Jan. 24, 2011

¿Sabe qué? I may or may not have just completed 16 months in the mission and 14 months in Paraguay!!! Man that just flew right by! Oh and cambios!!! Alright, so la Hna Messina went up as sr. comp and went LEJOS!!!! She went out far to Villa Hayes and is with a latina! Ha she´ll do great and I´m gonna miss her, she is a guapa! So that leaves me y la hna Tuaóne! It´s great! We´re having a lot of fun! And we have made our theme for the year 2011 ¨Good Story¨ because life is just such a good story! And as we were talking about it, I was like yeah...that is so true. It is just how you look at things. And it´s just so much funner haha to have a good time and be happy and not worry or complain about the heat or the rain or the broken oven and stove and fridge and water haha, now it´s just a ´good story´. lol it´s great! Life is just full of good stories. And man the mission is just the best. I´m just loving it. And my blasted comp always reminds me how short my time is (not cool, but I totally remember doing that to Hna Case all the time) so we are just so pumped to find way cool people and have really good amazing spirtual lessons and be obedient and have fun and spread the gospel to everyone who will listen! It´s a blast. Oh and I got the card from the Tenneys! Super cute! Thank you! And don´t worry, it is still Christmas here in Ypacarai, we have all our decorations still up and they will stay up til I leave lol, so it´s great! Oh and it is official, I am coming home :( lol the Elder called me to verify my flight and told me I will be arriving home to the St. George Airport on April 15th at 4:30 p.m. algo así. I think that is just about perfect to go and eat some really good food... I´m just saying. Yeah so story time... we have this really cool investigator named Maicol (Michael) and he is from Brazil! Ha he doesn´t speak any spanish. He has been here for like 3 months or something and is living with a family who is also from Brazil and are here working, but they´ve been here for a long time so they speak both languages and Felipe, who is a recent convert. He was baptized in September and is just a stud and is preparing to go on his mission. Bueno, so we´ve had some really amazing lessons with him. It is just soo soo amazing to teach with the Spirit. Ah I love the mission' bueno, so Felipe pretty much translates, Maicol can understand mostly everything we say but just can´t respond very well in Spanish. It´s cool those because portugues is pretty similar and we can understand some of the stuff he says and we can have like normal conversations with him. Bueno, so it was really cool teaching about the Book of Mormon and the plan of Salvation and Felipe would just be teaching and sharing his testimony, yeah anyways it was super cool! And he came to an activity at the church and made some friends so that was way cool. And Juana, we are still working with her...oh that´s another good story. We´ll save that for after the mish but her baptism will be such a miracle and I´m really excited for her! Alright I gotta go, but I love yall. Pray to help us find more cool people! The church is true. God loves us. We have a living prophet. Man life is good. Love yall!
Hermanita Nelson

Jan. 17, 2011

Mbaé cha pa?? How´s everyone doing? Paraguay is great!! We should be getting our changes tonight, and I really don´t want to leave this area, pero vamos a ver que pasa. We actually had a special change this past Thursday and they took my daughter away from me! They called on Thursday night and we were like an hour away from our house and they told her she had about an hour to get home and pack her bags for like 5 or 6 days and that the elders would be picking her up. Because Hna G has been super super sick that past week, something really weird happen and they don´t know what she has but they hadn´t been working for like 5 days in their area and Hna G was staying at Pte house, so yeah Hna Messina should be coming back like tomorrow, but I have no idea. We had a pretty good week, found some new inactive families(about 30 new people... I´m not kidding) and handed out some letters for the future missionaries! We also found this really cute family, who are catholic but they are at least open to listening to us and with time they will realize how the gospel can answer all their questions and unite their family! So I´m excited to work with them!! Also, Juana went to church and she basically knows everything is true and I can tell she wants to get baptized and right now her husband is out of town, so she is going to church secretly but doesn´t want to get baptized unless her husband says she can. ANd we had a really good lesson with him when he was here and he said he would come to church, so I´m just praying that he keeps his word. ANd she wants to get baptized in the lake!! And that would be soo cool! ANd our recent convert, Gregorio would do it. Man that just spells out PERFECT!! I´m excited! Ha and I told her yesterday that I was going to be here for her baptism and she just smiled and was like I know you just have so much faith and she always tells me how she can tell I have the gift of discernment. Ha she is a character, ha so is Gregorio. I can´t wait to just sit there and tell yall all about these people. I love them! Man, the mission is soo good!!! Oh my goodness, AND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Emilio called me yesterday and told me he is about ready to turn in his papers!!! How cool is that??? And Manu just barely turned his in! I am so so excited for them. Emilio will complete a year as a member on Jan 30th and his mission papers will be in before that! And I´m just praying that their calls get here in time, and that I´m here still so I can go through the temple with them. Manu said the lady told him it could be like 8 weeks that he could get it, but normally it is about 3 months, and I know 2 guys that just barely got their papers and it took 4 and 5 months!! Man, can you imagine?!! So I am just hoping and praying that it all works out!! But that is just what makes it all worth it! Man, the gospel is so true. I just love it. I love yall so much and am so thankful for your love and support. Have a great week!

