Change of Seasons in Lima

Pday Service?

Dear Family,                                                                                                             

Wow, I about died seeing Melissa....she´s too old. Tell her to hop back in time a little bit, and Kolby too. Applying for BYU? You´d think he was graduating or something. I remember that time, and it was stressful, but mostly because I made it stressful for myself. I did that with a lot of things come to think of it. It turns out that its true, when we keep en eternal perspective, we are able to face the challenges of life without worrying about the outcome quite as much. We can trust in Him and His marvelous plan that help us to have purpose, and confidence in life.  I´m honestly losing a bit of my English, so you’ll have to bear with me. I´m teaching Elder Mariscal English, but even so, I forget words here or there, and I’m not so sure of my grammar anymore.

As for gifts, I´ve bought a usb speaker that can read music from my USB, so if you send a simple USB with music in it, I can use that. I´d love to have some John Schmidt or more acapella hymns or something like that. I listen to Christmas music year round here so don´t worry about that haha. As for seasons: Winter is foggy cold and cloudy, summer is sunny clear and hot. Spring is one day one of the two and then the other day or even the afternoon the other. There really isn’t a fall, it’s just a little bit cooler in the evenings. We are in spring right now, still wearing sweaters every night, but during the day it’s hot, so basically it’s just kind of a mix. I hope that explains the difference. The temp difference is minimal, but to us it’s a ton, because nobody has air conditioning or heating in their houses. They just deal with whatever they get from Nature.

The Portilla family is great, here’s an excerpt from my letter to president:

Our investigadora , Gemma will be baptized this Saturday at 6. We found her because we live in the same building. Her family is coming back to church slowly but surely. Her sister already is active after attending several meetings and an interview with the bishop. She now is enrolled in institute and JAS. They probably are our biggest success story. They had been inactive for around 7 years, and now coming back they ask why it took so long.

It’s so true. They took 7 years to come back, but they are really enjoying the church and their oldest daughter está provechando todas las actividades que tiene la iglesia para ella. The mom still has to divorce her husband in order to get married to her live in guy, and that’s going to take about 6 months, and I probably won’t be here that long. For now, they will start coming to church and meeting with bishop to fix things up.

Efrain not so much, we haven’t had a lesson with him for a week and a half because he only has mornings and its not really too great for us because mornings are for studies and also meetings and conferences. It’s tough to get a morning free, so we are trying to solution that for the time being. 

Pday Activities

We are going to the temple on Friday this week, because we asked to go to the temple. The new rule is that you sacrifice your PDay and go to the temple during the week with just your companion. We will go in a minibus (combi) for about an hour to get there, and likely wake up super early to make the trip in time for the first session of the morning. I can´t wait to go to the distribution center and see if they have the missionary library in Spanish. That’s one that I wanted to see. 

The other reason there aren’t too many photos of my area are that I’ve been counseled not to carry my camera in this area. Haven’t had any problems yet, but it’s possible so I don’t carry it. The photos are of a PDay activity, we had to eat the items as fast as we could...yes that is a raw egg. I didn´t get sick for more than a day,  and I’m totally fine now, so no worries there. On Pdays we aren’t allowed out of the mission now, so that limits our activities severely. We usually spend some time with the zone and then have the rest of the day to spend in markets or in our rooms relaxing, or sleeping. There’s not too many touristy things in Lima North.

I got the birthday package the 18th, super fast, and now I have to wait 18 days to open it. I hope there wasn’t anything perishable haha. Mom...I haven’t grown since sophomore year of high school. I don´t think I’ve grown, or at least my clothes still fit. The pants are a little tighter, but they still fit. With my pensionista now, I am losing a little bit of weight because she cooks a lot of natural or health foods with very little sodium and fat, so I’m getting back to normal. I´ve never weighed myself here, so I guess I´ll have to one of these days to see if I’ve gained or not.

Well I´m out of time, but I love you all. I hope you’re all making good decisions, and helping others to see your example. Ask dad about the Work of Salvation and then look for a way to implement it there in the ward as a family.

Love,

Elder Nelson