Happy New Year!

talking to the fam on Christmas Day!

Elder Ehlert (an assistant) and me

Christmas caroling at a children's home

more Christmas caroling...

a Christmas present from Elder Millar my comp!

our Charlie Brown Christmas tree and ZL presents

(sent to Elder Hale in our apartment)

Our Branch Christmas party....chicen & rice

Left to right: Elders Millar, me, Fernandez & Hale

Hey everyone how are things going? I hope that you all had a great Christmas. Mine was good. This week was full of events. On Wednesday, we got to wake up nice and early to go to La Serena for our Mission Conference. It was a very nice conference. There was one part where we all broke up into our zones and went around to different stations learning something new. The zone leaders were in charge of teaching the stations. The station that my comp and I had was called Enseñar al Encontrar or teaching to find. We taught people how they could establish a relation of trust and share a complete gospel lesson in less than 1 min and 30 seconds. It was pretty fun. We did three groups and each group took around 40 minutes and then we switched. There was also a Christmas program. I was asked to lead the congregation in singing a few Christmas hymns. President and Sister Gillespie gave us all a personal journal for Christmas. It has the mission logo on it. It’s really nice.
That evening we had our Branch Christmas Dinner. It was really good and there were a bunch of people that came. Good stuff. It was like the food that we eat every day haha; chicken, rice, and salads.
On Thursday, we had an activity as a zone. We went to a children’s home and sang Christmas songs and then gave them gifts. We had one elder dress up as Santa clause. It was a good time. That evening, we ate dinner with the Gonzalez family. They made a ton of food! It was really good.
On Friday we had a zone activity. Elder Millar and I went to the church early and started making breakfast. We made waffles and pancakes for everyone. It turns out that we are pretty awesome breakfast chefs. There was enough for everyone to get full. It took awhile to make enough waffles for 14 missionaries with only one waffle iron that made only one round one at a time. We then watched some videos on Preach my Gospel and then played soccer out on the court. It was a really fun activity. That evening we got to talk to our parents! It was really good to be able to talk to them and the rest of the family.
Well that is kind of what has been going on for me this week. I don’t have much time to explain other things that have been going on because they are all long stories….but I hope that everyone has a great new year! Take care! Chao!
Elder Nelson

Feliz Navidad!

Elders Fernandez, Hale, me & Millar

my childhood twin and little buddy: Christanobal Gonzalez.

I think he looks like me as a kid only with dark hair and eyes....

the week has been really good. i have had a lot to do. i closed two houses in the notary this week for other elders in the zone. we had interviews with president Gillespie on wednesday which were pretty sweet. they gave us all special water bottles from a special donar. they filter the water, and we also got another filter. purified water for 2 years! woo hoo! On saturday and sunday, we went christmas caroling around to the members and investigators in our branch. there were a lot of members that came with us and on sunday we were able to do it by car to get some of the others that live a little further out of the way. it was a really nice experience. this coming week we have our christmas conference in la serena on wednesday and the ward christmas dinner that night. on thursday, we are going to a little childrens home to sing christmas carols and give out presents. tatiana and camila arent going to be getting baptized on christmas :( they have to work that day and camila still isnt ready....we do get to talk to the families though in the evening! yay. that will be fun. Well we had a good lesson with Alex and Maribel. We talked about the blessings that we get from marraige and eternal marraige. They want to progress but its kind of a slow process with them. mainly with the dad and the word of wisdom. he told us though that even though he has only read the first 11 pages of the Book of Mormon, he knows that it is true. that was a neat experience. It was probably one of my favorite lessons i have been in.
well hope all is well at home, have a great Christmas everyone! love ya feliz navidad, elder nelson

