Called to Serve

Called to Serve

Monday, August 24, 2015

Well I'm almost done . . . .

Wait I'm not done yet!  I have one more lesson scheduled for tomorrow right before I go into the mission office.  It's gonna be good!  Sorry there's not very much for me to say.  I got to go to the temple 2 times this past week.  Once for mine and Elder Jacobsons birthday, and another for the departing temple trip.  It was awesome!  We also had a lot of stake meetings with the high counselor and Stake President and Ward mission leaders throughout the stake.  It was great.  This stake is awesome!  I'll tell you more on Wednesday, but ya this past week has been the usual.  Knockin and talking and preaching ya know.  It's been fun.  I've had very mixed feelings about coming home.  I love being a missionary.  Not to say that I'm not excited.  I am excited.  It'll be great!  So I love you all and I'll see ya on Wednesday!  

Elder Nelson


Friday, August 21, 2015

The Gospel Trio!

Man this trio is awesome!  I love it.  Elder Jacobson is an awesome guy and he's working super hard.  We even have a name for our trio.  It's called "Of Testimony and Tears, The Gospel Trio"  Our first album is going to be called "Lions of The Lord."  Needless to say we're having a lot of fun.  We have been pounding the pavement all week this week.  All of our appointments canceled this week and right now we only have one investigator, Maria, who we will be meeting with tonight.  She rescheduled from last week.  It's been hotter than you know what this past week too.  Knocking in 114 degree heat is. . . well I wouldn't exactly say fun, but it's an experience.  Not that I haven't done it before.  We were able to have many great conversations this past week with the people we met, but no new investigators.  We taught and testified and invited, but no one was willing to start meeting or commit, but that's alright.  We're doing our best and we're having fun and feeling the spirit.  Sorry this letter is going to be pretty short, but I don't really have much to say.  We're having a blast working hard and things throughout the zone are going well.  We had Stake Conference this past week and I saw one of my RM friends, the former Elder Larry Wright.  He was the assistant when I came in and it was good to talk to him again.  What else happened??? Mostly just knocking doors.  We ran into a lot of anti-people, but also a lot of nice people who just weren't interested.  It's been fun.  Hopefully we're able to find this week, but even if we don't, we'll be working as hard as possible!  It's gonna be awesome!  I love you all!  

Elder Nelson

Monday, August 10, 2015

Trio Time!

Well I'm going to be in another trio starting tomorrow.  This transfer we have eight missionaries that are leaving mid-transfer.  Our new companion is going to be Elder Jacobson.  He's awesome and I love the guy.  He was in this zone last transfer, but got transferred to North Hollywood.  I didn't think the mid transfers would affect us at all, but we got a call from President Henrie on Saturday and he told us the this Elder had turned over a new leaf and was ready to be exactly obedient.  He told us that he sees a lot of potential in him and that he wants me and Elder Peterson to train him to be an effective leader for his next assignment.  I feel good about it and I think that the trio will be awesome!  I'm excited to work with both him and Elder Peterson for these last 2 weeks of my mission.  

It's been weird this last week, just with the way that I've been feeling about going home.  I'm kind of finally starting to realize that I'm actually going home really soon.  We had a missionary homecoming yesterday at church and there were so many people there.  The whole ward keeps talking about me going home in 2 weeks and it just feels weird.  I'm excited/nervous/all of the above.  But don't worry!  I'm not slackin at all haha!  It'll be really weird tomorrow because I get to see a lot of the group I came out with go home for mid transfers.  I just love being a missionary and I guess it's kinda hard to think that I'm going home soon.  So I guess the solution is not think about it at all!  Well that's kinda hard though, because everybody keeps talking to you about it. . .  see my dilemma here?  It's all good though!  

This past week not to much happened investigator wise unfortunately.  We did have a sweet lesson with Maria on the Plan of Salvation.  She still won't commit to baptism.  She hasn't read yet or prayed yet, but she really wants too.  We've been trying to follow up with her, but haven't been able to contact.  She is awesome, but she is starting work again this week and told us that she works a ton and that she's super busy.  Hopefully we'll be able to stay in contact and see some progress with her.  Other than that we picked up a new investigator on Friday named Mark.  Woohoo!

