Amigo Loco en Chile

Welcome Home!

2010-08-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-08-04T20:24:00.000-07:00

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

Zaida goes to the Temple and The "Bell-Lap"

2010-07-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Zaida's baptism one year ago

Zaida goes to the Temple - July 24, 2010

Santiago, Chile Temple

We had a special notice on Friday night around 10:30 that my convert from Estero Viejo in El Belloto was going to the temple with the ward and we were invited to go with them. It was a really special experience to be able to go to the temple again and be able to see one of the people I found there as well. Zaida told me that she hasnt missed going to church since she was baptized and that it was the third time that she had gone to the temple. Before she had gone alone to do baptisms in the temple. It was awesome to be able to see her progress. The bishop, Hno. Muñoz, and his family also went and it was fun to be able to catch up with them. Hma. Muñoz was the person who accompanied Zaida through the temple. We ran into other friends while at the temple.

Pablo and Hermano Miranda from Limarí

Hermana Honores
(my first mamita in the mission when I was in Limarí)

For lunch, Elder Saldivar and I went to a grocery store to find an ATM and ran into some elders from the Santiago East mission who were shopping for groceries. We asked them if they knew where any american restaurants were close by. They told us that about 10 minutes away there was a McDonald's and a Pizza Hut. We went to both :) haha. It was the first time that I had had McDonald's in almost 2 years...since before I started the mission. It was so good!!!

Last Tuesday, we started a mini mission with some of the priests from the stake of Quilpué. I was assigned to be with a 17 year old from the ward of Quilpué Centro named Gabriel Ortiz. We got along really well and had a good time working together. There was another who went with my companion, Elder Saldivar, so that made four of us in the same pension. We were able to get more done with both companionships working the our branch. The mini mission ended on Thursday in the evening. During our time, Gabriel memorized "Our Purpose" as a missionary and helped teach principles of lessons and talked with a bunch of people in the street and in their houses.

mini mission. my comp Gabriel Ortiz
from the quilpué centro ward
me, Gabriel, Alvaro from Marga Marga & Saldivar

On Friday, we had my last mission conference. It was really weird to be the group to give the going home testimonies. There were so many of us (22) that they had to split us up into three groups throughout the conference to give our testimonies so that it wasnt an hour straight of listening to testimonies. I was the last one to go in the second group. We were asked to share a two minute experience that "tipifies" our mission and then share our testimony for another minute. Turns out that out of all 22 of us, I was the only one that got emotional during my experience and testimony. It started right off the bat too. I decided to talk about the logo of the mission that says "convertir familias" or convert families and how wonderful it is to see a man kneel down with his wife and children to ask God for the first time in their lives to bless their family and to help them to know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored. That has been the biggest blessing that I have seen during my mission and was able to see it a lot with the Urrutia Family. I know that the mission has helped me to know what I want for my family and even more, I now know how to get it through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was interesting to hear in the conference that the structure of the mission will be changing. There will no longer be conferences every month and interviews every change (6 weeks) but both will occur every 3 months. We were also the last group of missionaries that are going to be able to give a going home testimony. There is also a new way of teaching that will be starting in May 2011 that will help missionaries teach to the needs of the people. We are starting it now to be able to be ready and used to the system for when the new missionaries come in from the MTC next spring. We were also given new cell phones that allow all of us to be able to call investigators and members of the ward as well as other missionaries. In the past only the zone leaders had their phones open to call other people that werent missionaries. That will be so nice now in Los Aromos. It was hard for me to get used to not having a phone to call people when I got here. After the conference was over, President called those who were leaving into a room and asked us if we knew what happened in the last lap of a race, or what the lap was called. Someone said, "bell-lap." President Gillespie then talked about how the runners in the race run even faster when they hear the bell because they know that the race is coming to a close. As he said that, he pulled out from his suit pocket a little bag full of little bells. He told us that we were now in our own "bell-lap" and that now was the time to "run faster" than we have so that we finish "the race" strong. I have the bell attached to my backpack to let me remember that message every step I take. All of my mission companions still in Chile
(except Davila & Miranda who are in the North) Saldivar, Tensmeyer, Allenbach, Millar & Watkins

Yesterday, (Sunday), we had lunch with the Parada Family. They made a whole bunch of grilled chicken that was really good. On Monday night, the grandma, who when I first got here was kind of against us and isnt a member of the church, asked us for a health blessing and told my companion during a family home evening that he had with them during the mini mission that the only reason that she has for why she doesnt get baptized is because she cant stop smoking. In the afternoon we went to Marga Marga, where Elder Owen and Elder Pitcher are, to do a baptismal interview.
It turned out to be a really busy week and we were able to see progress in the branch. The Gonzalez Vega family is all better now and the mom and youngest daughter came to church yesterday and they signed up to give us lunch on Tuesday and then have a lesson in the evening. The mom asked us to forgive them for not being able to see us for the past month but that they were going to "ponerse las pilas" and have us come over more often now. Thank you to those of you who have had this family in your prayers. :)
Well that is about it for this week. Have a great week and talk to you all in August (next week).
Chao-- Elder Jaren E. Nelson

Winter in Chile and my last mission conference

2010-07-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Elders David, Diaz, Pleytéz, Saldivar, me, Owen

hey family how are things going? this week was a good week and we were able to accomplish a few more things than the week before. This weekend we did interchanges with the zone leaders, Elder Owen and Elder Pitcher. I went with Elder Owen and we stayed in Los Aromos. We had a lot of success on Saturday. We were able to find a few new people to teach. We ate lunch with our branch president, President Nuñez. On sunday, we had a special stake conference in Quilpué and Elder Nuñez, and area 70 came and spoke to us. He spoke for about 45 minutes on traditions that need to be changed in the church....and especially in the stake of Quilpué. He talked about how the Bishop is in charge firstly, of the youth. for adults, they should first go to the elders quorum pres, high priest group leader, or the relief society president. he also spoke about the importance of serving others and looking for oportunities to do so. callings in the church at some point come to an end and by releasing someone, was it for doing a great job and moving aside for someone else to learn, or was it so that someone else would do the job that was supposed to get done. He spoke on the importance of the mother and of his own mother in his life. In the evening, we had a family home evening with the Erices family. They had invited their inlaws to join us. We talked about the blessing it is to have on prophet on the earth today. This week will be full of activities. We are going to do a mini mission with some youth from the stake. We are going to be their companions for 2 days. On friday we are going to have my last mission conference. It is going to be with all of the south......22 of us will be giving our final testimonies.....The weather here is just flat out cold. It has been down to 46 degrees inside our house when i wake up in the morning. luckily i stay nice and warm at night haha.well have a great week everyone and have an awesome PIONEER DAY!!!!!! Happy birthday mom!!!!!!!! have a great one! love you all love,elder nelson

My Going Home Instructions

2010-07-13T09:02:00.000-07:00

Elder Owen presents me with my going home instructions.

