ODORPAL

Our Zone

a unique pic: elder bastian, elder tensmeyer, elder filoteo, elder molina, and me is one of two mtc companions and their "kids" in the mission. my kid is elder tensmeyer (far left) and elder bastians kids are elder filoteo (by me) and elder molina. pretty rare that you will find that in the same zone hahamy awesome agenda for this change! laminated with sweet pics of the slc temple and the fam.

Hey everyone how are things going? This week was a busy one for us. On Saturday, we had a mission conference up in La Serena. There is a new zone in the mission. It is Coquimbo. It is a district and had the missionaries there be part of the La Serena zone. Now there are more missionaries there and zone leaders. In the conference, we learned about the importance of time management and the importance of setting goals. Elder Millar and I taught three workshops. Two were on daily planning but focusing on different parts of it and the other one was about ODORPAL. If there is a problem, ODORPAL it! its actually a problem solving technique that can really be applied to just about anything, but really helps visualize what your goal is, what is stopping you from reaching your goal, and how you are going to accomplish it.. Each letter stands for the following...O ObjectiveD DateO ObstaclesR ResourcesP PlanA ActionL Leverage (Benefits)It works really well in figuring out how to help investigators progress by targetting what is impeding them from progressing. This week we had a neat experience in finding someone. We were doing contacts in this richer neighborhood that we had never been in and this younger girl came out. she was in probably her earlier 20´s and we thought that it was going to be one of those girls that tried to flirt and that we would just invite her to church or something but she was really interested in what we were saying. She invited us in and her dad was there so we went in. Her name is Ximena Perez and during the year she studies in Santiago and is going to be a veterinarian but during the summer, she is at her parent's home. She actually lived in New York (Albany) for 4 months a year or so ago and loved it there. Anyways, we had a great lesson about the Restoration and she knew where Palmyra, NY was which made it that much easier for her to picture what happened. She totally understood the need for a prophet in these latter days and that in order to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet, she would have to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. She gave the most sincere prayer at the end of the lesson. She prayed specifically to know if what we had said was true. Afterwards, we asked her how she felt. She said that she felt really good and that she believed that whatever we told her would be true. I immediately thought of a part of Preach my Gospel that we need to be prepared to teach the gospel in a way that the people can receive an answer from the Holy Ghost that we are messengers of God. It was a really neat moment for us. This week we have interviews with President Gillespie and his wife. Other than that it is just trying to get our investigators to progress.

Well everyone have a great week. chaoelder nelson

Tatiana Ceballos Baptism

Tatiana Ceballos baptism Jan. 16, 2010

Paintings of Ovalle

hey everyone how are things going? we had a great week this week that ended with an awesome saturday. We had the baptism of Tatiana Ceballos. I baptized her and Elder Millar confirmed her. She is so happy! We went by on sunday night to visit her and see how she was doing. She was so happy to see us and to learn more. It is so great to be able to see the changes that happen when people apply the Gospel in their lives. In the evening, Elder Millar and I taught a big training for the whole district of Ovalle. We invited all of the presidencies of every organization of all of the branches and introduced them to Preach my Gospel. We had 80 copies of the manual delivered from Santiago for the training. We made kind of a Jeopardy game that went along with different clips from the movies that the missionaries use for Preach my Gospel. It went really well.Today we have changes! President Gillespie called us yesterday morning to tell us our changes. Elder Millar and I are staying together for one more change here in Ovalle! YAY! Well that is about what is going on.We found an awesome investigator this week named David. His is 66 years old and listened to the missionaries like 8 years ago but said he wasnt ready to get baptized. His wife died 2 years ago and he has been really lonely. He told us that he doesnt like drinking or smoking and its so hard to find friends that have the same values as him. He also told us that he absolutely loves the book of Alma in the Book of Mormon. He is a "dry mormon" i guess you could say...all he needs is to go to church and get baptized. :)Hope everyone is doing okay up there in the cold. Eat an ice cream cone for me ;)Love you guys! Take care and have a great week! TTFN Elder Nelson

The very long bus ride to Vina!!!

Happy "21" Elder Millar!

Our zone last change

The other Elder Nelson in the mission

Me & Elder Allen with Pres. Nataniel Varas, his wife and parents (center) who are investigators.

Joaquin shares his new found love of M&M cookies with his buddy. Goodbye Elder Allen & yummy choripan

Hi Grandma & Grandpa Erickson...

this is me & Elder Allenbach, the Arnolds' grandson!

Aunt Becky, Uncle Art & Family...thank you so much for the Christmas pkg.

We made the cookies and shared them. Everyone loves them...especially Joaquin.

The M&M ones are his new favorite.

