September 23rd, 2013

hello family!!

 I have not gotten any mail for awhile now. We don't know how to get our mail here at my new apartment. It is frustrating I know  the two elders that were here didn't have a clue. Oh well. So I have yet to get your last letters. Also I wont be getting them until later this week because a General authority is coming to our mission and we are going down to santa rosa again tonight so  I will be there until Wednesday. it will be sweet cause I will be in my greenie area and I am going to go around and visit everyone that I had previously been teaching!! it will be sweet!!

     So this week has been good. It has been raining a lot! We live right by Humboldt state university so it is pretty cool and there are a lot of college kids. We go to the institute to do online work and it is sweet.

      We are teaching some cool peeps. I don't know any of them very well yet so I cant tell you too much. But it is nice the ward seems really good and things are good!!

       I am drawing a blank on what to say so I just want to testify to you all that I know the church is True! I know that president alba is truly inspired by God!! He leads this mission on revelation!! Every transfer call I have gotten has seemed to come at the perfect time. I have felt the spirit confirm to me a lot already that this is where I am supposed to be at this time and I am with the companion that I am supposed to be with! His name by the way is elder rouse. He is totally awesome and has been out 8ish months I think? So it is cool!

  Elder Cartwright is my ZL companion and he is a punk! But I love him.

   So that is that. This week was crazy and exciting but uneventful really. I will have a ton more to talk about next week!! I love you!!

Elder Nelson!

September 19th, 2013

Andrew's New address:

Elder Andrew Nelson
2257 Heather Lane #A
Arcata, CA 95521

September 17th, 2013

Good morning! Sorry for all the confusion! I am sure you are all going nuts as to what is going on over here in my neck of the woods! But never fear! My email is here! 

     So The big news is that I will be getting transferred!! I received a call from President Alba early Friday Morning informing me that I will be heading up North to Eureka! I will be serving in the Arcata ward and I will also be serving as a Zone Leader. Hence the reason President called. So exciting stuff!! I will be leaving tomorrow morning so today is my last day here in lake county. I am really gonna miss this place but out of all my areas this will be the first one that i come back too. I have made some great friends here!! And I will miss Elder Morely as well. He is a stud!! He will be a great leader in this mission. So what they are doing here in clearlake is interesting. They are sending in two missionaries instead of one. So there will be a trio here! One of them will be a spanish Elder and the Other will be English. It will be a lopsided Zebra! (Spanish/English Companionship) The English elder that is coming in is Elder Blackhurst! If you dont remember he is the kid from grantsville. So that was funny to hear about. They have to send two elders to replace me because one wouldnt be enough...haha just kidding just kidding!! 

       So it has been kinda dissappointing that we didnt baptize this transfer...We have a ton of dates and the people want to get baptized they just have stupid problems like smoking or not being able to make it to church. We should have had three baptisms this transfer. it would have been good for elder morely to experience that. But he should have like nine baptisms this month otherwise i will be coming back down here to finish the dang job haha. Sometimes  you are the sower and sometimes you are the reaper...I guess I am really good at sowing because I always seem to get transferred before my seeds bear fruit...and I go to an area that is in desperate need of some seeds..we did baptize felice though..and that was worth the whole three transfers in itself. She has been a very solid addition to the ward and church!! I will miss her!! 

       But I am excited to leave. It seems that with each new transfer come new challenges to overcome, experiences to have, and opportunities to learn and grow. I always look forward to them. It has been funny because everyone that I have told about getting transferred has said oh boy well get ready for the rain and no sun. I am not looking forward to that at all...But we will be really close to the beach so I am pumped about that!! But other than that I dont know much. the trees are huge. We get to go through the avenue of the giants! And we get to go to the medford oregon temple next transfer so I will be able to hit every temple in our mission!! Sac, oakland, and medford! 

      So on facebook this week I have some cool stuff going on! I sent a message to Bro williams, my old seminary teacher and asked him for referrals and to ask all his student for referrals as well haha and that if they have questions or want to refer their friends they can message me on here! I also sent out over 154 messages to many of my member friends asking for referrals and the messages are still coming in with names to contact!! Do you know how long it would have taken me to ask for that many referrals without facebook?? Probably weeks. I sent those messages in under 20 minutes. The work you can accomplish online in two hours is incredible! I am hard pressed to contact all of the people!! It is crazy! But it is so fun. 

      Well that is my report for the week. Sorry it is short! I love you all and look forward to hearing from you this week! i got your messages greg and liesel! Thank you for those!! Love you!

Elder Nelson

Sept. 9th, 2013 If you have any referrals, facebook them to Elder Andrew nelson

Dear Family,

     Can you believe that it has already been almost another six weeks?? We find out transfer information on Friday...I dont even know what I have been doing the past six weeks!It has been a blur! 

    But anyways!! I hope you are all doing wonderful! Except I have to be stern for a second...Why in the world have I not heard one peep From Jenny, Greg, Liesel and, Dan about referrals?? For the past two weeks I have heard nothing but, Oh my brother gave me 20 referrals for people he taught on his mission, or oh yeah I messaged my return missionary friend and he gave me 16 people to contact online...It makes me sick that four of my greatest resources for referrals have not even messaged me back on facebook!! I know you get my emails so here it is you four again! Who do you know that I can contact and teach  Online?  Friends family, old investigators and less actives or people you baptized, Pray about it, go through your friends lists and let me know! I know you will have at least 5 names that I can contact, AT LEAST! I need all of your help to get this online stuff going. There is a lot of expectations on us to have big numbers and success.

     It was interesting to hear about your conversation with the fam about the online stuff.It  is funny to hear all of you chirping about how it is going it work and how we will coordinate and how will we do this and how will we do that. the funny thing is. It is still missionary work. it is what we have been doing forever it is now just moving online. And No one not even the apostles or missionary department knows really what is going to happen. that is why we are piloting the ipads. We are testing them essentially. 

