Nachos and Slushies

This week has been so awesome. I had some super cool experiences throughout this week but also during the month.

So this past month I decided to try and gain a better testimony of Fasting. I don´t like to teach things that I can´t explain and understand. So this month I focused on Fasting and Fast Offerings. Each month we get a set number of pesos to use during the week on food and buses and haircuts and things like that. So this month I decided to pay a lot of money to fast offerings and see specifically what happened. I´ve heard about miracles happening when other missionaries do stuff like this but I didn´t expect the results I got. 

For example, we had a member who went to El Paso and bought groceries for that week. Then the next week we went shopping and we met another member from Nogales who gave us 200 pesos to reimburse us for the food we bought. He then gave us nachos and slushies. We also did not have a lot of meetings back at the mission offices (I don´t know how because we go to all of them: I´m being trained, my companion is a district leader) so we saved the money we would have used for the routes. I got a package of canned goods from my parents too so we had a lot of food. All of our rides we needed we usually got picked up by members or investigators. But yesterday a miracle happened. I was walking to church and I saw a 200 peso bill siting on the ground. I was so shocked I didn´t know what to do. 200 pesos is like a whole week’s worth of food and internet. So fast offerings are real.

Then we had an investigator who drank coffee and smoked every day. We taught him about fasting and he came to church, fasted and like three days later he stopped smoking and drinking. We gave him hot chocolate to replace the coffee but he doesn´t even have any interest to drink that.

There was also another cool experience we had this week. We were knocking doors in a fraccionamiento and no one was opening up. They would answer the door and say “I´m catholic.” I´ve learned from former investigators that it´s ‘illegal’ to listen to our message if you’re in the catholic church. So anyways we knocked doors and finally at the end of the day we knocked a door and a lady let us come in and teach her and her friend. Her name is Isis and she was super excited to read the Family Proclamation. I didn´t think she’d be excited about families or two American Elders but she committed to taking our discussions. 

How´s your week been? How´s school? Any fun spring break, valentine’s experiences?

Have a successful week.

Élder Nelson

This week was really good. We found a lot of people to teach and I think we'll have some more bautismos.

We met two new investigators this week. It was really cool how we found them because we didn't have any citas and we were just contacting. We came across two friends outside and we started talking to them. They invited us to teach them right then which never happens. I found that normally they'll give us a time to come back but then we must go to the wrong house because they're not there. So when they invited us to teach I was super happy. We taught them and their son and daughter. They haven't progressed yet but we're super hopeful we can get them to come to church.

One thing I have learned here is that they treat us missionaries like kings. Even though the people are really good at evacuating streets when were contacting and keeping busy enough to miss citas, they give us a lot of respect. They feed us till we can't walk straight, they always give us rides, they buy filtered water just for us; when we need to use the bathroom and knock on a members door they think that the fact that we chose them to go to is a huge honor. It's super cool.

So on the big day when the Pope came my companion got sick. We worked a little during the day but then headed home early. I think it's a good thing too. It would of been miserable to be out all day. The streets were super empty. Everyone had all of their friends over and were watching the Pope give his address. I think if we wanted to we could have sat outside of any house and listed to what the Pope was saying but we had our Liahonas at our house so we heading back early.

Did you guys see my zone or the mission office? How's school going? Any cool experiences this week?Do you need help with Spanish class? 

Love y'all

Elder Nelson

This week was super good. I had my first baptism this Saturday. We had two awesome investigators a mother and her daughter and we invited them to be baptized and they said yes. It was the point when I realized what it is like to be a missionary. We are always in the streets talking, contacting, walking, having lessons but now we have baptisms too and its so cool. We felt the spirit super strong during the baptism. I just felt super happy after the two we baptized. The cool part was that Sunday we confirmed them but we also had two investigators at church so we were able to show them what their goals will be. Hopefully Ill be able to attend the temple in a year when they go through for their endowments.

