Feb. 28, 2011

M´bae cha pa?!!! Bueno, to start off, FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS TY!!!!! 20 Years old!!! Oh man.... what a stud!!! I hope you have fun!! Second, EMILY IS A MARRIED WOMAN!!! Haha that´s crazy. Pero, FELICIDADES!!!! And this week we have changes!!! Mi ultimo cambio!!! I´m hoping I stay here with Hna Tuaóne, but anything could happen!! All I know, is that whoever I am with we are going to TEAR IT UP!!! There is a lot of crazy things happening around here, President just put a ton of new rules (one of them that we can´t have any more hermana activities :( which I´m really sad about because if we don´t have changes I won´t be able to say goodbye to Remache and that would be soooo sad. Ha I already tried to convince him to give us permission to see eachother but apparently he´s really serious about all this and he told me no, so what can you do?) He just wants everyone to be more obedient so we can have more exito. It´s kinda rough but he knows what he´s doing, so you got to just trust in him. We had a really awesome week this week! Oh and by the way, Ty´s experiences were so cool, that´s awesome how the Lord just prepares the way. We have these really cute investigators we have been working with... there is this cute lil family, bueno the dad doesn´t like it and doesn´t want to share with us, but the mom and her 4 lil boys are just the cutest things. We went to pass by for them yesterday for church and when we got there they were all ready to go and excited. And the boys just love us, it is so cute. The oldest is 10 and then 8, 6 and 2. They are adorable. We always do these really cute activities with them and it´s so fun. We drew maps of the plan of salvation with them last time and it was so adorable. And yesterday in church we had the most asistencia that we´ve had so far, which is awesome and we were really excited! All these menos activo families that we´ve been working with for awhile are starting to become activo otra vez. Ahh it is so cool and so rewarding when we see them walk in the church doors! Ha we always get so excited. Poco a poco. And the members love us, it´s so cute. Last night we had our lil meeting with our branch president and then his wife and one of the youth came out to talk to us, and they just randomly started talking about how greatful they are for us. It was really cute. They just love having elderas (hermanas haha) and it´s just cool that they say they have noticed a huge difference ever since we´ve came. I just feel really blessed to have been able to come here to good old Ypacarai. Ha it is so special. But it´s just exciting because I just know it´s going to keep on progressing and pretty soon they´ll have their own church. Man the mission is so rewarding. Ha we also climbed up a water tower this week, I thought I was going to die!!! I almost peed my pants when I was like half way up and I was so scared to keep going up, and I looked at the view and I almost just fell off. Man, Paraguay is beautiful!!! And por suerte I made it to the top and we got some cool pictures. You could see the lake and then just all the green of Paraguay and the sun was starting to set, it was sweet! Ohh that reminds me!!!! We went over to that part of our area because we recieved a couple references from a kid that´s from the states who apparently lived here for like a month like 3 years ago, but we ended up finding all the people up there and they just loved him and remember that he was such a good kid and that he didn´t drink beer or coffee and was just so nice and sweet. But his name is Shawn Reed I think, you could try to find him on facebook or Neil Reed and let them know we´ve contacted the people and that this week they will all have Books of Mormon!!! What a good story. Alrighty I gotta go!!! I love yall! Have a great week!

Love,
Hermanita Nelson

Feb. 21, 2011

FELIZ CUMPLE MI QUERIDA ABUELA!!!! Happy Birthday Grandma Olson!!!! Woot woot! I hope yall had so much fun celebrating! This week was SO MUCH better than last week, ahhhh. We had so many awesome lessons, it was a blast. We are just finding and teaching a ton and we have some cool people we are working with. The sad news of the week is that Hna G is going home this Wednesday :( She just keeps getting worse, she has some kind of bug, so they are sending her home a change early with Hna Tsosie who is also sick. Sad day. I´m really sad about it, but she is such a guapa and such an awesome missionary. Yeah so she called last night to let us know, so I quickly called President to organize a lil hna activity so we could all say bye to them. It was a lot of fun. I don´t have like any time to write though. But I love yall and thanks so much for the emails! And the pictures from Alisa and Angela´s blogs are ADORABLE. Man I have got the cutest sobrinos, I love it. It´ll be so fun to play with them! But I love yall so much, sorry I don´t have any time. Have a great week!!! I promise I´ll write more next week!! But just know I am happy and loving life and the mission and Paraguay. Life is sooo good and the gospel is sooo true!! Life doesn´t get better than that. Be good!

Love,

Hermanita Nelson

Happy Valentine's Day!!

