Conference Muy Bien

Dear Familia,                                                                                                             

Well the computer shut down just when I was about to send my letter to president, and the church program doesn´t keep a draft of your letter....so this letter will likely be a touch short.

First, there are tremors all the time here in Lima, you just walk over to a doorway and ask the neighbors if they felt anything haha. I´ve been in a few minor earthquakes here, already and really it’s like someone walking past your chair accidentally bumped it. Nothing major, no worries. Apart from that there haven´t been any major accidents, I feel pretty blessed. I did meet Elder Young a few P-days back, and he and I actually share a few friends from high school even though he’s a year older in school than I am.

A happy birthday to Grandpa Andy, you´re the greatest, and I share about your love of woodworking every once in a while with my companions or investigators. Can´t wait to see what you make next when I get home!

Happy Birthday to dad! I think I´ll probably write a little longer to you next week, but just in case, and so you know I remembered haha. Love you dad! October 1982 conference Marion G Romney, just a tidbit to read :) 

I received letters by mail from Sister Grimmett and from Krystall Greenwell. Thanks to you both and I love to hear from you about all the things that are happening there.

As for this week, we are still looking for people to teach but we are having success from a member’s son Efrain and the Portilla family, they just need to be divorced first and then get married to their current partners. The bishop is a lawyer though, and is helping them to navigate the legal system. They are doing it happily, but it will likely mean the marriage will be in 6 months, when one of the two of us won´t be here :/ The good news is that Gemma will be getting baptized on the 26th of this month, and she and her sister are already inviting friends to her baptism. 

Conference was so incredible (and in Spanish), I especially loved President Monson´s talk in priesthood session. It´s so true that the Home teaching program of the church is something that we fail on, as evidenced by the role of Ward Elders Quorum president being the person that has to nag about doing it every month. Honestly it should be a joy and a privilege to do it every month and have our own personal missionary ministry here in the ward. I wasn´t the greatest hometeacher my last few years of high school, but I repented when I got to college and needed to motivate one of my roommates to go and do it. We visited each of our assigned people every month and knew when they were in a tough time (not too hard when were all in midterms). Just wanted to encourage everyone back home to do their home and visiting teaching and make it a priority. (How was conference for the Hill family and the new Nelson family?)

I hope you all had a wonderful conference weekend and that you were able to draw some things out of what was said in every talk, I know I did. I love you all and pray that you trust in the Lord with all of your heart might mind and strength.

Love,

Elder Nelson

The Portilla Familia

Dear Familia,                                                                                                                       

No pictures this week, mostly because there wasn´t too much picture worthy haha Last week the same thing happened so we had to do the Pday photo shoot. That explains our pictures from last week, but well this one not so much.

Let Grandma Andy know I got her letter that she sent about a month ago, and that it was great to hear from her. She and Grandpa are near and dear to my heart and I was excited to see a card from Nampa.

About the new temple video, there’s a new rule here from the presidency del area que dice que no podemos visitar al templo mas que  2 veces al año incluso con conversos nuevos, entonces. (that says we cannot visit the temple more than 2 times a year even with new converts).  I’m saving one of the times to go close to my birthday, so if I miss writing you for a day or two, you´ll know why. I´ll be trying to let you know a week before though. 

I lost my voice around Wednesday and didn’t find it again until about Friday after noon this week. As a missionary that was pretty devastating. I had come to feel like I could talk to anyone anywhere in Spanish about the restored gospel that makes me so happy, but I was back to feeling like the gringo comp that can´t speak Spanish again. Every time I tried I fell into a coughing fit and had to pass off the conversation to Elder Mariscal. I spent a day in bed just resting, and that was frustrating too, but I am better now, teaching, but with a bottle of water in hand just in case. There was a harsh change in climate that got about half of us sick this week, but its warming up now. Staying in bed all day made me start dreaming. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t usually remember his dreams from the night before in the morning, but when I nap or when I wake up and then fall back sleep that’s when I dream.

