Leaving Puerto Montt and going to Osorno

February 10, 2014

Happy Valentines Day! to everyone this week.

We have been having a very cold week as I have actually had to use my thermals a day this week which is really odd for the summer time, and it has been raining a ton which is normal but not as much for February.

So, this next week as we are going to be having a visit of Elder Ballard, Elder Walter F Gonzales and Elder Rasband, Hermana Rappleye (Wife of President Rappleye) and said that she found out that I played the piano so she wants me to play the piano in the conference and we all have to be there an hour before the conference and she wants me and two other missionaries who play the violin to do a piano and violin duet for the hour, with other songs that I can play by myself. I am playing the piano with a sister missionary who is actually from Sugar-Salem (Hna Lee) and an Elder named Elder Crotzer. We have a handful of arrangements of Come Thou Fount, Our Saviors Love, a song called Resurrection (Which isn't a hymn but is really pretty), I Know That My Redeemer Lives, Joseph Smiths First Prayer, a hymn medley of Amazing Grace, As Now We Take the Sacrament and How Great Thou Art, and then we are making some hymn arrangements from the Paul Cardall book of More Holiness Give Me, I Feel My Savior's Love and God be With You til We Meet Again, and then if there is still time i am just going to be playing other Paul Cardall songs.

I have practiced by myselft a couple hours every day and with Sister Lee a couple hours everyday as she is in my zone, but its going to be a little bit more complicated on Wednesday because we have some changes which will be difficult. I am going to be leaving Puerto Montt after only one cambio. I am a little sad. I am going to be going to the city of Osorno as a zone leader in the zone of Rahue, which is another part of Osorno, but I am really excited to be with my companion, he came to Chile with me and we have known each other the whole mission and have been friends the whole time, his name is Elder Smithson so it will be fun there with him.

Just to remind everyone, next Monday I will not be writing because we will be in a special conference, but will be on on Tuesday.

Take care everyone!

Love, Elder Nelson

 Our new Valentine ties from Elder Smithson's mom

 a signed picture for our mamita

 Elder Smithson 

D&C Countdown 138 sections - 138 days

February 3, 2014
Happy February everyone!

It is starting to look like the summertime here in southern Chile has already ended as it has been really cold here and very rainy all week. Today has been the coldest that it has been in a long time with having to wear a sweater and a jacket. I think it is going to be a very cold winter here but that's alright because I won't be here in the winter.

So, we have been super busy with teaching this week, we found a really great litttle family of four, but it is weird because they are basically the same age that I am, they are 21 and 20 (she was born in the same month that I was born) and have two daughters of 3 and 1 years, they are great, we are going to have to marry them because they aren't married but that hopefully won't be a problem, they have been reading the book of mormon and love the plan of salvation so it will be great to keep teaching them.

I did an intercambio this past week with an Elder from El Salvador, it was great, his name is Elder Quezada and I have known him for a long time as he is from the same group as me, that is one of the things that I love from the mission is getting to know so many people from all over the world. I have friends from Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela etc, it is awesome.

Well, we are still getting really excited and preparing for the visit of the Apostle Ballard in a couple weeks, it is going to be a great experience, we have been focusing alot on inviting people to go and to see him, the only problem is that it is a little away from puerto montt, about 30 minutes by bus outside in the town of Puerto Varas but it is going to be a great experience.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well, on Saturday I started a D&C countdown where I start with seccion 138 and read a section everyday going down haha, crazy how the time flies.

I hope all is well, I love you all.

Love, Elder Nelson

Buenos Dias mis queridos amigos & familiars!

Buenos dìas mis queridos amigos y familiars!

This has been a long and exhausting week. I feel that it has been one of those weeks that we have been busy almost every day with between 2-4 extra missionaries in our house.

On Tuesday, we had intercambios with the assistants to the President. I went with an Elder from Salt Lake named Elder Adams. My companion went with an Elder from Florida who is going to be playing linebacker at BYU when he gets off his mission named Elder Amone, he has a full ride to play at BYU and I was talking to him and he said he had scholarship offers from all of the big schools and was the number 15 linebacker from his class. That day ended up being very rainy and cold. I always knew that the sun can't last that long here.

