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

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

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

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     

Hey Howdy Hey!

Yet again another week has flown by. Time is going faster and faster and before I know it I'll be on a plane home. . . but there's no time to think about that.  I have been so blessed these past couple of weeks.  There have been very little concerns and issues to resolve throughout the zone and other than all the meetings that we've gone too we've just been straight workin hard!  I feel like a normal missionary!  It's awesome!  Elder Peterson is such a great companion and I work super well with him.  We work super hard and have been able to find a couple of new investigators this past week.  

The first guy we found is named Tommy.  I don't know I f I told you about him last week, but the first day Elder Peterson came in we knocked into Tommy.  He's a Buddhist college student, but he's super interested in learning about other religions and what not.  He really liked it when we taught him the Restoration.  He's uncomfortable with us praying though, but that'll come eventually.  Not sure of his commitment level to really know if this is true, but we're working with him.  We also taught a girl named Meghan that we found knocking.  We had a really good first lesson with her and set a return appointment to come back, but she told us the morning we were supposed to come back that she talked with her Dad about what we taught her and he wasn't having any of it and said that we can't come by again.  Sad but she'll learn more about the gospel when the time is right.  We also taught a lady named Maria who is super cool.  We are hoping to teach the rest of her family this week.  We found her knocking too.  We've done a lot of knocking this week.  It is great!  I love talking to people.  Like I've said before, most of the people we talk to don't even let us say much before they slam the door, but every so often we are able to teach and testify to bring the spirit to them.  We had a really good experience with this one guy named Brian that we knocked into.  He opened the door and had a super stern, almost angry face.  He was not happy that we were there.  My companion then just went into teaching him about how God loves him and that the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families.  The look he had on his face started to leave.  I then asked him how Jesus Christ had blessed his family and he thought for a moment and then started naming off a couple of things.  It was awesome.  We then went into teaching him about the Restoration and he told us that his sister is a mormon and that he's not buyin it, because we add to the bible and change things.  I then testified to him of how the Book of Mormon and Bible work together and we had a great conversation that eventually led to the root of his concern which was faith.  he told us that having faith in anything was super hard for him.  We then shared a couple scriptures and testified and he told us he wasn't interested, but thanked us for the conversation that we had.  he then told us how moment earlier that he had been arguing with his wife about some stupid stuff and he just went downstairs to cool off and we just happened to ring the doorbell.  Although he wasn't interested, he knew at that moment that God was aware of him and that if he focused more on what really matters, things will end up alright.  I beleive our interaction with him was just a part of a chain of events that will ultimatly lead him up to finding and accepting the Gospel later in his life.  I have had so many experiences like this.  It's so cool to be a part of and know that you are a small part of changing someone's eternity, and i get to do it everyday.  I love it and I'm grateful that God trusts me enough to do it. 

I love you all!

Elder Nelson  

Elder Joshua Nelson is Coming Home!!!

Elder Nelson will be arriving home on Wednesday, August 26, at 10:00am.  He will be speaking in church on Sunday, August 30, at 12:30pm.  Church address:  464 West Germania Avenue, Murray, UT.  Please call Andrea Nelson:  801-635-9235 if you have any questions.

Good Ole' Knockin'

Wow this has been a good week!  My new companion is Elder Peterson from Manti Utah.  He's great and works hard and is super funny.  He was in my district when I was back in Van Nuys.  He's been out a year and I'm glad I'm with him for my last transfer.  

Our zone right now is the smallest zone I've had on my mission.  There's only 14 missionaries.  That's smaller than the first district I was in.  It's super nice though and the new missionaries that came into our zone are fantastic.  They're happy, working hard, and seeing miracles.  

It was a good week as far as just being able to go out and work hard.  We talked with a lot more people this week than I have in previous weeks.  We didn't find as much unfortunately, and our investigators are still falling off the map.  We weren't able to meet with Denise this week.  She canceled.  We had a good lesson with Cheryl and we were able to share the restoration DVD with her.  Her daughters sat in on the lesson too!  It was so good and after the DVD she told us that she believes it's true, although her concern is still the same.  She cannot accept the doctrine of there being just one true church.  She still wants to go to her church, but she said that she would come to our meeting someday.  She told us she has a lot to pray about and think about.  At this point it's all up to her.  She knows its true, she's just got to be willing to act on what she knows. We're inviting and following up, but she's still not actively reading or praying about it.  Hopefully she'll come around.  I've taught a lot of people like this and it is so hard when you know that they know and they still aren't willing to act.  We're praying for her though.  We did pick up one new investigator this week.  Her name is Cheryl too.  We taught her the restoration on the doorstep.  She goes to Real Life church and loves the bible, but really liked the Restoration and wants to know more.  Hopefully things go well with her.  

As for the rest of the week, like I said, we were knocking doors!  It finally rained on Saturday and Sunday so we got to knock in the rain which was super fun. I love the rain.  California weather gets old sometimes.  It's always sunny!  It was good to change it up a bit.  We also met with the Stake President and President Henrie and discussed the work going on in the Santa Clarita Stake.  It was funny. President Lindberg turned the time over to President Henrie and he turned the time over to us.  It was interesting because President Hall would usually report on the key indicators and what not and ask us questions throughout, but President Henrie just turned the time over to us and we reported everything.  It was unexpected, but it was a good meeting nonetheless.  

Hopefully this week we'll find some prepared people!  Thanks for your prayers! Love ya!

Elder Nelson