The Talent Show

Hey Familia!

It was great to hear from everyone.  We were super busy all week.  On Wednesday we had interviews with President Rappleye and it was really good. When we finished we got a phone call from the zone leaders.  One of them was going on an emergency transfer out of Valdivia and had to pack, and the other had a meeting with the Stake President of the Valdivia and Calle Calle stakes, so he asked me to go with him.  The meeting included the zone leaders, stake presidents, President Rappleye and Elder Wilhelm. I think it was interesting to be in a meeting with my Mission President and Jaren's Mission president. We talked about ways to help activate those that have lost their way.

We have been teaching a man who is really nice, but doesn’t have any legs.  He is always super calm and talks very calm.  It was surprising when his friend came over to tell him something and he started yelled a bunch of swear words at him (I now understand the bad words), I just hink it is funny because I wasn’t expecting it and it was right after we asked him to end with a prayer.

I also had another fun experience with some drunks this week.  We were looking for an address  and a bunch of drunks started coming over to talk to me and the one said he had 3 questions: who is God? Who is Jesus? Who is Jehovah? and who is the Son of God? Then he started taking off his shirt  (again). He started to talk to Elder Barriga a little and another one started talking to me and telling me how I killed the Mapuches (Natives to Chile) and how mad he was that I killed him and how he really doesn’t want to punch me but if he has to, he will. And then he spat in my face, which was gross because it was beer & tobacco saliva.

On Friday we had a talent night at the church. We had about 25 people come. I played a couple of songs on the piano. Some other people sang and danced and we felt it was a good turnout. We are trying to get the people of the ward more involved because they are a little lazy.

Well this was the week for me. Have a great week.

Love Elder Nelson

 

la casita (our apartment)

 our kitchen

 My zone: youngest (top left) to oldest (bottom right)

My companion Elder Barriga

New Companion

Dear Family,

What a week! This week Elder Mendoza and I parted ways as he went to Puerto Montt.  I am now here with Elder Barriga of Santiago, Chile. He is great.  He is a convert of about 3 years, and we have about the same time in the mission. It was a good week, we found a lot of good people who we are going to start seeing who will progress and are ready for the gospel in their lives. We started teaching a guy named Ruben who is really good, but its sad because he was in a train accident and now he has no legs so it will be a challenge to get him to come to church. 

This past Sunday, my companion and I gave talks in church as well. We talked about magnifying the calling and helping others to come back (sublimanaly stop being so lazy). This is a ward of old people and nobody wants to do anything so we are working hard to animate them to start working because the attendence is around 30-40 every week.

We have really been working hard to work with the bishop here which is helping..  We have an activity this Friday which is a talent show. We´re praying that the ward shows us some suport in this talent show and that people will come and inactive members will want to come.

We are still getting alot of cold but only in the morning. I am back to sleeping with thermals for the next 8 months.

I love you all and am happy for Mom and Dad and their new house purchase.

Love Elder Nelson

Lanco, Chile

Hello family!

Well it's another rainy week in Valdivia, but it was a good week. We found a great guy named Ricardo and some families to teach.  They seem really good. It's been really hard to find people in the past month because they have been traveling and having visitors, but the school just ended their summer break and are back to having to stay here all the time.

A few weeks ago, a zone leader in a city called Lanco, his lung exploded and was in the hospital but then he was transferred here to be in my zone, so this week all of the elders in the zone took turns taking care of him, so that his companion could work in his sector, so I got to just hang out with him one night, and then on Friday I had the opppurtunity to go to Lanco so he could get all of his clothes that he left there.  It was fun to see another part of the mission. Lanco is a small city about an hour north of Valdivia with alot of trees. It felt like I was going camping.  (Speaking of which, I can't wait to go camping next year)

This week we received a call from the Mission President and it appears that Elder Mendoza will be leaving this sector to go to Puerto Montt, and I will be getting a new companion named Elder Barriga from Santiago, Chile. I'm hoping that my spanish is really going to get good now. I'm going to learn all of the Chilean slang. It's definatelly different to have a latin as a companion, but I like it. 

It is exciting to start another cambio, I can believe how fast the mission goes, I'm already in my 6th cambio out of 16 almost with 9 months. 

