Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! to everyone in the states and Happy November!  I sure can't believe how fast this year has flown in Chile. It's been a great year.

This week has had beautiful sunny spring weather. A handful of people are getting ready for Halloween. It's not really that big here, only with the people who are trying to copy the states in everything.
This week,  about half of the branch of Los Muermos went to the temple which made me really miss the temple. That is one of the things that this mission has made me really appreciate--the joy of having a temple so close to us. I hope that I can always value it the same way as the people here in los Muermos who had to travel 13 hours to arrive.  I had hoped that everyone here in los Muermos would have this same desire but unfortunately there are some who don't have that same feeling.

So I will be anxious to go to the temple again.

We had a long week of walking, my companion got a pedometer from home so we have been counting how many miles we walk everyday, One day we were teaching a lot and we only walked about 9.5 miles, but Saturday we had a lot of appointments that fell through, and only taught a little and we ended up walking 19 miles that day with only a little teaching in the end. That was a really long day of walking!!

On Sunday we had a really good meeting. Not too many were there this week, only 22 but the people who gave talks did very well. I conducted Sacrament Meeting which turned out very fine. I am always doing so many things on Sunday from conducting, helping with the sacrament, playing the piano, giving a talk or teaching a lesson. It will be nice the day when I can just sit in the audience and enjoy sacrament meeting and not worry about if people will show up to give their talks.

This week we have a zone conference where we will spend the day in Puerto Montt. That is always fun, but is always a long day with a lot of buses.

Well, don't get sick on trick or treat candy.
Love, Elder Nelson

Crazy killin' week

Oct 21, 2013
Well, this was definately an interesting week. The weather was nice with only a little rain. It still continues to warm up a bit which is really nice and even some of the days are almost too hot, but it is sure nice to be warm.

Yesterday in church was good. My companion directed Sacrament Meeting for the second time and he did really well, he sure is improving with his spanish right now. We had a recent convert who gave his first talk and also blessed the sacrament after he recieved the priesthood last week and did really good with both. Its always fun to see someone that you helped in their conversion process be progressing in the gospel. I  gave a talk on the talk by Elder Hamilton of the Seventy. It has been a problem in our branch with people who leave right after sacrament meeting. This week about half of the ward is going to the temple in santiago which is a really cool thing for them.

On Thursday, when we got back to our house after lunch, we went in and there was about 60-70 flies in our house!  My companion and I went all rambo on them, and now our house looks like a WWII flies battlefield.

On Friday night, a member invited us to his house to go kill a pig, so we went over, it was a really interesting experience.

He had a huge pig, about 100 kilos (200lbs. or so). Another member who grew up in the country come out to kill the pig.  He hit is with an axe 3 times and got it down on the ground, we held it down and tied the feet and they slit the throat and drained blood until it died, then we tied it up and moved it.  It was so heavy. We singed off all of the hair and then cleaned off the burnt hair and flesh. Then we hung it up and butchered it. We took about 50 kilos (100ish lbs) of meat off the pig, and on Saturday we barbequed the meat and ate like kings.  We both ate about 6 or 7 large chunks of pork and I must say it was delicious.  The Chileans know how to do a pork barbeque.

When we were skinning the pig, the sister who was helping took a piece of the skin and started to eat it, telling us it was her favorite part. I almost puked trying to eat it.  I could eat the skin cooked but it is really hard and has little hairs in it which was gross to me. The flavor was not that bad.

So that was our crazy week of killing.  I'm sure that will be a big memory for me as a missionary and it was an interesting activity. So, if you want to have a BBQ, when I get home we can buy a pig and I can show you how to kill it. 

Love, Elder Nelson

 

Run over by a bus

Hello family!
We had an interesting Monday.  Right after we got done writing, me and my companion were walking to the bus terminal to go back to Los Muermos, and a guy started talking to us, turns out he was from the north of Chile. He is inactive but seeing us that day made him want to come back and go to church again when he gets back to the north.  So as we are talking, a crowd starts to form around the terminal, we ask someone what happened and they told us that a woman had been hit by a bus! We go see to look and sure enough, there was a women dead in the street, laying in a pool of blood!  We saw it when they declared her dead! It was so crazy.  She had tried to cross the street in a place where she shouldn't have and she didn't see a big bus which hit her. 

After that the week was fairly normal.  Just teaching and walking... We found this new little family. I love the little families, they are the most receptive and so cute.  We are really excited about teaching them.  Unfortunately it will be a little difficult to teach them because they work a lot. 

On Saturday, we had a member baptism, of the 8 yr. old son of our branch president. As the 1st counselor, I ended up directing and giving the welcome to the ward. I have never done that at a baptism so it was a good experience.  It was quite interesting because the mom came and decorated some chairs in front of the font and the window in front of the font, and then we had boutonnieres and it was more like a wedding than a baptism. I guess he had a birthday party and then all the kids came over and watched him get baptized.

