Mission Conference

Dear family,                                                                                                   

So I met Tad R. Callister this week. He´s a pretty great guy, the only fault I could say is that he doesn´t quite speak Spanish yet, so he had to have an interpreter. Well the story from start to finish: We´ve known about a mission conference for about a week but we just thought it would be president and the Hermana, then we found out Monday it would be with mission west and their leadership. Then we found out like when we got there on Saturday that President Callister of the Seventy would be presiding because Elder Cook couldn´t come. Wow...So he talked about how important reactivation efforts are and then on how if we understand the apostasy perfectly, the restoration makes a lot more sense. He spoke really similarly to a BYU Devo titled ´´Why 1820´´...if you could find it and send me a pdf of it or the transcript that would be incredible. It was super interesting and would be really important things to help investigators when they have a doubt about particulars. 

While I’m in the request kind of mood. we can´t have books outside the mission library here, but there’s two I´d like for you two buy and put on a shelf for me: The first is the biography of President Monson, called To the Rescue. The second is called Believing Christ by Stephen R. Robinson. They´re both really good and I want to read them when I get home...just that I can´t right now. Another request, how’s Jason Mills doing? I´ve thought about him these last two weeks and wanted to just give him a big thumbs up and an encouraging thought. I hope he´s fulfilling his dreams.  I´d like if you could double check Mitchell´s (Anderson) email for me, I´m not sure if I sent an email to him correctly or not this week. Okay I think that was all.

This week was pretty strange, it seemed for the first part of the week that we weren´t getting into the houses at all. Our appointments fell through right and left and we weren’t able to make new ones because nobody answered their phones. BUT, at the end of it all, we had a youth accompany us all day on Sunday because he´s prepping for his mission next August, and it was like the Lord wanted him to have the best day because not one plan fell through, we got a lot of progress with Saul and Cynthia, and we didn´t have any contacts that didn´t want an appointment later. It was incredible, and a sure blessing of the Lord. 

We have one marriage the 7th of September and another on the 28th, and we are working really hard to prepare a family for each one. The best part about having a marriage right after the changes is that I get to project my thoughts forward two weeks from the change and not think about that. It´s likely I will get changed, but not impossible for me to stay. I have 6 months at the end of the change here in this area, but there’s plenty of elders who have spent 10 months in their first area, just a matter of where I am needed. 

Looks a little like a Calculus drawing to me....

The fotos this week are of a drawing another elder and I made because Elder Llontop is an elder temporary who will probably finish 8 months here before heading to Cape Verde Africa for his own mission there. Just fastidando unpoquito. The other is of my new typical breakfast for the past little bit, if you look back a few months, you´ll see its soooo much better now.

Breakfast of Champions

I found out at the mission conference also that there are branches in our mission as well as at least two areas of provincia or people that are a bit separated from the city. An elder in my group, Elder Bullock just got an emergency transfer to be district leader in a branch way up in the hills with just 15 members, so even if it’s still city, there’s a lot of difference in between areas, if only from flat to hills or the size of the ward.

Dallin had me going too, especially because even when I read it was dengue, I had thought dengue was a jungle thing only. We can get it here in the city, but it’s extremely rare because there really aren’t mosquitos, just flies. (*Cameron's friend, Elder Hunt is in the Reynosa Mexico mission and sent home a letter that said he broke his leg fighting off muggers...but he was "pulling our leg" and has dengue fever, that is why he was in the hospital.  He is quite the jokester and we should have seen it coming!)

 Wow crazy that Brooke Andrus is going on a mission, it seems like yesterday I was tutoring her and Hannah in the Library. Congrats to her on that one.

Melissa: High school can be the best four years of your life if you choose to really branch out and look for opportunities to help everyone feel included. Look for an opportunity to serve someone every day and I promise the horror stories will seem like some other high school on the other side of the world. You´re a special sister to me, keep your chin up, you´re beautiful.

Work hard in class and see the fruits of your successes in a few years, that one goes for Kolby too.

Working at EN was the greatest, pass on my saludos a Michelle y Bob Nash. Try to start a journal if you haven´t, recording these experiences is so important. Sorry I didn´t respond to your letter last week, I am so crunched for time in internet. I love you, you are a spiritual giant and you are an example to me in so many more ways than you even know. Keep up the great work.

Tell Braden potatoes are great too, there’s about 60 varieties here in Peru :)

I love you all. I hope that when I write is an edifying experience for you to read it. Things are great here, don´t worry, because well, I don´t worry...too much.

Love,

Elder Nelson

Here is the link to the BYU devotional Elder Nelson refers to:
http://colterreed.net/spokenwrit/media/Why%201820.pdf