North mission especially. 

Leopard...in the Zoo, we hope :)

Experience time in the last 5 minutes or so. I had a battle in the shower the other day. I would send a picture of the roach that I couldn’t see because I didn’t have my glasses on. Just a blur running around the shower floor while I was trying to shower. Last time I ever walk to the shower and just start without checking first.  It’s about the size of my thumb to the second knuckle. The bishop’s family made stovetop salty popcorn for me the other night. So I’ve officially had popcorn that wasn’t ruined like my science project, but still cooked in the same way haha. Last, I went to Interpol with the other Americans to get fingerprinted and photographed and my teeth checked out. They met us in the CCM, so I made it to the CCM here too. What a coincidence right? It took all day, and I got back after not having eaten all day at 9 or 9-40, I was beat, but we just bought a typical dinner from a tienda, soda and ritz crackers...not the best I know, but its Peru haha. I love this place.

I’m going to try to send more pictures in another email so this will be it.

Love you all!!!

Elder Nelson