Well, the weather is changing and it's really starting to heat up now.  We still have those rainy days, but I am finally sleeping now without being frozen in the night time which is a nice change after the last 6 months. 

Well, it is great to hear from everyone and hope that everyone is doing fantastic. Enjoying the fall weather.

Love, Elder Nelson

My second October conference

October 7, 2013

This week was topped with amazing sessions of General Conference for us and sadly it is my last October Conference in the Mission field.

This was a busy week for us with a lot of traveling and conference.  We traveled to Puerto Montt, where I had an intercambio (change for the day with a leader). I worked there and then I went back Wednesday and worked normal. Thursday we had interviews in Puerto Montt with President Rappleye which was good, and then on Friday I had to go to Puerto Montt to do a baptismal interview. I have now done 4 as district leader and all have passed. Then as we were on the bus to go back to Los Muermos, there was a fight between two people who sell stuff like chocolates and drinks on the bus.  The bus was packed and it doesn't matter how many people are on the bus, they will keep accepting more until people are literally sitting on your lap. It is even worse when it is hot because some people have bad BO which just makes the hour to Muermos horrible. A Policeman had to get on the bus and break up the fight.  A women also got involved in the fight and by that point the man wouldn't hit her back although he should´ve because she was a dirty fighter, so we got even more delayed and then we couldn't work because we got back too late.

We weren't able to work that much this weekend with conference. On Sunday we heard our changes and Elder McDonald & I will be staying together in Los Muermos this cambio. I am very excited, we get along great and are going to see more fruits here.

This P-day, it has been so hot and we went and played basketball and volleyball. I learned two lessons the hard way today, #1) I am very out of shape and #2) I am very white, because I got winded when I started and then I got very burnt haha, but that's what you get for absolutely no sun for 6 months!

Well, it was a good week and I love it here and am very happy with everything.  I hope that all will have a great week.

Love,  Elder Nelson

Warming up in Sourthern Chile

Sept 30, 2013

Hey family, it was a crazy up and down week, especially with the news about Oscar. I was very sad to hear it but I know that he is being taken care of very well.

 

This week was a nice hot week, as the weather is finally starting to change which is really nice, it is not so cold all the time, and I am now working without my thermals (still use them to sleep) and for most of the afternoon most days I can work without a jacket until about 7ish at night, its been nice and seems like it will be a nice hot summer, while you guys are going into winter.

This week was a good test with us, it seems like we are back into trying to find new people as we had a handful of people tell us that they would prefer if we didn't come from now on, so that is always a little struggle but we are starting to find a lot more people, now we just need to see if they are going to start progressing or not.

Best of all this last week is a baptism that we had of a 17 year old girl, but it was the weird thing where I found out that she being and active member was never baptized and nobody ever knew, so we worked with salt lake to see if her records got lost or something but they found nothing, so we taught and baptized her, it turned out being a good baptism, her dad baptized her, a good showing and then there was a dinner afterwards. The baptisms always kill the day because we have to fill up the font which takes 4-5 hours, and just eats the Saturday time up, we also always have to clean the font every time because for some reason, it gets so dirty, but the baptism was good without any problems.

On Sunday, she had her confirmation, and then for the 5th Sunday, the branch presidency did a class for the 2 hours after church on family history using familysearch.com, the members really enjoyed it and I didn't realize how blessed I really am to have a good family history that is pretty good, still a little work is needed, but they all liked the website especially the pictures and stories, and how there are some lines that go back to 1300's, it makes me proud of my ancestry. Many of the Chileans, unless they can link their roots to Europe cant find anything very far because then they go to the indigenous Chileans and they don't have roots. My favorite was the first nelson to join the church had a stone quarry in Nauvoo, and the prophet came up to him and asked if he could buy some stone for the temple and I think Thomas nelson said no, but you can have all you want, it makes me super proud of all my ancestors from both sides, Erickson and Nelson, its some good people who have a good history of loving the Lord.

That was about it for the week, although I am really excited for this next week. I am doing an intercambio with the zone leaders in Puerto Montt and I have interviews with president on Thursday. To top it all out, we have the wonderful opportunity to listen to general conference where we can listen to our beloved prophet, it really is like the super bowl of missionary work, the only difference is that we get it twice a year. Take care all, watch conference and apply the things that you learn.

I gave a talk yesterday in church (because the speakers didn't show up again, so I prepared it during the opening announcements) about a bunch of ducks, that went to a party and in this party they learned how to fly, and they flew and flew and had a great time flying, when the party ended they got down and they went home walking.

We are literally listening to what God wants us to know (D&C 1:38), it really is the same if God is telling us or his servants.

I love everyone and appreciate the support that is given to me on my mission.

Love, Elder Nelson