Apart from that, we´ve been working with a less active family from Arequipa, the Portilla family, there’s Elizabeth, Gemma, Giannina, and the stepdad Fabian. The two daughters are 24 and 14 (3 days older than Melissa) and they each have a baby. Pick your jaw up off the floor please. Gemma has a baby from an Argentinian man whom she calls her pareja (partner) but they are very much separated right now. The mom and the older daughter are members, but the other two aren’t. Elizabeth the mom, has fibro myalgia, and so coming to church was a really big challenge for her. She sometimes can´t get herself out of bed until the afternoon but if she gets up early she’s disoriented and feels drunk. She wants nothing more than to help her daughters get back on the path before going the way of all the earth. She’s a little fatalistic, she thinks she’s got about 2 years to go before dying :/. 

Anyway, we had a really tearful lesson with them inviting them to come back to church, and they all accepted, but all based on Elizabeth going. Well, Sunday came and we picked up on investigator, and headed to the chapel. When we got there, there was about 5 minutes to go until 9 when church starts. We waited until the sacrament was about to start and then entered, disappointed and feeling a little discouraged because we had knocked on the door for their apartment (above ours) with an hour and a half to go before the meeting. Then a miracle happened. The hymn finished and before the priest could start saying the prayer, in came Elizabeth, and trailing were her dos (two) daughters and her husband. I couldn´t stop smiling and I knew it was a pure blessing and miracle that they had made it in time. Being in the chapel excited Elizabeth and she talked to bishop about activating her record. Her daughters say they are coming back every week and Fabian said it wasn’t half bad. WHEW! I was stoked all day long and still smile thinking about it.

Questions: 

Package stuff for E Mariscal, ya anything American is cool I think haha, he’s from here so he can receive things pretty readily. I’m out of time to add in this part, so whatever you send I’ll be grateful for!

There’s two sets of missionaries in barrio Año Nuevo, we are the new area set.

We will attend general conference in the stake center closest at about Universitaria and Micaela, it’s called the Retablo.

There are microwave ovens in most houses. We eat potatoes and rice and chicken prepared in a variety of different ways...that’s about 70 % of the food here. Then there’s spaghettis and sometimes beef, beans, but yeah rice potatoes and chicken for the most part.

Seasons are opposite here, so probably sweaters for March or April, and sunscreen for December haha. That’s a joke, I have a ton of sunscreen.

After a month of cold showers in my first area, I just kind of got used to it, but yeah here I got sick and then I didn’t shower for two days or so, I wasn’t about to make myself worse, there’s a guy coming today to install the shower.

I have the picture of the warrior, don´t worry. And the Ericksons I don´t think they have a blog, you could send a note to ask them if you´d like, they came for a baptism from the other elders here in Año Nuevo this week, but I won´t see them until October.

I love you all, I´m working hard and helping the Lord do His work. I love my time here, and this people, I honestly can´t imagine myself anywhere else. Please pay attention to conference and rewatch the parts where you might fall asleep. Every talk is important! Sometimes you just have to look for the why in your own time.

Love,

Elder Nelson

PS Hoorah for grape juice! Love that stuff.

Cold Showers and a Questionnaire

Dear Familia,                                                                                                        September 23, 2013

The rivalry will never die, I just have to thank President Erickson for putting me in this zone, because there was a U student in the other zone and he would have rubbed it in ;)  Also, who’s that girl in the picture you sent me...surely not Melissa? She looks taller...and older....nope not my little sis.

*Do the wards there have any activities like this?  Things they can invite their friends to to socialize, etc? 

Yes we have ward activities. Usually it’s some crafty thing or food for the sisters, like how to prepare a whole dish, or there’s a weekly soccer game for the men, and this past week they all watched remember the titans. The elders’ quorum presidency is trying to put together a weekly mutual that makes them more of a cohesive group and that’s really good to have something every week to invite investigators to. Just this last week a youth brought a friend to church, and she will be receiving the lessons soon. The only problem is that 90 percent of the members live in the other area, so when people bring their friends they rarely are from our area.

*Is it a wealthier area?

