Hola Hombres

Hola Hombres!  Sounds like everyone's doing good back home! 

This week was another week full of work.  We went on two exchanges and taught a lot of people.  We also had Zone Conferance on Tuesday which was amazing!  I never thought I would like sitting all day in a 9 hour meeting, but I thought wrong!  It was so good!  President and Sister Hall are amazing and are truly inspired leaders of this mission.  We talked about the new mission training plan and we specifically focused on teaching simply.  It was so good and I got so much out of it.  It got me so pumped for this next year.  Presidents dream is to have every missionary baptize monthly and in order to do that, we need to study better, talk to more people, and teach simpler.  It was great.  After Zone Conferance, we went to the Ramirez family home to teach a lesson.  We had planned on teaching the Plan of Salvation, but we got in there and asked Lucy how she was feeling about baptism and she just broke down crying and told us that she doesn't feel like she deserves a blessing as great as baptism.  She told us she doesn't feel worthy.  She understands that it is necessary for one to be baptized, as does the whole family, but that she doesn't feel worthy.  We brought Jason Crosby with us, our Recent convert from October to help us teach, and he was able to relate with her so well.  He shared how he felt before he got baptized and how he knows that its hard.  He told her that it was the best thing that she could do though and that when you're baptized you feel clean because those sins are washed away.  We shared a couple scriptures with her and assigned her to read Alma 36.  She felt better after about an hour.  She still wants to get baptized so everything is good.  I was so glad that we invited Brother Crosby to come with us to the lesson.  What he said really helped her.  Thursday I went on an exchange with the Korean Elders into Korean work.  We didn't do much.  The Koreans are trying to advertise their English class a whole ton lately, so we worked on that and tried to find places to put up flyers.  It was a long day.  Friday we went on another exchange with the Assistants.  Elder Wright from Coleville Utah came with me into my area.  We taught the Ramirez family again that night and we taught them the Plan of Salvation.  It was a good lesson and we committed them to pray about getting baptized as a family.  Laura still doesn't feel like she is prepared, and Jose is on the brink of committing to the 15th as a date.  Lucy wants to get baptized with Jose, so hopefully once they pray as a family, the Holy Ghost will touch them all and they will all want to get baptized on the 15th!  They're all ready to be baptized.  We went over the baptismal interview questions with them and everything.  Later on that night we went to a Member named Noel Larson.  He's an active member who is in his sixties, but he lives with his girlfriend.  It's weird.  His girlfriend Janice is a nonmember and has been taught by missionaries before.  We went over there and shared a short message with them and tried to include Janice, but she refused to read or committ to anything.  She kept saying that she didn't beleive in God and her and Noel got into an argument.  Noel told her that she had no foundation for life.  It was awkward!  She asked us some standard questions (Why do bad things happen etc.)  Which we answered, but she denied them all and refused to do anything.  It was a fun experience, but a weird situation.  The next morning we knocked a lot of doors and found a few potential investigators.  We went to an appointment with a super solid potential (or so we thought) named Brian.  We met him like 3 weeks ago and told us that he was a man of his word and that he would read the whole book of mormon before we come over.  We went to his house and he inveted us in, and told us his religous backround and asked how we came to be mormons.  He then went off about all his problems with mormonism and he would not stop talking!  He was the most anti-mormon person I've ever met on my mission.  Anyways, we eventually just stopped him and bore our testimonies and walked out.  It was fun.  He wanted to argue and you could tell that he was mad that we weren't argueing.  It was funny, but he was so blind, spiritually that is. That exchange was awesome.  I always learn so much from the assistants.  They are such good missionaries.  Super Bowl Sunday was great fun.  We had a great day at church and the Ramirez family came to church again!  They all stayed for three hours this time and got to see Selvin get the Aaronic Priesthood which was amazing!  We helped our neighbor move in too.  He's from Palmdale and moved here for work.  He doesn't have a lot of stuff so moving only took about 30-45 minutes.  His brother was there to help and he had a lot of questions about the church and missionaries and what not.  Hopefully we'll be able to teach them soon.  Anyways, that's all I got for ya this week!  Until next time!  Love you all!

