Just another work day

Hola!

Happy Thanksgiving! everybody. I hope you all had a great Thankgiving. Mine wasn't too bad, we taught a little and worked like normal, they don't celebrate it at all, I missed it though, they don't really eat turkey down here but they do celebrate Christmas at  least which is in less than a month. It's pretty crazy, we are planning a branch Christmas party for investigators, less actives and people to bring their friends. I am excited for that but it will be after the next cambios because this cambio is only 5 weeks or else the elders going home would miss 3 Christmas´away from home. 

This week sure went fast as has this cambio and November. I remember Halloween with all the people trick or treating and all the evangelicos who hate halloween and now its already December, I can remember last December planning for Jeni and Cameron's wedding. Can't believe how fast time goes now. Time on the mission is incredible how fast it all goes.

So we are close to having another baptism with Marcos the husband of my first baptism Monica. He is trying to get off work so that he can attend church, but right now he might change jobs and move to Calbuco whch is an island about 4 hours south, but he is changing so that he can attend church and he wants to be baptized here, it was also cool because we were teaching and we were ending with a prayer and we asked who they would like to say it and he said Amaro,their 4 year old son, so they got down and his son said the cutest little prayer. So simple but adorable. They are teaching their son how to pray which is an awesome thing and they are preparing for the temple right now. Such a good and special family to me.

We also had the oppurtunity to bear testimony about the Book of Mormon in a lesson to a lady and her husband who are evengelicos. They were great but they didn't want to be confused about their faith so they wouldn't read the Book of Mormon, but we finally got them to read and pray and we have another appointment with them Saturday so keep them in your prayers to recieve an answer before that day.

Well, I hope its not too cold up north, as it is starting to really heat up, its been short sleeves and though it did rain and was cold at the beginning of this week. It has been changing from cold to hot lately and I don't really like it but its better than cold and rainy all the time.

Well I hope everybody is having a great holiday season, because I sure am, it's becoming one of the most selfless holidays I have ever had. The only times I am a little homesick is seeing the Christmas trees in the store and wondering if the tree is up at home already, because I know how its always up around Thanksgiving if not before and thinking if Tanner is sleepng underneath it haha. 

I also have been going through a fun little time, because this year I get to have 2 springs or another name I like to call it is 2 allergy seasons. I had a really bad time on thursday, it's better today but it's still pretty rough. I think I am also allergic to cats becasue it is worse everytime that I am in a house with cats, so guess we can't have any cats, darn it, only dogs.

K Love You all, Big abrazo

Elder Jentry Nelson

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

People down here don't celebrate Thanksgiving at all. Everything will probably the same normal Thursday like always, people down here don't really eat turkey. I might go out and get a completo or something special to celebrate. Well it's good to hear that everybody in Rexburg is doing so well and also to hear about all of the people going on missions. That is so exciting. It is a great time to be a member and the work is just starting to take off.  I love being here and hearing all of the new of the amount of people starting mission papers. 

Well this week has been really hot, I have been wearing my short sleeve shirts for the first time since the MTC and that is without a jacket or anything, we also found alot of new people to teach which is exciting. I didn't have a baptism this week but I am hoping very soon, with all the people we have been finding it will be great. We found this great family who are all intersted so I have very high hopes.

The theme from the sacrament meeting yesterday was attending the temple. I also talked about this with the family I had lunch with yesterday after church. I am living with people where the nearest temple is in Santiago which is about 12 hours away by bus.  Everybody who reads this blog, I am praying that you never take living so close to temples for granted. Its a huge sacrifice for the people to go here, for all of the people who read this from Idaho and Utah and Arizona or where ever you may be, go to the temple as often as you can. Never take being so close to a temple for granted. I have seen people who are so poor down here, get all of there expenses together to make a trip to the temple once a year, and there are many that could walk. We just cannot take a temple for granted.

Well I hope that everyone in the states is enjoying the nice cold weather becuase it is finally warm here but I guess we will see who is laughing in about 6 months haha.

Fun fact: tomorrow will make 5 months, and these past 3 months have gone by so fast I can't even believe it. It will be exciting to see in another 3 months. I am very excited to skype too.

I hope all the best for everyone,

Love Elder Nelson

My littlest friend Josefa

Elder Quinanola

My complete rain gear

Pichanga again!

Hola

How is everyone doing? So first of all for our cambios, it looks like for a third cambio I will be with Elder Rupp again, but its not 100% sure because there have also been talks of splitting our sector and we each run a part of it so we´ll see, but this next cambio is going to take us right up until Christmas.

So it has been a good week, we taught a lot and I have really been pushing to find new people which has been going good, we have a huge sector with lots of fields and farming areas which we have been exploring a little bit more.

