Happy Monday!!

Hello everyone! Happy Monday! Sounds like a crazy week! First off congrats on dad for being famous!!!! 10 seconds of fame, the camera does you good! hahaha good to hear everything went well there. And wow Congrats to the Bell Famly! Kevin you are going to be an awesome bishop its not surprising to me that the Lord called you! You got support and prayers coming from El Salvador!! Also congrats officially to Gater and Curt for being home and what not (now just dont forget about us youngins in the mission here. a care package or two would be awesome thanks) hahah no just kidding. Hope everything goes well in the upcoming 4th of July weekend. Cant beilieve June has already passed by! Super fast. 

Anyways this week was better. Something crazy happened, the sister missionaries in our ward got taken out of the area. One of them went home and so President took them out and didnt put anyone new in. I think he is trying to motivate the branch to start working more. But that means that the branch area is just us!! This branch used to have 6 missionaries and its huge but right now its just us so we spent a long time this week looking for members and investigators and being lost! Plus its rainy season and we have been getting these huge flash rain storms this week. Its hot and super clear in the day and within 15 minutes a huge storm comes. One day this week we got stuck outside and the water was up to my knees in the street! Super crazy and ill never forget it. Me and my companion are getting along better. I am learning to be more humble. Pride creates contention and contention drives away the spirit. Ive seen big changes in myself as ive focused on that. But anyways we have a ton of lessons already planned this week because a bunch of members are starting to help us. We also have a lot of service projects planned this week.

Anayways thats all thats happened this week. I have a strong testimony of this church and the book of mormon. I have seen the rise and fall spritually of people and families and a lot has to do if they are reading the book of mormon. Elder Duncan taught us, if you want to be inactive, all you have to do is stop reading the scriptures. Its so true. Love you guys. take care!

Elder Nelson

Happy Father's Day!

Welp another week has gone by. I cant say this was my favorite week and I cant say it flew by super fast either but hey im alive still so thats all that matters right? Anyways I cant believe Curt is home.... that makes me a little baggy but honestly how fast has the two years past by. Also congrats too to Sarah on the wedding and HAPPY FATHERS DAY.  sorry i didnt say it last week but hope everyone enjoyed their fathers day.  Especially my dad because he is the best father out there. We had an activity for fathers day where we took photos of people in the park and we are going to print them out and take them to their house. Ill send a picture of it. It was good. In like 3 hours we got over 120 references and so we have a lot of work to go contact them all. This week went alright. We have some positive progress with some people but we are just missing small pieces so they can't really progress and get baptized. Last night we taught a family in the house of a member and at the end they asked what they have to do to get baptized before we even invited them to do it. Dont you just love when the happens? Why cant that happen more often... anyways they still have a lot of work to do to get prepared but it was something pretty positive for the week. 

Other than that me and my companion have been getting along alright. We dont get along the greatest but right now we have seemed to find the way to work together so it should all be fine. It just doesnt make the time fly by super fast and not as fun when things feel weird but hey i guess they cant all be the best. The branch here is super awesome. They are finally starting to work with us and have trust in us which is helping a lot. i get along with all of them really well and i dont want to get changed for that reason. But i think i still have some time left here before that happens so its all good. 

So thats all I got. just one more time HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD you are the best daddy in the world and i am so grateful for everything you have done for me and are doing for me. Keep being the best and im so grateful God has blessed me so much by letting me be your son. Have a great week!!!!

Elder Nelson

Hello again!

Hey fam fam. Hope everyone is enjoying the good old Arizona heat. Here its winter season and its been raining every day. Actually the past three or four days we have gotten huge rain storms that suddenly flood all the streets. Its always fun living in Central America. Anyways we put on the rain coats but it doesnt really help.  You kind of get soaked all the way through anyways. But that's part of the adventure right. Anyways not much really happened this week so Ill be a little short here. On Saturday we had interviews with President Vasquez. It was really good we mostly just talked about how we can do better in the zone. He has an idea about using the Liahona magazine for missionary work. A lot of people have a huge stack just collecting dust in their house. So we are inviting people to invite their neighbors and friends to read one and leaving it with them just saying how much they liked it. Then a week later asking how it went and inviting them to come to a Family Home evening! We have already tried to explain it to some families and hope it goes well. Its also a good idea for those of you trying to find a way to share the gospel! Its really not threatening and super powerful; almost always makes me cry when I read the church magazine. 