Definitely a wealthier area, more educated with bigger houses and little lawns a lot of the time in front. The people have more money in this part of the ward and so they are less, but we are currently working on trying to locate all the less actives on this side to make that a big focus, reactivation.

*Are there store nearby (I was considering putting additional money in your account for Bday/Christmas)  If so what kind?  Are the fast food like Subway or just taco truck like places?

The only type of store nearby is like an Albertsons type store, not much there but electronics and groceries. As for fast food, the nearest is KFC close to the stake building, which is out of my area, but there’s little stores gas station convenience type stores on every corner and pollerias every few blocks. Really though for birthday or Christmas I’d like it better if you could send a package, I don’t know with what, but something small. I really haven’t used my personal money becasue there’s not much to use it on, we have almost everything we could want from the mission.

*At one time you said the only thing that will change on your mission is the horizon...is that still true?

Change is an interest subject. Honestly I know I have changed. I know that I’m becoming more patient, I am learning to love people on first sight and to really open my heart even if I‘ve only known them for a few days. I don’t know how much more I’ve learned, but I know it’s a ton, and I know that I will keep learning for a long time. The horizon on my mission is basically the same here in comas too, but the hills are on the other side now,

What is your district/Zone like?  I know you said there are many more, do you know why?  

My district is 6 elders now, and my zone is 19, 5 sisters and 14 elders. We have a weekly meeting and it’s a lot of fun to see how the others are all doing. My whole district is training. 3 trainers and 3 trainees. I think it’s just a bigger stake and for that there are more missionaries-

*Are you closer to the mission offices?  I googled the area of Comos...it seems like a large area.

Yes I’m closer to the offices, but not by much. The whole mission is within about an hour of the offices, so now instead of within 40 minutes I’m at about 20 or 25. Comas is like a county, it’s called a municipality, not sure exactly if that translates right.

*Did you get to bring your kettle with you?  What kind of cooking set up do you have?

I didn’t bring my kettle because elder De Leon would have been high and dry without breakfast for a few days, so it was a gift, but now we have pension in the morning and in the evening, we run there about 1 kilometer for exercise in the morning, and then come back and get ready to study.

*You said the apartment was nicer...how?  Are there 4 elders in the apartment or just you and your comp.?

Its bigger, on the 3rd story and newer. Just me and Elder Mariscal are here and the only problem is that we still don’t have a hot water doohickey for the shower. ooooh frio!

*You mentioned that you had to let your companion know the sad truth that some missionaries are not very obedient.  Reality is hard.  Will he join you in being obedient.and immediately so?

Yes, he’s super obedient and it’s great, When you are obedient, you just feel good, every day and all day. Look for the experience from my letter to President to see a description of how he is.

*Have you gotten used to all the walking...or do you get to take public transportation in this area?

We take public transportation more in this area, and its a little strange to be using so much more of the transportation fund that we get, but its definitely okay, because I’d rather not walk more than the estimated average we do of between 8 and 10 kilometros every day.

*I noticed that you were the only one is short sleeves in one of your recent pictures.  Is your wardrobe sufficient?  Is it beginning to be short-sleeve weather there?

Its starting to warm up here already, but I will need a new sweater for next winter, sweaters every single day for the past 4 or 5 months definitely was a little much with just two sweaters. If you do send a package, some more ankle socks now that we run for exercise would be great, the ones from my room should be fine.

Experience from my letter to president.

This week was really hard. It felt like we were doing everything right, working hard, contacting looking for members and less actives, following the schedule to a T and generally just being really obedient faithful missionaries. The problem was that those we planned to visit weren’t home, and those that were home refused more than once to let us share a short lesson. We had one day this week when we literally walked all day long from one appointment to the next, plan A plan B and then plan C fell through, and I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard to get anything accomplished. We have been working with a less active family trying to help them decide to come back to church after 10 years, and we found out that she didn´t come back because she had a bad experience with a priesthood leader telling her she couldn´t take the sacrament just yet. She also has fibro myalgia, so coming will be a physical challenge as well. Last night we had a lesson with her family where her 24 year old daughter expressed more or less the first part of this letter. She was a good member, even preparing for a mission and then her mom got sick and there were a bunch of other family problems, and she didn´t understand how God could let that happen. We shared a scripture about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail that now I can apply to our situation as well. We´ve done all we can and now we have to entregar our area into His hands and learn from the experience.