Wednesday we had MLC which was kind of weird.  It felt unorganized and there wasn't a lot of concrete topics that we were told to train on.  We talked a lot about teaching by the spirit, but it was kinda like we were just told to go train our zones on a couple of things and that's it.  It was good nonetheless though.  Our ZTM on Friday went well also.  Other than that we've been knocking a lot as usual.  We're trying to follow up with a lot of the potential investigators we've been finding, but most of them we can't get in contact with or their not interested at all.  Everything else is going good though.  Our zone hit all of their goals this past month and the zone is happy!  Yay!  I love you all!  Thanks for everything!

Elder Nelson

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Birthday Bash

Well I'm now 20 years old as of Saturday!  Woohoo!  Thanks for all the birthday wishes and packages and what not.  It was a good day!  That Saturday morning I was on exchanges with one of our district leaders and we had an appointment with a potential investigator at 10:00.  Elder Black had taught him a little bit before and he said that he was open for more, but he gave him a bunch of scripture referances to study before coming.  We studied them and went by.  They were all on faith and works and worshiping God.  The potential invited us in.  His name was ironically, Josh.  Apparently he had been surrounded by LDS people all his life and been invited to things and taught a little bit.  He is Baptist/born again Christian.  He told us he knew a little bit about the church, but immediately after he went into the scriptures and lovingly tried to prove us wrong.  We had a good discussion about faith and works in James 2 and and Ephesians 2.  And also talked about baptism.  We testified a whole bunch and the spirit was there and we told him the only way he can know the truth is by reading and praying about the book of Mormon.  We invited him to do so, but he told us that he wouldn't pray about it, because his allegiance was to Jesus Christ, not our God.  Turns out that he had been fed with anti-Mormon stuff for most of his life just like the majority of the people here that have been to the local churches.  We testified of many different things that morning, just the usual stuff like Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon etc. and my testimony of the church grew because of it. The spirit was undeniably there, although the person for whom it was intended did not receive it.  Unfortunatly I've been in that situation more times than I'd like too, but the experience strengthened me nonetheless.  It was a good birthday bash.  Later on in the day there was a baptism for the Canyon Country 2nd ward and we were asked to teach the Restoration while person being baptized was changing.  We taught it and the spirit was unusually strong.  There were a lot of nonmembers in attendance, including the person being baptized mom.  She cried during the message we shared and it was awesome!  When I finally came home from the exchange, I got in the apartment and there were balloons everywhere and streamers on the ceiling and what not.  Turns out the sisters had come by and decorated our apartment for the Birthday.  It was pretty cool.  And I got a whole bunch of packages too.  So ya the birthday was great!  As for the rest of the week we went on two more exchanges.  The Assistant came with me to Saugus on Tuesday and we taught a sweet lesson to our investigator Maria we found last week and her sister Seetilani.  They are Buddhist from Mexico.  We taught them the restoration and they are super open and want to learn more about Christ and Joseph Smith and the Church.  Right now they are painting their house and we helped them with that a little bit this week as well.  We also went on another exchange with the Solemint elders.  Elder Bagely came here and we worked super hard.  This past week it has been real humid so we have been sweating a ton more than usual.  It's pretty fun let me tell ya.  We also taught Denise again.  She is in the same spot as she was before and we have plans to drop her this next week.  It's sad, but its what we gotta do.  So this next week we only have Maria and Seetilani that we are teaching.  It's been a while since I haven't had more than 1 or 2 investigators to teach.  Man Ive been blessed on my mission.  We are trying our best to find more people to teach.  We're knocking a lot and talking to a lot of people.  The work is amazing and I love it.  I'm excited for this next week.  I've only got 3 weeks left!  I gotta make the make the most of it! 

Love ya!

Elder Nelson