Lots of mixed feelings.

Pia Parada turns 4! Happy Birthday Pia!A bad windstorm blows

this chain onto power lines-

hey everyone howa are things going?

this was a pretty slow week but we are getting things coordinated with the branch to do more family home evenings this week. On tuesday, we had a crazy rain and wind storm that lasted about all day. one funny thing was we decided to visit an older lady in the ward that we did service for once last change. we never go by her house and felt that we should go by around 12:30 in the afternoon. as we got there she opened the door and told us to come in, getting out of the rain and wind that was steadily increasing. As we entered the house, we noticed that she had to places set at the table for us to eat. I looked at my companion with a confused look on my face and noticed that he was giving me the same look of confusion. Hermana Teresa then told us that she was expecting us for lunch that day. According to her, on sunday, she had spoken with the sister in charge of our lunch schedule and told her that she was going to give lunch to the missionaries on the 6th. we didnt know what to do because we had lunch planned with another family at 1:30. Hermana Teresa told us to sit down so we did but we told her that we were both getting over colds and could only eat smaller portions (yes, we were both getting over colds at the time). Turns out that she had stopped giving lunch to the missionaries awhile ago but decided to sign up again. Luckliy for us, while in her house, the rain and wind was so strong that we couldnt even hear Hernana Teresa talking to us. We were glad to be indoors during that part of the storm. We felt bad that the hermana had gone to all that trouble to make us a nice lunch but at the same time we were grateful that we went by her house to see how she was doing. It would have really hurt her feelings if we hadnt shown up to eat. She is 85 and her memory isnt really in top shape anymore. It was rough trying to down the second lunch an hour later but we both succeeded in doing so. We didnt want to even see or think of food afterwards though...haha it was a funny experience i should say...
tomorrow, july 13, i hit 23 months in the mission. wow. this week we had a really spiritual lesson on the sacrament with an older lady. It really strengthened my testimony about the importance of going to church every week to renew our covanant that we made with Him. I received my going home envelope that requires me to make a 5 year plan for my life. one of the categories is "la búsqueda" or the search (for that special someone) haha. there are 5 time boxes: 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years. in the search, the boxes with 3 and 5 years are crossed out haha....i also need to write a final letter to President Gillespie explaining what the most gratifying thing about serving a mission has been for me. we are visiting different organizations each week in church. last week we visited the relief society and shared a scripture with them about the importance of the mother and thanked them for all that they did for us. yesterday we sang the mission hymn in the priesthood opening. well the gonzalez family is still sick but it looks like and we are praying that we will be able to teach them this week sometime. it really is a patience tester for me but with lots of faith and prayers, we will be able to prepare the family without even teaching them. Well everyone have a great week.

chaíto-- Elder Jaren E. Nelson

Last Change #15

2010-07-07T13:41:00.001-07:00

Ricky the Yorkie
Villa Hermosa

hey family how are things going?
this week was a bit slower than last week. there werent that many things that happened. The gonzalez family is still sick and can't leave their house. We just hope that they dont lose the desire to listen to us afterwards. We are praying for them. Other than that, we are looking for people to teach. On Friday night, we had a ward talent show. It was a fun time. for the organization of missionary work, we did a skit. others sang songs, did skits, played an instrument, and other stuff. Well this is my first week of my last change in the mission. its weird to think that i am the oldest one in the mission now...its even more weird- even scary- to think what comes "next change". I will receive my change this evening. today we are going to play soccer with other missionaries in the zone.
Well I hope eveyone had a great weekend and a happy 4th of July. people in the ward here told me happy independence day. love you all. have a great one! chao-- Elder Jaren E. Nelson

Sweet Week

2010-06-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful fall sunrise in Chile.
Elder Tondevold's Sister-in-law "to be" doing study abroad. She visited our branch.
Good-bye! Elder Gulbrandson

Hey everyone how are things going?

First of all, Happy Big 50 DAD! wow you are getting old. "te estaí poniendo viejo" as they would say here.

also, happy 4th of July!!!! Let freedom ring!

This week was a really great week for us. It went by really fast and was absolutely full of events. On Wednesday, I went on interchanges with Elder Owen. It was really fun to go with him. We go home together. It was cloudy in the morning but later on in the day it started to rain and by the night time it was pouring. luckily i grabbed my emergency umbrella but still by the end of the day, i was absolutely soaked. to get home we had to walk through the center of Quilpué which was just pure rivers instead of streets. there are no draining systems here. my shoes are still wet from it. luckily i have another pair to use.
On Thursday, we had a mission conference of the Interior. It was a really good conference and focused on the importance of establishing trust with our ward where we are serving.

During the conference, President talked about the World Cup and said that he realizes that we are humans and that this is a special moment in sports history and the whole country stops when the team is playing so he gave us permission to watch the game on Friday against Spain. We watched it with our ward mission leader and the family that we are working with in the branch. They live across the street from them. We lost 1-2 but it was cool to be able to watch the game. Chile classified for the next round but have to face Brazil.

Later that night, we had a lesson with the whole Gonzalez Vega Family and were finally able to teach Juan, the dad. We went over the message of the Restoration and invited the family to get baptized. The dad without hesitation said yes and turned to his wife and asked, "and you?" It was so special to see them have the desire to better the relationship and love in their family. The daughters also accepted. They have a baptismal date for the 24 of July!!!!! woo hoo!!!!!! It was such a special lesson and I was even choked up after sharing the first vision. We invited them to go to a baptism in another ward in Quilpué to see how it was on

Saturday. They went with our ward mission leader and loved it.

On Saturday, we had the privilege of going to the Temple in Santiago. It was such an amazing experience and was so much more meaningful for me after teaching gospel principles for the past year and a half. Hopefully that is the longest time I go without going to the Temple in my life. It is something so necessary.
On Sunday, something unique happened. We arrived at church early in the morning and after getting everything all ready for the meetings, the power went out, including the heating. Right before the meeting i was asked along with my companion to speak. My companion went first and I went second. I decided to share my conversion story and why I was here in the mission. Why, I have no idea, but right from the get-go I was emotional. I talked about the importance and great power of the examples that i have had in my life and in my family and also the importance of doing the small and simple things in life like seminary, scouts, mutual, going to church, and things like that. It was a special moment in my life and left many people teary-eyed. I was thanked by many after the meeting for sharing my story.
Well it really was a special week for us and hopefully this week is just as good to finish out the change. I cant believe how fast it has gone by! Have a great weekend everyone and eat some watermelon for me! haha. chaíto
elder nelson

June 28, 2010

2010-06-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

50 Days left!!!

My new bed...no more sleeping in a "U" Yeah!

