Dear Family,
What happened? I
thought I told Melissa when I left that she wasn’t allowed to grow anymore. She
just went right ahead and did it, without even asking permission! Well it´s
true, she does look a lot older, and the set of activities you described don´t
quite fit the little sister that I once knew. It seems strange but sometimes I
feel like time there is just paused and whenever I get back it will all resume
but with a different me. Cue insert from my letter to president this week:
"My personal
conversion has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it´s the spirit whispering
to me, but it seems like that has been a focus of the last Mission Leaders´ meeting
as well. I sometimes wonder what I am doing now to become better, more
converted to the Lord. Sometimes I wonder if the way that I lead the
missionaries in the zone, with Elder Oliva, is the way in which Christ would
lead them. I´m forced to conclude that I fall short, and the things that I am
working on developing are showing love for them immediately after correcting
them. It´s hard to figure out the right balance, and I think that´s probably
the central fight for any leader. When am I too friendly or too much of a
leader?
Every week now I feel
more and more the guidance to change some aspect of my character, and I know
that it´s an effect of being a missionary and being open to receive the
guidance of the spirit. I love the mission! I will never be able to fully
express how I feel about this service."
This week we finished
up the papers for two marriages in our area and one marriage in another ward,
while at the same time finding out after traveling to three different city
centers that a couple from one of our wards won’t be able to get married for
another 3 to 6 months-ish. The thing is that the man´s birth certificate says
"una niño" and not "un niño" and well, gender on a birth
certificate in a country in which gay marriage is still illegal (hip hip hooray
for that :)) is kind of a big deal. The paperwork to change it will take 3 to 6
months, unless the records missionary in the offices can sweet talk his way
into moving it up the waiting list. They´re going today to try to fix it.
This week we have been
in the preparation mode for ward conference. Ward conference here in Peru is a
lot bigger than it was there. There are activities all week long with the whole
ward leading up to the sacrament meeting on Sunday. Monday was family
night in the individual families houses, Tuesday a family night put on by the
missionaries, Wednesday a trip to the Lima Temple in the minibuses of
a few members, Thursday a talent show, Friday a mistura,
which is like a cook-off of typical foods from everyone´s regions, Saturday the
ward all came to clean the chapel, and then Sunday there was the ward
conference.
The area presidency
announced a new focus on reading the Book of Mormon as individuals and families
completing it by the end of the year, reading 15 minutes every day. The
announcement came with a letter to every member, a chart to track your
reading, and a set of 5 bookmarks to cut out and share with friends with a Book
of Mormon quote by Marion G Romney on the back. This new focus will guide a lot
of the member and missionary efforts during 2014 and we will be working to
emphasize it to every member less active that we find or contact.
The other thing that
was going on this week is that the four elders from our ward with two elders
that already have their mission calls to Spain and to Argentina went up into
the hill and we were asked to build a room onto a house for a family that is
starting to investigate the church. Before you get thinking that it’s too big
of a project for full time missionaries, you have to realize when we add a room
onto a house it means digging 6 holes, putting down posts, nailing corrugated
steel to the roof and putting up panels of press board on the sides. It’s a
bigger project than I´ve been a part of before, but reminded me a lot of
building the food storage shelves in the basement. The only difference is that
we needed to use a pickax and spike to even out the ground and dig holes for
the posts. We are going back to finish it this week and I will take a few
pictures, the elder taking pictures had his card wiped by one of the computers
in the internet cafe.
Picking at the rocks to
put down the post, one of the stones came loose and flew up, hitting my glasses
right in front of my eye. To be honest I am pretty lucky I was wearing glasses because
anyone else would have had their eye damaged by the rock. My glasses are okay,
there’s just a small chip in front of my left eye that I have to learn to
ignore haha.
I´ll try to send a few
photos later, this computer isn’t one that I trust too much to plug in my
camera.
Happy birthday to Joe!
and to Melissa! Every day I am reminded of what a spectacular family I have
been blessed with and I wanted to thank you both for the support you give me.
Keep making righteous decisions and you´ll always have sufficient for your
needs! I love you both.
I love you all really.
I hope that conference hasn´t faded from your minds yet and that you are on pins
and needles waiting for your conference edition Ensigns!
Love,
Elder Nelson
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