Hey everyone how are things going? This week was a good one for me. There were a lot of things that went on. Some of them planned and others that I never would have thought of happening.
On Wednesday, I was able to go to the branch Ovalle Norte and do interchanges with Elder Bastian. It was a pretty good time getting to be with my companion from the MTC.
So for the big event that happened this week…. On Thursday night, after getting home, we got all ready to go to Viña. Our bus left at one in the morning. I fell asleep within 15 minutes or so. I woke up around 2:30 and the bus was stopped. I didn’t really think anything of it and fell back asleep. Usually there are some random stops where the bus picks people up. Well about half an hour later, I woke back up to all of the lights on in the bus and the conductor started talking that the bus had broken down. We were roughly 4 hours from Viña. The guy told us that there was only one more bus that was going to be here in like 15 minutes that was going to Viña as well but it only had 7 open seats. There were three people on our bus that were going to other cities in the same route to Viña so they got those but then for the open 4 seats the conductor was going to talk to everyone to determine who could get the seats. Well as normal cultural fashion here, the people who threw the biggest fit and got off the bus got the seats. Everyone else that didn’t get that bus would have to get on to different buses going to Santiago and then from there take a bus that was headed to Viña. Well while waiting, I fell asleep again and around 5:30 we were woken up to say that it was our turn to catch the next bus that went by. We were in the last group to get on the other buses. We ended up getting to Santiago around 9:15am. The Zone Counsel that we were supposed to be at started at 8:30 in the morning. Luckily there was a bus leaving Santiago at 9:30am so we got onto that one and got to Viña at 11:30. On the way to Viña, there was a guy in the seat diagonally in front of us that was a little mental but was singing really highly like in opera. He hit notes that most women can’t even hit. He also did little comments on ads like he were a news director. It was kind of funny but after the first 15 minutes it was kind of annoying.
So after 10 ½ hours in buses and going through three regions of Chile, three different Missions of the Church, and on three different buses, we arrived to the conference just in time to do the practices of all the things that the other elders learned in the earlier hours. We then ate lunch (lasagna) and then had the normal wait until 8:00pm for our bus to Ovalle. We got to Ovalle at 1:30am and were in bed at 2:00am. In the 25 hour trip, we were in buses for over 16 ½ hours. It was funny when we called the assistant at 7:30 in the morning to tell him that we were on our way to Santiago. He was like “What!?!?!...What happened?” It was pretty funny. President Gillespie made a joke about it in the afternoon. He came in to the mission office around 6:00pm and saw us there and said, “What, last ones to get here and last ones to leave? Which way are you going to go home? Through Concepción?” haha Concepción is a city in the south about 8 hours from Viña. So yeah that was a different experience for us this weekend. We were pretty tired on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, Tatiana had her baptismal interview! She is going to get baptized on Saturday at 4:00pm. She asked me to baptize her. :) Later that evening, we are doing a big capacitating seminar with all of the ward counsels in the district and the district presidency as well as all the missionaries in the zone. It has to do with missionary work and how to work with the members. We have ordered 80 Preach My Gospel manuals so that the branches here can start getting to know it and understand how to have success in their own mission plans. We are making a big interactive jeopardy game that we are going to play as well as watch clips from the Preach my Gospel DVD’s. It should turn out really well. The leaders are pretty excited about it.
Well those are a few of the things that I have been up to this week. It really seems to have flown by. This week coming up is another dreaded month completing week. I am coming up on 17 months! Time flies too fast…..
Thanks to all for the letters and for the great Christmas packages! Take care everyone and have a great week!
Chao
Elder Nelson

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

ELder Nelson in cartoon

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!
Hey everyone how are things going? Well like all of the other weeks in this change, this week has been a busy one as well. We have had a good week in finding new investigators. On Saturday, we were looking for an inactive member but we found that the address didn’t exist so we knocked on the door closest to where the address would have been and a lady came out. She is probably in her 60´s but said that she didn’t any idea who the people were that we were looking for so we started talking about why we were here and asked her if we could come in to her home to share something with her. She said no, but then we asked if we could say a prayer with her and she said that it was fine. We went into the house and taught a bit about prayer, and after saying it, my companion asked if we could share something with her. She said that that would be fine. We shared a quick 15 minute lesson of the Restoration but it was in a different order than what we normally do. While sharing with her, I felt the impression to extend a baptismal invitation. She said yes! She said that she has been looking for the true church and from what we taught her in those short minutes, she thinks that she has found it. She wasn’t able to come to church yesterday but we are going by her house on Tuesday to see how her reading of the Book of Mormon went.
On Saturday evening, Elder Ehlert and his family came to Ovalle to say good bye to everyone. They also came to church the next day. Our Elder´s Quorum President asked Elder Ehlert’s dad if he wouldn’t mind sharing his testimony. Elder Ehlert translated for him. There was one thing that he said that I really liked. He shared a great testimony.
For New Year´s we didn’t have anything planned, but that night as we were going by to pick up my clothes, the sister in the branch who washed my clothes that week asked us what we were doing for new year’s and when we said just going back to the pension, she invited us to eat at their house. She made a really good meal. We were able to see the fireworks that they shot off from the plaza. We saw them from the window of our house. But that was our new years.
This morning I was listening to some General Conference and heard a talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks that I really liked.


Well I hope all is going well with everyone! Take care and have a great new year. Oh haha one funny thing, this past weekend, we were walking, and an old lady was walking with her great granddaughter. She was only 2 years old, but was licking and gumming a can of beer that was only ¾ empty…oh boy the things you see down here. Have a great week! Throw a snowball for me ;) Chao, Elder Nelson