How Great Will Be Your Joy: 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