February 25th ,2013

Hey FAmily!!!!!!!
I Know you are probably going to be very angry but I need to keep this short! SO... This week has been good! I was re united with Elder Anderson my MTC comp and Elder Welch as they are both in my zone now! Elder Welch and Anderson and I drove to ukiah from transfers together so that was pretty fun!
I am loving being on bike!! We get to talk to so many people each day and and it is really good exercise! Plus the weather is also really good! Except it does still get pretty freezing at night...
Elder Kunz my new companion is pretty cool! It will be a very interesting companionship and transfer. But I will expound more on that later when I can better describe it and have more than a few days with him.
The apartment that i am staying in is called the PINK PALACE because it is all pink!! So that is pretty funny. I remember Elder Stainback was telling me about it! It is a nice apartment!! Oh just so you know I am still a district leader! I forgot to mention that! Actually elder kunz and i are both district leaders so i guess the correct term is Co-district leaders!
 
So just a quick miracle, elder kunz and i contacted this girl named Ashley, she is like 20 and has two kids and just wants to get her life in order. you could tell she has been through a lot! As we started to contact her it was very apparent how prepared she was!!! We taught her about the restoration a little bit and gave her a book of Mormon AND invited her to be baptized!! She accepted and told us to come back!! We went by again last night and she said that she couldn't sleep the night that we talked to her and so she picked up the book and started to read it and...SHE READ ALL NIGHT! She loved it and couldn't get enough of it!! She felt so empowered and excited as she read!! I was so pumped!!! It was great experience and my testimony was strengthened in the book of Mormon and that PEOPLE are being prepared by angels!!!!!! I know this church is true and that this is the greatest work anyone can do is share the gospel! I love it!!
I hope you are all doing great! Thank you for your letters this week! They are always a source of great str4enth and comfort to me!! I love you
Elder Nelson

 

February 18th, 2013

Hello my wonderful family!! It was so great to get your letters this week!! I have the Transfer news.... I am getting shipped out! They moved me to brush creek down in santa Rosa as the New Assistant to the President!! SO I will be driving down on tuesday!! Okay that isnt true at all haha I have actually been transferred to Ukiah 2nd! That is a little North of where I am I believe! My new Address is 582 North State Street Apartment D Ukiah, CA 95482. So you can send your letters that way!

Isn't that crazy that I am getting transferred? I feel Like i just barely arrived here in woodland! And now I am leaving again! These past two transfers have gone by so fast!! I have been out over seven months! I remember when I first arrived in Santa Rosa I was talking to an Elder that had been out about seven months..I was thinking in my head that that was such a long time!!...And now hear I am! 7 months out! It is NUTS! Anyways, I am pretty sad to leave woodland. We have a couple of people that I have grown really close to and that I love so much! I will mostly miss Courtney I think. She came to church this week!! It was so awesome! She was dressed up and everything and she even brought her little boy Landon who is so cute!! We sat by her and it was a little bit funny because she was so stressed out about every little thing that her son would do!! She doesn't realize that she isn;'t the only one with a wild little boy running around the pews making noise! Nor has she learned the art of bringing the right kind of toys and snacks to keep the kids quiet! It was so funny! There is a family named the -------- that have the WILDEST kids in the ward by far. We need to sit behind them next week. well she needs to. This week we sat behind the Lindsays and they have six kids and three of them are perfectly behaved and very cute girls, two of them were boys that were coloroing quietly most of the time or munching on snacks happily and the littlest one is a younger gilr that also was perfectly behaved almost the entire time! It was so funny! I love the Lindsays! But that didnt build courtneys confidence!! Of course kids will never learn how to behave in church if they never come to church so her and Landon will both learn! But back to the Lindsays, They are my favorite family here in woodland!! Their kids are so fun and nice! And brother and sister lindsay are awesome and way fun to talk to too! It felt like we were a part of the family when we went over for dinner! Those are the best dinners! I took some pics with them on sunday and they are awesome! So i will send those home soon! Alos I got a great pic with courtney and her son at church!! I really havent taken to many pictures this transfer now that i think about it! oh well...

I packed up all the food you sent me mom dont worry!!. OH jeez I forgot to tell you that I am on bike!!!

Anyways, I love you guys so much! Sorry this is short! Talk to to you soon!

