Climbing Volcan Osorno

Hola Familia!

I hope everything is goin well. We had another rainy week here in southern Chile, one day in the next couple weeks I will actually send pics of my rain gear but I have other better ones to send right now.

Last week, when we went to work we stopped at the our investigators house (Monica) to see how everything went with picking  a wedding date. She told us that they had picked the Friday, so last Friday me and the other elders in my house (district) went to Puerto Varas to the wedding which was held in the registro civil. It was quick but awesome. Afterwards we went to breakfast with them and this is where we took the picture, we are outside of a coffee house where everybody had hot chocolate. It was awesome and then we picked a date for her baptism which is this Saturday, I'm so excited to send some baptism pictures this week. The other cool thing is that she asked me to baptize her, so I will have some wonderful pictures. I'm not sure of the order in that picture but the people are Elder Rupp, Elder Quinanola, Elder Brindley, Myself, Marcos, Monica and their son Amaro.

Im very excited for this oppurtunity, and on Sunday I was asked to give a talk but the branch president asked that I not read the talk but just follow the spirit, and study before hand. I did that and it turned out to be a nice talk on how we need to follow our faith, which should lead to acts. After I talked and Elder Rupp talked, we did a special musical number that I wrote in the words to "I know That My Redeemer Lives" from the Paul Cardall book, and Elder Rupp sang it in spanish to "Yo se que vive mi Señor". It turned out really nice and I think the branch really liked it because everybody came up and told us how good it was. I might see if one sister who recorded it on her phone when we practiced could send it to you, I'm not sure though.

So we did that, and then the reason that I am writing so late is because we went to Volcan Osorno today as a zone activity, it was awesome, we didn't get to the top but I guess Jeni wasn't the only one in snow this week, that's what picture #2 is and I have alot more pictures of it. I've almost filled a SD card and will send it home soon. We did get up pretty high though and it had a gorgeous view of Lago Llanquihue, the Andes, Volcan Calbuco and a ton of other mountain ranges. We almost took a skilift to the top but it was like an extra 10 bucks  that we didn't prepare for, so we ended up not taking the lift, but it was still an awesome once in a lifetime thing to be on that volcano. I also got a little sunburned from being that high up with out much ozone.

Well that was my week, can't wait to send baptism pics this next week.

Love Elder Jentry Nelson

 

So close...

Hola!

Well this was a good week, we are so close to having a baptism with the one investigator who needs to marry first, she is about ready and is going to a bigger town about 20 minutes away to see about a wedding date and then immediatly after, the is going to be baptized. We also had a little miracle on saturday night. After not having the best day, we were going by some ancient investigators and we went to one whom we have talked to in the past named Miguel. We came to his house and his wife named Anna came out, we talked to her and did the normal thing "we're the missionaries... and asked if miguel was there because h'es who we have talked to in the past. She said that "miguel doesn't like the missionaries...but he's not here anymore". We found out that Anna had been taking the missionary discussions about two years ago, but her husband didn't like it so we had to stop but she said he was always coming home drunk and violent, he ended up getting taken away for domestic violence because there is 2 children with whom he is violent as well. She said that ever since he's left, they no longer sleep in fear, they are happy and have a peace. She grabbed her book of mormon that she still had after 2 years and asked if we knew how to get back in touch with the missionaries from over two years back. We then were just kind of probing to see what she thought about everything and she told us that she knows that the book of mormon is true, that the church is true and she wants to be baptized and had plans to come to church before we passed by. A true miracle and she just told us so many times how happy, that domestic violence just makes me sick. I'm excited and I feel in the next month we are going to have a handful of baptisms.

The other thing this week is it is nice that I don't feel sick at all, I have been great, was just a little thing, and when I was eating lunch after the branch with some awesome members, I showed them the family picture and they said three things in particular "Los gringos siempre tenga buenas fotografias familiares" which is the white people always take good pictures, how me and mother look alot a like and they talked about our salchicha (Sausage referring to oscar). It was fun, its also fun to hear about the eleccions, people down here are always asking for our opinion, I haven't been on American soil for 2 months, and havn't seen tv for 4 so I don't know.