2010-06-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

My Old BedAh! I love you new mattress!!
I am so happy! It's so nice and flat and doesn't dip in the middle? And it is just waiting to give me a good nite's sleep!

hey everyone how are things going?
this week has been a very wet one. the chilean winter is here as just about everyday of the past week had rain. It finally cleared up on Saturday afternoon which brought in clear skies and cold temperatures. Things went pretty slow but we have some good things going on for this week. The gonzalez vega family that went to church last week was gone for the whole weekend but said that we could come by whenever this week to teach them so we will be starting teaching them tonight. Chile has now won two world cup games and the whole country is in an uproar of excitement. They just beat Switzerland this morning 1-0 and everyone is driving around with flags and honking their horns.
Well that is about all that has gone on this week. Happy late fathers day to all you dads out there haha. have a great week and talk to you next week. take care
elder nelson

Backwards MTC time...9 weeks left

2010-06-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

Quilpue

New Merengue flavored Oreos here
My plaque

hey good morning how are things going?

Well yesterday i hit my 22 month mark. Its really weird that I have the same time left that it takes to go through the MTC...9 weeks. Elder Saldivar and I get along really well and are enjoying our time together. Last night he got his first experience of strong Chilean rainstorms as it dumped on us for a good few hours. Luckily we were inside for the family home evening and were driven back home. even though we were outside for only a minute or so, we still got pretty wet. Today its a bit overcast and they are calling for more rain tomorrow but we will see.

things are going good here. Last night we had a neat experience. We planned a family home evening with our ward mission leader and another family that are members. They invited a family that lives in between them to come. Well by inviting them to the family home evening, they went to church in the morning and in the evening to the family home evening. they told us that they were looking for a change in their lives and loved it in the church. They felt really comfortable there and their kids liked it too. They have two daughters ages 15 and 9. The one that is 9 loved primary and the other was sick and didnt go. It truely is a blessing to have a family to teach here. I know that God does answer prayers and that there is a great special power in fasting. The Gonzalez family has been well taken in to the branch and it will be really fun watching them progress in the Gospel. We also received a reference from Villa Alemana where I was last change. It was for a 14 year old girl that wants to get baptized. Her name is Tatiana. We taught her and her mom on Saturday night.

We are pumping up the branch and trying to get them excited to share the Gospel with their friends, relatives, and neighbors. We are having family home evenings with the families of the branch. We try to have at least 3 or 4 planned each week. It has given us good results so far.

Earlier in the week we had interviews with President and Hermana Gillespie. President Gillespie told me about how important the ability to focus is. He told me a story about when Rush Limbaugh went golfing with Tiger Woods and was just amazed at how nervous he (Rush) was at playing with so many people watching him but on the other hand, watching Tiger just be able to close everything out and focus on the job at hand helped him to have the success that he wanted. We need to do that too in our lives at whatever thing we are focusing on. He told Elder Owen, a missionary that has the same time as me that we need to "Choose to be young again (in the mission)." That will give us the same fire that we need to keep going and finishing strong.

I was also able to go on intercambios with Elder Pleytéz, my zone leader from Honduras. He lives in the Tegucigalpa mission where Jonny Roberts served. We had a good day and were able to find a lady to teach that listened to the missionaries awhile ago. Her name is Lidia.

Well everyone have a great week! Love you all!

"From apples to grapes, from grapes to cherry"

2010-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

Sunset in Quilpue

Hey everyone how are things going? Things are starting to get going here in Los Aromos. We found a 20 year old kid named Javier that used to go with his friend in Viña to church there and was really receptive to us. He actually came to church with us on Sunday. We had a good lesson with Maria Morlas, a lady that we are teaching that is looking for the fullness of the gospel basically.
This week I did intercambios with Elder David in Paso Hondo. It was fun doing intercambios with him. I saw him when he got to the mission and was in my zone in Ovalle in his second change. Now he is training and its fun seeing his progress. He is a good missionary and a diligent worker. We decided to invite people to hear us sing a hymn for them and we got into three houses that day.
Last night we had a special meeting with all of the ward mission leaders of the Quilpué stake, us, and President Gillespie. It was to talk about the new program that we are starting to help the missionary work in each ward progress faster. It was pretty good. Right after that, we had a Family Home Evening with the Cubillos family. They are an awesome family in the branch. He is the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency. They are relatively new to the branch. They have been here around a year. It was really fun. Elder Saldivar taught the lesson on the importance and blessings of reading the scriptures daily. We then had some games. One game was everyone picked a fruit and while covering your teeth with your lips, you had to say " from apple to grapes", "from grapes to cherry" but if you showed your teeth you were out. Its really hard because you want to laugh and it makes your face tired after a little bit. The family invited a member of the church that had recently moved to the neighborhood. She was baptized about a year ago in Juan Fernandez Island. She hasn't gone to church for quite a while. It was fun getting to know her too. The Cubillos family has a son serving in the Bolivia Santa Cruz mission. Right now he is actually learning Portuguese because he is right on the border of Brazil.
Well that is what is going on here with me. Have a great week everyone and talk to you next week.
elder nelson

Urrutia Family & Giovanni Baptism

2010-06-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ward mission leader- Esteban Vargas, Elder Allenbach, Giovanni, me

Elder Allenbach, Giovanni, the Urrutia Family & me

hey family how are things going?

this was a week full of different feelings and experiences. First of all, I was able to go to the baptism of the Urrutia family and Giovanni decided that he actually did want to get baptized in the end. :) I baptized the mom, Aliette and the daughter Valentina. It was really special seeing all of them in white. We took a bus that was driving so slow that we showed up 15 minutes late and everyone was waiting for us. we actually ended up getting off the bus and taking another one because of how slow it was going. the service was a good one and it was nice to see everyone including my old companion, Elder Allenbach.
Well now I am in Los Aromos, Quilpué. My new companion's name is Elder Saldivar. He is from San Luis, Mexico. He is in his 4th change and hit 5 months in the mission today. When I got to the new area, the first thing I noticed was the giant hill that I now belong to. We didnt have much of anything going on but last night we were able to set a baptismal date with someone that went to church yesterday. Her name is Julia Thayer. She is 62 and lives with her daughter. She is really looking for something in her life to help her have more happiness. We are focusing on the blessings that the gift of the Holy Ghost gives. She has progressed a lot this week. The branch is considerably smaller than my last ward in Villa Alemana. There were like 60 people attending and they had me play for Sacrament Meeting.
One of the highlights of the week was going to Viña for a special conference with Elder Jensen of the Presidency of the 70. Elder Nuñez, an area authority came with him. Elder Jensen basically taught the whole time about the importance of creating an environment where the Spirit can teach the people. We can do this by preparing ourselves to have the Spirit, sing hymns, and that kind of stuff. We need to help others recognize that people knew this plan that we teach even before they came to the earth. we need to wake the spirit that is within them. elder nuñez in the end bore his testimony about how when he had 22 months in the mission and was with a younger missionary, he read in Alma 29 where it says, "O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!" That really shows the change that Alma had during his mission. He spoke about how he also desired to have that same feeling. He committed himself to talking to everyone and working as hard as he could so that he could be more like Alma. He also said that in those 2 months, he was changed as a person and in those 2 months, he changed the way the rest of his life would be. His words really impacted me as I find myself in his same shoes.
I know that this Gospel is true and that it is the only road to eternal happiness. I have had the blessing to be able to see what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does to a family starting from ground zero. What a blessing. I know this Church is true and we have a living prophet today.
Have a great Memorial Day everyone!
Con amor,
Elder Nelson