Love Elder Nelson

NOTICE: This email message is for

February 11th, 2013

Dear family! Happy Valentines day! I love you all so much! How are you all doing? It was great to get your letters this week! Well just so you all know, transfers is coming up already.  Can you believe that.  This coming Friday we will all know what happening.  I think that is crazy!
OH before i forget my companion basically just got dear johned..poor guy! He just sent her a valentines package too! It wasnt much though so that is good!
Mom I dont know how much is on my card but i need to send a large package with a bunch of pictures and posters and other things home but i never know how much I have on my card so make sure there is enough! It will probably be close to 15 bucks.maybe more. it is pretty heavy! but it has all my pictures from the past four transfers plus the MTC along with writing on the back of them. There is a short note on what to do with all the stuff included in the package! Please take care of it and dont let any of the stuff be ruined! Especially the paintings! :) Also I have to tell you something pretty amazing!! Last monday I went to print off pictures because I had almost lost the memory card. So I printed them off. then, guess what happened? yep I lost the card!!! With all the pictures! I was so mad!! Luckily, I have printed them all printed off and i have them all on Cds as added back up :) so they were not lost :) I felt very blessed! I knew threre was a reason for my putting them all on CDs!
This week was pretty lame... All of our investigators were sick so we didn't get to see any of them. We did some less active work at the request of the bishop though and we had some great powerful lessons with people! I love going to visit less actives because usually they have been in the church for awhile and they know exactly what it means when missionaries come over!! It is easy to be bold with them and pretty much just ask "why arent you coming to church??" It is good fun!!
Elder Bulow and I are doing good! He is a great guy and companion and missionary! I feel though that he does not fully understand the principle of obedience. He is always justifying little things and looking for loopholes in rules and standards and talks about how "inconvenient" the rules make things etc.. etc... His negativity about the rules has been weighing on me. Because I always feel like I should try and explain the rules he has problems with but he just tries to come up with another explanation or loophole. Plus some of the things that I feel I should try to explain are just so plain and straightforward that it is very annoying that he even tries to justify it! Anyways, other than that, which I would label as mostly just negativity, he is a great missionary and he tries to be obedient even if he doesn't understand why.... welp I am sorry this is so short! I gotta run!!  Alright that is all! I love you!!

February 4th, 2013

Dear Family,

Hello!

So it was stake conference for us this sunday! It was broadcast from Salt lake to like 68 stakes. Did you watch it as well? L. Tom Perry spoke to us! I t was so sick! He threw down on everyone for not doing enough missionary work! Missionries dont ask for referrals as much and members dont give referrals! It was a good talk and I was inspired! Right after that we set up an appointment with our bishop to go over some notes that i took about how we can work better with him and with the ward! He also had some ideas from the talk and we came up with some plans and goals and some names to get started on this week! Cool beans!!

This week and last week we set 6 new baptismal dates!!! It has been so awesome!! Continue praying for courtney and her husband jeremy, things are getting harder for her because she is getting closer to being baptized. The adversary is working very hard against her. We had an awesome lesson with her this week about the plan of salvation! I invited her to be baptized after and she said yeah I really would like to be baptized except my husband.... so we came to the conclusion that I need to come over and Knock some sense into him with my fist!! Just kidding. She is great though!!

One of the other dates that we have, Jesus juarez, is awesome too! We set the date with him last night actually! We went over kind of not expecting a lot to have changed from the last time we visited. (Last time we talked about them getting married and him baptized. His wife, paige is a reactivating member) I honestly didnt think based on their reaction that anything would come from our meeting and dicussion about marriage and chastity..BUT It turns out that something we said sparked their desire and they very excitedly told us that they did some praying and talking and then she showed us her ring! They are getting married sometime this month!! Of course while I listened in the back of my mind I was plotting how we would reinvite him to be baptized hehe. We taught him the Doctrine of Christ and emphasized the importance of baptism then we invited him and he accepted! March 16th!! I t was so sweet. Made my whole week!!

So the work is going really really well. We are not even close to where we need to be though. There is so much work to be done and progress to be made! I am so thankful for the atonement and that I am able to repent for the many mistakes that i make every day!! As I have done my best to be humble and turn my weaknesses to strengths I have felt the power of the atonement shape and change me, which in turm has given me a very real moral authority. As I srive to lead by example and be exactly obedient I have the authority to invite others to change and be better as well! To accept and follow jesus Christ is to accept Change. By constantly changing and growing I have felt much more qualified by the spirit to invite others to change as well. It is so important to have this authority. We cannot ask people to change if we are not changing ourselves! This is something that I have really tried to incorporate into my life as a missionary. If I am not reading the scriptures every day how can i invite and commit someone else to read every day? We have to lead by example so that we have moral authority to invite others to choose change and to become better. I hope that all made sense!

Anyways have a great week and I hope that you got my pictures that i sent you! I love you!

Elder Nelson