 

Our little branch is doing good as well, we found out that we are 2 full tithe payers away from becoming a ward which is way exciting. Yesterday I played the piano, I played prelude from that Paul Cardall and everybody loved it, super quiet while I played and really invited the spirit into the meeting when everybody was listening. I then got asked by the primary president to play the piano for their primary program in a couple weeks on the 11th of November. And she also wants me to do a special musical number for it to help kill time because everything is short with a small branch, I still miss the Huff kid haha. So right now as far as I know, I haven't gained any weight, I'll have to go weigh myself one day though, I look about the same. My favorite foods right now is empenadas and a thing called sopapilla, which is like fried bread, I get one of those with a thing called pebre which is kind of like salsa and is super good. A lot of places sell it for 300 pesos which is about 60 cents for a big one. I don't cook too much because we have a big lunch at the mamitas house and only eat a little at night, I have made stuff like nachos and grilled cheeses though.

Well I hope that everything is going well, Everybody is in my prayers especially grandma right now. (If the family does any type of special fast for her let me know and I would like to participate)

Love You,

Elder Nelson

Drunks & Food Poisoning!

My name tag on the beach at Frutillar Bajo

A mother dog with her cute puppies we pass all the time.  We don't dare touch them.



They were right when people said that there is alot of German influence in this part of Chile. In Fruttillar bajo, there are alot of buildings like this one around with pure German look. This one is a hotel, there is also alot of German flags, a German school and I guess some Nazi's around here. There is also some food, like this dessert called kuchen, that is either really good, or really gross (I've had both). Its just an interesting area of the country here, people always ask if we're German too haha.

Hola Familia!
Well this week started out very uneventful, we got a reference to teach a lady and we went and met her, her name is Rosita, and she just started crying to us saying stuff like "Quiero Salir de ese" and "Quiero acercarme a Jesucristo" which is I want to leave this and want to come closer to Jesus, so we taught her the next day, found out she has a drinking problem and wants to quit drinking, and wants to do whatever it takes to join the church because she is sola (Lonely). We have a baptism date and set up another appointment 2 days later and tried to pass by to remind her not to drink before the cita and remind her about the appointment, but she wasn't there any of the times, and then we had a member to help us with the appointment and passed by and she wasn't there again. We came back the next day and her neighbor told us that she was in the hospital, not sure why but I think it has something to do with alcoholism, we'll see. But that brings me to the next point of my letter, I made a list of how to know if someone is drunk or sober, because there are alot of drunks in the street.

1-They come over to talk to us (Everybody else tries to avoid us)

2-They sing and try to take off there shirt

3-They gladly take pictures of Christ

4-They refuse to take a picture of Christ becasue "That picture won't buy bread"

5-You put your hand out to shake theirs and they can't find you hand

6-They will tell you the longest story or try to talk with you forever and when you tell them that you have to go they ask for 100 pesos (20 cents)

7-They try to grab your shoulder

8-They try to talk English always (The only english they know is cuss words and thank-you very much, and little things like that; like the rest of chile, they have all the little kids who yell "Hello, thank-you, whats your name, how are you", its kind of annoying really)

So yeah, that is my list of how to know if someone is drunk or not, that and they just smell like liquer and other stink.

On Wednesday I did an intercambio with the district leader Elder Brindley, and we were running home becasue we were teaching late and we almost got killed by two dogs who jumped out at us in the dark!

Saturday, we had a zone training put on by the zone leaders in Puerto Varas (our sector) and Puerto Montt. We went to the training and it was just basic stuff and they had a foot doctor there to look at anybodys feet who needed it. On the bus ride home, I heard some people talking English and I started talking with them, they were from Australia taking a 1 month vacation through South America. On the bus ride I started to not feel too good, but we finally got home and went over to the house of our mamita and had lunch which was cazuela which is this soup that all chileans make that is just like throwing everything into a pan with a bunch of oil (They can't live without oil), its kind of gross because we have it almost 3 times a week. After we walked home and I still wasn't feeling too great and we got back to studies, we were practicing and I didn't feel good at all, so we finished and I was just going to tough it out, we got done and left the house and did some contacts with people, all of a sudden I felt really sick, and just headed back to the house. I had the runs pretty bad and called it a day and took off my missionary clothes and went to bed. I woke up a little bit later and threw up a ton. Bottom line I spent the hole afternoon throwing up and being on the toilet, but yesterday I didn't feel good at all in the morning. Slowly towards the afternoon I started to feel a little better and eventually I worked for an hour. Today I feel fine. I think it was food poisoning. I was hungry Friday night and we stopped at a members business to have a completo, and that may have gotten me sick. So that was my week. Hope everything is going good for everybody there.