Other than everything here I’m fine, this week wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle and don’t worry. I do have a question. What is the name of that foto of the stripling warrior and his mom? 

I love you all and hope you are all doing your best with the missionary work there!

Love,

Elder Nelson

New Ground to Break

Elder DeLeon and his Greenie and Elder Nelson with his Greenie, Elder Mariscal

Dear Dust Bowl Family,                                                                                               

That foto probably competes with a few textbook fotos of the dust bowl in Oklahoma that was a cause of the Great Depression, just my little tidbit of history for today. (*We had a huge dust storm roll into town last night.  I sent him a picture that really does look like the end of the world rolling into town.)

So it finally happened, yes it was hard, yes, I cried in every house, and yes I wasn´t even sure I could be an effective missionary without the knowledge I had gained of my previous area. I took a ton of fotos and went to the offices at 7 in the morning to find out who my companion would be. As we were standing there in the soccer field waiting to hear our names and where we would serve I listened as my companion was told he would be training. Another newbie in Buenos Aires I thought, that’s great. Then I heard the secretary call my name, Elder Nelson, you will be serving in the Area Año Nuevo 2, Zona Comas, and you will be training a new missionary, please wait over here. WHAT?! I was excited and proud and a little worried all at once. Not only did a have to leave my area, but I would be learning a new area with a new missionary. What an opportunity to depend fully on the mercy of my Savior. An elder came over to me that would also be receiving a newbie, he introduced himself as the district leader from Año Nuevo 1. He then told me something more to worry me just a touch...it’s a new area. So this week I met my new companion, Elder Mariscal, and we started the work of opening a new area, an area that has about 5 to 10% of the members in our ward, and even less of the work that had been happening, no existing investigators and no area book to look through for help. Starting from scratch literally. The good news now, this ward is incredibly supportive of the missionary work. The ward mission leader is going to leave in November for his mission in Bolivia, and had set apart this week to come with us every single day. The Lord knows I can´t do this on my own, so he sent me to a ward that makes sure we don´t do it on our own.

So we did a lot of contacting this week and ended up with a less active family and one other family that we are now teaching, we are feeling a little bit more comfortable in our area and are working hard to build an area book that other missionaries can really use in about 4 or 5 months, or however much time we spend here. Elder Mariscal is from here in Lima, but the North is his mission. Literally 4 or 5 times a day a bus passes that will pass by his house in a little over an hour and a half. He was baptized as a convert at 8 years old, but went inactive at about 13 until a year and a half ago, when he says he had an experience pretty sacred to him, that made him come back to church. He´s super committed to being obedient and excited to do work. I´m so glad he´s like that. I´ve actually had to explain the sad truth to him that there are some missionaries in the field that don´t like to be obedient. The house we live in is much bigger than the house in the other area, and we are really just kind of setting it up. We are still waiting on a couple of things to come like a clothes rack to hang up our clothes but other than that it’s a really great house. The new zone has 19 missionaries including 5 sisters, so it’s definitely distinct, my old zone had 10 elders, no mas. 

What you say about the missionaries smiling is so true. We have had more than one training recently on the fact that as missionaries, we send a message in the street whether we actually contact the people or not, they see our rostros and thats enough, they know that we are the "mormons" without a second thought, and we tell them that we share a message about the gospel of Jesus Christ, lo cual trae felicidad a los que lo viva y lo acepte, (Which brings happiness to those who live and accept), if we aren´t smiling, who’s going to believe us? Smiling is actually something that is recorded that Christ did when he was among the Nefites, if you look I think in chapter 18 it says two different times that He smiled upon them. How much do we love the Savior and want to emulate Him? That call also includes smiling :)