transfer....Quilpué with Elder Saldivar

2010-05-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

My new comp Elder Saldivar from Mexico

my ward mission leader esteban vargas and his family. the vargas muñoz family Raspberry Kuchen...soooooooooo goooood!!!
An awesome pastry shop here in Villa Alemena

hey family how are things going? i dont have much time at all today but thanks to those that wrote. so i am starting my 15th change this week. I will be going to the city of Quilpué. Its inbetween Viña and Villa Alemana. My new branch is called Los Aromos. Both Elder Tondevold and Elder Allenbach have been there. My new companion is Elder Saldivar i think is how its spelled. He is from Mexico and i relatively new in the mission. This past week we had a great mission conference in Quilpué. Elder Allenbach and I played our duet there and people loved it. All of the Urrutia family passed their baptismal interviews as well as Giovanni. I will be leaving the ward but am going to be here for the baptism on saturday. Well things are going great and this week should be really special. We are having a special mission conference with Elder Jay Jensen from the 70. The whole south is going to viña for it.
Last night we went by the Urrutia family to see how we were doing and they are so excited for their baptisms. They are participating in the ward activities and loving it. The mom, Aliette, told us last night thank you for everything. She said that we found them at the perfect time in their lives and that they have been truely blessed in their lives for knowing the gospel in their lives. They are really interested in the temple and want to go there some day to be sealed. It is moments like that one that make the mission what it is. The gospel truely changes the lives of people for the better.
Well i gotta get going. I love you all. Take care and have a great week.
chao
Elder Nelson

The Throw Down!!!!

2010-05-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

elder Allenbach

A beautiful PINK sunset...they are so gorgeous here!

"heart attack on a plate"...a Chorrillana, at a place called "Sin Rival" which is one of the oldest restuarants here in Villa Alemena...it was way too greasy. (French fries, steak, sausage & eggs)
Hey family how are things going? Things are going really well for us here in Villa Alemana. We did our special musical number yesterday in church and completely threw down. It was so sweet. It was almost perfect; one of our best run throughs even though we were both so nervous. I think we are going to be performing it this week in our mission conference. We played the one called My Heavenly Father Loves Me. (Click on the title to hear the piano duet) We got a lot of complements on it.
Well the Urrutia family is doing great! We have been visiting them with different families from the ward so that they can get used to other members and have friends in the ward to support them. One family actually invited them to Family Home Evening tonight. Yesterday they went to church and then in the evening we went to a baptism in a different stake here in Villa Alemana. The parents loved the baptism and it actually brought the dad to tears during the actual baptisms. It was another couple that was getting baptized. Afterwards, everyone from the ward (Huanhuali) came up and talked to the family and the mom told them that they were planning on getting baptized on the 29th of May. She ended up inviting a bunch of the members from that ward.
This past week we also had interviews with President Gillespie and his wife. They went really well. I got my temple recommend re-newed and we talked alot about finishing strong. President told me that this was the time that I could get the most done and that the mission really relies on the older ones to step up and finish strong to help strengthen the mission. I am sure I will be grateful for applying these counsels. On Friday we went to Olmué. I went with Elder Watkins. It rained for the first time for all day. Last week it rained but it started at night. We got a whole day of workin in the rain but we did find some new people to teach out there.
Well this morning we had a zone activity and we all went to Limache to play soccer. When we got there, sure enough, Bermudez, the dog that has followed the missionaries around Limache for the past 5 years was there enjoying the game. Afterwards when we got back to the pension to shower, I decided to give the 4 dogs a bath. It was Sarnita's first bath and wasnt to fond of the freezing cold water shooting out of the hose. Here are some pics of it.... In this area it is kind of hard to find new investigators to teach so we decided to do an activity in the city center. We set up a table with a bunch of pamphlets and Books of Mormon and stuff like that and invited people to take stuff. I must say that we didnt have the results that we wanted but we tried it. Maybe a less crowded place would be better. We are going to really hit the family history stuff this week and see if we can get people interested in that too. Anything to find new people....
Alright everyone, have a great day and week! Enjoy that lovely spring weather up there! Love you all. Chao! Elder Nelson

May 10, 2010

2010-05-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

100 days left!!

My last phone call home Mother's Day 2010

2010-05-10T12:40:00.001-07:00

Talkin' to the fam on Mother's Day 2010
For Grandma Dorothy...pink tie to match ; )

hey good morning how are things going? it was great talking to you guys last night. This week has been a busy one for us. We have been going by the Urrutia family to help them progress. Even though we had a very powerful lesson on the importance of following our Savior, they didnt come to church yesterday. It was pretty disappointing. They are obeying the Word of Wisdom now though so at least there is progress. They all really want to get baptized though so the desire is there.
This past Friday, we had Zone Counsel in Viña. It was a good time and we focused on the importance of the baptismal service, retaining new converts, and helping members do missionary work. Next week we are going to have a conference where we will have workshops on each one. We are going to be teaching the baptismal service one. Elder Allenbach & I played our duet (My Heavenly Father Loves Me) for Hermana Gillespie and she really liked it!!
On Sunday we had a special Sacrament Meeting focused on the importance of Mothers. I played for the primary as they sang, Mother I Love You. Its called Madre Te Amo in spanish. It went well. After Sacrament Meeting, Elder Allenbach and I handed out our flowers (carnations) to all of the mothers in the ward. They all really liked them. We had ordered them earlier in the week and picked them up and put them in the church on Saturday. In the evening we had a baptism of one of the 8 year old girls in the ward. A lot of her family and relatives are not members of the church so we went to help out with the program and be there. After that, we phoned home and talked to the family. That was nice!
Well that is about all that is going on with me. Tomorrow we have interviews with President Gillespie and his wife. It should go over well. On Wednesday, interchanges with the assistants. It will be a fun time.