Sorry, this was not the most exciting week that i have ever had,  but it was good.

I hope the best for everyone in all that they do, 

Que Dios Les Bendiga

Elder Nelson

Satellite Stake Conference with President Monson

Dear Familia,

Just when I thought that it was becoming winter, we have been hit with some more heat this week. But the longer the rain holds off the better.

We had a good week capped off with a good stake conference yesterday. It was Satellite from Salt Lake City with Sister Burton of the Relief Society General Presidency, Elder Corbridge of the Seventy, Elder Anderson of the Quorum of the twelve and our beloved Prophet Thomas S Monson. It was special because it was broadcast to only Chile and was specific for this area. I also had the opportunity to play the piano in the stake conference. We arrived early and it was quiet or people were talking, so I had my paul cardall book and I took it up to the piano and started playing, soon after the stake president asked me if I would play for the meeting, so I did. I played bandera de sion (High on a Mountain Top) and Tú me has dado muchas bendiciones Señor (Because I Have Been Given Much). When I finished, there was still time before the broadcast, like 5 minutes so I continued playing some more paul cardall. I have played the piano almost every Sunday. There were some good talks, Elder Anderson and Elder Corbridge both speak Spanish, they talked a lot about tithing, that is what we are faulting now in this area, that is why they still haven’t started work on the Concepción temple yet.

In our ward here, a missionary returned home from Resistencia, Argentina, and we had lunch at their house, it was weird, he came home on Saturday, just kind of weird to think of that being me in a year and some, because the time here sure goes by fast. It is incredible. Including this cambio, we will find out who goes and who stays this weekend, and then on Monday, I will tell you who will be my new companion in the next week.

We are also really excited, we found a new person this week who is really good, we have been having trouble finding people lately. I think it is because the summer vacations end this week so I hope now it will be more steady.

Well I´m thankful for all of the love and support, and am proud to say that my testimony of having a living day propet was strengthed by listening to him, and I am so excited for General Conference in only a month! I also can't believe that a year ago this week, I received my sacred calling to come to "La gran Missión Chile Osorno". I have grown to love these people, as I have served them.

Love, Elder Nelson

 

 A beautiful hotel here in Valdivia

 They have McDonalds here too...and it tastes pretty good

 the Calle Calle River in Valdivia which has a lot of sea lions

they are so cute

 A view of downtown Valdivia

A view of the Calle Calle River

How many apples in a seed?

Hola family!

Great to hear that everyone had a great weekend in Idaho with lots of fun. We had a really good week here, we had Zone conference and had the oppurtunity for Elder Jorge Zaballos of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy came and talked with us. It was awesome! He is a very good speaker. He talked to the Latins alot about the importance of taking advantage of American companions to learn English, to be able to read the scriptures in English, because that it the original language that they were written in. It was very powerful and a great zone conference, but his wife also spoke, she spoke about not judging people from the outside, and not worrying about only little success in the mission. She took an apple and cut it in half and said, how many seeds can you count, and she said, 8, 9ish. Then she said how we can count the seeds in an apple but we cant count the apples in the seeds. How we´ll never know the effect we can have on people, And then her husband talked about how he was a convert, at 12, the only one in his family to be baptized, when he was 29 he was a stake president and he had the oppurtunity to go to general conference and he found the missionaries who baptized him, he eventually became a mission president, a general authority but they never imagined that when they baptized a 12 year old kid. That is awesome about all the missions that have been created, it is amazing to see the hand of the lord. OR a stone cut out of the mountains without hands will keep rolling until it fills all the earth. My Companion thinks its cool how there is a new mission in the city that he's from in San Pedro Sula West, Honduras. This group that is coming in of missionaries is one of the biggest yet here , with 15 elders and 15 sisters, its amazing to see this and to be such a part of it in the middle. 

So the other day, we went to visit a part member family, where we have been teaching the fiance, and she just barely gave birth to a little girl, it was so precious, it made me think about Jeni in a couple months, the girl was only 2 weeks old.