Elder Nelson   

Getting a Hand Delivered Package from Mom

 Imagine his surprise . . . .

 dismay . . . . 

and joy at receiving mom's home-made cupcakes, hand-delivered to a member's house.  

(No mission rules were broken in this endeavor.)

Jose Smith is Baptized!

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

Teaching a Hindu

Well, another good week's gone by!  It was so good!  Last Monday night we taught Anamarie Nannie and her husband Nathan.  We taught the restoration and committed her to baptism!  It was awesome!  There is one hold up though.  They are going to Columbia next week to visit her family for a month and a half, so we couldn't pick a date yet.  We're going to work it out tonight.  I'm willing to bet that they'll get in touch with the missionaries in Columbia and the whole family will get baptized!  I'd be ok with that!  Tuesday I went on an exchange with Elder Coles in the Copper hill ward.  He's from Georgia.  We had district meeting that morning and I gave part of the training.  Since Elder Davidson used to be a zone leader, he hates giving trainings by himself, so he's been having me train with him every district meeting.  It's been a lot of fun and I've learned so much from preparing trainings with him.  I think we work pretty well together.  We have district meeting every Tuesday morning, (Wednesday morning on transfer week) and I love it.  I get so much out of it!  After district meeting we spent 3 hours in urgent care because Elder Coles wiped out on his bike on Monday.  He landed on his elbow and wasn't able to move his arm, and he didn't end up calling the medical people until after district meeting.  They told him to go to urgent care.  Turns out he fractured his radial head so he's in a sling now.  Since he can't ride a bike, we walked all day.  The other Elders had a ton of miracles happen in the area while I was gone!  Everything always happens when I'm gone!  They taught Selvin, Lucy, Laura, and Jose Ramirez.  Yep, the grandpa finally joined a lesson.  He told them that he's noticed a change in Selvin and Lucy and Laura.  He's also been reading the Book of Mormon with them and he said that once Lucy gets baptized that he will probably also.  I was so mad I couldn't be there!  We went on another exchange on Wednesday, and this time I got to stay in the area.  Elder Sung came with me and we found a new investigator named Claudia!  She was a potential Elder Davidson and I found last week.  We taught her the restoration and it went pretty well.  She told us that everything made sense and that she would come to church on the 19th.  Solid.  Thursday we did weekly planning and worked all day trying to find people to teach.  Friday we taught the Ramirez family the Word of Wisdom.  The Spanish elders have been going over there weekly for the past 2 or three weeks, and they went over on Thursday and taught the Word of Wisdom as well.  Before we started teaching, the family told us that they decided that they would go to our ward from now on because they wanted to go as a family.  They felt bad about dropping the Spanish Elders, but I was so happy!  Now we can baptize the whole family Mwahahaha! I really did feel a little bit bad for the Spanish elders though.  But I'm so excited!  We retaught them the Word of Wisdom and they all have a problem with coffee except for Selvin.  They've set goals to quit.  Lucy also told us that she had been praying about her baptismal date for February 8th.  She told us she wants to be baptized!  Woooooooooo!  So awesome! Saturday was full of contacting potential investigators.  None of them were really solid, but we did teach this Hindu guy and it was the weirdest thing ever!  His name was Sid and we tracted into him about 3 weeks ago.  We stopped by Saturday night and his wife, Ashrini, let us in.  She sat us down on the couch and gave us some delicious pie.  She then went into the kitchen and had us wait on the couch for about 20 minutes.  Sid finally showed up and we got to know him and tried to teach him.  We taught him about the Book of Mormon and about the Plan of Salvation.  After every statement that we said, he would compare it with Hinduism and tell us what Hindu's believe.  It was interestingly weird.  He told us about evolution and how Noah had a boat that was pulled by a fish and what not.  He ended up giving us a Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu bible.  It was interesting and when we invited him to church and said a prayer with him, he invited us to come to his temple in Northridge.  Anyways, it was interesting.  Sunday was amazing!!! We had 5 investigators at church and the whole Ramirez family showed up.  They brought Selvin's little brothers as well.  Chris is 13 and James is 9.  Hopefully they sit in on our lessons this week.  The Nannies came to church too.  It was awesome!  They loved it and Jose stayed for all three hours!  It was crazy!  Church is stressful when you have investigators come.  The sisters had their investigators come too!  We had 9 nomembers at church this week.  Another highlight of this week was when we knocked into this guy named Harold Hicks.  He's this 81 year old guy who told us he loves history.  We told him that we loved history too and he asked us if we had a couple minutes.  We told him we did and he said meet me in my garage.  He opened his garage and it was filled with old guns, swords, pictures, and history stuff up the wazoo.  He gave us a tour of his garage and come to find out, he's a drummer!  We both connected with him so well because my comp. loves guns and I love drums.  It was awesome.  He was interested in family history and we told him about the church and family history and such.  it was really cool.  His garage probably had well over $100,000 worth of historic artifacts and guns.  Chad our investigator with a baptismal date seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth.  We haven't been able to get in contact with him at all, and we've tried by his house every day.  He won't answer the door or the phone.  Hopefully we get in contact with him this week or we'll probably drop him.  We haven't been able to get in contact with the Palomino's either, and we haven't taught them for almost a month.  If we don't teach them this week, we will probably end up dropping them as well.  All well.  The work is moving forward in the Seco Canyon Ward!  Also we went without a phone this week until Friday.  It was interesting haha, but we got by.  Our phone broke on Monday morning and the mission office didn't have a replacement so they had to order a new one.  Oh ya I almost forgot! If you haven't figured it out yet I'm not getting transferred!  I'm staying!  Yaaaay!  Now I get to see Selvin and Lucy get baptized, and hopefully the rest of the family!  Well those were the highlights from this week!  It was a great week and we're going to start baptizing soon!  I love you all and I love hearing from you!  Keep writing!