Well thanks everyone for writing. Hope you have a great week. Love you tons! Chao
Elder Nelson

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Elder Allenbach & me after our haircuts

Hey everyone things are going great here. We had a really week in terms of our investigators progressing. The Urrutia family came to church again and are enjoying what the church does. yesterday my companion and I each played the hymns in Sacrament meeting which was kind of funny the first time we switched. People didnt really know what was going on. We had 10 investigators going to church which was awesome.
On Friday we had a mission conference of the interior. The zones of Quillota, Villa Alemana, Villa Alemana Oeste, El Belloto, and Quilpue. We had members volunteer to be investigators and the other missionaries had to teach them; once, the Restoration, and the other time, the Plan of Salvation. It was a really good conference and President Gillespie talked about how important the Atonement is. He did a little presentation on it and was really powerful.
On Saturday, we had an activity with Carlos and Allen Urrutia. They wanted to play ping pong so we went over and played with them. It was really fun even though they were no match for gringo skills haha.
That is really all that has been going on here. We are focusing on that family and are finding others to teach. This one girl that Elder Reid and I found while we were on divisions last change came to church yesterday with her friend. At first she was just sitting in on the lesson to be polite but after listening to what we were teaching she started having questions and has answered a lot of her doubts. She loved it in church and wants to go back but doesnt know how she is going to do it because she teaches classes in the catholic church. We will see.
this week we should have a good week with our investigators. Elder Allenbach and I are preparing a duet to play in Sacrament meeting on the 16th of may. It is coming along pretty good. Well I hope all of you have a great week and to all you mothers out there,....HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!! hope its a special one!

Chao
Elder Nelson

The Urrutia Family

2010-04-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone how are things going? Things are going great here. This past week was a little slow but we had some special moments. The man that came into church last week, Marcelo, has accepted a baptismal date for the 15th of May but I dont think that his family is really aware of what he is doing so we will see what goes on. He came to church yesterday and a member of the ward, Hermano Moller, was in the same class in school and have known each other for a long time and was good for Marcelo to have a friend in the church.

Urratia Family

Other great news is that the family that we are working with, the Urrutia family, all came to church again and in the evening we went by and taught them the Plan of Salvation. We invited all of them to get baptized on the 22 of May and they all said yes!!!!!!!!!!!! They are all excited for it. Now we will need to work with the ward to help keep them strong. I attached a picture of the family. Their names are Carlos, Aliet, Allan, Valentina, and Selena. It is really cool to have a complete family coming to church and that are going to get baptized. Something really special for us.
I am almost getting over my sickness. I dont know what it was but it really hit me hard this week. After about 10 days of coughing my head off, they put me on anitbiotics and its helping now...
Well have a great week everyone! The Gospel truely blesses families. Les amo.

I'm sick....

2010-04-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

my sick face with my swollen lip that i woke up with ..it was as big as shaq's i swear. it has gone down a lot though...dont know what caused it. the flash made me start to blink. apparently i start to blink first with my right eye haha.
The Rexburg 9th ward elders in Chile, elder Nelson and elder Allison

The Moller Family

(April 19)

Hey family how are things going? This week has been an awesome one for me with a lot of spiritual experiences even though I got sick again and this time with a cough that hurts down to the hair on my toes haha…
This week was the first week with my new companion, Elder Allenbach. He is from Farmington, Utah. Well in the ward, our pool of investigators was about as shallow as a puddle in the street. We didn’t have much going but we worked really hard to find new people to teach and we had the opportunity to see miracles unfold before our eyes. We still did church tours which are working great for finding families to teach.
While knocking doors, we found a family that was kind of hesitant to listen to us, but they let us in to teach them in their front yard. They have this big rotweiler dog that wouldn’t leave us alone while we were talking outside the fence so what they did so they could hear us was spray it down with the hose to get it to leave. When they let us in, there was a soaking dog to greet us. They set some chairs out for us and listened to us. The dog, Sasha, got a drink and then came around to meet us. Let’s just say that my left hand was used to keep Sasha from ruining my clothes and to keep her still during the prayers. It was covered in slobber, water, and dog hair by the end of the ten minute lesson about the Book of Mormon. Well, we invited them to come to church and they came! The entire family of 5 came to church. They are the Urrutia family. Their names are starting with the parents; Carlos, Aliet, Allan (13), Valentina (8), and the youngest one has a name like Celia or something like that but she is three. They all loved the church and the ward did a really good job in making them feel welcome. They were all invited to the activities during the week and are going to go to church again next week. During church, Hermano Reyes, the first counselor in the bishopric, came and got us and told us that there was a guy in the entry of the church that wanted to talk to someone about getting to know the church. We have a lesson with him tonight in the church with our ward mission leader. What a blessing to have these investigators as well as other families that have said all they need to know is if the Book of Mormon is true and then they will get baptized. We are focusing on lending the book out to as many readers as possible. We are keeping track of who has it so that if they don’t read it or aren’t interested, we can get it back and give it to someone else. These are just a few of the people who have been touched this week.
Well I hope all is going well at home and that you are all enjoying the spring weather that is there or that should be around the corner. Have a great week! I love you all and know that this is the Lord’s work here on the earth. His blessings are for everyone but we need to be the ones to open our mouths and tell someone about it. I have strengthened my testimony about that this week.
Chaíto del sur,
Elder Nelson

My new companion Elder Allenbach

2010-04-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

My new comp Elder Allenbach

(the Arnold's from Rexburg's grandson) Bermudes...the famous dog in Limache that follows the missionaries all day, everyday.

Tania, a recent convert and her family, Miguel, Sergio and Francisca

My spider bite

the big group is two families with whom we had an evening of desserts....we made the cheesecake. (below)

completo chileno with spicy mayo...que rico

hey everyone
dont have much time today but wanted to say hi. This weekend, we found a lot of good people to teach doing tours of the church building. We have changes today. I am going to be staying here with Elder Allenbach and Elder Rojas is leaving to Achupallas to be with Elder Halverson. Well gotta get going. have a great one! chao
elder nelson

President Gerardo J. Wilhelm called to 2nd Quorm of the 70

2010-04-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

hey everyone how are things going? this was a spiritual week for me. On wednesday, we had interviews with President Gillespie and Sister Gillespie. President talked to me about how i was feeling as my mission was coming to an end with only a couple changes left. It was weird to talk about it with him as it brought up a lot of mixed emotions but i always enjoy the time that we have to talk. He always teaches me something. On Friday, I had Zone Counsel in Viña. It was a great time and always a blast. This weekend was an excellent General Conference. One of the special moments was in the Saturday Afternoon session hearing that my old mission president, Gerardo J. Wilhelm, was called to be a general authority in the 2nd Quorum of the 70. Nobody in our little room of missionaries listening to the conference in english realized it but me. Out of the 6 american missionaries there, only one other missionary besides me was even here when President Wilhelm was here. Priesthood session got over at 11:00 pm becasue of the time difference haha. Daniela and Thiare were supposed to have their baptismal interviews yesterday but they didnt even show up to the conference. We will have to see what is going on with them this week. They still might be able to get baptized this weekend. It was a week full of sickness as i got sick with a cold and then my companion caught the same thing two days later. We are still getting over it but in 2 days or so it should all be over. :)
hey well hope all is well everyone. have a great week and talk to you next week. Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA DOROTHY! Chaíto
Elder Nelson

Black List and my last General Conference in Chile

2010-03-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-03-08T15:29:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

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.