Thats fun that Kassie had her primary program the same week that we had ours, I think hers might have been a little better because chileans don't know how to sing, very tone deaf haha and don't know how to follow a piano but it still went well. The primary president was very thankful to have a piano there and she wanted me to tell you (mom) thanks for teaching me.

So its fun thats it is starting to cool down for you guys because it sure has been heating up, I haven't been wearing a jacket and yesterday I was too hot during the day in a longsleeve shirt which  means that I am close to shortsleeve weather which is exciting. It will be weird to have a warm Christmas and thinking about how cold it is there. The only bad part about the weather heating up is that so are my allergies, thats not fun at all haha.

 We also had interviews with president this week which is fun, it was the day after the elections and Hermana Rappleye was pretty mad about the results. I'm pretty frustrated but at least now Chileans will stop asking me for my opinion on the subject. It was cool because while President Rappleye is interviewing, we just sit and talk with Hermana Rappleye and she tells crazy stories, they have been everywhere in South America.

So I was getting my visa all taken care of in Puerto Montt because that has the biggest places to take care of stuff, Elder Quinanola, another Elder in our house took me becasue he served in Puerto Montt, so we got off the bus and hopped in a colectivo (a cheap taxi which is about 400 pesos or 1 dollar). So our colectivo driver is going, about 30 seconds into the ride he cuts off a big truck driver and the truck driver gets out of his care at a red light and he has a bar and threatens to hit the colectivo driver, me and elder quinanola were just like what the heck, and all of the sudden our driver hops out of the car and goes and gets the caribineros (police) and they come over and me and elder Quinanola just told them that we were going to leave and they let us but bottom line is that I almost saw a guy get beaten with a bar which was crazy.

OK well, that was my week. I hope everything is going well in the states even though Obama is back.

Pichanga again which is the most amazing food, just with french fries, sausage, steak, tomatoes, avacados, eggs and about anything else you can think of

By the by the way, I haven't touched a single dog in chile in the 3 months I have been here, they are ridden with fleas and other diseases, they are all junk dogs, I miss my dogs so much to have nice clean dogs to sleep with, just Chilean dogs are disgusting and they are everywhere.

It is fun to see the growth of the church. There is alot of talk about what the new changes are going to be like all missionaries going to chile will now be going to the MTC in Chile, the average papers that the get a week is now around 4000, the amount of missionaries in the world will go from 55000 to almost 100000 and they are asking to see how many sister missionaries each mission can hold and are now expecting around 250 in each mission (We have about 180 right now with is about 30 or so more sectors). Its amazing to see how the Lord is taking control of the work and everything that has happened in the last year or so has been in preparation for alot more missionaries. They are trying more than anything to strengthen the church in areas rather than have a ton of little small branches in remote towns, which there are a good bi in chile of branches with about 5 people and 2 are missionaries. Now is the time and i am so excited to be apart of the missionary work in the world.

I hope everything is going well.

Te Quiero

Elder Nelson

Mom and Dad

I don't Have much time to write anything personalized to you guys but I love you and apreciate everything that you do for me.

Love Jentry

Cómo Estai

First Baptism - Monica

Ah....the penguins....soo cool!

Hola familia!

It was a great week, we were working hard and found a bunch of new people and on Tuesday I did an intercambio with the Zone leaders where I stayed here in frutillar and led the sector, we also taught alot this week and it was topped off with a baptism Saturday night and confirmation on Sunday. It was an awesome felling, I was asked to baptize Monica and elder rupp to confirm her with the Holy Ghost. Just an awesome feeling, there is nothing like it in the world other than leadings someone out of the waters of baptism. I also put her husband with a baptismal date for the 17th of November.

Other than that awesome thing not too much happened exciting, I did get bitten by a dog though, didn't end up breaking skin because I was wearing a sweater and jacket but it still hurt, This week is also going to be a fun week, we have interviews with the president on Wednesday and on Saturday we find out about cambios or changes, so my next email will have the detaills of my next sector or companion or whatever happens. I'm pretty excited for it all. Almost done with training. Also this Sunday is the primary program where I am the pianist for it. Its kind of rough, chileans don't really know music haha but I am trying.

I finally got my visa and I have started the paperwork to apply for my carnet (ID that makes me legal) I just hope that it goes good with all of that stuff.

So its kind of lame here on Halloween, they don't really do much, there is a little trick-or-treaters but not much, and all of the evangelicos (evangelists I think) take all the fun out of it with signs that are anti halloween. But on halloween, I did get invited to a wedding of a member of our ward who the day after went up to santiago to be sealed but they asked us to do the same thing in their wedding where I play and Elder Rupp sings, it turned out nicely and everybody really loves it.

Well I hope that everything is going well in the States, It is finally warming up with only rain every other day yeah.

Take Care,

Con Amor

Elder Jentry Nelson

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