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
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