Anyways other than that we had a Zone conference this Wednesday that went well, I think. Also we did two days of divisions so that made time fly by. The zone here is really young so we are trying our best to work with everyone in the zones so we help them out and give them confidence! Well thats about all that has happened so far. My companion has been a little sick so we didnt get to work a whole lot this weekend, but i hope to be able to get at it this week! Love you guys so much and thanks for all the support!!

Elder Nelson

hello from Elder Nelson!

Hello everyone happy Monday. I hope everyone is having a perfectly boring monday because that's how Monday's are in the real world. But here its different. Here we hooked up with another zone and there was about 25 of us elders. They came down and we played basketball and futbol all morning so that was fun. There is a lot of cool American elders in the other zone so it was nice to socialize because here there is only one. But anyways sounds like the trip was pretty fun! Wish i could have gone, ill hit up the next one hopefully. Time is flying by here.

So I do have a new companion., His name is Elder Quezada and he is from the Dominican Republic. We really don't have anything in common and so its been kind of awkward this week but we did have two baptisms this week! Kevin and Walter got baptized and it was awesome. They are super powerful especially Walter. He always wants to say the prayers and cant wait to get the priesthood to start passing the sacrament. This week we also had a consejo de lideres so we went to San Salvador on Friday and after we had to go pick up baptism clothing in Zacate so we really haven't had a whole lot of time to work this week. I love this area. the branch is really good to me and we are starting to work better with them. But this area is still difficult. we spend a lot of time just looking for people to teach and right now we are planning activities to find people so i hope they work.

Yesterday i had a cool experience with the fast that I did. I always have the coolest experiences and although they are hard to do in the mission they always make things go by so much better. So I started the fast asking for help to find some more people interesting and willing to get baptized and then we went out to work. We weren't having a lot of success everyone was sick or wasn't home so we spent a lot of time walking. As we were walking a thought came to my mind of a girl we contacted about a week ago and never went back to visit. We happened to be close by so we went and her and her brother were home and let us in. We had a really good lesson and they accepted baptismal dates and wanted to come to church this Sunday. They seem super prepared and we are excited to help. Also in the moment that we arrived their grandma was sick and we were able to give her a blessing. 

Well that's all that happened this week. Hope you guys all have a good and safe week back home love you guys and miss you guys! This week will be busy. we have a zone conference and a bunch of interchanges so should fly by. Till next monday!

Changes, pictures, work.. moving along in San Vicente

Hey everyone! Its good to here from everyone and im glad everyone is healthy and safe. I cant believe we are already going into June! Time flies by as long as you don't think about it too much. But yeah its flying by. Today we are staring another change! We did get the calls last night. I will be staying in this area for at least another change. But something we were not expecting is that Elder Letona has changes! He only has one change left so we thought for sure that he would stay. But he goes on Wednesday d i will be receiving a new companion. I don't know who it will be and im kind of nervous because your comp can make a break a change... but it will all be good! And more good news we are going to have 2 baptisms this Saturday!!  Kids Walter and Kevin that we have been teaching are going to get baptized and we are super excited. They are young but super smart and crazy, its quite a thing to try and teach them. Other than that..... well things just some how keep moving along here in San Vicente. 

HEY SOMETHING REALLY WEIRD HAPPENED TODAY. Last night super late we got a call from Presidente that said a guy was going to come to the chapel this morning to take pictures of San Vicente and that he assigned us to go along with him. We said okay and went this morning but when we arrived we realized that he was not just going to take pictures of the building but of us! Yeah... today i played missionary model. HAHA it was crazy I guess he worked for the church and the church wanted a bunch of photos to be able to put in Liahonas and the church websites and stuff like that and that most of it would be for the area of central america but some of it international. Anyways so we went and we just like contacted people and walked around our area and the whole time he was following us taking pictures. Our area is really interesting and one of a kind so he loved the pictures and he said he was almost sure at least one of them would come out in a liahona or something. MOMMY IM FAMOUS. Haha no just kidding but it was fun and who knows maybe a photo will pop up in these next couple months.

Well other than that the mission continues. Here in the ward we are having a problem with the branch that the attendance is dropping a lot. But we are working really hard with the branch President. He is awesome but we just aren't getting  a lot of response from the members. Do your home and visiting teaching people!!!! Okay thats all. Love you guys!!!

