Black List and my last General Conference in Chile

My new scriptures covers...a birthday present carbonated apple juice they make in Ovalle
see last line....made in Ovalle

hey how are things going this morning?
I had a good week this week. It was full of interchanges with other missionaries. On Wednesday, we did interchanges with the elders that are in Olmué. It is a pretty little country town about 45 minutes away from Villa Alemana. Elder Hyer from Homedale, Idaho came to be with me in Villa Alemana. He is in his first change and was actually delayed in coming down here one week because of the earthquake that happened a month ago. It was fun to see what it was like in those first weeks of trying to understand what everyone is saying and then trying to teach. He did a good job and got us into a house on a contact. that was pretty cool.
Later on in the week, on Saturday, I went out to Limache to do intercambios with Elder Sigarán. He is from El Salvador and got to the mission field the same day that I did. Elder Tondevold was his trainer actually. We had a really good day out there and were able to teach quite a few lessons. In the evening, we took some french fries home and enjoyed them with the ranch dressing that I had made the day before. It was soooo good haha.
On Sunday, Elder Reid and Elder Haymore, the assitants, came to church with us and then we did interchanges with them afterwards. During lunch, we found out that the family's son is in the states and works in the MTC and that he was Elder Reid's teacher in the MTC. That was pretty cool to find out. We found a new investigator named Manuel. He is a father of 3 and is actually a bus driver for people going to the Santiago Temple. He let us come in a explain a bit about the Book of Mormon. He accepted it and said he was going to read and pray about it.
During the day, Elder Reid told me that we were now on the black list in the mission office. (We came to Chile together and will be going home together as well). The black list is for the missionaries who will be needing plane tickets in the near future. AHH! That was a weird thought and feeling when he told me that...
Well I hope all of you take advantage of General Conference this weekend. I am pretty excited for it. Sadly its the last one of my mission....
have a great week everyone!

Autumn in Villa alemana

Some dogs belonging to the place we live:

Negra, Pinta, Blanca and little Sarnita.

Scenes from the metro on the way to Limache

Some grafiti of COLO COLO (soccer team)

Hey family how are things going? This week went by really fast. On Friday, we had a mission conference in Villa Alemana for the zones in the interior of the mission. The interior zones are (starting with the zones closest to the ocean) Quilpué, El Belloto, Villa Alemana Oeste, Villa Alemana, Quillota. We talked about the efficiency of teaching and what we can do to better our skills as missionaries. Elder Rojas and I taught workshops on extending commitments and what to do when people say yes and accept the commitment and when they say no and dont accept the commitment. We also taught one on teaching with unity where we worked on teaching an effective lesson but switching off every minute in the teaching.
This week we started teaching someone named Leonardo. His girlfriend is an inactive member and they have two kids. We didnt know that they werent married but they told us on Thursday that they werent married after we taught them the Plan of Salvation. They asked us if that were a problem in being able to become an eternal family. We told them that a family has to start from somewhere to be able to grow and receive the blessings that God has waiting for us. They told us that they were going to go down the the Registro Civil to look at days to get married. This family was really shaken up by the earthquake. They were living in San Antonio, Chile at the time and were on the 3rd floor of an apartment builing when the earthquake hit. It made Leonardo and Ines (his girlfriend) really realize what was important in life, the family. Leonardo asked what he has to do to get baptized so that he can have an eternal family. They had all the intentions in the world to go to church yesterday but some problems came up and he had to go back to San Antonio for some stuff and then to work for the week. He said that he was going to come back every Sunday so that he could go to church and listen to us in the afternoon before having to go back. He really wants to apply the Gospel in his life which is really cool to see.
We also had a family home evening with the Rojas family in the ward. They invited a few of their neighbors to watch the Restoration. It went really well and the son, who is like 25 really is interested in the Restoration of the Gospel. We gave him a Book of Mormon and brother Rojas is going to talk with him to set up another appointment seeing that they work together.
Daniela and Thiare are going to be getting baptized on the 10th of April. There were a few problems with the Word of Wisdom but we are now working towards this new goal. We had stake conference yesterday and Daniela went and really enjoyed it.
Well that is basically what is going on here in Villa Alemana. My companion and I are now getting up early in the mornings to go running to the church and we play some basketball for a bit and then run back to the pension to get ready for the day. Its dark here now in the mornings but the church has lights outside for the basketball court! Woo hoo!!!! Haha
Well hope everyone had a great weekend and happy late birthday Grandma Erickson! Just so you know, i did remember and thought about you yesterday :)
Have a great week and enjoy the spring weather!
Chao,
Elder Nelson

Villa Alemana and my new comp Elder Rojas

My new companion Elder Rojas

Hey everyone! How are things going up there? Things are going well down here. Last Monday night I caught the 1:00am bus to Viña and waited there from 5:30 until 8:00 in the bus station. I got to Villa Alemana around 11:30 or so after waiting around in the office for a couple hours for other missionaries to arrive. The ward is really cool and big. There are well over 100 that go to church. We live on the same property as a couple member families. They have 4 dogs that are always happy to greet us. Elder Rojas is my new companion. We are getting along good. We should be having a couple baptisms next weekend. The weather is starting to show autumn here. This past week wasn’t very hot at all. So something funny that happened; last night, the power went out in all of Chile! We were having a meeting at that time, around 9:00pm and the lights flickered for a few seconds, and then black. We went outside and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The sky was absolutely full of stars. There is like a big splash of stars that basically splits the sky in two as if someone were to take a paintbrush and make a big stroke through the middle of the paper. It was really cool. Well my time is about up so better wrap this up. Take care everyone! Chao -Elder Nelson

Goodbye Ovalle...my old stompin' grounds!