 

Yes we get ensign and I read it...but in Spanish haha. We actually had a regional conference this Sunday in the stake building. We watched Elder Godoy of the seventy as well as I think one of the members of the presidency of the relief society as well as Elder Bednar and Elder Scott by satellite. Elder Godoy spoke about the youth of Peru being the future of the church here. I´ve totally seen that as faithful youth bring their friends to seminary and their parents to church. The sister spoke in a little bit broken Spanish about the need to really socorrer a los jovenes rebeldes (really help the young rebels?). Elder Bednar tambien hobló en cuanto de algo similar y la necesidad de honrar nuestro sacerdocio (also as something similar and the need to honor our priesthood). Elder Scott. Elder Scott :) as expected spoke on the sanctity of woman, and spoke of his dear sweet wife, really to me his talks always show his incredible love for her and for the gospel as a means to return to be with her. It was all really great.  We left refreshed and impressed spiritually, and the members were all talking about it on the way out.

Times about up, but remember that I love you all, I pray for you, and hope you are all excited like I am for conference coming up soon!

Love,

Elder Nelson 

A Miracle for Roxana and Pablo

Missionary Work makes Elder Nelson feel on top of the world!

Magdelena District

Dear Familia,

We are definitely all excited to get to work on all of the people that Brother Bagley sent us. His area is now two or possibly three wards and 6 missionaries, who will all have their hands full looking for addresses and phone numbers for these people in the old church records. The bishop told me yesterday that there was a bishop about 10 years ago that wen through MLS and purged a bunch of names from the list. Sabe porque? There were about 1300 names on the records from the ward but there were only 180 attending on a regular basis. What happened is that the names and data all went into a giant binder of old registers of baptisms and converts. Then over the years, someone lost the binder. Right now they are looking for the binder so we can look for these people (what was the nickname for the area?) Transfers are today and I will know after writing home whether I go or stay. I love these people and this ward and I honestly can´t imagine myself serving my mission among any other people, so this change will definitely be hard if I have to go.

As for my birthday, we´re only September right now...do I have to think about that so soon? Every once in a while I think of something I might like to have but then I forget because it’s really not necessary and might even be a pain to have to carry it around for the whole mission. My present for now will be that our stake-slash-regional conference will be presided over by the first presidency...or so they say. It’s a satellite broadcast so we´ll see if it’s true. I sincerely hope so, every time we have a special speaker or conference I leave it so edified so excited and happy, but more than anything refreshed. 

The wedding won´t be until September 28th, and Roxana and Pablo are getting married. The story for their miracle (every investigator is entitled to a miracle whether they recognize it or not) is really good. Like a typical Peruvian couple, they aren’t married but have lived together for years, but they aren’t each other’s first partner...that’s actually incredibly sad to me, marriage is so important and don´t a one of you forget it. Part of the marriage papers for the Comas area or county is a medical certificate, we were preparing them for a masivo there, so they went to the posta to get their medical checkup. He found out he has syphilis, but here’s the catch, she and her unborn baby don´t even though they have been living together, 100% faithful for 3 years. That’s a miracle, miracle number two is that it’s still treatable because they caught it super early. They thanked us for helping them start to prepare for their marriage, and recognized it as a miracle from a loving God. We went with them to the municipality to do all the paperwork for this county San Juan de Lurigancho this week, so it’s a sure thing they’ll get married.

  

We work with a group of about 4 or 5 families that we are teaching, as well as recent converts and less actives. We make 100 street contacts every week, 50 of which need to be hombres mayores, or capable of having a family (18+) at home. As far as the people I have contact with, the bishop in this ward is only home off the mission for 9 years, and the pensionistas family is great too, with half the high council (one is only 24, but he’s a high council member  They are a great help as well as the young men’s leader and the young men in the ward. I never did my own laundry here, we hire a lady in the ward to do that, and she does it all by hand...my shirts have never been this white haha. I make my own breakfast, all with the water kettle that I bought, it’s an electric, so we have oatmeal and hot chocolate or yogurt and cereal and yogurt. It’s all pretty healthy stuff. 