**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Mom I about peed my pants reading that!!! That is HILARIOUS!!!! I´m serious, I just got so many weird looks, oh man I can just picture the whole thing. Hhahahaha pobrecito. hahaha good story mom. Oh man Emily had her shower, that´s cute, ah and Sarah Ott is engaged! Chulina, how´s the guy? Yeah do you know what day I´m doing my homecoming talk? Will it just be that next day? Oh by the way, I got my FLIGHT PLANS!!! Ahh man that is going to be the LONGEST day. I have to take 4 flights and then I have like a 3 hour layover in blasted Salt Lake lol. I fly most of the way with my peeps and I think one is coming with me to Salt Lake and then his parents will pick him up from there, but I´ll be chilling there all by myself, so sad. But yeah that would be so SWEET if they could come down for my homecoming, or if we could go up for Easter, I´m so down. Oh and let Monica and Michael know I got their card! I was so so excited! And I´m not writing a big email bc I don´t have time, but tell Tyler I love him and Happy Birthday! And I liked your quote of the day. It´s so true!!! With all these letters we are handing out to the future missionaries, we decide to start a lil mission prep class for them to study the scriptures and preach my gospel because they don´t have anything like that here. We´re really excited about it. We found a couple other boys that are excited and want to be active again and prepare to go. So cool. Love serving! This past week was actually way way hard and really sad, I´m glad it´s over, and we are starting a new week. We just heard so so many sad stories about peoples lives, last week more than ever and our investigator Juana that we´ve been workign with forever, her husband didn´t give her permission to get baptized, we even had the AP´s come out with us to try and convince him, but no. It was really sad. We are just hoping she´ll still be able to come to church and that one day she will be able to blessed with this baptism. Man you just learn so much in the mission. I almost just super guilty about all the blessings in my life that I have. I have so much and have been SOOOOO blessed and then hearing all those stories this week was just really hard, Peoples lives here are sooo hard, it´s incredible. We have so much. Ahhh. It was just so weird because this week more than any other week in my mission in almost every cita the people just let out their load and we just felt like pshychatrists (haha can´t spell that) but it´s just so crazy bc the answer is always the same. The love of the Savior. The Atonement of the Savior has such a healing power. It´s the gospel! The gospel can change your life and make you happy and help you feel peace and comfort ahhh and everything. We just must live it and trust in the Lord and pray to him and read his words and obey them, etc. Incredible. He loves us so much. Man, I am just so greatful for that knowledge. I love the gospel. And am always always always just so greatful for you and dad, seriously I don´t even know how to say it. Yall have done so much for us. Ha and I was never greatful, I never understood, and wow now I do, and I´ll spend the rest of my life thanking yall and trying to follow yalls examples. Love yall! Have a great week!

**This is her response from me telling her about getting locked out of the house and my adventures trying to get back in the house.