8.8 EARTHQUAKE ! ! ! 2-27-10 3:34am

2010-02-27T08:45:00.000-08:00

Good Morning everyone!
I'm sure you're as shocked this morning as we were to wake up and see the news about the earthquake in Chile and of course, we're are very concerned about Jaren and the other missionaries safety. This is what we know:

Jaren is currently in the city of Ovalle which is 5 hours north of Vina del Mar. Vina del Mar is about 1 hour north of Santiago.
He is also about an 1.5 hours inland--so safe from Tsunamis as well. We haven't heard from Jaren but Jentry talked this morning with some friends in Ovalle that he's made on facebook. They felt the quake pretty strong. They say there is some damage there but everyone in Ovalle is safe.

We'll post more when we know, but we feel pretty sure that he is OK.
Love to you all!

A Happy Birthday!

2010-02-27T08:33:00.000-08:00

Family Rojas Henriques - 1st counselor in the branch (next to me)

They are very awesome!

El Relajo - Happy B'day lunch!

My favorite restaurant in Chile!

Happy B'day Tele-pizza

hey mom good morning. how are things going? Things this week went really well. We had a conference in La Serena on Saturday that went really well. The focus of the conference was on being prepared to teach with the Spirit. Elder Millar and I also taught a workshop on asking questions. It was pretty cool because we had members there from the La Serena stake that were the "investigators" for the practices.
On Sunday, our investiagtor, Eduardo, had his baptismal interview with President Gillespie. He is now ready to be baptized this Saturday at 7:00 in the evening! He is so excited. He has been inviting everyone in the ward to his baptism. We met up with him in the Plaza de Ovalle to walk to the church together and he said that he had gotten there an hour early and was just talking with people in the plaza. When we were walking he said that he had invited a few people that he talked to to go to his baptism. Haha. He can´t wait!
There is something special happening in the zone of Ovalle right now. For the past few months, we have been a little low in baptisms for the zone with only between 2 and 5, and it was looking like we were going to be getting only 4 this month. Somehow, things worked out in the branches and it looks like we will be getting between 7 and 10 baptisms this coming weekend. We only have one for the month as of right now, but 6 have passed their interviews and a couple with their son just got married this past weekend. They could have their interviews tomorrow and get baptized this weekend! That would be so cool! The zone hasnt gotten 10 baptisms in one month for well over a year.
Well it is hard to believe that this is now the last week of the change. They just keep going faster and faster. The weather has been really nice this past week. A couple of days were just pure heat but the weekend was really nice and only in the low 80's.
Thank you to all that wrote me this week wishing me Happy Birthday. All we really did that day was work like any other day. We ordered pizza on Tuesday night and ate good but other than that it was pretty normal. Well everyone have a great week. take care
Chao,
Elder Nelson

Bird (Parrots) on a Wire

2010-02-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

Parrots in Monte Patria Map of mission

Hey everyone how are things going? Things have been great for me this past week. The main thing that has happened is that our investigator, Eduardo, is progressing really well. This week we have basically finished all of the teaching that he needs. One cool experience that I had was when we taught him the law of Tithing. He doesnt have a great financial situation at all but we really were preparing the morning of the lesson on how we could teach this principal well. We focused on the blessings that we get from paying our tithing and why we cant afford not to do it. He understood it really well and accepted the commitment to pay his tithing after getting baptized. He is scheduled to get baptized on the 27th of February :) On Friday, I finished my "Tour de Ovalle" as I went out to Monte Patria to work with Elder Tensmeyer. I have now stayed the night and worked in every sector here in the zone of Ovalle. Out there, it was way hot! For sure in the high 90's with little wind. It felt like my legs were melting. One cool thing about Monte Patria though is that there are tons of parrots at night. I guess it would be kind of annoying to have to hear them all night long but for one night it was kind of cool. During the day they take off to all the vineyards to eat and stuff but in the night, come into town because they like the lights. It was fun to be with Elder Tensmeyer again. He has progressed a lot and is now in his 5th change! Today he had emergency changes as his comp left to La Serena This weekend we have a conference in La Serena. It should be good. Well hope all of you have a great week. ChaoElder Nelson

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

hey good morning how are things going? this week has been really busy for me. We went to Viña on Friday for the zone counsel. It was a really good time. I really love those. So I guess the big news for the week is that we now have someone with a baptismal date. His name is Eduardo Alarcóm. He is a 47 year old guy that sure doesnt have the best financial situation but is so humble and grateful for what he has. Before in his life, he lived in Santiago and had a big house and a truck and restaurant with the family and everything was going great until the grandma decided to leave all of it in the name of the sister. She decided to sell it all and left him with nothing. It doesnt really help that he is epileptic either. He lives alone and works in the city center selling candies and stuff in the street. He absolutely loves going to church though and reading the scriptures. In one of our lessons this week, he told us that it was kind of hard for him to read. His glasses arent that great i guess. Well, I always carry around a little magnifying glass with me for the people who say that they cant read the letters of the scriptures so that they dont have an excuse. I gave it to him and he was so grateful. I also gave one to Tatiana who got baptized a few weeks ago. Yesterday she told me that it has helped her so much in everything; work, and in reading the scriptures. So yesterday, Eduardo showed up to church over an hour early to go up into the chapel and read the scriptures. Tonight we are having a ward family home evening in the church to help him and the other investigators get to know the members or the branch. It will be really fun. He cant wait for his baptism on the 20th of February!
The weather is really hot now and the sun is stronger than ever. It really helps us with our awesome farmer tan that we get in the summer down here. good thing it goes away in the winter.
This week, I got my package. Thanks for the things that you sent :) Well hope all of you have a great Valentine's day! Hugs and Kisses ;) haha chao