¡¡¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS JENI!!! The big 19!

First of all, ¡¡¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS JENI!!! The big 19! woo hoo...thats how old i was when i got to Chile haha. Things have gone well for us this week. Elder Millar and I went to Viña for zone counsel on Thursday. It was interesting to see the effects of the earthquake in Viña. There were some buildings that had heavy damage done to them as well as the bridge that we crossed early in the morning to get to the mission office. Two nice apartment buildings in front of the office had to be evacuated because of foundation problems and have to come down.
In the counsel, we had to do it on Thursday because President Gillespie's cook's son was getting sealed the next day and you cant have a zone counsel without great American food! haha. We had sloppy joe's, potato salad, and vegetables with ranch dressing!
For dessert, we had fudge ripple ice cream with whipped cream! i had forgotten what whip cream tasted like. The earthquake was pretty strong in the mission home. The piano had actually tipped over. There wasn't any damage done though. In the office, about everything was on the ground except for the pictures of Jesus. None of them had fallen which was kind of weird. Almost all the other pictures had fallen. President Gillespie read off our changes right there which was pretty cool. I am going to Villa Alemana to be companions with Elder Rojas, a chilean from Santiago. Nothing happened to his family which was nice to hear. The earthquake really hit the country hard and everyone feels down about it. We are working as normal missionaries as the damage wasn't that bad at all but it is now a good opportunity to talk to people as their hearts have been softened by this natural disaster.
Some sad news, Eduardo told us yesterday that his sister passed away in the earthquake. She lived in Santiago and the house collapsed. They weren't that close but it was still sad to hear.
Yesterday we had a special conference where President Monson, Elder Bednar, Sister Cheryl Lant, and Elder Bradley Foster spoke via satellite to all of the people in Chile. It was pretty good.
Well that is what is going on for me right now... oh! I finished the Book of Mormon this past week. Gotta finish it a couple more times before the end ha. well have a great one!
Chao
Elder Nelson

A SHAKY ONE!!! & Eduardo's Baptism

Hey everyone how are things going?
Well this past week sure has been a shaky one! As you all know, Chile was hit by a big earthquake early Saturday morning. We were sleeping and around 3:30am, were awoken to the whole house shaking. It was strangely quiet because with the little earthquakes (temblors) it is usually louder but it was a longer one that was stronger than usual. I looked outside to see all of the cables shaking a lot and of course heard all of the dogs howling up a storm. We were really too tired to realize what was going on and fell back to sleep. In the morning we received phone calls from the mission office asking how things were up here and telling us that things were pretty bad down south. Later on in the day, we saw that the real problems were in Concepción and Santiago. Viña got a bit of it but up here in the 4th region, there werent any problems.

Eduardo's Baptism and Elder Millar

Lucky for us, we were still able to have Eduardo's baptism that evening. It was such a perfect baptismal service. The branch president, President Varas, baptized him. It was the best baptism I have seen. Pres. Varas later told us that as Eduardo was coming up out of the water, he already had his eyes open and as he came out, he started to cry and gave pres. Varas a hug and said that he felt so good and was never going to forget how he felt in that moment. Elder Millar and I sang in the baptismal service. We sang "There is Sunshine in my Soul Today" only it was in spanish and without piano. I guess it sounded really good. I had no idea because i cant hear myself when i sing. It is Eduardo's absolute favorite song! He loves it! He actually started singing it under his breath with us as we were singing. I played the opening and closing hymns on the piano as well.

We were supossed to have changes today but they are being delayed until next week of the end of this week. The airport in Santiago is still closed so the new missionaries cant get into the country. We will have to see how things go.

Thank you to those of you who have us, the missionaries, and the Chilean people in your prayers. Have a great week!
Elder Nelson

Update

Hello all!
We were so lucky....Jaren called around 5:15pm Saturday night to assure us that all is well. They got shook up but no damages to their apartment and they are fine. The city of Ovalle had a little damage but no reported injuries or death.
Thank you all for your love and concern....We love you all!

Update from President Gillespie
On Saturday morning, February 27th, at 3:35am, our missionaries were forcefully shaken awake by a powerful earthquake. Lasting for over 1 1/2 minutes, the rocking and rumbling finally subsided. Although much was in disarray, we were deeply grateful that within two hours we were able to contact each of our 190 missionaries and find them safe and unharmed. For several days that followed, most went without power and without water service for a significant amount of time. We quickly realized the miracle that had occurred a few months earlier when boxes of water bottles from an anonymous donor arrived at the mission office. Each of our missionaries had the opportunity to begin using these bottles, which purify water as it is consumed. Even though the water supply & quality were uncertain, we were assured that our missionaries would have pure water to drink at all times. The timing was not a coincidence......but a wonderful miracle. We feel the presence of the Lord and His watchful care constantly.