Pigskin soup and a stinky miracle!

Dear mom and family, (I hope he starts sending pictures soon…..)

 

Please send the Asthmonex to my apartment, I'm on the last week of mine, and I can tell the difference as it's freezing!  And yes, I did get all the packages, thank you so much!!

 

Second, Pres Crane, a counselor of the mish presidency invited us over for dinner onThanksgiving, so that's where we're going! Also, we're having a turkey bowl in Short Hills on thursday morning!!!! We get to play football for two hours on thanksgiving!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!!!

 

Okay, I'm gonna start off this letter with a joke. Jk, it's a funny story though. So last week (8 days ago) in elders quorum, the 1st counselor in the branch pres. was teaching and he asked the question "what is the great whore of all the earth?" like it talks about in the scriptures. Without missing a beat, Hermano Acuna raises his hand and says, "La iglesia Catolica" The catholic church hahaha!!! It's a good thing we didn't have any catholic investigators there that day haha!!

 

Last week was really good!! Tuesday I taught in district meeting, and that went really well! I changed everything I was going to teach that morning, and changed it again as we went along haha! We went over Ether 3:1-9 the brother of Jared's prayer and it was really good!!!  We talked about having faith and praying in faith and by doing so, you can see the hand of the Lord in your life every day, because it is always there! And it's true!! We've used that lesson with members this week too!

 

 Wanna hear another funny experience I had last week? I knew you would ;)  So I had my first taste of weird food this week. I think it was on wednesday...anyways, we were at a member's house, the Lopez family, and we shared a message, and then they offered us some food. So they brought us these big bowls of soup with beans and something else in it. I asked E. Jellen what it was, and, like a good trainer, he responded by telling me to eat up. So I threw in a slab of some beans and what looked like a strip of ham in the soup. The texture was really gross, it was squishy, and kinda made me gag. And it didn't taste really good....like it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good haha! I continued eating, and E. Jellen was talking to the husband. He had said something about chanco, so I knew it was something pig, and then he asked E. Jellen how to say it in english. E. Jellen said, "Skin, that's how you say it in english." I FLIPPING ATE PIGSKIN SOUP!!!!!!!!!!!   After that I had the hardest time finishing. We had just had dinner right before that, they had given us huge bowls to finish, it didn't feel or taste good in my mouth, and now I knew what I was eating. It took all I had to finish. And then they brought out dessert, which I later found out was some form of pumpkin, which was cool, it tasted alright! But after my first bite of the dessert, I knew I was going to throw up. So I asked if I could go to the bathroom, and I went in there and I prayed haha! I prayed that I would have the strength to finish and to not throw up, and I was in there for like 5 minutes. Right after I prayed, like RIGHT after I prayed, I farted. And it felt really really good (Did he just say that out loud???) (Seriously can't. Stop. Laughing.). I was able to go out and finish, even though I was still full. It was a miracle in a really strange form haha!! How do you like them apples? ;)

 

 Two things about Elder Jellen, we started eating those Trolli eggs from Halloween, and he requests that you send some more. We haven't found them here yet. So like...an early Christmas present? ;) Jk, maybe if you could throw one pack in there for christmas, that would be great, Elder Jellen says thank you ;) He also told me this week that I look like Roddy from Flushed Away. I don't know where that came from haha!!! But whatever, I've accepted that my chubby cheeks make me look like a rat ;) jk, they're not that fat yet!

 

We got two new investigators on thursday, Bessie and her mother, Kenia.  Bessie was a referral from a member in Newark, and I think she's super prepared!! She's been going through some trials recently, and we don't know what they are, but we were able to go in and kind of get to know her and talk about faith and prayer with her. We testified of how faith and prayers have helped us, and asked her a few questions to help us evaluate where she's at with her faith, and it was a really really good lesson. Edwin, the member from Dover, came with us to that, and it was really powerful! It was one of the more powerful lessons I think I've had here! I think Bessie's friend that referred her asked her if she wanted to go to churhc, and I think she said yes, so we're gonna invite her this week! I'm really excited for her, I really think she could be baptized in this next transfer!

 

Speaking of transfers, tomorrow is the official last day of my first transfer in NJ, woo!! Elder Jellen will be my companion for this next transfer too, which I'm stoked about, I love Elder Jellen! It's so weird because it's his very last transfer. After today, he can count the number of p days he has left on one hand.  We tease him about that all the time, he gets so mad haha!!

 

 On saturday I went on another exchange with Elder Flores. He's only been out like two transfers more than me, and he's from Utah, but he was born in Mexico. Spanish was the first language in his house, but I would have guessed that english was because he's very fluent in both, no sort of weird accent at all. It was a really good exchange


Elder Flores came to Morristown and Elder Jellen went with his comp, Elder Davis, to Dover. It was a DL exchange because we have no elders in our district to exchange with haha! It was my first chance to run the area, which was a little nerve wracking for me, especially since I still have a hard time understanding alot of the people, but it ended up being really really good!! Saturday I spoke the best spanish I ever have, and I understood most of what was going on! We met our goals of two member present lessons and two others! We also went to find a man Elder Jellen and I contacted on the street, Jeremias. He wasn't home, so we started walking down the road. As we were about to pass someone, I felt prompted to contact him, so I did. Turns out, he was Jeremias, and now we have an appt set up with him for next saturday! Talk about a miracle!

 

Elder Flores stayed with me until after church on sunday. We found out on a short notice that we had to give the lesson in elders quorum too, so in our personal study we went over an article in the october Liahona, quentin l cook's "whatever thou art, do well thy part." The lesson went really really well!! We talked about the roles that we have in life, husband, father, missionary, member of the church, brother, church callings, and that by turning the light of Jesus Christ (john 8:12) we can magnify and succeed in these roles and become better. We took up the full hour, got everyone involved, and had a really good lesson!

 

This week started getting freezing, so thanks again for the blanket and stuff! It's so different from the Utah cold. It's like the bone chilling winds of the mountain tops haha!! Tyler, remember that time at snowbasin that the wind was blowing really hard and it was so foggy and so cold? It feels like that every day haha! But still no snow....Man, I wanna go snowboarding so bad!!!!!!!!

 

Well, that's all for this week! Hope everything continues well at home!! Love you all!! :)

 

Love,

Elder Nelson