On Wednesday, we had interviews with the president, so we had interviews all day long as ZL. We have to stay in the chapel the entire time and make sure that everyone is there and what not, so that was also a long, tiring day, and we also had some elders that were staying with us a couple days so it was just a lot of juice.

On Friday, we had to go to Osorno as there was a counsel of leaders of the mission. That was also an activity of the entire day, but it is cool because we are having a new program to be able to find all the inactive members in Chile where we have access to the names and directions of every Chilean that is registered to vote in all of Chile. That should be good as there are so many people here that are members and we don't know where they are.

On Saturday, I had a fun trip to the dentist as my permanent retainer broke so I had to go get that fixed, its crazy how cheap Chilean dentistry is.  $40 for the repair.

Well, we are getting ready as a mission for some very special guests, Elder M. Russell Ballard, President Ronald Rasband of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder Walter F. Gonzalez who is the President of the area South America south.  I am so excited for that! We have a special stake conference the 16th of February and the 17th of February we have a special mission conference with them. I am really excited for that. That means that we will have our p-day Tuesday the 18th of February not the Monday so if I don't write, that is why.

Well, I hope that you are all having a wonderful week. Thanks so much for all your love and support.

Congratulations to Jacque on her wedding this Saturday!

Love, Elder Nelson

 Pichanga and Root beer floats. 

We found root beer at a store called JUMBO.  It's like a Walmart.

 A dog we found sleeping on his back.  He reminded me of when Oscar would sleep in a bed like a human with his head resting on a pillow.  Funny!

Far Left:  My companion, me and some elders from an intercambio

Rain and Sun

Dear Family,

This has been a really good week with some really weird weather, it has been around 27-30 degrees celcius all week which has been great but so hot.  Today it has been pouring rain all day which has been a little disheartening but it should go away. I guess it isn't southern Chile without a little (or should I say a lot) of rain! I am starting to get accustomed to the pattern of a couple weeks with a lot of sun, and rain for 3 days, and then in the winter time its the opposite with alot of rain and sun (but cold) every 2 weeks.
Well, this Martin Luther King Jr day, I will be doing the exact same thing that I did for Thanksgiving, Presidents day, Memorial day, Labor day and every other holiday that you guys get the day off. All of those holidays don't exist here. The only holidays they have are Christmas, Easter and days to worship all the saints and Maria. That's about it. And actually all those days are celebrated pretty much the same.

So this week, I did an intercambio with an Elder in another part of Puerto Montt, his name is Elder Crotzer, he is from New Mexico. I think this is the first time that I have ever met someone from New Mexico, but it was fun. It's crazy, he ends his mission in September of 2015, that sounds so far away. 

We will be super busy this week.  On Tuesday we have intercambios with the AP`s and on Wednesday we have interviews with President Rappleye.

Oh, another thing super awesome that we are really excited about is we are having a special stake conference on the 16th of February.  A special guest is coming from Salt Lake City to our stake conference here in the Puerto Montt Stake.  It is Elder M. Russell Ballard, it is so aweosme, and there is a chance that I will be singing in a special missionary choir for this event. I am pretty exctied for that and happy to be here in Puerto Montt for this time. 

Well, I hope that all are having a nice winter time, and enjoy MLK day.

Love, Elder Nelson

Dog Bites & Rabies Shots!

Hello family!  What an interesting week. I finally got to go back to Los Muermos this week which was a lot of fun. I got to see a bunch of people that I'd taught which was fun, and a lot of people were super happy to see me. It was great to see all of the people although I just barely left about 2 months ago.

This Friday, we had a counsel of Mission leaders, so we had to go to Osorno to the mission home and have a counsel with all of the zone leaders, sister training leaders and the AP´s and President Rappleye, it was a good counsel where I was able to learn a lot, and I also got to see a bunch of elders that I haven't seen for a long time which was really nice to see.

On Saturday, we went to visit a less active member and we were ouitside the fence yelling. My elbow was resting on the fence and a mean dog came at me and bit my elbow. It was rough because afterwards we had to go to the hospital because they found rabies in Chile and so the church has every missionary in Chile that gets bit by a dog has to get rabies shots. It wasn't too bad of a bite though it was bleeding a little bit and broke the skin which did hurt a little. Now I have to have a series of 5 rabies shots over the next month so that I dont get rabies haha, how sweet is that...

