How Great Will Be Your Joy: May 2014

Keep it Simple, and it is Sweet

Hey Familia! May 24, 2014

Things are going great in my new area. I´ll have more time to write you all, apart from maybe today. I´m happy and healthy haha. Right now I am in the Tahuantinsuyo Stake, the stake closest to the center of the mission, and so I´ve been able to see a lot of my friends a lot more often. I guess I didn´t realize just how isolated Collique was until I left. The reason for the shorter letter this week is that I am actually heading back to Collique (with permission of course) to attend a baptism of an investigator we were teaching. Viviana is 12 years old, and I guess even though I know Melissa´s older, she reminds me of her. Viviana´s family moved to Lima from Tumbes about 6 years ago and in the process stopped going to church. Well, Wilson (dad) is working in Chorrillos, about 2 hours away and one night his wife Raquel, was praying for the missionaries or someone from the church to come by, because really she didn’t want to lose anyone in her family. Well, she left her house to go to the pharmacy with her other daughter, and there we were climbing the stairs to go to another investigators house. We were the direct answer to her prayer, and we have been working with the family to bring them all back to church ever since. I´m going back today to baptize Viviana, and I hope that her confirmation will be the first time that her whole family comes to church and not just her with her mom.

On a different front, I had mentioned I’ve been able to see some friends here in Tahua. Elder Dansie (redhead from Magnolias...se acuerdan?) came today with a very very special guest of President Erickson: Brother Dansie. Elder Dansie had shared with me a lot of his personal history with the church and the thing that he wanted most and the thing he mentions to me in every p-day or multi-zone that we find each other is that he wants to baptize his dad. Well, today was the day, and I was privileged to be there to see it. His dad and stepmom flew in from Las Vegas to let Elder Dansie baptize his dad. I felt the spirit and the family joy soooo strongly. I got chills as Elder Dansie said the ordinance in English, and then when his dad went under the water, I just couldn’t stop smiling. It´s an experience that’s pretty emotionally charged to be honest, a missionary son baptizing his dad, and President Erickson commented that as President he has helped other missionaries get sealed in the temple to their parents as well as baptized the parents of missionaries serving in other parts of the world.

A giant congratulations to Aubrey (Sintay) and to Brendan and his (future) wife. Life events keep happening, but really it’s hard to imagine anything being all that different when I get home...and then I see pictures of Melissa...that’s weird. But a good weird, don´t worry Melis, love ya!

As for the tourney, the gringos lost, but we didn’t lose bad as some of the other south American teams (ps I was playing defense), so I guess you could say that they won because they put us into three different teams right? Nah, really the best thing was being there with the whole mission. The assistants did a great job organizing the tourney and it was good to see Elder Gaibor before he had to go home. Note: the advice I give to Kolby on the goblet is to use very few points and assume curves are perfect. With mine, Yani used 4 points on a grid and got 3 percent error when Carrie and I were using like 20 points and getting 20% error. Simple is better :) That’s kind of how life is too. Even though it’s more and more complicated every passing year, we can trust in the simplicity of the gospel. If we trust that the atonement works and that we can repent no matter how lost we are, then Christ promises us all the blessings of our Heavenly Father. It´s just so simple, but it´s the hardest thing that we will ever do. Just some food for thought there :)

Remind me of the most important questions next week and I’ll try to answer them!

I love you all, I´m great, and already getting used to my new area. I´ll try to describe it next week. I hope this week you all keep having successes, and that you trust in the simplicity of the gospel!

Love,

Elder Nelson

But....????

Dear Familia, May 19, 2014

Hey so I don´t have too much time today and I don't think I will have time to write later, but I do have changes, i´m not quite sure what the name of my new area is, but i know that i will have P-days on Saturdays in the new zone. I love you all and hope that this week brings you happiness and as always a renewed focus on the gospel. I will try to write later if not during the week with permission.

Love,

Elder Nelson

Lord of the Rings...and some Pictures

Dear Familia, May 5, 2014

Well the reason that I usually do it in two sessions now is that i have to do the informes first, and once I’m finished with that I have maybe 20 minutes tops to write yall, which isn’t the full time that I normally would have, so we are allowed to go back to internet and write our families. AS for the Skype call, there won´t be a pre call, because we can set it up with anticipation by email. I will use the skype account from last time and will send you the call time tonight when I send the longer email. I will also try to adjust the room light so I’m not in the dark haha, the trouble is that the owner of our house will be lending us his computer, the same one i use to write at night sometimes, and I know that the light bulb is right behind my head, halo status :) We will have 45 minutes to talk, about whatever you want to talk about. I´m not sure how my English is, but I do know that when I try to teach things in English to Elder Oliva or the zone, things get a little hairy because I forget words all the time.

Things are great, i am super happy, just sometimes i get pretty serious when there’s missionaries that just don´t understand why they have to be obedient, or flat out just don´t listen when we talk about rules. The mission has rules to protect us, spiritually and physically, and the gospel is the same. Heavenly Father doesn´t give us commandments that are contrary to our good, and so why would the mission or the church do anything similar. He gives us these "rules" because he sincerely loves us and wants us to progress. I want the missionaries to follow the rules because I know that it´s only by being obedient that they can find true success in the mission.

Anyhow, times up until tonight, Ihave the pictures already picked out to send, and captions for them as well, so I will be able to do that tonight.

I love you all, i hope that you are finding joy in being obedient, it sets us free, in no way restricts us!

Love,

Elder Nelson

Hey, May 8, 2014

Sorry I didn´t get to write on Monday, but things got a little busy in the afternoon. There were a few things that are necessary to know for you though, so I am writing you a short note.

First off, the super important, I will be calling at 6 PM Lima time, on Sunday, and we´ll be able to talk 45 minutes. I´m not sure what we´ll talk about, so be prepared to ask a lot of questions, or talk a lot about how things are there. I do want to field a couple of questions from each person present in the phone call, but obviously it’s a mother’s day call, so Mom gets to call the shots :)

Other than that i promised i would send photos and descriptions, but it didn’t happen, so here they are! descriptions to follow in an added email response.

Just a quick funny story: president gave the same training to both the mission leader´s council and to the multi zone conferences and so i thought it would be worth sharing a bit. He was talking to us about the importance of obedience and how in DyC 50:2-4 it talks about abominations even existing within the church of Christ, or in the mission for that matter. He was telling us about the need to be exactly obedient and not letting Satan exercise even the minimum power over us, and suddenly he just looks at the big group of missionaries and says "Hey you remember Lord of the RIngs right?" We are all thinking....wait president is trunky or what? but then he starts saying well there’s this scene when Gandalf fights the Balrog, remember, the Balrog was huge and evil, but in the end it was one of those malignant spirits and so Gandalf had power over it. Then he just pauses and lets out that courage instilling roar that we hear in BYU football games "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!" In the zone leader council we were stunned and then we all laughed. In the multi zone conference the elders and sisters sat there stunned and a few woke up from inopportune naps mid conference, and then there was spontaneous applause :) President´s the best!

Anyways, I love you all and hope you have a had a great week! I will be writing again on Saturday due to a mission-wide soccer championship on Monday, see you on Sunday!

Love,

Elder Nelson