Welcome Home!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
2:40 pm Delta Flight 4898 from Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls was right on time!

Mom gets the first hug...of course!!!Our countdown chain finally came to an end.The faithful dogs still remembered him! Ah! an ice-cold American rootbeer waiting...First family dinner

Texas Road House in Idaho Falls Nelson golf-foursome
Jentry, me, Grandpa & Dad
Ah! Summertime...driving the boat
fun with friends and the fam at Lagoon
mission friends reunite....
Sean, Robert, Eric & Jaren

dinner at Sean's in Sandy, Utah

8-27-10

Well, as you can imagine the home coming was spectacular. We could hardly wait til he came through the airport doors. Thank-you for your love and support and for coming to his blog and taking this wonderful journey with us the past 2 years. We are so thankful for his opportunity to serve, for his mission presidents, companions and the wonderful Chilean people, but especially for his safe return.

Love Always,

The Nelson's

CHAO

well the time has come to write the last letter home. i don't know what to say about these past two years. they have gone by really fast but at the same time its been long enough to forget really what went on before the mission. Thanks for coming to my blog the past couple of years and sharing my mission experience with me.....
This week has been a good one for me. We had a Family Home Evening with the Parada family and they invited some of their neighbors to come and participate. We had decided earlier to do a lesson on prayer and to make "prayer rocks" to help remind us to say our prayers. There were no good rocks to be found in our area that would be paint-able so we went to the nearest little neighborhood shop and bought 14 potatoes to wash and paint (and later on, to eat). It was a really fun activity and was entertaining to see the daughter of the neighbor completely soak her potato in orange paint.

What can you expect from a three year old and a tube of paint? At the end of the family home evening, Claudia, the neighbor, asked us what she had to do so that we could go to her house to teach her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We set an appointment for Friday and went with Sister Parada. It was a special lesson that we shared and Claudia expressed her desire to have a change in her life and in her family. She wants more peace and love. After teaching the lesson, she was excited to set a time for her family to hear us as well. We are going back on Tuesday.
This week we had interviews with President and Sister Gillespie. As we were walking down from our pension to catch the bus they drove right by us and pulled over to give us a ride. While waiting for the light to change to cross the road, i was looking at their van to see where they had pulled off of the road when all of the sudden a bus mirror flies by a few inches from my face. It scared me and i jumped back but man that would have been bad. Hermana Gillespie saw it and asked if the bus had almost hit me. my interview was basically a "how ya doin....talk to you in two weeks for you final interview" chat.
Yesterday I was asked to give a talk in church 20 minutes before the meeting started. It was easy because it was on missionary work. I feel so much more comfortable speaking in Spanish though instead of English. I am working on my homecoming talk and while practicing it, its hard to deliver a good message without sounding like a dork. I received a phone call from the mission office this week informing me that my final interview with President Gillespie is on Sunday evening at 7:30pm.

District BBQ on Monday: elders nelson, owen, saldivar, and pitcher and hermanas russell and argueta

My Testimony
Being my last week in the mission and the last letter home, I would like to leave you with my testimony of the truthfulness of this work that has engulfed my life for these past two years. Being able to study and teach the Gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ has helped me to understand its purpose and how it really helps us to be happier in all aspects and times of our life (on this side of the veil and on the other). It is not a complex scheme but is a perfect plan that our Father in Heaven has created for us to fulfill his desires for us, that is to have immortality and eternal life. The Gospel is beautifully simple and simply beautiful. It is based on the principle of obedience. When we obey, we are blessed. When we disobey, we are not. I have a grown love for the living prophets and apostles on the earth today. I see the time to hear and listen and learn from them as a great opportunity for they are God's mouthpieces here on the earth today. What a blessing. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and truly leads all mankind closer to God if they will read and apply its teachings. I have seen that promise fulfilled in my life and see its effects everyday. I know that this is the only true church on the face of the earth and that the authority to act in God's name is within that organization. Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Without Him, the perfect plan would have no affect on us. He paid the price for my sins. I must follow him to be cleansed. I have grown to understand the power and importance of prayer and fasting and know that they are blessings in my life. I know that God has given me a family to help me know the name of Christ and to help me to prepare myself for when I also am given a family to raise and teach. My time in Chile has helped me gain a love and respect for many people who also have helped me strengthen my beliefs and testimony.
Thank you to all who have helped make this experience in my life such a special and life changing one. From now on in my life it will be a "before the mission" or "after the mission" way to remember things. It is truly a marker in my life.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. -Elder Jaren E. Nelson

Empanadas!

last night i learned how to make cheese empanadas.....get ready to eat when i come home haha....here are pics

Antonia Parada helps meAntonia & Elder Saldivar Lita Parada our teacher....
Carlos is already a pro Look what I made!

hey family how are things going? things are going really well for us here in Los Aromos. It is now August and the weather shows it. Its cold and rains often now. We had a really good week that finished with 5 people coming to church. All of the Gonzalez Vega family came except the dad as well as another lady in the ward and a friend that the Parada Family invited. We are teaching Margarita Vega and she accepted a baptismal date for the 28th of August. We are really excited about that. She is going to be the way to help her family accept the Gospel. She loves participating in things and is anxiously waiting for tomorrow afternoon to be able to go to relief society.

Cleaning rust off of a fence for Hermana Zamora

This week we had the opportunity of doing service. We helped install a few cabinets in a house and also helped a lady prepare ground for planting corn. The funnest service was scraping rust off a fence for a lady in our ward. We used power tools so it was easy.

There are many families excited to do family home evenings with their neighbors and after a special fast and testimony meeting yesterday, many came up to us to tell us they were going to be giving us a call during the week to set something up.
Something funny that happened yesterday was during the closing hymn in sacrament meeting. we have a lady who can barely see and who is really old that conducts the music and I was playing. The closing hymn was Called to Serve and the introduction is a little different. It goes right into the song but the sister conducting didn't catch that at all so i started the song and nobody was singing so i went into the intro again. finishing the intro this time i put more emphasize on the triplet but again nobody caught it....the third time around people finally got it but it made me look dumb in front of people who don't understand music as they thought i didn't know how to play the introduction......haha
well we are hanging in there with everything still and getting things going here again. We have a really important week ahead of us. have a great week everyone! love you elder nelson

Arriving home at our pension a spider that literally made me shout as i was organizing my suitcase it was inside on the first aid kit that i picked up....it died a painful, chemical death..... villa hermosa from the end of canal chacao