Hello everyone!! Its great to get letters from everyone and here how you are doing! I am doing well! It was good to hear about Ryan’s farewell and that it was good! He wrote me a letter the other day so it was cool to hear from him. I knew he would cry all the way through his farewell though! He reminds me of a convert even though he has been Mormon his whole life. The convert missionaries here are super strong. They may not know as much as others but their testimonies are very powerful. Elder Brown decided to come on his mission two months ago after he had some experiences that turned him back to Christ. He doesn’t know a lot but he is awesome and has this crazy thirst for knowledge that helps me when I feel like sleeping or teasing the sisters instead of studying. I love to study though. It’s amazing how fast and how much you learn when you have the spirit 24/7. It’s really cool. Oh I saw Keagan by the way! His class is on the floor above mine so we have been running into each other. I haven’t been able to talk to him much though although i did get some pics with him! I failed to get pictures with Bridger before he left so the first time I saw him I was like Keagan!  Let’s take a picture!! Hopefully I run into Ryan sometime before I leave That would be really awesome! I have been wondering about his drop off and how his experience has been going!! Im sure he will do great here. So one thing our teachers taught us is that we have to let the spirit guide our questions and thoughts during our lessons. It turns out that this is harder than I thought. We had a whole lesson on Revelation through the holy ghost and how to listen to the spirit. It didn’t help much. I feel the spirit but it’s hard sometimes to let it guide the conversation. Well I was pondering about it during study time and I am pretty sure I had an impression on my mind from the spirit. The thought came to my head that I need to realize how important the spirit is to my teaching. And that until I am not taking it for granted like I won’t be able to use it fully. The thought then came to my head that the MTC is a place to break you down so you can realize how much you do need the spirit and you can learn to rely on the lord. I’m having a stupor of thought now so I can’t remember the full thought but I wrote it in my journal and I felt the spirit really strong when those thoughts came into my head. My companion did as well when i shared it with him. I hope that made sense.  Mom when you said you wanted to watch lost it reminded me of an experience I had this week. One of our investigators, Ben, Has been having a rough time because his family died in a car wreck. So we showed him this mormon message about a guy that lost his fam in a car wreck also, but relied on the lord and the atonement and forgiveness to get through it. Well there was a piano theme playing throughout the entire clip and right in the middle it starts to sound exactly like the theme from LOST. I seriously felt sick to my stomach because It reminded me of home and you and of course how awesome lost is, and I was homesick for like five minutes. I’m serious though go watch it and listen to the music! Its called like forgiveness, something something haha so look it up!! The video was money with the investigator by the way. Can you say committed to baptism??   Oh yeah so last week i wrote a letter to Elder Andersons dad right. He works for Nabisco(Oreo,Chips Ahoy, Nutter Butter) and I told him that his son was just going through the worst withdrawls from nabisco products because that is basically all he has eaten his whole life because his dad gets as many of the products as he wants for free! So today elder anderson got an email and his dad is sending us a package haha. I wish you could have read the whole letter. It was pretty funny.  ummmmmm me and Elder walker have been working out everyday in the fitness center. We were thinking about how if we were here for nine weeks we would get so ripped. Elder walker has had a shortage of garments and has therefore had to double up! So he has smelled like death the past few days. Thank heavens for laundry!! Well I’m over my time limit so I gotta go!! I love you all and tell the nephews i miss them!! The spirit is so strong and The scriptures are so true! I’ll write you a letter with info about me calling from the airport and what not and probably some other stuff that i need sent to me in santa rosa! I love you!!

Elder Nelson  July 26th 2012