So as you guys have heard the Pope is coming to my mission. If you guys watch the news you might be able to see the mission office and you´ll see him come through our zone. It´s really funny because every thing is super clean and well painted. We have a lot of police and government people in our area. They put up fences in random areas and every company has a billboard. If you see the REAL HOTEL its Orange and Grey, That´s right in front of the mission offices and where we stayed our first night. The weird Circle Ball place is were our zone leaders work. I think we´ll still be working, I mean we had a baptism the weekend before so it´s not too big but the majority of our zone has 2 days in House arrest. It´s funny but sad when we talk with Menos Activos and they say ¨yeah we have tickets to see the pope.¨ and we´re like no don´t go! Come back to the church.

That´s about it. We´re doing really good and our zone has some good numbers. Thank you for all the support you´ve given us. Watch my mission this Wednesday.

Love

Elder Nelson

This week was kind of cool because I got a new companion Elder Cottle. He an my old companion switched areas. He´s a really good missionary and almost has a year and a half in the mission. They tell me that´s when you reach your peak and then it´s all down hill. He´s super gutsy though because he is the only companion I have had who knocks on doors and fights Testigos.

Something really weird that I don´t know if they did in your missions but they do here is when you go home you ¨die¨ and if you don´t work much because your ending your mission your ¨dying¨or ¨dead¨. I was really spooked when I first heard them taking about it. ¨who died!¨ Is it the same in your missions?

I told Mindy but this week we got so many wierd desserets. The first one we got which I heard is super popular in Casas Grandes is Philidelphia Cream Queso with Salsa Jam and crackers. We also had white bread pie and peanut butter on bread. 

We have a really small pool of investigators so this week we spent almost all week contacting. On Friday all of our appointments fell through so we spent all day out side. That was rough. Before (dad don´t listen) when we did home teaching and we were knocking on doors I prayed that they wouldn´t be home and we would be good for the month. Now I pray that they are home because we don´t go home till the sun goes down.

So one of the days we were contacting we came across a group of kids playing futbol in street so we played with them. It was a lot of fun but for some reason I didn´t do so well. I think they were the sons of Messy (or however you say it). 

We have an investigator that´s getting baptized this Saturday. It´s really awesome to finally have success. It makes all of the walking and talking and freezing worth it. What´s even cooler is that her fiance is going to baptize her. 

I hope you have a wonderful week. I hope school and church and work and church and all that you DO is going good. It´s fun being a MISSIONARY but its a lot of WORK so it is always fun to hear from yáll.

Love 

Elder Nelson

How´s it going in Texas? I don´t know if it´s true but I heard rumors that you guys had a winter storm come through. Right now it´s snowing but it´s more like it´s raining so it´s not much fun.

This week was great because we had a little bit of success. We had an investigator who we taught the Sabbath day but he didn´t come to church so we taught him the lesson again and emphasized how important it is to go so this week he came. He had a good time and the sisters brought another investigator so we had a good week. 

Our house is the warehouse for the mission so this week the President came by and took inventory. We have a bunch of old blenders from areas that got shut down or who knows why but he told us to sell them. So we put a table outside and started selling blenders for 150 pesos. We sold 4 out of our 7.5 blenders and I think there is a sister who wants another 2. It was crazy because we put it out for only a half hour and we sold 4. 

We also had a clogged storm drain in front of our house so every time we showered or washed clothes water would run into the street so we had a lot of mud to clean up. So we spent a day cleaning the mud and selling blenders. But on Thursday we were out looking at the drain throwing the water out into the street and the water guys drove by which never happens and called us some help. So a truck showed up in like 5 minutes (not like the maintenance guys back home) and using pipes and a weird slinky thing unclogged the drain. 

Like I said our ward is pretty rich. So Saturday we had 4 meals to go to, mostly because the American Elder is leaving. At 7 in the morning a member dropped of some McD breakfast which was so good, but then at 9 we went to another member´s house for Mexico breakfast. Some how I managed to eat both. Then at 2 we had lunch with another member. Then at about 6 we had dinner with some investigators. I don´t know how I did it. 

So we were pretty busy selling blenders, clearing sewage, and eating a lot of food. This Sunday was transfers so I get a new trainer because mine goes to Casas Grandes, and our district gets rearranged. 

I hope you guys are having a blast back home. How´s school? Any cool experiences? 

Love yáll lots,

Elder Nelson

 

 Here´s some Surströmming or stinky fish a member gave us