Yep! That's right! Selvin Ramirez (we call him Jose Smith) has been baptized and confirmed a member of the Church! Woooooooooo! So great! It was amazing!!! I love the Ramirez family so much! They have changed more than you could imagine! Lucy has given up coffee and Jose (Lucy's husband) and Laura are working on giving it up as well! They're amazing. Anyways, I'll tell you about them later. So for an overview of my week. Monday we visited this lady named Gladys Webb who we thought was less active. Turns out she's just to old to go to church and the Priests give her the sacrament every Sunday. We talked about the Book of Mormon with her and she told us about a theory that Joseph Smith saw aliens instead of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The aliens were sent by God though. She then went off about how there's a part in Genesis that says that the sons of God could be aliens. "Read your Genesis!" she said. It was interesting. I hadn't heard that one before. Tuesday I went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders Elder Larman and Elder Stucki. Elder Larman came to my area. We had to drive down to the valley to Reseda that morning to get an estimate on how much it would cost to repair the car we're driving. Our car is the oldest car in the mission the 2010 Pontiac Vibe and its had some rough times. It runs great though! Don't worry, I don't have to pay for any of it. It was fun to get to see the valley. I've only been down there like 3 times. I kind of hope I get to go somewhere down there next transfer. The exchange was great. Elder Larman is a good missionary. We taught the Ramirez family that night and Elder Larman interviewed Selvin for baptism. We taught them about tithing and they all committed to pay. It was great. Wednesday I went on another exchange with Elder Bulger in the Copperhill ward. We knocked doors all day and it was looooooooong! It got up to 89 degrees that day! It sucked! You all probably hate me for saying that, but you would say the same thing if you got absolutely no weather variation for 5 months. We had a good time though! We knocked into some pretty crazy people. One guy let us in and we tried to teach him, but he just wanted to tell us about how much he's studied the Bible. He talked about the millennium for like 30 minutes! The weird thing was, he had everything right! he's like translating the bible or something, but he beleves that all prophecy ended with Christ. He wouldn't read the book of Mormon, and ya... It felt like a waste of time, but I knew that we needed to be there for some reason. He'll figure it out one day. We did end up finding a new investigator though! It was the sister of one their new investigators they found last week. We taught her a doorstep lesson and it was really cool! We also taught this amazing less active family that they have been teaching for quite a while. We taught them the Restoration and it was one of the most powerful lessons of my mission so far. The daughter has recently started going to the singles ward and they're working with the dad on getting him to come back to church. We talked about the blessings of the gospel in families a whole ton and about the priesthood and how he can bless his family by going to church and eventually receiving the Melchezidek Priesthood. It was sweet! My comp. and Elder Patterson were in the Seco Canyon ward. They taught Chad, and apparently it was a great lesson. Chad told them that he had relapsed on everything under the sun--weed, cocaine, prescription, smoking, heroine, you name it. He told them that he feels completely unworthy to even pray and that God shouldn't love him. The Elders said that they just read the scriptures with him and that it was super powerful. He told them that what they taught him was exactly what he needed to hear. Anyways, it'll be quite a while before he gets baptized now. Thursday we had weekly planning and went on another exchange with the other Copper hill elders. Elder Coles came to my area. We knocked and tried to stop by less actives, but no one answered. We found a couple potentials so that was good. The next morning we knocked into this kid named Philip. He's 16 years old and he's been moving around schools a lot because of bullying. He's a super nice kid and we taught him the Restoration on the doorstep. He told us that this was exactly what he needed to hear and we set up an appointment with him for next Saturday. It was awesome! Right after that, we knocked into this super depressing guy who wanted to bible bash, but we didn't let him. We just taught, testified and left. It was good. We went to Selvin's that night and answered questions. Saturday we baptized Selvin! it was such a good baptism. His mom and grandma were bawling! It was so cool! Lucy is supposed to get baptized Feb. 8th, but she told us at the baptism that she wants to be baptized with Jose on the same day! Jose is really progressing and he told us that he felt so good when Selvin was baptized. He said that he felt like it was his "spiritual birthday!" It was great. The Bishop had them and a whole ton of people over for food afterwards. They talked to the Bishop the whole time. They loved it so much and they all came to church the next day to see Selvin get confirmed. Elder Davidson baptized him and I confirmed him. I was nervous as all get out to do it, but it was a really good experience. His Grandma and mom were bawling afterwards too. We're teaching them 3 times this coming week so it should be good. Well, that's my week for ya! It was awesome! I love hearing from all of you guys and I love you all!
Elder Nelson
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