Elder Nelson

0102 2010

2010-02-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

Hey family how are things going? Things are going really well for me. I don’t have any time today to write, but just wanted to say hi and that things are going really well. This past week we had interviews with President Gillespie and his wife. They went really well. On Tuesday, we had a special meeting with just my companion, Elder Millar, me, President Gillespie, and the District President, President Concha. We talked about the missionary work here in the district and some of the things that could be done to strengthen each unity down here. It was a good meeting. Man, President Gillespie is a smart man! On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to do divisions with the assistants. I went with Elder Reid. He came in with me and it was fun to see how he was doing. We had good success that day. We taught 5 lessons in 5 hours and at the end of the day, Elder Millar and I finished with two more. Elder Millar and Elder Haymore, the other assistant, had two lessons. We finished the day with 9 lessons. That was pretty cool.
This Friday we are going down to Viña for zone counsel. Hopefully this time the bus doesn’t break down haha.
In terms of our investigators, we are still plugging along with them but we need to find a way to help all of them progress. They have all kind of hit a wall and can’t get over it. Good thing that it is fast Sunday coming up this weekend :)
Well everyone, take care and have a great weekend! Love you all tons,
Elder Nelson
P.S. Take a look at today’s date! It’s the same backwards and forwards! Cool! ¡BACÁN!
01-02-2010 (here the day comes first)

ODORPAL

2010-01-25T11:23:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2010-01-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2010-01-08T10:10:00.000-08:00

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

Happy New Year!

2009-12-30T12:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-22T14:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-11-17T13:20:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-12T14:46:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-11-05T12:58:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-10-29T08:19:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

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!!

2009-10-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

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

Sector Gomez Carreño in the Zone Achupallas

2009-09-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

My first Latin companion from Ecuador - Elder Miranda

I get to see the beautiful coastline of Vina del Mar again everydayBut this is as far as we go....what's with the barbed wire fence??

Hey everyone how are things going? Things are going good for me. I am now in a new sector. I got changed to the sector Gomez Carreño in the zone Achupallas. My new companion is Elder Miranda. He is from Ecuador…my first latin companion. The sector is kinda cool. Its big but there are hardly any youth. Its all old people in the ward. I do have some pretty sweet views of the ocean though which is pretty cool.
This past week we had the 18 of September. I was pretty bummed about no being in my last sector as they went to Casablanca (a camp ground)for the whole day. Here we just played soccer in the morning with some of the ward members. That day we just worked as normal which was almost pointless. On the 17th at night, there was a stake activity where they had some festive dances of Chile. It was pretty fun. I guess our ward is going to have a ward party in October.
My new pension is pretty sweet. Its on the 8th floor of an apartment building. I am living with Elder Gulbranson and Elder Tondevold. I was pretty excited to hear the I was going to be living with them. It has been pretty fun this past week in the pension.
On Sunday, we had a fireside with Elder Jorge Zeballos of the 70. He talked to us about the document, “Permaneced.” It was a really good. One thing that stuck out to me was the importance of being an active member in the church and how the Sacrament is like a mirror to see if we are enduring to the end. The whole document focuses on receiving and maintaining the Spirit in our lives and the Sacrament is something necesary to have it.
In the sector, we have an investigator with a baptismal date. She is pretty cool. Her name is Gladys. She is like 50. Her life has really done a 180 degree turn for the better. She really enjoys going to church and is excited for her baptism.
Well that is kind of what is going on right now in the mission. We are just trying to get settled. I am still getting to know the sector so we will see how things go this week.

Take care, chao Elder Nelson

Chilean Independence Day - Sept 18th

2009-09-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone how are things going? This past week there were quite a few things that went on. First of all, on Monday evening, we received a new focus for the mission. The goal for contacts was dropped. They will not be counted anymore….well for now anyways. This past Friday, we had a mission conference with Elder Corbridge. We learned about the importance of having the Holy Ghost with us in our lives and how it outweighs any other thing here on earth. It was a really good talk that he gave that really helped us to understand or to learn more how we can increase the unity in the wards that we are serving in. That is our focus. We need to help get the members to do their own missionary work. They need to be trained how to do it and how go about it.
Right after the conference, we went to one of our investigator’s houses and taught him about the importance of the Holy Ghost in our lives and how if we don’t have it, we can’t progress in our lives. It was a pretty strong lesson. All we did was bear our testimonies and shared a couple scriptures but he seemed to really get it as he ended up coming to church yesterday. We showed up to his house on Sunday morning and he was all ready in his suit ready to go. He really liked it and participated in the classes and everything. In Sacrament meeting, our bishop shared about the importance of Unity in the ward and talked about those who choose to be offended. It was the talk that I gave him when we started our big re activation project in the ward. That was pretty much all anyone said when we passed by to visit- that they were offended.
Later on Friday, we had to be inside the pension early because it was September 11. On that day, the military overtook the Chilean Government in like the year 1973 or something and there would be protestors. With that, as well as what happened in our history, we were instructed to be inside at 5:30.
Well that is all that is really going on with us now. We are trying to take care of the investigators that we have and finding more. This change is now over. Training really makes the change go by quick. Elder Tensmeyer has progressed so much these past 6 weeks. It has been a really fun change. We will find out what happens tonight with changes. One thing I do know is that I am headed to the zone called Achupaillas. The mission president called me last night to tell me. Today we are having a BBQ as missionaries to celebrate the 18th of September which is the Chilean Independence Day. This weekend we should be eating pretty good haha. They celebrate it for 4 days! Crazy! Hello empanadas haha!
Okay, take care everyone and i´ll be sure to let you all know how things go this weekend and my first week in a new sector. Chao, Elder Nelson

Caterin Quiroga Baptism

2009-09-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

A cookie mix from home...turned out YUMMY!!

Sister Gillespie and "Health Days"

Our church building, soccer/basketball court.

Hey everyone how are things going? So this week we had a lot of things that happened. First of all, we had interviews with President and Sister Gillespie. President Gillespie talked about the importance of having unity in the companionship. What we are doing now will help us later on in our lives too...marraige.
On Saturday, we had the baptism of Caterin Quiroga. She was so excited for her baptism. The water was nice and hot too which felt great. I had the opportunity of baptizing her; she wanted the Bishop to confirm. Both the baptism and the confirmation went really well. We did the confirmation on Sunday right before the Sacrament. On Saturday it was raining in the morning but it had stopped by the time the baptism ended. We ate lunch with the mamita, Hermana Loreto and her two sons, Angelo and Claudio. We had completos. They were so good!
On Sunday, we went to Pablo and Maria´s house and had an activity. We made the chocolate chip cookies that my parents sent. They were so good! Sadly, we didnt have nice cold milk to wash them down with.
Oh, on Tuesday, we played soccer again but we started playing basketball after an hour. It was Elder Tensmeyer and I with a little deacon against 4 big dudes. we clowned them. It was so funny to see how uncomfortable they were in that sport. I guess its kinda how i must look to them playing soccer.
This week with our investigators, we had some success. We finally were able to find and teach Ximena. It had been over a month since the last time we taught her. She is doing well but hasnt gone to church yet. We are going to be working with that. We also had a VERY “frank” discussion with the Morales Family. We passed by them and they said that it wasnt for them,...meaning the gospel. Turns out that they hadnt even read nor prayed to see if it was true. They said that they were Catholic and werent going to change. We explained that that wasnt the purpose of reading and praying. All we wanted them to do was to see if the Book of Mormon was true. If they receive a testimony of that then all other things fall in after. We explained a lot about how important the authority is and that plainly not all paths lead to God. They accepted the commitment to read and pray and we are going by them again tomorrow to see how things went.
Other than that, we are just focusing on finding people to teach. We are focusing a lot on getting the members involved in missionary work so that they can give references. That sure makes the work a lot easier and more enjoyable for us as it fills our days with teaching instead of just contacting.
Take care ya´ll and talk to ya next week. Chao Elder nelson

BAPTIZE ME!