Jan. 10, 2011

Hola amiguis!!!! How is everyone?!! Today we had a zone activity and we went and hiked this cool hill ha and man it was sooo HOT!!! Ha and I got SOO sunburnt!!! My legs even got way sunburnt, but we got some cool pictures. And I am soo tired, I feel like my body is just breaking down here people. Ohhh and I got that like package you sent with the OREOS!!! Man those things are SO GOOD!! We opened it and ate them all right there!! Yummy!!! Ha it will be so weird walking into a grocery store on the snack and candy isle, I will be in like Heaven! Oh you know what else I realized this week...I think I will be home for Easter! Unless it´s a different day in the states. I`m kinda sad, because Easter is so much fun in Paraguay because they make a ton of CHIPA!!! LIke you already know the Elders called me today and asked what airport I wanted to fly into...que macanada! I dropped him the cane, and I was like I`m sorry I think you have the wrong hermana or something because I still have 3 months left! Ridiculous! And we have changes next week, o sea like the 18th. I figured I would just die here, which would be sweet, but my lil daughter just might move up with Tuaóne which would kick me right out, but I hope I stay here!! This past week was actually kinda sad because 2 of our investigators that were going to be baptized this week both fell :( One didn`t get permission from her father and the other one didn´t get permission from her husband. Ahhhh. So we talked with their family members and we had really really good lessons and the spirit was so strong but in the end they both said no. :( No da gusto. So that was really hard because they were like the cool people we have, but I know that they will get baptized someday and we were just helping them out on their journey. So this week we have a lot of finding to do! Ha finding is so much fun, you meet the funniest people. Ha the mission is the best. And also this week we focused on handing out the cards to all the potential missionaries.. I don`t know if I ever told yall about that. President gave us this list of 68 young men from the ages of 17-24 of muchachos that could be going on missions. The problem is that only 2 of those 68 are active, so we have this HUGE project to find all of these people and hand them out their letters personally, we can`t just drop it off with family members, so if they aren´t there we have to keep going back until they are there. And bueno, so we´ve been asking the ward members to help us because we don´t know who any of them are, and so now we know about 30...but they don´t know the rest of them. And this week we handed out 10 cards! We were so proud,and we found over 50 new menos activos. Incredible. But it was cool because you can tell that some really do have testimonies and want to go back to church they just need that support. And actually a couple went to church this past Sunday after years of not going. So I figure we´re still saving souls right? So poco a poco we are going to get these cards handed out, and hopefully in the meantime God will bless us with some really cool investigators as well. It´s crazy because most of these people live WAY FAR AWAY!!! Our area is SO HUGE, they could probably put like 4 pairs of missionaries and there would be so much work to do. So traveling to their houses has taken up a lot of time, because if there aren`t colectivos, we walk, ha and it is so hot. My body just sweats it´s amazing. Ha these are the best days of our lives! Ha and we still have no water pressure so we are still showering with buckets, gotta love it. This next week is going to be soo good,I already know! I love spreading the good news of the gospel. I keep just thinking about it and I´m like wow, this is such a blessing! Life really doesn´t get better than this... all I have to worry about is helping people come unto Christ. There is definetely heartbreak, but your love for the people and the gospel just grows and grows. You just feel like your heart is going to explode! Da gusto! I love yall! And I am so thankful for yalls examples and testimonies and support and love and emails and pictures and everything! Yall are the best! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermanita (Eldera) NelsON (ha just picture them trying to say nelson with a spanish accent)

Jan. 3, 2011 FELICIDADES!!

2011!!!!!!!! ¿Mbaè? ¿En serio? Man, this is going to be such a good year, I can just feel it!! 2011 just has a ring to it, right? Ha maybe just in Spanish, but I think it sounds pretty good in English too. Yeah, like mom said I am always excited for a new start too! And you know what justamente today I have exactly 100 days left. Crazy! Don`t worry, I`m not counting, it`s just my DyC countdown. But man it was so fun making metas (goals) and weird, it`s like I`m planning 2 different lives here. But man I just love Paraguay, life is so good. Ha and it is SO HOT here, I can`t believe it SNOWED in St. George- that is straight up snow! Those are some sweet pictures! Ha grandma wrote me how on new years eve they had some couples over to play cards and then at the end they all were done by 10:30 and went to bed, and she was like "I guess that`s just what happens when you get old" and then I wrote her back and said, "or if you`re a missionary"- because we had to be home at 7 because it gets a lil bit crazy here in Paraguay on New Years Eve and I was out by 8:30. Ha and I had so many good plans of what I was going to do, and boom I decided to write a lil bit in the journal on my bed, and the next thing I know, I hear the fireworks going off like crazy!!! So we woke up and went out on our balcony and screamed "Feliz Año Nuevo!" and all kinds of good stuff. Ha right around the corner from our house there`s this street and almost everyone is family or they`ve all lived there forever and are just really good friends and they were having a huge block party and were up all night long shooting off those fireworks... there were some pretty ones, but most of them sounded like gun shots- ha they are so loud, I`m serious! And you know how in the states like the adults shoot off the fireworks, here no... the adults are all sitting in their lawn chairs while the kids from 3-14 shoot off the firecrackers. I`m not joking about the 3 year olds. We have an investigator, Jessica, who has a lil boy who is soooo cute! And he is 3, bueno I think he just turned 4 and everytime we go over there he loves to throw the firecrackers at us. You can buy a lil box for a mil, like 25 cents and so that is what the kids do todos los dìas!!! Insane! Ha I love it, because it is sooo Paraguay! Aver...ok yesterday at church, SOO GOOD! We only had 2 investigators, but that is pretty dang good too, and we also had 61 in church! Which is amazing because we usually have like 30-35 ish so it`s pretty much like double! We were so happy! And it was funny because we found 10 random members during the week, like in just random spots and we were contacting and then found out they were members, ha we find so many every week, it`s like a game now. But it`s all good. There`s a lot of work and we are excited to help out this lil branch! It was just a really good week! I just love the mission, I can`t imagine not being a missionary. I`m not going to let them take the plaque off haha. I just keep learning and learning and my love for the gospel keeps growing. It`s great. The mission is the best. Cada dìa I realize a lil bit more, how amazing yall are -mi familia y mis amigos- mi gente luego. Just love yall! I love your letters and love and prayers. It really helps and I need them! Thanks for everything! Have a great week!!!