A Warm & Sunny December in Ovalle

Hey family how are things going? It sounds like you all had a really busy week. I think that that goes for me too. This past week we had changes. I am now with Elder Millar. We get along really good and have had success this past week together even though we haven’t had that much time to work. We got full nights of sleep on Wednesday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night this week. All of the other times we were up till late doing something.
On Friday morning at 1:00am, we got on a bus heading to Viña for the Zone Counsel with all the zone leaders of the mission. It was a really cool conference that we had. It was in the Mission Home (where the Mission President lives). We went over some new things that are going to be introduced to all the other missionaries at our Christmas Conference on the 23rd. The conference got over at 4 in the afternoon. We finished the conference with an awesome lunch of chicken cordon bleu and a big brownie for desert. YUM!!!
This week we found a few new people to teach and we have appointments with them this coming week. We are going to be doing interchanges with the assistants on Tuesday and having interviews on Wednesday with President Gillespie.
Yesterday we had a really neat lesson with a couple investigators, Tatiana and Kamila. They are a mom and daughter that we have been teaching for some time now but yesterday they accepted baptismal dates for Christmas Day! So it looks like I might be able to have a white Christmas in Chile after all! :) We also had a lesson with Gerardo and Mireya. They are Presidente Nataniel Varas’ parents (our branch president).
Well that is what is going on for me right now…just staying really busy up here in Ovalle -in the nice heat of the sun ;)
Hope all goes well for you this week. We have a few activities planned for the week in the Branch for Christmas.
Take care! Chao
Elder Nelson

Staying in Ovalle Sur with Elder Millar

Stuff that kinda tastes like Cotton Candy....you buy it on the street.

Hey family,
How are things going? Everything is going good for me here in Ovalle. The weather really cooled down this weekend and it was down right lovely. haha. It only got up into the mid 80's. So the change day has come around again. Time has really flown by these fast few weeks. So it turns out that I am going to be staying in Ovalle Sur training another new zone leader and Elder Allen is headed down to Valparaíso to be zone leader there.

In the branch, we had lunch with Alex and Maribel on Saturday. The week that they came to church, they signed up to feed us. Afterwards, we watched Together Forever. They really liked it. It was a really fun time with their family. Their son, Joaquin, is so hilarious. He is only 7 but is just full of personality. He had a lot of really funny stories from school and with his classmates. On Sunday, Gerardo and Mireya came to church. They said that they really enjoyed it. I thought the meetings werent that great seeing that it was story time in sacrament meeting and there were 3 three year old triplets right in front of us that were totally out of control the whole time haha. At one point they were in a three way choke hold. It was hard not to laugh.
This week we changed pensions. We are going to now have 4 misisonaries in the Ovalle Sur Branch! We had been running all over town getting everything finalized and ready to go and got all moved in on Saturday.
Well tonight we have our last district meeting of the change and then we get to announce changes. Should be fun haha.
take care everyone and thanks for the letters. Love you tons, elder nelson

Blazin' Trails in Combarbalá & Strawberry Cheesecake for Thanksgiving

Hey family how are things going? Everything is going great for us down here. We had a week that went by really fast! On Thursday, it was thanksgiving for all of you but down here its kind of unheard of. Elder Allen and I decided to make some homemade strawberry-blueberry cheesecakes to celebrate the special day. We made them from scratch. Well Elder Allen crushed the cookies for the crust that is and I did the rest ;) haha. They ended up turning out DELICIOUS!!! I will send some pics.

We kept one and with the other one, we took to a family in our branch, the Vega Ibañez Family. The dad is in the District Presidency and the mom is the branch relief society president. They have three little daughters that are hilarious. They are just a downright awesome family but are really going through a financial struggle. The dad works out of town all week long and gets home for the weekend and the mom is a school teacher and takes care of the three girls at the same time. Between health problems of the girls and all of the church responsibilities, the hermana ibañez kind of had a mental breakdown from stress. Her husband was really worried about her and on Sunday asked us if we could just pass by a couple of times during the week to say hi and see how she was doing and if she needed anything from us. We passed by on Tuesday night and she wasnt doing that great and kind of told us what was going on...stress. So........we took her the cheesecake and she told us that it was a miracle for her that we would make her a cheesecake. One of her companions in the mission made one one time and she loved it. She asked us why we were giving it to her and we told her that it was thanksgiving. She asked us what exactly that day meant for us because she had heard some things but wasnt really sure. After telling her about the history of the holiday, she started crying. She was so grateful for what we did and later on in the week, told us that she absolutly loved it. It was a great thanksgiving for my companion and me.