Thanks for all the support that you send my way, it all makes a great difference. I received a letter from Jessica Bagley, the wedding announcement and a dear elder from Sister Grimmett this past week. 
Braden and Ashley look great and happy :)

I love you all, and hope this letter finds you well and studying the gospel, it’s the ONLY way!

Love,

Elder Nelson

*also ask Braden about a family Gandara y family segovia from Pachuca...i think he served there right? There’s two elders here from there.

Small World

Dear Family,

So I´ve written down a couple of things that I wanted to make sure to write you all this week. Number one, I had strawberries for dessert after lunch on Wednesday this week. I wrote down immediately afterward I ought to write that, maybe I can sway Kolby´s mission preference. They sell strawberries in the street this time of year, they´re big and juicy and super sweet. They also sell apples. I honestly don´t think there’s a fruit that doesn´t exist here, and there’s several varieties that I haven´t been able to translate, so I´ll have to figure out what it is later. That´s happened with a lot of things, like I found out this morning that I have been drinking a Chamomile effusion with Dinner every night for the last 3 months today because I only know it as manzanilla. Don´t worry, it’s not tea, just chamomile leaves crushed up.

Number two to write home about is probably one of the biggest surprises I´ve had while serving here. Elder De Leon and I knocked on a door of a less active that Elder Gaibor and I had contacted a while back to try to reactivate her. She´s the lady that had been inactive for 16 years, and she didn´t activate back then, but we are going to try again. We were talking with her how now it’s the Lima North mission here and that things have really changed since she went inactive. She mentioned that her missionaries were Manuel Martin Herrera Hurtado de Arequipa, and .......James Andrew Bagley de Pasco, Washington. Yep...Brother Bagley apparently served here in what was then the Villa Hermosa Ward in San Juan de Lurigancho something like 20 years ago. Her name is Jaclyn Navarro Calderon and she would love to have his contact information to get back in touch. She didn´t come to church this weekend, but we´re hoping we can start to help her come back. She says she was probably 14 or 15 when she was baptized and that she went on visits with the missionaries as well. (*Andrew Bagley is our next door neighbor and was Cameron's Scoutmaster.)

   

Among those who remember Elder Bagley are: the Lopez-Alvarado family, they may have been giving pension during his time here back when all of their kids were smaller, now their family constitutes half of the stake callings that are available. That’s Hermana Francisca y Hermano German Lopez of Barrio Villa Hermosa. Quiero ver si Hermano Bagley tiene una lista de sus converso para que les contactemos  a ellos en estas semanas que vienen. Sería lo maximo si pudieramos usar este conocimiento para ayudar unos menos activos regresar a la iglesia o a minimo fortalecer sus conversos cuales todavía son miembros. (I want to see if Brother Bagley has a list of those he contacted or converted in these coming weeks. It would be the greatest if we could use this knowledge to help less active about returning to church or at least strengthen his converts that are still members)  But yeah that’s the biggie from what happened this week. 

The families we are teaching are beginning to really develop testimonies of the gospel. It´s been a type of fight to be able to help them realize a few things, but now they have a real hunger to know about everything. Especially the Restoration. The more converted we are to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the more our desire to learn about the Restoration will be. I love to learn all the details I can about Church History, it´s so interesting to see how much God loves us that He would direct His work through inspired individuals and courageous actions. 

Elder De Leon turned 23 this week, yesterday in fact, and so the Lopez family held a birthday party, dedicatorio during our dinner hour. They are so great to us, and their RM son even gave each of us a can of Dr. Pepper (it costs 2 times as much as anything else here and is pretty rare to find in a store) 

I´m loving the work here, and I can´t imagine myself anywhere else in the world than Perú. I pray for you, and hope you are all well and strengthening yourselves and the family por medio de guardar sus convenios en el templo y cumplir con todos los mandamientos que sepan. (by keeping their covenants in the temple and fulfill all the commandments they know)

Love,

Elder Nelson

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