This week Elder Mendoza was having some problems with his arm, so we went to Osorno, it was nice but we lost a day of work, but we bought our bis tickets and still had an hour until the bus leaves, so we went to a store called Jumbo which gets alot of products from the states and they had Dr Pepper! It was the best haha, i also bought a rubiks cube which i can now solve in about 2 minutes, i will get to under a minute by the time i get home.

Well, Thanks for all the love and support that you give me.




All of the doorways in my new apartment are too short...I keep hitting my head!

Love Elder Nelson

Making Empenadas

Hola Todos!
Well, since it is starting to warm up for you guys, that can only mean one thing for those that are on the other side of the world, because it sure is cooling down. It's very cold in the morning, and it was a rainy week which never is very fun. I am sure going to miss the warmness, and now I feel bad that I complained about it. I think there is still a little bit of warmth left but it is almost back into the rainy season.
     It's great that you all had a great Valentines day.  It exists here in Chile but nobody celebrates it.  It's more just another day.  I think I saw one sign, and nobody talks about it. Really there are only three holidays in Chile: Christmas, New Years and 18th of September.
     This week, I really saw a great example of how satan tries to tempt and hurt people, we taught a guy last week and then we went back yesterday (Sunday). When we taught him last week, he was really good, opened up and we had a good lesson. This sunday, the first thing he asks was what did I do before the mission.  I told him worked, played, studied and from then on, he starting attacking me and trying to tell me how I studied for the mission to deal with people psychologically, and how he understands me and thinks that I am wasting my time.  The entire time he was only attacking me, but it was weird, because, I didn't think anything he said was true. I saw that satan was trying to hurt me in a way. We ended the lesson and told him that we can only invite you to know, we can't force you, and then did a prayer and left. I was thinking alot about the things that he said, and I really thought, if this bothers me, that is exactly what satan wants.  He wants me to be sad and to affect my work. I thought about it, while we were walking (because it was in the country part of our sector so a little bit of a walk). Is this man happy? No. But I am and that's all I need to know. What a blessing in our lives the gospel, truely a gospel of Happiness if we can live the principles that the gospel teaches.
Well, it is week 2 of only speaking Spanish all the time.  It's sometimes difficult but it really helps with my spanish  and to see the progress. I can understand alot better and I think that I can speak better as well.
    This week, some investigators named Raquel and Jovito invited us to make empenadas de Horno (Baked Empenadas). I'm writing in a ciber while they are baking, it was really fun. I'm excited to make them when I get home.
     Well I love all of you, and I am glad that everyone had a good Valentines day.
Love, Elder Nelson

First Transfer

Hello Family

Well, I am finally leaving Frutillar after 4 cambios and 5 1/2 months. I have been called to go to Valdivia, in the zone called "Calle Calle", sector Holzafelt. So I am going north, but Valdivia is very pretty as well, and it is a very big city. I will be with my first Latin companion there named Elder Mendoza from Honduras, who doesn't speak a word of English, so my Spanish will start to get really good I hope. I leave on Wednesday, and it is a couple hours away from Puerto Montt. I'm excited and know I can't stay in the same place forever.

I had a cool experience, Last night, Marcos (The convert) had the day off from work which never happens, so we asked him to go out to some lessons with us, and he did. It was so cool, after teaching him so many times it was awesome to have him help us, and it is great to have seen his faith grow, where he got to the point where he was helping. Then after that I said my good byes to Marcos and Monica which was sad. They sure mean a lot to me. They wrote a note to me, and in it Monica wrote some crazy stuff, talking about how before the missionaries came, her and marcos were very close to ending it, but when we started coming, and had them get married and the idea of the temple, they are stronger than they have ever been.

Yesterday, I  ate so much food, when you leave, chileans say good bye by giving food. I had cake, kuchen, completos and tres leches cake. I was so stuffed last night. I sure am going to miss this area but it will be good to keep going.

I hope that everyone is doing great, Im so thankful for all of the love and support that you have given me. Glad you enjoyed the superbowl. 

Elder Nelson

 

Lisardi Family, they are a good family and the little girl was adorable and my friend, her name is Josefa, she´d always talk to me.

 

My gospel principles class (one drunk came that day haha) and Monica is their teacher