Hello everyone... the earth says hello!

Hi friends and family and that occasional unknown person that somehow finds their way to reading this letter, you are all welcome. WEEEELLLLL this week has been a busy one. Where to start............ well first off thats cool that BYU is playing U of A in the home opener. hope they can make a good start to the season and stand their own out there against the big boys from AZ. Cant believe its already football season again... thats crazy. Anyways its a new change and a week has already gone by. My companion is Elder Guzman from Guatemala and he is a pretty cool guy and has a lot of energy which is fun. He has one more change (6 weeks) more than I do so he is getting up there to about the 20 month mark. Yeah... Im starting to feel old here. Anyways Elder Markham went home on Wednesday and Tuesday was basically just full of saying goodbyes. It was hard to see him go but hey thats the mission life, time moves on. We are working super hard to try and get these baptisms to go through and hope for the best. We have a lot of people that are just so close to making the decision so we are pretty excited but patient. All in its time. This week we are going to be able to go to the temple to do a session which is awesome!!!!!  We go 2 times a year so this could be my last time going with the zones..... baggy moment. Not really. im not too baggy.  i still have a lot of drive so im hoping it lasts for these last months. Also we will have interviews with president which is always awesome. he always teaches great things that keep me animated. Other than that we worked this week. Tomorrow we hopefully have two baptism interviews so thse next couple weeks we hope there are baptisms. We are just really working hard becasue I see too many people being baptized and then falling away so we really just want to baptize true converts. Its been a hassel dealing with the zone because its one of the biggest in the mission. so we are usually up pretty late doing verifying which starts to wear one down week after week. But are zone is pretty fun and with the change it should be good. I really want this family Sanchez to get baptized this month. they are some of my favorite investigators and are so close.  They just lack a little bit of the desire but have already come to church three times in a row so we know that their answer will come. just got to keep praying and working. Prayers and faith and work mixed together make miracles. Love seeing God's hand in every little thing. Thanks for all the support love you guys!!

Elder Nelson

Sending home Elder Markham, baptisms, apartment searching and Pictures!

Hello everybody! Hope everyone is doing good as always. Happy Birthday Bree!!! hope you enjoyed your birthday and wish I could have been there. WEEEELLLLL not much that I have to say this week it went by pretty fast. This is the last week of Elder Markham and it was pretty good. We did a lot of divisions as always on Tuesday and Wednesday and we were able to get 11 baptisms in the zone this week. This week we worked normally but we didn't have quite as many people come to church like other weeks but hopefully this week they all come back. Its been really good working with Elder Markham this week and I'm going to miss him.  I'm worried about who my next companion is going to be. i should get him on Wednesday. I believe it is someone from Guatemala but im not certain. These last couple days have been a lot harder because everyone is saying goodbye to my companion and it makes you think a little more about home than you would like. Im now officially starting to feel old in the mission and cant tell if the time that is left is a lot or a little. But in the meantime, there isnt much to do but work so thats what I will do. We pretty much have all the same investigators but we did get a baptismal date for the 10th for a girl named Emily that seems pretty sure. I am hoping for a lot of baptisms in the month of september if everything goes well. 

Today we went to the office and then I went with my companion to buy some gifts in San Salvador. I have eaten sooooooooo muuuuuhcccchhhhhh recently and officially feel pretty fat. Im gonna try to get myself into better shape these next months. Welllllllll thats about all I can think to write. We are opening a new area in our zone this change so its going to jump up to about 22 elders in the zone so we will probably spend some time this week looking for a house for the new elders to stay because if not they will probably stay with us. Hope everything is going great.  Love you all and love the mission and love my Savior! TIll next week!

Elder Nelson

Hello! (and pictures!)

Hello everyoneeeeeeee. First off im glad America is kicking butt in the olympics again. MERICA. Still got my American pride going on down here. Sounds like that was the highlight of the week. Glad everyone is settled in from being at the beach. Hope everything went good there! Anyways this week was pretty good. it seemed to fly by even faster and all seems like a blur but ill see if i can pull out some of the highlights. SO it was a pretty good week we actually spent a lot of time in other areas doing baptismal interviews. I did a two day interchange in Quezaltepeque with Elder Bingham which was really fun and always makes the time fly by. As a Zone we should have about 11 baptisms this week and most of them are from the district leaders so thats why we have been doing a lot of interviews this past week. THE BAD NEWS OF THE WEEK: we had three sure baptisms for this week..... and they all fell through. It was a little sad because its all because of legal problems that we had no way of seeing and its going to delay the process at least four months. We were going to marry Jaqueline and Benedicto and had everything ready and we were talking to the lawyer and turns out that Benedicto was married before and didnt even know it. His old Girlfriend I guess payed off a bunch of money to someone to do an illegal marriage without him knowing (Girls are crazy man) and so its going to be really complicated to get them divorced. The other baptism is going to be delayed about a month. SO that was really the only bad, other than that it was good. We had about 16 people in church again so it was crazy and we are teaching a lot of FAMILIES. Thats always the best. They are super awesome and pretty sure baptisms for the next month, so Im excited for that. My companion is getting into the last weeks here in the mission so its going to be hard to see him go and im nervous about recieving a new companion next week, but it should be good. I really like this area and Apopa is starting to grow on me. Also it was my companions birthday this week. Happy 20th Elder Markham!