   When we got our ipads it was funny because brother donaldson from the missionary department said something like this. he said, That normally when a decision comes up that needs to be made or an Idea that needs to be approved, the first presidency and the 12 talk about it and discuss it and then they see where everybody stands. but when the missionary department made the push for getting the ipads into the hands of missionaries (obviously there was previous discussion) but when it really came down to it, The missionary department was ready and waiting to buy the pads and send them to our mission, but they had to get approval from the brethren. So he said that when they brought it to the brethren that immediately L. Tom Perry stood up and said something like, lets just do it, lets embrace this whole heartedly and go for it! And then some others agreed and they voted and it passed with out any discussion!! that is totally slaughtered, i dont remember exactly what he said about it but the idea is correct. they just went for it. And now we in turn are just going for it. We are taking everything we have learned, along with our missionary purpose and going online to preach the gospel to the world! And every other mission that gets i pads is going to be learning from us. We are sending in feedback and bugs and ideas and success and failures and feature requests for the apps we can use, just this last week i sent three emails directly to the missionary headquarters regarding features I would like to have in the area book. And we can do that anytime. So we are all learning and we are doing missionary work and following the spirit! i wish I could spend a few hours writing about the miracles we are seeing especially in families. All missionaries with less active and non member families are having amazing experiences teaching those they love most and helping them come unto christ! Who better to teach a father than his son? Who better to teach a wayward friend than one of his friends? It is so cool. Just this week i taught a girl that i used to talk to every now and then on facebook. She lived in tooele. It was awesome! Were missionaries ever going to get a chance to find her and talk to her in utah?? Maybe. but she is Less active and hangs with a crowd that isnt likely to bring missionaries over. so would missionaries ever had a chance to talk to her and answer her questions? probably not. Interestingly enough she was one of the first people that came to my mind as i prayerfully reviewed my old facebook account friends list. (See what happens when you prayerfully review?) And I contacted her and we talked but then i asked her some questions regarding the church and found out she was less active and had three major concerns with the church. I helped her understand one of them, it was the famous question, "does God even exist?" She said i really helped her have more faith, and that was one lesson over chat. I asked her if she had ever asked these questions to anyone before for help to understand them and find answers and she said, Well i have never had anyone to talk to about it before, until now! 

You see? That is a miracle! We are reaching places that we never could have reached before and touching hearts that couldn't be touched before because we are contacting people (at least right now)  that we know and love and they are people that trust us and will open up to us! So it is awesome!! And of course we are asking everyone online for referrals and i think me and my comp got like 28 referrals online this last week? many of them in our area some from all over! I have sent messages to people all over! So yeah, it is legit. 

   Thank you for all the names by the way dad except contacting them will be interesting...

So I will be bummed to leave this place..We have like 9 baptismal dates set for this month..So yeah it should be interesting. I want to stay but i think it is probably time for me to go. i need to be shook up! I love this place though. it is my favorite area. I have grown to really love the people and the ward has changed so much since i have been here. The ward is totally behind us and wants to help us and is working with us and it is far from perfect but when i came in 4 and a half months ago, it was bad. It has come so far!! I will miss working with some of the members when i go. there are a couple families I really really love here. And that is always the hardest part of leaving. So hey i have to run something by you mom and dad. Next year in july when I get home, i dont know what will be going on but how would you feel about me coming pretty quickly back to clearlake to do some work for a family here? they would pay me good haha. anyways i thought that would be sweet but we will see i guess. It is a long ways a way yet! 

      I need to tell you that we found a family two weeks ago!! The jones family! We were leaving from an appointment and got in the car and then we were seeing where we were off to next and then some guy knocked on our car window. he was like hey i just moved here and i need a church to go to  and i saw you guys and something just told me , "Go to them! You need to talk to them!" So here I am! Can you help me get to church? haha it was awesome!! him his wife and his 13 year old son came to church on sunday. it was cool. they all have baptismal dates.

     So the work goes on. We are so blessed to live in this time. We are even more blessed to be apart of Gods Kingdom here on the earth. It truly is the way. I know Jesus Christ lives and that by and through him we will be Exalted in the highest heaven, Together, Forever, if we are faithful and endure. I cannot think of anything else better than being forever surrounded by those I love most  and I am eternally grateful for my savior for making that a very real possibility. I love each of you so much! 

    One of my most favorite talks ever says this,

No institution, plan, program, or system ever conceived by men has access to the redeeming and transforming power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, while the Lord’s invitation to follow Him is the highest of all, it is also achievable by everyone, not because we are able, but because He is, and because He can make us able too. “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind [everyone, living and dead] may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.” ²⁰

The Lord’s way is not hard. Life is hard, not the gospel. “There is an opposition in all things,” ²¹ everywhere, for everyone. Life is hard for all of us, but life is also simple. We have only two choices. ²² We can either follow the Lord and be endowed with His power and have peace, light, strength, knowledge, confidence, love, and joy, or we can go some other way, any other way, whatever other way, and go it alone—without His support, without His power, without guidance, in darkness, turmoil, doubt, grief, and despair. And I ask, which way is easier?

He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labo

r and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; … and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” ²³

Life is hard, but life is simple. Get on the path and never, ever give up. You never give up. You just keep on going. You don’t quit, and you will make it.

There is only one way to happiness and fulfillment. Jesus Christ is the Way. Every other way, any other way, whatever other way is foolishness.

I know that to be true!! ANY OTHER WAY is foolish. I know Jesus Christ lives!! I know this church is true!! 

Have a great week!! 

Love Elder Nelson

Golfing on P-Day with investigators and Elder Morley.