I
read all of the emails, Kolby’s first obviously, but there’s no time to write
due to informes. Congrats to Kolby I love you all and will write you later!
Love, Elder Nelson
Dear
Family,
Business first, yes I
sent a package through a member and by extension of her through Vanessa, right
about the time that I left my last area, It was the quinceañera package that I
was sending for Melissa´s birthday. It also had a few other fun things for
those of you who are still home :) I still haven´t gotten your package because
the paquetero didn’t come to our zone this week, the personal secretary did
with some birth certificates for marriages in our zone. Even though I want the
package to come, I was a little more grateful for the certificates because it
means that these couples can finally get married and be baptized. The birth
certificates are generally the big hold up with marriage here in Lima, because
the city where they were born has to send the certificate all the way to Lima
by mail. That means if they lived 3 hours by boat in the jungle from the
nearest city then the people there have to make the personal trip, bring back
the certificate and then send it by airmail from the jungle to Lima, and then
the postage in Lima has to take it to the offices. It can take up to 3 or 4
months to get into the hands of the missionaries hoping to marry them.
Congratulations to
Kolby! Mission calls are exciting and a spiritually uplifting experience to say
the least. This last month, Elder Waddell came to the mission and told us that
the meeting in which he has felt most strongly the influence of the spirit was
the meeting in which he accompanied an apostle when he was assigning mission
calls. Guayaquil is lucky to have you, and don´t worry about not seeing each other.
2 or 3 or even almost 4 years is nothing to a Heavenly Father who has sent us
here for 80 or 90 or even 100 years. I have talked to several Elders from
Ecuador throughout the day and they say to expect chills because Guayaquil
north has the mountains, the sierra if you will. Even more, there’s a couple of
elders that are from there, and they will be home by the 6 month mark in your
mission, so I will have to figure out their wards and stakes to see if I can
send you saludos from Peru :) You´re one of a valiant few relatively speaking
amongs jovenes en estas dias. Los que deciiden servir en una mision obetienen
bendiciones eternas, y estoy emocionado por su decision de servir. Te quiero
mucho hermano, sigue fiel!
(amongst youth in these days. The decision to
serve a mission gives eternal blessings, and I'm excited about his decision to
serve. I love you brother, stay faithful!)
Something that has
been on my mind recently has been the need to persevere in the faith, to endure
to the end. We have a pair of investigators that are having to persevere and
endure even before being baptized. Hermano Gustavo and Hermana Reyna have been
investigating the church for about 6 months now, and are regulars in the
chapel. They are about 50 years old and have several granddaughters who are
members of a few years. They aren´t married but they have had a desire to be
married for probably the whole 6 months of investigation.
The problem they face
isn´t too common, but common enough to have a solution that is known by the
mission. Hermana Reyna has her birth certificate readily at hand, but Hermano
Gustavo well...he doesn´t exist according to the Peruvian government. His birth
certificate was never made or was lost from the archives in his little town in
the sierra. That means that many of the missionaries before haven´t gone on to continue
teaching him because the process to make a birth certificate is like the
process of divorce here, it takes about 6 months and a lot of papers that are
unfamiliar to the average or even experienced missionary.
The missionaries
before us took on the challenge and sent a solicitud to the town where he is
from to look for papres corroborating his existence there, for example the
certificate of baptism in the catholic church. Once we received that we were
able to send a solicitud asking them to acknowledge that he existed and that
his birth certificate doesn´t. Now with that we can apply to the national
system to get a certificate made. On top of all of this process, he started to
take interest in the church when he fell from two stories of scaffolding with
his back to the ground, but by a miracle ended up landing on all fours like a
cat. He was pretty bad, and the medical bills still aren’t paid, but he is
recovered. He is a good man, and has a strong interest in the church now, he
reads the Book of Mormon to Reyna who can´t see very well due to overdosing on
some supplements a woman in the market had given her for arthritis pains.
I love them so much,
and when they expressed to us their testimony of the church the other day I
couldn´t help but feel moved by their faith to endure in spite of all of the
problems. The average person would have told the missionaries not to bother and
continue to live together out of wedlock, but they are determined to do what is
right no matter the cost.
That’s all I have for
today. I love you all, and every day I feel the growing influence of a loving Savior
in my life. That´s the message I love to share most: he lives and LOVES us. He
is our Loving Heavenly Father, Christ died and came back to life because He
Loves us. I love you all, and hope that this week you feel an increased amount
of Heavenly Love.
Love,
Elder Nelson
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