Elder Nelson    

CRAZY LADY

Hey another good week has gone by!  Last Monday night was super awesome!  We've started trying to work with less-actives more and we were going through the ward list to see who to visit.  We came across a name Nathan Nannie.  We decided to visit him and he invited us in and introduced us to his non-member wife Anamaria from Columbia.  We ended up teaching them the restoration and she was super open to everything we had to say.  It was awesome.  We're teaching them again tonight and hopefully they come to church next week.  We haven't been able to teach the Palomino's for about a month now and they haven't been coming to church.  Next lesson we have with them we will probably be dropping them.  I hope not, but the whole time I have been teaching them they haven't been keeping their commitments.  We'll see what happens.  We did a lot of finding this week as usual.  We ended up getting three new investigators which is good, especially for Valencia.  On Friday we went on an exchange with the assistants, Elder Wright and Elder Schick because they are in our district.  I went into the Assistants area with Elder Schick.  He is from Riverton and has been out for 16 months I think.  I love going on exchanges with the assistants because I always learn so much from them.  Elder Schick and I found a new investigator and we got some really solid potentials.  We were walking around in this apartment complex talking to people and visiting some potential and former investigators when we met this lady named Ashley.  She had her dog with her and we went up and talked to her.  We talked to her about prayer and she just opened up to us.  It was crazy.  She just started telling us all the problems that she has in her life right now.  She is super attatched to her dog "Georgia" who is super sick.  She has a boyfriend named Ed who Elder Wright and Schick have talked to before.  She wouldn't stop talking for like 20 minutes and she just broke down crying.  We said a prayer with her to be comforted and she said she felt a ton better after that.  She set up an appointment with us for Tuesday.  It was cool.  She was solid and I hope that the appointment doesn't fall through.  We ended up getting a couple other potentials throughout the day.  At one point we were walking around a different complex.  While we were walking around, we saw this big black guy riding up to us on this super small glittery pink scooter with streamers.  Turns out the guy was Damien, one of the Assistants investigators.  It was hilarious.  We were supposed to teach him and his girlfriend Saturday morning, but they canceled.  Anyways, it was a good exchange.  The Assistants also have a racquetball court in their complex, so we played racquetball for exercise in the morning too. It was great!  Elder Davidson and Elder Wright did some crazy work in our area!  They found 2 new investigators and got to teach Chad, Selvin lucy and Laura, and Janice!  I kind of wish I could have stayed in my own area.  Elder Wright said the lesson with Selvin and his family was the most spiritual and legit Plan of Salvation lesson of his mission.  They asked Lucy to be baptized on February 8th and she just broke down crying.  She told them that she wants to, but that she has to pray about it first!  I was so happy to hear that!  I just hope I don't get transferred next week because I want to see that whole family get baptized.  They are solid!  Things with Chad are kind of going downhill a little bit.  Elder Wright and Davidson taught him Saturday morning and he told them that he doesn't really want to quit smoking and chewing tobacco anymore.  They reviewed the restoration with him because he's already been taught everything.  He's reading the Bof M, but hasn't been coming to church.  They moved his baptismal date back.  I really hope he's not losing the desire he once had.  Desire is everything.  The 2 new investigators they found were from knocking.  They were two 16 and 17 year old kids.  They told them that they would come to church, but they didn't show.  Anyways, I don't have much more time, but we did meet a crazy lady this week.  Elder Wright and Davidson got a referral from a member on Friday.  Elder Davidson and I tried to make contact on Saturday.  The referral was for an Emily Bible.  We knocked on the door and this lady answers.  She talked to us for 20 minutes about how the Holy Ghost is a woman.  She reffered to the spirit as "her" and she kept asking us, "do you know about her."  She went on and on about how Christ was literally married to Israel and she showed us pictures of vision that she had of Christ in this book (It was a scrap book) that "she" was having her write.  It was a picture of a guy in the ocean and the back of a half naked man.  After 20 minutes had gone by, her dog ran out of the house and she ran down the street chasing after it.  We just ran off back to our car and had a good laugh.  It turns out the referral is solid though.  The Copper hill elders know her and she is best friends and has been to church with a family in their ward.  We're going to try and work with them on teaching her.  So ya this week was great!  I'm glad to hear that all is well at home!  I love you all!