The following day, Elder Allen and I went out to a little town about 2 and a half hours away from Ovalle called Combarbalá. It really is out in the middle of nowhere. We went there to see the possibilities of putting the church there. There hadnt been missionaries there for over a couple decades. The elders from Punitaqui, Elder Allenbach and Elder Clemence went with us too. They had talked to a few people on the bus going out to Punitaqui that were interested in the church so we went out to see what the deal was in Combarbalá. Turns out that it was an awesome trip. We got there and found the guy, Nelson, who is a black guy from the Dominican Republic and teaches english in his own institute. He studied in Harvard for a year and has a bunch of family in Boston and Miami. We didnt really have a plan of attack when we got out there so we decided to say a prayer and go do some contacts. Elder Allen and I had 2 hours to do contacts until we had to return and teach Nelson and his family. We started doing contacts in a neighborhood and got into the first three houses that we knocked, all of which had interest in the church and what we were teaching. A few of the people had family members or friends that were members in other cities and were very interested in learning more. The other elders ended up getting into 4 houses in the three hours that they did contacts. It was a really neat experience doing contacts where missionaries have never been. People really were interested in what 4 gringos were doing in there city. We got a lot of stares as we walked through the streets. It was pretty funny. So it turns out, that as we were teaching Nelson and his family, he pulls out a picture of his baptism and tells us that he was a member and got baptized 13 years ago in the Dominican Republic. He was interested in having the church out there and now we understood why. None of his family were members and he had a lot of friendships in the town. He teaches english to the mayor and is great friends with one of the town representatives. We sent a report to President Gillespie about the trip and the success we had so now we will see if the church spreads to Combarbalá.

On Saturday, we had a baptism! Ignacio Sanchez (26) got baptized. He was a member referral from November 1st and got baptized on the 28th of November. He was so excited for his special day and was really happy for the decision he made in his life. His friend that introduced him to the church and who invited him, baptized him. This week, the branch president, Presidente Varas’ parents accepted baptismal dates for Christmas Day or Christmas Eve! That will be so sweet if they keep progressing to be able to have a white christmas in chile! We have our work to do in order for that to happen though. It is crazy that there is only one week left in the change! It has gone by so fast! Things are really going great in the sector. Elder Allen and I are getting along really well. We started over on the Book of Mormon this week. I am about ready to finish 2 Nephi.
Well I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Take care this week and talk to you all next week!
Chao,
Elder Nelson

Have a Great Thanksgiving!

How are things going? This week went by really fast for me. On Wednesday we had interviews with President Gillespie and his wife. So president Gillespie commented on how he liked my tie haha. Elder Nelson, the assistant was like what!...he has never given me a tie complement nor heard one to anyone else haha. 2 points for elder nelson (me). They took us all day because we had to grade area books and be there until all the missionaries were done. Afterwards the assistants showed up and we did intercambios with them for the evening. On Friday we had our mission conference in La Serena. We talked a lot about extending baptismal invitations. It was really nice in Serena. It was easily 15 degrees cooler with a pleasant breeze. Ovalle was really hot when we got back.
On Wednesday in the morning I finished the Book of Mormon. I was able to finish it in one month, one week, and one day. It was a really neat experience for me. We started reading it again but this time we are marking anything that has to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, (faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, enduring to the end, and the atonement).
Yesterday, I had cow stomach soup…it wasn’t that bad but not the greatest thing in the world. Its really chewy and tastes like fat.
So the family that we found a couple weeks ago, Alex and Maribel and their 7 year old son, Joaquin, came to church yesterday!!!! They really liked it and when we asked Maribel, the mom, if Joaquin liked it or not, she said that he didn’t want to go home. It has been a great experience seeing this family grow. It was a neat way that we found them too. My comp and I decided to do contacts in this one neighborhood and we just started kind of wandering around and not stopping at any of the houses that we knew had people in…we got to this one house and yelled and out came a guy who immediately let us in to his house. We shared with him the message of the restoration. He said that he liked it and everything but he wasn’t about to go to church or change religions or anything like that. Well yesterday him and his family came to church and are going to come to the English class that we teach on Thursday nights in the church. They are absolutely awesome and it is truly a blessing to be able to see a family learn about the gospel. Its always a highlight of the day when we are able to go by and teach them. They are always so excited to see us. One of our investigators, Ignacio, passed his baptismal interview on Saturday and is going to be getting baptized this Saturday afternoon. He is pretty excited about it and so are we.
Well I hope all of you have a great Thanksgiving! Eat some turkey and rolls for me and try to keep Oscar from eating too much pumpkin pie haha. Love you guys. Take care.
Chao
Elder nelson