Elder Nelson

A Rat. Be Happy. Laugh. Serve.

Hello everyooonnnneeeeeee.  These weeks are starting to fly by.  I cant believe im already writing again. I feel like I say that all the time but seriously.... anyways. This week was really good. Lots of fun things happened. Mostly just me and my companiion making the most of things. Due to the lack of information received from the states I feel like everything is normal. im glad im not missing a whole lot. This week was interesting.

First off i really do get along really well with my companion. He has helped me a lot to loosen up and enjoy things as they happen. he likes to mess around all the time and so i think i have laughed more this change with him than in my whole life. And this week was the week of bad luck for me and heeeerrrreeeesss why. First off there is a rat in my house. Not a fan of this. We came home one day and it ran out from under a table close to where i sat down and i may or may not have screamed like a 4 year old girl.... you guys have no way to prove it. but my companion made fun of me for freaking out. (its not the first time that a rat has been in my house but i will never be okay with it.) So I made us go rat hunting to go kill it and I took a video. In this video you may or may not hear me scream like a little girl...I'll see if I can send a part of that to you guys for your daily entertainment. Then my companion was making fun of me all week for that and during a lesson with members he put a small dog that LOOKS LIKE A RAT on my lap and when i turned and saw it i may or may not have let out a girly scream. I got a whole bunch more people making fun of me. Apparently when a big gringo screams like a girl it spreads like wild fire in the branch here. Even when we came sunday to church our branch president was making fun of me. BUT ALL IN GOOD FUN what else is new?  this is my life here. Also my make shift pull up bar broke Friday morning so I fell from our roof on friday. That hurt. But im alive. Its just more ammo for my companion...

Okay enough rambling about that. the work is going good here. We have 3 baptisms set for June so we are pretty excited. We are finally starting to see progress and the key is we are going out of our way to visit members and do service. We are seeing they are really more receptive to work with us. This is the last week of the change and normally i would say that im going to stay here but normally in my life in the mission when things start going good i have changes to another area so WHO KNOWS. What ever happens im having a good time and its flying by. Thanks for all the support back home and the letters and emails and prayers. it all helps so much and im so grateful for an awesome family who I love more than anything in the world! Love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Elder Nelson

Hello Monday!

Hello everyone. Sorry for getting on so late. We had some problems with the computers here but now we are all good. Sounds like all is going good there! Im glad Bree got to Germany safely and seems like everyone is nice and settled in getting ready for the Arizona summer!  This week has been pretty good and has flown by. I can hardly remember what happened so we will see how this goes...

Well on Wednesday we had a Zone conference. We got a call about 11 oclock at night on tuesday to tell us that President was going to be in our meeting so we had to move it to 8 oclock the next morning. So we had to wake everyone up in the zone in order to let them know and then we had to wake up at like 4 in the morning to get everything ready. I was so exhausted but it all went okay and everything turned out well. It always works out... so dont stress Elder Nelson. After that the week went by pretty normal. We actually had some really good planning sessions and some good ideas for our area and we are starting to see success. We have really tried to invlove the Lord in our area and ask him what he wants us to do and the direction that he wants us to take. We have seen small but very significant improvements. It always reminds me that this is the work of the Lord and that he will guide us if we listen to him. We finally got a investigating family to come to church this sunday with a girl named Rocio.  Rocio was progressing but never came to church and so we were thinking of dropping her. But she finally came and now we have a lot of hope. Also we found another less active family.... because they sell pupusas and we were buying dinner.... and we came to realize that two of the kids weren't members. So we asked if we could teach them and the parents agreed and we put baptismal dates for June so we are really excited. With all this success its making me feel like im going to have changes soon.... hahah... just kidding... kind of. 

Anyways this branch is really good and they are really good to us. Its hard because almost no members live in our area but we are going to be creative in how we are going to get them to help us and get some new people to teach. This change has flown by.  We are already in week 5 of the change and i feel like it just started. My baggy moment of the week is that i have officially broken into the stage of my mission that everyone tells me "Oh you just have a little left!" and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. But right now we are just going to keep working. We still have a lot of struggles but we are being positive. Ill send you the selfie President took with our zone! Love you guys!

Elder Nelson