This week was nice, we have been finding so many people that we really feel have the possibility of progressing which is great including a handful of families which is always really nice. It's just hard for us to have them come to church becasue in the weekend we couldn't find them to remind them and then they didn't come so we are going to have to be working alot more with that.

It is very hot here. We have a day of rain about once a week but other than that it is just hot, hot and more hot. I think it only feels so hot because we are out in the sun all day and our sector is just pure hills. But it is nice and I definitely prefer the heat over the cold which we´ll be having in about a month.

Well, I hope that all is well with everyone back home. Stay warm and enjoy the snow.

Love, Elder Nelson 

Puerto Montt - new companion Elder Mino

Happy New years everyone!

 It was a really calm New Years with a lot of food and being in bed by 11pm. We didn't even bother to stay up until 12 to have the change of the year. But we sure did eat a lot of food, they have a big tradition in Chile of eating a lamb on a stick for new years so I had that about 3 times, but it is so good, I just got incredibly stuffed. One thing I sure got out of Chiloé is how the people are good at eating, and I loved that. It was a really good time though, we spent it with a lot of members and I took the time to say good bye to a handful of people although I was only there in Chiloé a short time. On Thursday, I left Ancud and came to the city of Puerto Montt.  It is a huge city! I had to spend almost the entire day in the bus terminal until every elder was in their new sector which was until about 7:30 at night, but the traffic was bad so we didn't get home until about 8:30.
It's great here though.  Lots of work and responsibilities but I love it and our sector is huge we haven't even been to a good part of it and this is by far the biggest ward that I have been in. We had 126 yesterday which from Muermos, Holzapfel and Ancud combined I don't think that we had what we had yesterday in church which is wonderful. I got asked to give my testimony and present myself and to share a little bit about the missionary work in my last sector, but I did that in ward council.

So my new companion is named Elder Miño, he is from Salta, Argentina but has been living the past couple years in Buenos Aires. He is great and has just a couple months more time that I do. It's great and we are working hard and finding people and our zone is really progressing. The best part is that Los Muermos is  now part of our zone so I will be doing an intercambio there tomorrow which is great.  I just can't stay away from that place haha.

Well, I hope all are starting their year out great and with great goals. I am so excited to be able to see everyone this year in 2014!

I love you all!

Love, Elder Nelson

Soldiers do give kisses

(Sorry this letter is out of order...I just found it sitting in drafts and didn't want to miss it)

Happy November everyone!
This Week was a slow and a testimony building week.
It started out with a Zone conference on Tuesday, where the church has come out with a new book to help with missionary stress. My stress level has gone down a lot in this area since I've been done with the tax audit and taken care of other things which is nice.  I don't have that much stress on my shoulders. Since Sunday was Fast and Testimony meeting I didn't have to have a talk ready "just in case" someone wasn't there, although I did have to give an emergency lesson in priesthood.
This week had been a little bit colder but it is expecting to be warming up a lot.
We also found a nice cute little family this week, of a man and his wife (I hope they are married) and they have a little daughter that turned 3 on Jade´s Birthday.  She's a super cute little girl. She was playing with some soldiers and she was making them kiss and I told her that soldiers don't kiss and she looked at me like I had just told her that Santa wasn't real and she started to cry so we had to tell her that soldiers do give kisses, and she went away happily making the soldiers kiss, haha, just a cute little family.
Halloween, it's kind of a holiday that is starting, and it has mixed feeling. Half the people think that it is a gringo holiday, a quarter don't care and a quarter actually celebrate it. Most people open the door to trick or treaters and yell at them saying that its a gringo holiday or that its of the devil and stuff like that. They just can't celebrate a good holiday. The day after is more of a holiday as they call it "Dia de los Santos" and its similar to memorial day where all go the cemetery and put flowers on the graves and give a prayer to them (Catholic holiday).
They also had an evangelical holiday and we have had the privilege of evangelicals yelling and singing outside our house.
Chile has so much faith but its focused in the wrong things.

Well, that was our week, maybe next will be a bit more exciting.

Love, Elder Nelson