Dear Family,
So I have a lot of pretty cool stuff to tell you!! We had a busy week!!
First of all, The Temple was so awesome!! I love Oakland! The weather was perfect and I got some great pictures! I attached some of them.
Second of all, We had a great baptism this Saturday!! Everything went great! There was a second baptism as well for the sisters in our district! Her name was Liz Kelly! I was able to interview her to be baptized and she was so READY! Her baptism was great and She was so pumped to be baptized! After she was baptized she pumped her fist and said "Yes!" She was so excited!! Then on Sunday after her confirmation the sisters told me that she turned to them and said " I felt it! I have never felt this peaceful in my entire life!" Liz was truly prepared and will be a great asset to the church as she continues to have the spirit with her! Geoff Walsh will also be a great addition to the church and in ward council we made plans with the bishop to start him on the process of receiving the priesthood!
Third, We had a leadership training meeting this week. Two Power houses from the missionary department came down and pretty much told us how to double our baptisms and become way more effective missionaries. So I would like to emphasize Power house. This guy, Bro Donaldson, works very closely with the apostles. He told us some stuff that blew us away! Also quick fact, Bro Donaldson was the mission president of the San Diego mission when they filmed the District movies to help train missionaries. So I won’t go into all the details of what he taught because pretty much everything he said was amazing. I learned so much and have been fired up these past few days while I have been out teaching and talking to people! Basically the idea behind it all was that usually in our mission it takes 24.8 investigators to get one baptism.. he said we could bring that number down to 8 investigators to 1 baptism by improving our teaching, not talking to more people. Then from there he just went off on how to be better teachers and it was just amazing. I feel bad for all the other missionaries that weren’t in attendance. (only leaders were there) It was the best meeting that I have ever been to.The spirit was so strong!
So I wanted to tell you some cool things that he told us. One of them is that this July, The whole face of missionary work is going to change forever. We don’t know what that entails but he gave it away a little bit later when he told us that we are one of 50 missions that will be getting the best tools possible to do missionary work..and hinted easy access to mormon.org and lds.org he also counseled us to make sure our area books are completly up to date. Can you say Ipads?? They also gave us statistics of baptisms that come from online sources.. Basically in a nut shell if we got 90,000 missionaries sharing the gospel online through facebook,and other sources all interconnected and working together, the baptisms will go way up. Then he told us stories about missionaries teaching people online and then those people finding the nearest missionaries and telling them that they ready to be baptized. The spirit was just flooding the room at this point. We were all drooling with open mouths I think. He sealed that all up by telling us that one of the apostles basically prophesied to the missionary department by saying, " look for the church to grow, really really grow." That is all I remember from it but the quote went onto say we will have the best tools.
Bottom line is that there is big time talks going on by the 12 about missionary work. And Missionary work is going to be changing big time!! I am pumped! I dont know any details and maybe we are misinterpreting everything he said but things will be changing! Is your imagination going crazy right now?? The Lord is hastening his work!!!
Well, That is it for me. I hope i still have a week to do that atonement thing... you said end of march right? I dont have time to do it because i am busy emailing you and president alba and the elders who drove us need to go!
But anyways, This week I will get to meet elder cook of the 12 and elder callister of the seventy! pRETTY SWEET EH??
So I have a lot of pretty cool stuff to tell you!! We had a busy week!!
First of all, The Temple was so awesome!! I love Oakland! The weather was perfect and I got some great pictures! I attached some of them.
Second of all, We had a great baptism this Saturday!! Everything went great! There was a second baptism as well for the sisters in our district! Her name was Liz Kelly! I was able to interview her to be baptized and she was so READY! Her baptism was great and She was so pumped to be baptized! After she was baptized she pumped her fist and said "Yes!" She was so excited!! Then on Sunday after her confirmation the sisters told me that she turned to them and said " I felt it! I have never felt this peaceful in my entire life!" Liz was truly prepared and will be a great asset to the church as she continues to have the spirit with her! Geoff Walsh will also be a great addition to the church and in ward council we made plans with the bishop to start him on the process of receiving the priesthood!
Third, We had a leadership training meeting this week. Two Power houses from the missionary department came down and pretty much told us how to double our baptisms and become way more effective missionaries. So I would like to emphasize Power house. This guy, Bro Donaldson, works very closely with the apostles. He told us some stuff that blew us away! Also quick fact, Bro Donaldson was the mission president of the San Diego mission when they filmed the District movies to help train missionaries. So I won’t go into all the details of what he taught because pretty much everything he said was amazing. I learned so much and have been fired up these past few days while I have been out teaching and talking to people! Basically the idea behind it all was that usually in our mission it takes 24.8 investigators to get one baptism.. he said we could bring that number down to 8 investigators to 1 baptism by improving our teaching, not talking to more people. Then from there he just went off on how to be better teachers and it was just amazing. I feel bad for all the other missionaries that weren’t in attendance. (only leaders were there) It was the best meeting that I have ever been to.The spirit was so strong!
So I wanted to tell you some cool things that he told us. One of them is that this July, The whole face of missionary work is going to change forever. We don’t know what that entails but he gave it away a little bit later when he told us that we are one of 50 missions that will be getting the best tools possible to do missionary work..and hinted easy access to mormon.org and lds.org he also counseled us to make sure our area books are completly up to date. Can you say Ipads?? They also gave us statistics of baptisms that come from online sources.. Basically in a nut shell if we got 90,000 missionaries sharing the gospel online through facebook,and other sources all interconnected and working together, the baptisms will go way up. Then he told us stories about missionaries teaching people online and then those people finding the nearest missionaries and telling them that they ready to be baptized. The spirit was just flooding the room at this point. We were all drooling with open mouths I think. He sealed that all up by telling us that one of the apostles basically prophesied to the missionary department by saying, " look for the church to grow, really really grow." That is all I remember from it but the quote went onto say we will have the best tools.
Bottom line is that there is big time talks going on by the 12 about missionary work. And Missionary work is going to be changing big time!! I am pumped! I dont know any details and maybe we are misinterpreting everything he said but things will be changing! Is your imagination going crazy right now?? The Lord is hastening his work!!!
Well, That is it for me. I hope i still have a week to do that atonement thing... you said end of march right? I dont have time to do it because i am busy emailing you and president alba and the elders who drove us need to go!
But anyways, This week I will get to meet elder cook of the 12 and elder callister of the seventy! pRETTY SWEET EH??
lOVE YOU!
Elder Nelson
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