Here's a long lost video from the MTC that I happened to run across:

BIG Spiders!

Ovalle Sur sector
the same mexican restaurant i went to with elder tondevold and elder owen a bunch...so good.!!!!!

hey how are things going this week? things for us went really well. This week we started teaching our branch president's parents who areent members. they have listened to the missionaries before but were never really interested. It seems now that they really have an interest in progressing. They came to church yesterday as well as the branch president's sister and her family. We are going to start teaching them this saturday which should be sweet. Presidente Varas (the branch president) is so excited to see his family taking steps into the gospel. yesterday we had the primary program in church which is always a hoot. there were only like 6 kids who participated but there were still some funny moments.
this coming week, president gillespie is coming up on wednesday to do interviews. we will get to eat lunch with him as he does the interviews in our church. we are going to be eating with the district president it lookds like. on friday we have zone conference up in La Serena. Its been awhile since i have been up there!
so the spiders are starting to come around again and we have had some fun catching them and lighting them on fire...the people down here say thats how you have to get rid of them or if not, the eggs will hatch and there will be more. i was able to kill one that was streaking across the wall about to head behind a desk but nailed it with a rubber band which took off a few legs and ended life right there haha...we then took it outside and burned it.
the weather here is really getting hot. summer is definatly here in Ovalle. it gets nice when the sun goes down so we only have to bear the hear till about 7 when the sun starts setting.
The book of mormon reading is going well. I am almost done with 3 Nephi. it is like pure underlining as its Christ´s ministry. we have to be finished by friday morning...shouldnt be hard to finish by then.
well things are going great for me down here. I am loving it and we are really working great, elder allen and i. one of our investigators that is getting baptized on the 28th said he likes to play bball so on saturday we played. it was pretty fun. he was terrible but it was fun to get out and play a bit.
well that is pretty much what is going on for me here. we are teaching a lot right now and preparing a few people to get baptized here in the next few weeks. we should have a couple families of investigators in church next week which is exciting. Woo HOO.
well take care everyone. chao
elder nelson

We meet again...the Family Ochoa from Ovalle

Group Picture...Elder Ford and his mom (in front laughing)

An odd fruit here: chirimoya

Another beautiful Chilean Sunset!!!!

A mask here at the mission home

Hey everyone!
So this week was a very busy one. On Wednesday, I went and did interchanges out in Punitaqui. I had done them out there last year and about died of heat but this time it wasnt that bad. I was with elder Allenbach who is from Farmington. On Thursday night, well, at 1am Friday morning, Elder Allen and I left for Viña for Zone Counsel. We got to Viña at 5:30am. The bus ride was freezing! Viña was even colder! We had to wait until 8:30am to meet up with everyone, so we went to the zone leader´s pension in Viña to wait. The cousel was pretty fun actually. It was cool to see a bunch of friends in the mission that i rarely get to see. For lunch, we had some taco salad and strawberry shortcake for dessert. SO GOOD! Haha...perks of leaders from the USA. ;)
We got back from Viña on Saturday morning at 1am, so in all, the trip was 24 hours. On Satudray and Sunday we had district conference. President Gillespie came up for the Sunday meetings and Elder Jorge Zeballos (of the 70) came up for the whole thing. He is actually from Ovalle so loved coming back home. There were some great talks given. It seemed that the main focus of the Sunday session was missionary work. Hma. Gillespie spoke! She had everything written down of course but did really well. She had all of the missionaries stand up she said that these were the missionaries of the members here in Ovalle and gave a big thanks. There were a lot of people from Limarí there that were happy to see me. The old branch president there, Hno. Gutierrez was thrilled to see me. President and Sister Gillespie drove us to the pension to drop off a box of Books of Mormon. They came in for a little bit to see the pension and stuff. Good thing we cleaned up! ;)
In terms of the missionary work, we are getting ready to have a couple baptisms in the next couple weeks. One is a guy named Claudio Wilches. He is a husband and father of one son. We just started teaching the family so the idea is that he gets baptized whenever his family is ready, he baptizes them. The other baptism is a guy named Ignacio. He is 26 years old and showed up to church last week with his university professor who invited him to come. He loved it and accepted a baptismal date right away! It was pretty sweet! We are really excited for them!.
So how is the Book of Mormon reading going? (Just a little reminder) :) Hope all is good back home! Take care everyone! Chao Elder Nelson