We had a cool experience that last night after hearing about the baptisms we were kind of sad. but we went to this family that is huge, there is like 20 of them and they were less active and this month we have gotten them active and a date to go to the temple. They all went to church this week for the first time this sunday and it was the collest experience to see them there taking up like three rows there in church (big familys are cool). So we passed by in the night and after setting up a family night for them the dad started bearing his testimony randomly about how thankful he was that we helped him andhis family and the change he has had. He used to hide when we came and now he greets us with the biggest hug all the time we see him. Off all his family, only his youngest daughter who is preparing to go on a mission and waiting for her call said how sad she was to always go to church by herself and that she didnt want to leave her family inactive. She shared her testimony too about how happy she was for the gospel and each person started sharing it too in the family. The spirit was so strong and there were many tears that night. Love this work. Love this Gospel. Love my family. Thanks for everything guys!

Elder  Nelson

Time goes by so fast!

I KNOW I SAY THIS EVERY WEEK BUT WOW I CANT BELIEVE ANOTHER WEEK HAS GONE BY ALREADY. Its like yeah a lot of things happen but i don't even know what to say anymore???? Things are just so normal to me now. Oh well. Congrats to Big Trevor with the mission call to Peru!!! That's crazy!!! Welcome to the Spanish club! You'll do great. Also loved seeing the pictures of the beach. And i cant believe Lexi is already in Kindergarten!! She looks so big and grown up especially in the pictures and video that I got! Cant wait to see all you guys!!! (6 months left from today.... but im not counting) Haha Its going to fly by so fast. Anyways this week was really good.... and really busy. We have been doing a lot of divisions so it has flown by because our zone is really big so we have to travel a lot. Also we had a baptism this week! Belinda got baptized. She is super awesome and has been going to church by herself for a year because her parents aren't members. They finally let her get baptized and her mom came to the baptism so that was super cool. Also we had a bunch of new people in church today. We had two huge new families that came. The family Sanchez and Soliz. Between them there was 11 new investigators in church. They are super awesome and loved church, so our goal this week is to put down a firm date for their baptisms. Also this week we had our temple trip that we always do taking investigators. It was pretty fun, and SURPRISE I got picked to be Joseph Smith in the reenactments that we do. Dang it blond hair blue eyes... hahah no but it was really fun. But really tiring. We haven't been getting a lot of sleep this week so we are both super exhausted and we have been working super hard. Today we are actually going to San Salvador because my baggy companion is going to buy souvenirs because he is almost going home!! So yeah that was pretty much our week. I know this church is true and so thankful that i have the chance to serve my Savior. Im thankful for all the blessing that i have received as I have been able to participate in this Gospel and to see the blessings that have come into other people lives. Love you guys.  Thanks for everything!!!!

Elder Nelson

Another week!

Hey everyone!!! Sounds like everyone is killing it out there in the Oregon coast! Lucky you guys.... I live so close to some pretty awesome beaches but unfortunately we cant go... oh well. Hope everyone is enjoying it pretty well. This week has flown by and I really can't remember what happened... its all just kind of a blur now. But pretty much Tuesday and Wednesday we were on divisions and I was in chalatanango. Its super far away but part of our zone, basically almost leaving the country. but it was pretty good. Just everything is like straight up both ways! My legs were killing me. Other than that we were just working here. We had a bunch of people in church this week.  The members really helped us out and we ended up having about 15 investigators in church. We are teaching a couple really big full families which are always the best to teach. One of the families, family Sanchez, is progressing a lot and we hope to get them baptized this next month but we just got to get them to keep coming to church. Other than that it was kinda of a really tiring week but it was good. i feel like we worked really hard but we know there is still a lot to do. 

Also on Saturday my companion had a eye Doctor appointment so i took the opportunity to go get this weird thing on my arm checked out. Turns out they wanted to cut off. lolololol not joking though I have a whole in my arm right now. but don't freak out mom its not that bad I just had to wear this bandage thing for a week and then it should be fine. but anyways at least i got that taken care of. Other than that there is nothing else. But I really have started to feel a big change as I have started sharing my testimony. I have tried really hard to never leave a lesson with out leaving my testimony especially about my savior. Sometimes we get caught up talking about Joseph Smith of the Book of Mormon and all that stuff that is really good but i have come to realize that my first priority is to testify of Jesus Christ. I have felt a much bigger influence of the spirit in the lessons and in my whole life as I have put that into play. nobody should ever leave a situation where that have a chance to share the gospel and not bear their testimony of Christ. This is His church.

Anyways hope everyone has a good week and thanks for all the support and prayers. Talk to you guys later!!

Elder Nelson