Elder Nelson

Hola You Guuuyz!

So ya Christmas was awesome!  We worked hard all week as usual!  I love it!  Skyping was amazing and thanks for all the presents yo!  I loved them all!  I have so much candy now!  I don't know how I'm not fat yet.  I've only gained five pounds my whole mission and I eat like a starved pig!  So me and my comp were looking at the price tags from the bishop and it turns out they probably ended up spending over $70 on ever missionary and there were 8 missionaries at his house that morning.  Crazy!  Don't worry we thanked him a lot!  They're awesome!  Well since Christmas, we have taught Selvin and Chad.  The lesson with Selvin and his grandma and mom was amazing!  The spanish missionaries came with us because Lucy and Laura have expressed an interest in going to the spanish branch just to check it out.  The Spanish missionaries introduced themselves at the beginning of the lesson and set up a time they could come over next week.  If  Lucy and Laura start to go to the spanish branch, the spanish missionaries will have to start teaching them.  We didn't really teach much, we just let Lucy and Laura ask us questions and we resolved a whole bunch of concerns.  They have told us that they love church and that they love having us over because they feel peace and they know that this church will improve their family.  Selvin already knows so much its so cool!  By the end of the lesson, we got Lucy and Laura to agree on allowing Selvin to get baptized on January 25th!  He was so excited and happy!  Lucy and Laura said they would be baptized, but only once they felt more comfortable with the commitment that they make at baptism. Laura's main concern with Selvin is that she doesn't want him to go on a mission.  Selvin keeps talking to them about going on a mission!  He's so cool!  Lucy had the same concern last week, but this week she told us that she thinks that it would be good for him.  She said that way she could teach him how to be self reliant.  Lucy told us that if she feels comfortable once the 25th hits that she will be baptized too.  I think all three of them will be ready by then.  They have been reading and praying and they "feel" that its true.  They also want to start bringing their other kids to church--one is 9 and one is 13.  That would be awesome!   One of my dreams on the mission is to baptize a whole family and see them get sealed in the temple a year later!  I can't wait until the Crosby's get sealed in a year!  They are amazing!  We taught the crosby's this week as well!  Jamie just had her baby Luke James Crosby.  Jason has still been having a hard time with health issues, but they are so strong and just an amazing family.  We taught Chad as well.  He relapsed on smoking, but he's not letting it get him down.  We talked about repentance and the Atonement and I even offered to give him a blessing, but he declined.  We taught him about tithing and fasting as well.  He just absorbs everything we teach.  It is so cool and it's fun teaching him.  Other than that, we did a lot of finding this week and got a whole ton of potential investigators with return appointments for after the holidays.  This week and next week should be stacked with new investigators so I'm stoked!  We're going to start working with more less active and part member families too so that should be good.  I can't believe how much I've grown in just 4 months.  I'm loving it! It's hard but I'm loving it!