Zone Leader in Ovalle Sur (south)

The four elders in our apartment in Achupullas
The Achupullas Zone

Elder Tondevold (left)visits us in Ovalle before he goes home

my new comp: Elder Allen

New Companion: Elder Allen

Hey everyone how are things going? Things are going great for me. This past week we had changes and I ended up leaving Gomez Carreño. I am now back up in Ovalle in the Branch called Ovalle Sur (south). My new companion is Elder Allen. He is from Lake Oswego, Oregon. The bus ride up here wasn’t all that great. We left at 8:00 pm from Viña and ended up arriving in Ovalle at 1:15 in the morning. The ride was SOOO hot! They didn’t have the air conditioning going and all the windows were closed. I asked them to turn the air on so they did for like 15 minutes and then turned it back off. I found that it is a lot cooler putting your head right next to the window. That’s the only way I survived haha. My first day here it was unusually hot for this time of year. It got up to like 98 degrees!!!! It was unreal. All the rest of this week it has been enjoyable in the lower and mid 80’s.
This week has been a really fun one and I truly enjoy being here. I have already seen many people that I already knew from this branch as well as a few from Limarí. This coming weekend, we have district conference with all of the districts in Ovalle. Elder Jorge Zeballos of the 70 will be here as well as President Gillespie. Elder Zeballos is actually from Ovalle so that will be kind of cool.
Elder Ford, one of the assistants in the past, just finished his mission this past change. He finished here in Ovalle Sur and the people here had a going away party for him. His family came down to get him and none of them know Spanish so during lunch that day and during the party that night we served as translators for them. They really enjoyed getting to see some of Elder Ford’s converts and people from this branch. Elder Tondevold came up to Ovalle on Thursday morning with his family so I got to meet them as well. They are really enjoying their time in Chile. It is crazy to think that Elder Tondevold is out of here now….
Elder Allen and I really had success this week as our first week together. It really feels great having a companion that knows how to do everything instead of having to worry about everything that has to be done. We get along really well (even though he is a Blazer fan). We were able to find a family this week that invited us in to their house. We taught them about how the gospel blesses families. They had been having family problems or something but told us how grateful they were for the time that we spent sharing with them. They accepted another appointment so we will see how things go. We are teaching a lot of people and are expecting to have a few baptisms this coming month.
Really there is a lot going on here and I don’t know where to start. I did receive my package which was great! The jam is AWESOME!!! Thanks :) really enjoyed the great American Halloween candy as well. On Halloween here, there were little kids who came by the pension in the night. Good thing I bought a bag of candy. When one group of kids came up to the gate, my comp and I asked them what they were seeing that they were all dressed up and one of the kids said, “Chilenos”. Haha it was pretty funny. I wasn’t expecting that answer.
So I am now serving in downtown Ovalle. The main city is all flat and then it kind of goes up onto a hill and that is where all of the other sectors are. Our sector is really big and we find ourselves taking colectivos 2 or 3 times a day but I absolutely love it here! It feels so great to be back in Ovalle. Our branch is awesome and our Branch President is really focused on missionary work which is good.
Well that is what is going on for me. I have walked into an area that has things going on which feels great. We are filling our “fuente” of investigators as well which is helping us stay busy teaching.
Hope all is well at home. Take care and say hi to everyone for me :) chao Elder Nelson

Back to Ovalle and a family challenge!