Feb. 7, 2011

Man, I just love Paraguay. Let´s talk about how all I do is eat...bueno right now it is MANGO season and GUAYAVA (look it up...bc I don´t think we have that in the states) and I love it! I love just picking fruit off the tree and just eating it. Ypacarai has a ton of fruit everywhere, so everyday I just pick some fruit off the treat and it´s such a good lil snack! Also, there are icecream stands everywhere! ANd it is so cheap and sooo good because it is soooo hot! So we have icecream just about everyday, also we have that sweet americanish restaurant with the amazing deserts of pecan pie with icecream, that we´ve been getting everyweek, and we just discovered a Burger King and McDonalds in our area (ha our area is HUGE, and we have this one really chu chi spot that all the rich people from Asuncion go during the summer time, because it is right on the lake and they open a summer BK and McD, it is sweet!) So yeah we went there again today, yummy yummy yummy. ANd man the work this week was so good. I´m not even talking good, I am talking sooo good. We pretty much just tore it up. Like I was telling mom, this week in companionship study we studied a full on el espíritu santo, the holy ghost, and every lesson was just so awesome. We really focused on having the spirit being the teacher and man, it just flowed. Ahh and I can´t remember if I told you about Claudelino, he is a joven that we found that got a card (the invitation to go on the mission) and it´s cool, because he really wants to prepare to go and yesterday he came to church again and brought his sister (who is not a member) who just moved in with them. And she is going to get baptized, bueno I can feel it! This week we have zone conference, the last one before I go home (weird) which means I have to give my final testimony, which is so lame because I still have more than 2 months! But it´s cool. Being a missionary is the best, and I just feel like this will be the end to another beginning. I can´t just stop being a missionary. Yeah, maybe I won´t have the plaque but there are so many ways we can be member missionaries to help "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men" because that is why we are here. Gotta love it. The mission has just opened my eyes in so many ways y como siempre digo, estoy muy muy muy agradecida por la oportunidad y privilegio que yo tengo para ser misionera y servir a mi Dios. No hay nada mejor en la vida. No hay nada que trae mas felicidad o gozo. Da gusto luego! Ha I love yall! Thanks for all your love and support, it means the world to me! Be good! Ok bueno, we´ll finish with a ´good story´ from this week, ha from today. So we were riding the colectivo home from BK and we got on and it was pretty darn crowded and my comp got a seat in the very front and I got a seat in the very back but we couldn´t really see eachother. And it was raining a full outside so you couldn´t really see anything. So we had talked earlier about how we were going to go and do internet after we ate, so that´s the plan, right? haha so the stop is coming up, so I push my way to the buzzer, and I buz it and the bus stops and I get out with about 4 people behind me and people were coming out the front as well. So I jump off and run under the shelter so I don´t get soaked and wait for my comp...but wait, she doesn´t bajar (get off) and the colectivo drives away. So I like start panicking and I´m like oh shoot maybe she got off a block before, bc I had pushed it a lil late, so I´m looking around and I don´t see her. And so I´m like alright well maybe she got stuck and couldn´t push her way through on time to get off, so the colectivo will probably pull over again in a sec and she´ll get off...uh nope. So here I am, panicking and getting SOAKING WET looking for my other half. Ha you have no idea how weird I felt, ALONE. I was so scared lol, it felt so wrong. So now I am honestly just drenched standing in this huge puddle trying to look down the street, thinking oh man she must have thought we were going to go home first (which is another 8 block walk) and I´m like about ready to pee my pants, because I´m going to have to walk 8 blocks all by myself, when finally I see her walking towards me in the distance (like 4 blocks down) with her lil umbrella, dry as can be haha. Yeah there was definately some miscommunication, she wasn´t really sure if we had decided to go do internet or what, and she had a testigo (jehovah´s witness) sitting right next to her asking all these questions, ha it was a really old lady, and she was going to try and get off earlier but the lady wouldn´t stop talking and then she started panciking bc she couldn´t see me anymore on the colective and the testigo was like what´s the matter? And she´s like I don´t see my comp, and the testigo is like, aren´t yall always supposed to be together? haha oh man, so she hurried up and jumped off the colectivo. Oh man that is a good story. Man, I am going to be so weird after the mish, I´m going to have to have someone at my side siempre! lol Bueno, time´s up! Love yall! Have a great week!

Eldera Hermanita Nelson

Jan. 31, 2011

Ahhh man, Ok I don´t have too much time! But this week was a lot of fun, we actually got lost like 3 different times this week and ended up in the middle of nowhere! We were trying to find some houses and it didn´t quite work out. We about died from heat, but we did end up finding one of the houses that we were looking for (one of the youth that had a letter/invitation to leave on the mission) and it´s been a really long time since he´s been, but we met him and have him some animo, and on Sunday he came!!! We are excited because he wants to find out more and reactivate himself and prepare for the mission. It was really cool. We also had a lot of inactive people come that we found this past week and who we´ve been visiting who haven´t been in months or years, so that was really cool. It´s crazy because the branch really does depend so much on the missionaries. But that´s cool, they are all new and learning, and we are just helping them to progress. It´s a lot of fun, they are all really good people. Investigators, no one came to church. We were really sad, that is our goal this week, to get people to church! It is so important. But we found a couple really new cool people that we are excited to work with. Also, we had another really cool lesson with Maicol. We were reading the Book of Mormon in guarani, portugues, y español. And it was really neat, the Spirit was so strong. I´m starting to get all emotional again haha. I remember at the beginning of my mission I was and then the middle I just kinda numbed out and now it is all coming back. Man, it´s just been manifested to me so many times how important this gospel is and how it can bless these people in their lives and how much they need it! Today we had our district meeting and an Elder shared a really cool analogy. He said alright, let´s say we have $1,000,000... what would you do for that? Just about anything right...claro. Ok let´s say we have $1,000,000,000, what would you do for that? Now let´s say, our Savior Jesus Christ. What would you do for him? Sad how sometimes we just put more value on worldly things. What would we do for our Savior? WHat would we sacrifice for Him? There´s always that one thing... that one thing, that we just hold on to and justify and tell ourselves it´s ok. What if we gave up that one thing, however big or small it is, what if we gave it up, so that we could allow ourselves to become closer to our Savior, and to be a better representative of Him? Man, I love this gospel. I feel that it is such a privilege and blessing that I have to be here serving my Heavenly Father in Paraguay. Life just doesn´t get better. Let us be better, sacrifice something more, so that we can be worthy of the blessings of God. Love yall!!!