Well that's all for this week folks!  Thanks for everything and I love you all!

Elder Nelson 

Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone!! It's Christmas and there is no snow.  It stinks.  The weather is boring here haha!  It's no biggie though!  This week was awesome!  Before I forget, we are probably going to skype around 3:00 or 4:00.  Since Ryan and Dannie are going to be gone for Christmas, we should use Google hangout, that way I can talk to everyone!  That's what a lot of other missionaries do.  I don't know exactly how it works, but we'll figure that out on Christmas!  Our plans for Christmas are as follows.  We will go over to Bishops for breakfast, study and then knock doors until 3:00 or 4:00 when we skype.  Then we'll go knock more doors! Yaaaaaay!  We knock doors alot!  It's going to be weird knocking doors on Christmas. We're probably going to get shot, but whatever!  If you don't here from me on Christmas you'll know what happened!  Anyways, it says in the handbook we're only supposed to spend 45 minutes on skype, but we'll see what happens.  So ya we should do the Google Hangout thing like I said before so I can talk to everyone!  This past week was awesome!  We knocked doors a whole lot as usual.  We got to go to the temple on Wednesday which was the best thing ever!  It was so good to go to the temple again!  It's so cool how no matter which temple your at that you can feel the same spirit!  It was cool!  After the temple on Wednesday, we went to an appointment that we set up with a potential investigator that we found on tuesday.  Her name is Amy and we taught her the restoration.  She is in the process of converting to catholicism.  She is taking RICA courses or something, but she said that what we taught her was really moving and that she would read and pray about what we said!  Super cool!  We have a return appointment for this Friday.  We taught Chad 3 times this week!  He is so cool!  He's on a nicotine patch right now to quit smoking and he should be off it in the next two weeks in time for his baptism.  We also taught Selvin Lucy and Laura this week.  Lucy and Laura had a lot of concerns about Selvin maybe going to fast.  Selvin wants to go to seminary, but they won't let him because they think he's working to hard.  I feel so bad because he wants to be baptized so bad and he knows like everything already!  He's amazing, but Lucy and Laura are holding him back. We can't baptize him without parental permission.  They like church and they love having us over, they just don't want to make the commitment to be baptized yet.  They also had a lot of concerns about Joseph Smith and which we resolved and we also watched the Restoration DVD with them.  It was good.  We taught chad the plan of salvation which was really great and spritual.   Anyways, we knocked on doors a lot this week and got a lot of potentials this week so that was good too!  We also ran into two bible bashers this week which was sad.  Bible bashers teach me alot about how satan works.  They all just tell half truths and try to catch you in your words.  It's kind of like how the Pharisee's talked to Christ.  They try to tear your faith apart, but really all they're doing, for me anyways is building it up.  They are so spritually blind and it makes me so sad.  Yesterday night was one of the bashes we got into.  We went up to talk to these people in their driveway and they asked, what's your view on heaven?  Right then the spirit just left.  When somebody asks that you can know that their from the masters college because they all ask that and then go off on how it's not our faith that saves us and what not.  We explained to them the three degrees of glory and then they just started going off about how we've been deceived and what not.  We listened to them for what seemed like forever, and finally I just pointed my Book Of Mormon at them and bore my testimony to them and walked off.  I know they felt the spirit, but like I said before they've become so spiritually blind.  Anyways, moral of the story is that I can hold my own against bashers and that all they do is build my testimony.  Well I gotta go so I love you all I'll see ya on wednesday!!! I got your packages too and they're great!

Elder Nelson