Much Love

Abrazo

Élder Jentry Nelson

Piano by the Lake

a piano sculpture by the lake

Hola! 

Well first of all, what a General Conference! Its amazing how much I can get out of Conference when I am paying attention and not sleeping haha...It was amazing when they changed the age of missionary service, one year too late haha. I´ve heard that they are already planning on bigger and better things such as more missions and more teachers and buildings at the mtc. We are going to see a great increase in sisters more than anything. I luckily got to watch all of the sessions in english with the other 3 gringos here in frutillar, we watched it on a computer in the clerks office. I loved seeing all of the missionary work things that were brought up. 'Im so blessed to be a part of the work.

How was the session in person? It was awesome here, we had some investigators come to all of the sessions including the man came to the priesthood and the women came to the womens one which they did before the sessions on saturday, the priesthood was so late though, it was from 9-11 at night, we were so tired that night. It was awesome to see the investigators there though, I think that they are close, only need to get married. I'm hoping it happens soon though.

The elders in my district also had a special fast for the investigators yesterday through today hoping that something will get worked out for their marriage and then we went down to frutillar bajo and had a dish called pichanga which is just like french fries, all types of meat (chicken, sausagee, beef), hard boiled eggs, palta (Avacado), tomatoes, and some other weird stuff on it but it was so good, it was kind of expensive becasue we could only find it in fruttillar bajo which up the price because it's where all the rich tourists go. The plate was for 4 of us and cost 12.000 pesos=$25 bucks but it was so good. It was a good way to end a fast.

Well I hope that everyone is doing great, Love and miss you all

Love Elder Jentry Nelson

1/8

Hola Familia,

In the past week we have had a drastic change in the weather, we had the 3 hottest days from Monday to Wednesday and then we had rain since then, but the good news is that this is the first week I haven't had to wear thermals and some times I don't have to wear a sweater, so it's almost the summer, but we are starting to see spring come. So I am officially done with my first cambio or change which is every 6 weeks, I stay with my companion during training for 2 cambios or 12 weeks, so in another 6 weeks I will know who will be with a new companion. With this cambio, we are losing our latin from Argentina so now we are going to have 4 gringos which I guess doesn't happen very often.

So our baptism that fell, we are still stopping by her house 2-3 times a weeks and last night we went over the baptismal questions and she is so ready with everything, she only needs to get married, but she's in the process of it so I hope to have a baptism soon. Really exciting. So yesterday, at church the power was out in the entire town so we had sacrament meeting in semi darkness and no microphone that worked, and president wilhelm came to the meeting, It was cool to see him again, but it was bad because the piano is electric, and me and my companion were going to do a musical number which I arranged to the Paul Cardall - I Know That My Redeemer Lives and Elder Rupp singing it in spanish, so I guess we´ll have to do that in two weeks or so after general conference. This week was kind of hard at times because I had my first experience with the testigos de Jehova (Jehovas witness). One called the Book of Mormon crap andIi told him he hasn't even read it and it only talks of Christ in the book, and I invited him to read it and then he can judge it and all he said was he doesn't need to try dangerous stuff to know that it is dangerous. Other than that, nothing too exciting happened.

 

Love you all, Elder Nelson

Me in front of volcan osorno, and in person looks even cooler.

 

18th de septiembre

Hola Familia

¿Comó están?

I  hope that everybody had a nice 18th de septiembre, I sure did. On monday, we had a zone activity which was a barbecue in El Campo in Puerto Montt, we played a little of soccer but not too much, we then went back to the house and were kind of lazy becasue we couldn't work unless we had fixed appointments and we had one but that one fell, the next day was a little better, we went down to Frutillar Bajo to the hospital to visit a member whose mother was sick, and then we walked around done there, it was really cloudy though, which isn't that much fun. It started raining so we went back up to Frutillar Alto. The next 3 days were very rainy, some of the most rainy I have seen since I have been here. We still got a handful of citas this week though but our baptism fell becasue she hasn't gotten married yet. Tha'ts kind of discouraging becasue I think everybody that we are teaching isn't married and is living with someone. We are just playing cupid right now. I finally had some empenadas, they are awesome, they have alot with beef in them, the food is awesome and some of the members are so nice.

The past couple of days have been really nice without having to wear my thermals haha, its nice with the sun and so this afternoon we went to Frutillar Bajo again where we could finally see the volcanes really good. 

 

I Love you all, 

Love Elder Nelson