Dear
Familia,
I didn´t plan on
writing this late, but I guess that’s how it goes. The bishop´s family in the
ward is going through some difficulties.
We had a family night with them tonight and we ended a little late, but we
helped them come closer as a family, which is really really important in a
ward. If the bishop is distracted, the
work can get complicated and that’s not something that we want here. The bishop
is a key player, and if he´s on the bench, well you have to enter sports rehab
and get him off the bench, things just don´t work as they should without him!
Your questions:
How are your glasses?
are you rotating pairs or using the damaged ones? Would you
recommend Kolby bring contacts or not?
Well, my other glasses
fit my face really small, and I would probably only use them if my glasses that
I do use outright broke...like in half. I still use my glasses. I wondered at
first if it would give me a headache to have a little spot in front of my left
eye all day, but it’s amazing that when Heavenly Father designed our bodies, He
designed them to adapt to uncomfortable things. I hardly notice the spot
anymore. There are a couple missionaries in the mission that use contacts, and
they use a daily disposable kind and receive a package every 3 months with 90
pairs. It seems like it would be a little tedious, and really I’m glad that I
don’t have to worry about cleanliness like that, just have to polish the lenses
every day because of all the dust. I recommend glasses, even though it’s a pain
at first.
Who are the
missionaries pictures playing Jenga?
Going back and looking
at the pictures, the skinny one in the checkered shirt sitting on the couch is
Elder Guzman, he´s from Honduras and has about 3 months, the other in the
checkered shirt is Elder Valenzuela, he was in Comas with me and is also from
Honduras. The one in the blue shirt (who lost) is Elder Rosales, he´s from
Piura, and he just got to the mission when I got here to Collique. Squatting
over the tower in red is Elder Gutierrez, boliviano he was serving in
Venezuela, but got here in lima a month and a half ago because of the political
unrest there, he will likely finish the mission here, along with the other 20
or so missionaries that were reassigned here. The one in glasses is Elder
Oliva, he wears glasses only sometimes, because he´s a little like Braden,
doesn’t require them for everything like some of us, how blessed :)
Do you like Mole?
It was good, we made
it a little bitter because we used a little too much tomato, and in Guatemala,
they put it on fried bananas, but Elder Oliva told me they put it on chicken in
Mexico. The sweetness of the bananas was really a plus, on chicken I’m not sure
I would like it. It´s a chocolate based sauce, basically a dessert.
Do you use the flea
collars I sent and should I send some with Kolby?
I never used them, I
think they are still somewhere in my suitcase. The thing was that the time I
had bed bugs, I was sleeping on a mattress on the ground because we were in a
trio, so they wouldn´t have done much good. What did work was the repellant
that I brought. I put it on every night and every three days I sprayed down my
sheets, and didn’t have too many bites. I´m not exactly sure what his mission
climate is like for that kind of thing, missions vary a ton! Here is the email
of an elder that will return soon to what will be Kolby´s mission, you should
recognize the name, he was my second companion Elder Gaibor. You can send him
a note to see if he will continue talking to you from his home email. He
finishes in May, but he´s a great worker and will no doubt be an asset to his
home ward if Kolby ever gets there. He speaks pretty good English, so don´t
worry about translating your letters :) he can use the practice for the end of
mission English exam.
Well, about out of
time, but just wanted to say that Gustavo, Reyna, and Daniel all got married
and baptized this weekend, being baptized in a massive baptism ceremony with 10
other new converts from the stake. The activities have really been animating
the members in the stake to participate in the mission work, and we had a
spectacular turnout of 186 for the baptism. I went first baptizing hermano Gustavo,
but when I finished, i stayed in the passway helping direct the flow of people
getting baptized and mopping up the font water so people wouldn´t slip. I
should have been freezing cold because (same as my own baptism - I guess it’s a
weird memory thing) here they don´t heat the water for the baptisms. In fact,
they don´t even have the capability to do so in the majority of the mission’s
chapels. I felt absolutely happy, just deep down inside I felt good. Members were
telling me to go change saying I was going to die of a cold, (that’s a pretty common
thing, it’s 65 degrees outside and they say I’ll die of a cold ha :)) but I
felt warm and just joyful, knowing that after such a long struggle, these three
people were able to be baptized!
Well that’s it for
time, I love you all and will send baptism/marriage fotos next week!
Love,
Elder Nelson
Earlier in the day he wrote:
Dear
Mom,
I am replying to this
letter first, but the full reply to the main letter will come in the afternoon,
when I have my time to really write. I don´t remember any specific lecture or
speech to be honest, I think that’s also something that parents and leaders
think of. They remember things much more vividly than those who are their responsibility.
What I do remember is that I was terrible, and very very prideful, and to be
honest it’s something that I still work on quelling. I don´t have all the
patience in the world, and I get frustrated quickly, but I am learning how to
manage it and how to blow off steam without letting it affect the other
activities I have.
Leadership teaches a
lot of things, and I have been profoundly grateful to have the opportunity. I
still don´t feel necessarily like I am the best fit for it, but I do my best,
and the things turn out well. I´m still shy haha, but that’s something that I
don´t think will change. It takes me awhile to let people into that inner
circle, and now that I think about it, I think I created that circle and then
tried to push my family out of it when I was younger, and that's where all the
conflict came from. Now I realize that that’s the last thing I should have
done, and that the best decision I ever made, I made in a car ride with Braden,
I decided that I would call each of you every single week, once minimum to my
siblings, and obviously more for you and dad. It changed everything, and I feel
like during those 4 or 5 months, I got closer to each of you than I ever have
been. It´s a type of repentance, I recognized that my family relationships weren't where they should have been, Braden helped with that part, and then I
started to ask forgiveness, or better put, rectify the wrong. I´m beyond
grateful for that decision, and for the family relations that I have now.
Families are eternal, but if we don´t choose to be a team that doesn´t ever
split up, you can end up losing what should matter most in our mortal experience.
Well, times ups for
the morning. I love you all, and I hope that you find joy in your daily
decisions, it´s really what we are here for anyway right?
Love,
Elder Nelson
No comments:
Post a Comment