A cool roadsign for Dad.
the best chilean dish...CHORRILLANA
The Bishop's wife and his daughter

Hey everyone how are things going? Things are going great down here. Well I have now finished my 9th change in the mission. This week we put three baptismal dates down in our ward. (they are no longer called sectors in the mission. They are wards or branches.) Last night I found out that I am going back up to Ovalle! I will now be in Ovalle Sur. I am soooo excited! I will be with Elder Allen. He is from Oregon and has one change more than me. He was the other district leader when i was in Belloto. He is a cool kid. He actually played on the same basketball team as Kevin Love in high school. He went to Lake Oswego High.

Well family, I would like to extend a challenge, that you read the Book of Mormon either individually or as a family (or both) before me getting home in 9 ½ months. I know that through daily reading and studing the Book of Mormon we will be able to strenghten our testimonies of the Gospel. I really hope that you can accept this challange to strengthen your testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Know that I will be completing with another goal to be reading it multiple times before I go home. I hope you all have great experiences in reading. Let me know how things go. :) Take care everyone and talk to you next week.

Goodbye! Elder Tondevold

Goodbye and Good Luck to an awesome companion! elder tondevold and me sportin' our Everton soccer jersies.
Ordering TELEPIZZA in elder tondevolds last week in the mission

Elder T and me at the internet cafe....

Dennis the Menace meets Mr. Wilson in Chile

When I was little, my parents always called me

Dennis the Menace.

A "Mr. Wilson look alike" came to church on Sunday....

I couldn't resist taking this picture. Sail boats out on the ocean in Vina
I teach the Ficher family how to make
American french toast... and they love it too!
Who's cookin' now?
The cutest baby ever....

baby Michael and his dad a new convert Daniel (far right)

The chilean national team

The Chilean national team beat Ecuador on wed. my comp is from Ecuador. he gets a lot of crap from ward members. viña also has a professional soccer team called everton. this is their 100 year mark. its the mission soccer team....sweet!

Good afternoon everyone!

so things down here in Chile are starting to really warm up. actually last week it was overcast and even cold at points but today its nice and hot. This week we had really good success in finding new investigators which in the past has been really difficult. We found a couple families. One is an older couple that are friends with our bishop and his wife. We went with the wife and visited with them and taught them about the importance of the gospel for the family. The older lady was crying. They were really grateful for the visit. They were going to come to church but had family come from the south. We are still busy in the finding process.
It is crazy to think that this is the last week of this change. It sure has flown by. Things are going great, i am loving my time down here. Hope all is going well back home. Take care Con amor, Elder Nelson

My Testimony

Well while thinking about the General Conference this past week and how the themes were how we should be as well as love for others, i came across 2 Nephi 2 which is an account of what Lehi says to his son Jacob. He talks about how there is opposition in all things. We need to experience the bad to be able to realize the good. I started thinking about how that has been applied in my life and what the mission does for me to help me grow. One of the things that I realized that the opposition and pain of being away from my family has really helped me realize the importance of the family and the joy that comes from being near to the ones that are important. Dont think that i am getting “trunky” or am sad....on the contrary i absolutly love being in the mission. It has really helped me get a view on what is important in life. Through this opposition though that i am experiencing though I hope that all of you take advantage of the blessing of having family nearby.
To my family, I want to say that I love you; each one of you. I am so grateful for the support that you are to me everyday of my mission. I know that there are prayers being asked to help me in my mission, but know that there are prayers for all of you everyday as well. I dont think I would be here without the constant guidance of my parents and immediate family. I am eternally grateful for their example and the love that they have showed to me in the past in their prescence and also including the love I feel so far away. I just wanted to say thank you for all you have done for me during this past year that i have spent here in Chile as well as for my entire mission. Thank you for your love, letters, prayers, and of course the pictures.
I know that The Church of Jesus Chirst of Latter-Day Saints is true and that we have a prophet of God here on the earth today, whose name is Thomas S. Monson; what a blessing it is for us. I know that he is called and chosen to help us in our lives. He as well as his counselors and the twelve apostles receive the revelation to help us be successful in our lives in both spiritual and temporal matters. All we need to do is listen and obey and we will be blessed. I have seen the truthfulness of that in my life and even more here serving among the Chilean people. I love this work and love seeing the changes the gospel makes in peoples’ lives. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that it was translated by the prophet Joseph Smith, who saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. We will all be better off in live by abiding by its precepts.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Reading the Book of Mormon in 6 weeks!!

