Monday, July 15, 2013

Get Your Nametag Out

Dear Dad,                                                                                                                                         
                       
This week I´m choosing to reply to your letter individually as well as mom´s so she knows why the other might be a tad shorter. We´ll see how much I can type in my hour haha.

It´s already Twin Lakes time! That’s really wild, and I´m glad Kolby is starting to get into the boating spirit. I know it was when Braden left that I finally decided to get into it, and I’m not sure why that was. This will be a perfect year for a triple ski: Kolby, Melissa and you of course! 

I baptized the young man and the one with her suit all rolled up. We had plans for member relatives to baptize them, but it fell through and so they had me perform the baptism. At church the next day they did all three confirmations, one by Daniel´s uncle with terminal cancer at 40 years old. It was incredible to be  a part of that one, the spirit was thick in the air and I couldn´t hold back a tear or two. He has a lot of opposition from his parents, so we are really praying hard for him.

We usually have a teaching pool of about 30 people at once, but about half are progressing, the others are just beginning or are recent convert or less actives. The ward is like home, but on average in this mission we stay for 4 months to 6 months in each area, so I´ll know each area really well. Every week we teach about 20 or 25 discussions, sometimes up to 30 or 35. It’s really busy, usually about 100 discussions a month for each companionship. About 20 years ago, this area was baptizing 200 people in the stake every month, now it’s more like 15, but it’s still incredible to think that 15 people start the journey to the temple every month.

There’s definitely an inversion here in the winter, so lots of people get sick from the climate change and the air quality, but I don´t notice the air quality change too much personally. The typical pday is a day playing soccer and a trip to the super market to get breakfast foods for the next couple of weeks. Men rurally cook, but most know how to do a few  things, they don´t eat too many desserts after meals, but occasionally we get jello or flan or jello on top of flan, mostly if there’s dessert it’s an orange or a mandarin or an apple. A typical work day is more like 12 to 16 hours, really incredibly hard working people, but that explains why they’re a little wish washy on commitments like coming to church. Everybody does something, even if it’s just man a gas station type shop all day, that’s more typical than a Wal-Mart type store.

Well that’s all I have time to type, I hope it paints a picture, this one can go on the blog too if you’d like. Just know that I love you and look up to your righteous example. Elder Christofferson said to get out your nametag...have you done it?

Love,

Elder Nelson

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