Dear mom and family,
Thank you for the asmonex! Haven't got it yet, but I've been out for a week haha ;) I think it should come today! And when I run out, how do I get it from the pharmacy?
Christmas, I'm not sure exactly what the plan is...we have to find somewhere so that we can skype, so I'll keep you posted as soon as I know! And it's totally fine with mission rules if Ally comes, so that would be great!
Well, sounds like a fantastic week for you guys! Things are going well here! Elder Jellen goes home at the next transfer conference, so my last day with him is January 7, and he flies home on the 8. Less than a month now, and he's freaking out haha!! He doesn't want to go, and I don't want him to go either! I love him, and the members do too! I think if I was half the missionary Elder Jellen is, I would be satisfied with my lot in life. And also...I'm scared for when he leaves because the members are so attached, and no one is as good as elder Jellen, so I'm terrified they won't help out at all. ;) But it'll be a good learning experience for me! ;)
So for pictures, I still haven't figured out how I can do that....last time I tried it at the library, it didn't work...I'll bring my camera next week and we'll see if we can get something through :)
WInter, We had our first real snow last night!!!!!!!!!!!!! It snowed and it stuck!!!! I t started snowing right after we got home from church, and then all the time we were walking in it too!!! It was awesome! But then we woke up today and as soon as we left our apartment to walk to the library, we saw that it was all ice....it's like that big ice storm we had last year in Utah. It's so slick, and everyone here uses buckets of salt on the smallest spots of ice. I think it's ridiculous, kinda insane, but whatever floats their boats. Nobody here likes winter, I think I'm the only one. It's getting cold though! I wear a hat almost everywhere now, and we always have on our gloves, and I have a pair of thermal bottoms that I wear daily too. We're warm as long as we do that!
So every month Pres. Jeppson picks a monthly focus topic for all the missionaries. October was faith, November was prayer, and December is Always remember him (Jesus). Our zone and district training meetings branch off of these focuses, and we are encouraged to apply them daily. Zone training meeting is the first tuesday of every month, and the whole zone gets together, and the ZL's give us a training. I LOVE ZONE AND DISTRICT MEETINGS SO MUCH! I always find lots of things that stick out to me!! And I'm sorry I don't remember everything now, but I wrote it all down, so maybe I'll write a real letter with some stuff in it. But I remember one part they were talking about receiving personal revelation. We do that by praying about what we need revelation on, right? But we need to do more on our part to receive revelation from God. It is our job to ask God inspired questions, (inspired questions like we ask to our investigators) to find out inspired revelation. We are God's eternigators. So there's a spiritual thought, if you want revelation, come up with a specific, inspired question, then ponder the question in your heart, study it out, and you will receive. "Ask and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened up to you. D&C 4.
On a side note, I was reading a GC talk from April 2012 by Elder Evans of the 70 about missionary work. It was a really good talk!! It talked alot about how sharing this gospel can bring us and others much joy! Something random about that talk, it said you should send missionaries hand written letters haha! I thought that was funny ;) (Hint taken…..we mailed letters) (And I'm sure he wouldn't complain if any of you wanted to send a letter either) :)
So this past week, our main focuses have been our investigators, Selena, the 8 year old girl who is getting baptized soon, and Bessie, our new investigator. Selena has autism, so we've had to find new ways to teach her. I bought a picture book in the MTC, so we've been teaching her very simply with pictures, and we gave her a Book of Mormon Reader to help her read the scriptures. We also made a calendar of things for her to do that we're giving to her tomorrow, it has daily prayer, her baptism date (Dec. 22), her confirmation date (Dec 29), and other assignments can be wrritten in that we ask her to do. She has a very short attention span, but the picture lessons have really helped her focus and understand. I can't wait til she gets baptized!!
Another exciting thing about her making the choice to be baptized is the impact it's having on her mom. Her mom has said before that she has plans of being baptized, just no idea when. She only isn't baptized now because of her husband. They are technically not married, but they live together and he's the father of her kids, it's a pretty common situation here. But after our 2nd meeting with Selena, this is what she said, "You know, the parents are supposed to be good examples for the kids, not the kids for the parents." She told us that she's coming to the point where she has to decide if she will move out, or if she will convince her husband to get married. So she is closer to baptism than we ever thought!!
With Bessie, we had our 2nd lesson with her last week. We were going to talk about the plan that Heavenly Father has for us, that we choice to come to earth even though we knew it would be hard, and how we can find peace and happiness in the Atonement if we have faith, repent, and are baptized. We brought Hno Carvajal with us, our branch 2nd counselor. He's a convert of about 12 year's, very rooted in the gospel, and very knowleadgable. But...he likes to talk...which having a member that talks is really good, but he got very off topic alot, and he talked way more than anyone else who was there with us haha! The lesson was still good, I think Bessie got the point of the lesson and she invited us back on thursday for dinner and a lesson, woooo!!! ;) Hno Carvajal at one point talked about the sacrifice that we make as missionaries, leaving our homes, families, and friends for two years. We don't get paid, we do it of our own free will, and we can't talk to home more than once a week through email. They were really impressed by that. I am convinced that Bessie will get baptized within two months, no doubt in my mind. But her mom, Kenia, has sat in on both lessons and participated. She's not really looking for anything out of us, other than to learn with her daughter, but I think when she learned that, it kinda opened up her eyes to see, "you know what, maybe this is something really important." So that was awesome!!!!!
Here's a weird/cool experience! Last night, we were walking to Selena's house to give her a lesson, and we passed a man on the street. We greeted him in spanish, and he was caught off guard and started talking to us. At first he thought we were JW's (Jehovah Witnesses), which unfortunately, is a really common mistake out here...but we established who we are and we went up on his porch to talk with him. His name in Nelson and he's from Honduras. He was a little drunk, but not drunk enough to be completely out of it, and he had a bunch of questions. We talked to him for like 40 mins, in spanglish, and at the end, he gave us hugs, and he accepted a B.O.M. We asked him if he'd read it because it was another testament of JEsus Christ, and he said "Por que no?" why not haha!!! It was really cool! One part where he showed his drunkeness though, he established that because my last name was Nelson, I have roots somewhere in Europe. He 'foretold' that an aunt that I have in Europe will soon communicate with me and change my view on Jesus Christ forever. Kinda spooky. I love drunk people ;)
So the Morristown stake for the past 2 or 3 years has done this thing called the Christmas Creche. They take the gym and set up tons and tons of nativities and stories of Jesus and they open up the church for Fri, Sat, and Sun for anyone to come see. We've been passing out invitations for like a month, it's huge!!! So we went yesterday right after church, and it was so amazing!!!!!!! I wish I would have had my camera with me, but I hadn't realized we were going before we left home. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of different collectors nativities friom all around the world, and it was so beautiful, and they had soft christmas music in the background. I could feel the spirit of Christ there really strongly! We were asked to help for a little while after we went through, and I talked to a few people who weren't members. They said it was the most beautiful, amazing thing they've ever seen. Everyone that went, member and nonmember, investigator and person from the street, felt the spirit there. We weren't allowed to proselyte there, but I think this Creche opened up many many many opportuinites for conversions. I want to come back after my mission and see it again, it was so amazing!!!!
Well, that's about all for this week. Keep on keepin on, dad I can't believe you would grow your hair back!! (no….he hasn't grown his hair back yet……we have sort of a bet thing going on…..If I win, he grows his hair back!)
;) Love you guys, have a great week!! :)
Love,
Elder Nelson
No comments:
Post a Comment