Elder Miranda and our matching ties...I love the sunsets here!

Hey family how are things going? Well this week has been a better week for me. I am enjoying the nice warm weather that is now arriving. This past week we found a couple of new people to teach. One is named Silvia. She is around 60 years old and is really cool. She really enjoys us coming over and teaching her. We also were doing contacts one day, Thursday, and knocked this one house at the very end of our sector. This guy came out and we started talking. His name is Luis. He told us that he had read the Book of Mormon and that he still thinks about the words in his head but is now Evangelical. We started talking about the promise in the Book of Mormon about reading, pondering, and praying. I asked if we could come in and share a little more about it. He said yeah. We taught him the Restoration. It was a really good lesson. He went to the United States for a few days for business but will be back later this week.

On Friday we had a mission conference in Viña. We are really focusing on the importance of the Book of Mormon as the companion of the Holy Ghost in the conversion process. We were all given a special task to complete in the next 6 weeks. We need to read the Book of Mormon in our native language and mark every name or reference to Jesus Christ as well as marking all of his words that he says or that his prophets say quoting him. It is a really neat way of reading the Book of Mormon.

hey well i gotta get going. love you tons and talk to you next week :) take care and say hi to everyone for me. thanks for the great chat.

Ups and Downs

Viña at night

me & Jose

My ties....all packed and ready to go from the last transfer

Hey everyone.
SO this week was full of ups and downs. Especially with our main investigator, Gladys. We had a lesson on Wednesday, while i was on interchanges with Elder Tondevold. She flat out has a lot of doubts and is nervous about what her family thinks. She was pretty embarassed talking about things with us because she said we were the same age as her kids. she feels like she needs some time to think about everything. Gladys told us to pass by in a month.....how depressing. The only thing that helped me get over it was the great general conference that we had. How AWESOME!!!! I loved every talk especially the talks on Saturday. I was able to get some really good notes but just cant wait for the ensign to come out to be able to study them again. I have never really felt that way about a general conference but just about every talk was a powerhouse talk that really left an impression. It was also pretty sweet to hear that Concepcion, Chile is getting another temple. That will really help the people in the south be able to get to the temple easier.
Things are going good down here as well as the weather. Its getting nice and warm now during the day. Last night however, was pretty cold in the evening when the sun went down. The change is now half over. Things are really starting to fly by. Time being the first. This friday, we have a mission conference in Viña. I am looking forward to that. Should be a good one.
Well hope all is going well at home. Take care and love you all tons! Chao, Elder Nelson

Healthy = Happy!
Lunch with the President and his wife...only a few were invited.
My new favorite juice...awesome juice I discovered...mixed with milk =YUM!!!

Hello it's me....Jaren on the web cam at the internet cafe today.

Hello everyone.

My time is a little short today so my letter will be short too. This week we've been making shakes...i am also addicted to these shakes in the morning! so good! fruit, yogurt, milk, yum!!!! i am into bananas and strawberries now. i bought like 4 pounds of strawberries the other day and washed, cut and froze them so i am good to go every morning. makes the shake a lot better when they are cold too.....they went good.. we got invited to go eat with this one guy today. he lived in one of elder tondevolds old sectors but now lives in the zone. he is a chef. woo hoo!

Things this week went alright. we had interviews with the pres and hermana gillespie on friday. me and my comp are getting along a lot better. while in viña this morning this one guy stopped me and was talking in english. he asked me where i was from. i told him idaho and he was all ..OH SH**! haha he said it like 5 times. he had lived in new york. he was all...so you are from the corn state huh? i said no...that would be nebraska haha. it was kinda funny. i laughed whenever he cursed...he said it so funny. crazy dude.

Have a nice week, Love Elder Nelson