2009-09-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone how are things going? This week we had quite a bit going on. The weather really heated up for us this week. We didn’t need to use our coats at all; Just shirts and at night our suit jackets.
On Tuesday night, we had a soccer activity in the church. We had invited many people. We had a group of people who lived near the church that wanted to play so we invited them. They ended up coming and we had enough people to play 5 on 5. They all played together and were good players. My team was our bishop, both us two (the gringos), a guy who was almost a minus for us, and his cousin who was pretty good. Our three other players were all well over 35 years old while all of their team had like 22 years for each player. Well one of the “gangstas” asked me to teach him a bad word in English to say. I told him that there was one but you can only use it when you get frustrated or annoyed…BAPTIZE ME! Haha sure enough, a few minutes later, he missed a shot and shouted BAPTIZE ME! I was laughing pretty hard. He had no idea what he was saying. Well, in the end, we ended up winning. I thought we were going to get blown out of the water.
On Friday night, Caterin passed her baptismal interview! She is going to be getting baptized this Saturday at 11:00 in the morning. I guess Chile is playing Venezuela (in a soccer) later. Everyone was asking us…you know that Chile is playing that day right? I would just ask them…what is more important? Relax…we are doing it in the morning and the game is at night.
So we found a few cool people to teach this week. We got into this one house when we didn’t even say a thing. She just invited us in. Turns out that her husband, (who looks EXACTLY like the guy on Count of Monte Cristo who goes against his friend) is a member of the church but very very inactive. His wife is very very catholic. We taught them the first lesson, The Restoration. We have another appointment with them this weekend. Well that’s what is going on with me this week. We have another soccer activity tomorrow and we have a lot of appointments lined up this week with future investigators. Hopefully things go well with each of them. Well take care everyone and talk to you next week! Chaíto, Elder Nelson

Happy 26th Anniversary Mom & Dad

2009-08-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Happy 26th Anniversary Mom & Dad

This past week, we had a lesson with Scarlett. She didnt believe in Jesus Christ the first time we taught her but now it seems like she understands what all he did for us. She really enjoys reading the Book of Mormon and loved Alma 32 with the stuff about the seed. Caterin came to church for the 3rd time and is all but ready to be baptized. she is really looking forward to it. We are planning it for the 5th of September. Yesterday in church, Felipe, who was baptized on August 1, received the Aaronic Priesthood and was ordained to the office of Deacon. Right now we are busy working on finding more people. We need to work a little harder at getting references from the members.
Elder Tensmeyer is doing really good. His spanish is progressing so much! He is starting to understand more of the things that people are asking him. He teaches really well and is going to be a really good missionary. He already is. We are getting along really well. This past thursday, we had a mission conference in Villa Alemana. I got to see Elder Tondevold. He finishes at the end of next change! I gave him some Taco Bell hot sauce. He about flipped when he saw them. It was good to see a lot of the missionaries that i came in with. Elder Owen was excited to hear that I might be moving to Sandy in the future. I was also able to see Elder Davila. He is doing good up in Cabildo with Elder Daniels. He was excited to hear how things were going in his old sector.

Today on our P-day we are going shopping....then we are going to play soccer as a zone at 4. tomorrow we are having a big soccer activity in the church with a bunch of non members that we have invited. we´ll see how things go. well that is all that is really going on with me. I love serving the Lord down here in Chile and I know that the Gospel is true. It is easy to see that as you share it and watch the people change and receive the blessings that are promised for us. Take care. Chao Elder Nelson

Peanut Butter in Chile

2009-08-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

To celebrate my 1 Year Mark on Thursday....a Big Barros Luco (Steak Sandwich), Quatro and...

Mora crema (blackberry ice-cream cake) Mmmmm.....

friday night we took the peanut butter I got in my "1 year pkg" from home to our bishop´s house and had once with them. once (11) is like tea time...the chilean dinner. the bishop´s sister and her family of 3 were up here for the weekend. they were all nuts about the peanut butter too! imagine...awesome chilean bread with awesome american peanut butter! we had some peach jam that was really good but i was thinking about dads rasp huckleberry jam the whole time!

the birthday party of the bishops wife on sunday, aug 16.

we had a BBQ that was awesome!

hermana muñoz blowing out the candles

We are getting ready for Caterin´s baptism for the 5th of September. She is really excited about it. We have also started teaching a girl named Scarlett. She is like 25 years old and lives alone. We actually contacted her at her mom´s house and she told us to go to her house later on in the week. Well she is really accepting of us and really open to what we share. She told us that she doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ, as in that she doesn’t think that God would let His Son go through all that he did for us. She is really accepting of everything else and yesterday, she came to church. She liked it a lot but had to leave after sacrament meeting. She asked us if we could come by on Saturday and that next Sunday she would be able to stay in church longer. Other than that, we are busy looking for more people to teach.
My companion is doing well. His Spanish is getting a lot better and we are getting along great. Someone actually found a picture of us from my blog and sent it to his brothers haha…weird how things get around. This past week, I did interchanges with elder Watkins. It was fun to take him around my sector and chat a bit. Well that’s what all is going on this week. Things are going well and all.

Take care and love you guys! Chao elder nelson

1/2 Way.....

2009-08-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

Elder Nelson's 1/2 Way.....Happy 1 year!

August 13, 2009

Very first companion....in the MTC...Elder Bastien
learning spanish in the MTC
The sunsets in Chile are the most beautiful ever!
apartment in El Belatto
I love the people here...they're amazing!

The friendly smiles we get...

Vina del Mar....one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I'm so glad that I got to actually serve in the city.

We can hardly believe that 1/2 of his mission is already done! Just a short year ago today...we had bitter-sweet tears as we left him at the MTC in Provo, UT.

We have loved being a missionary family and are grateful for all of the blessings the Lord has blessed him (and us at home) with during this past year. We are especially grateful for Jaren and his desire to serve a mission and to be the best missionary in the world. "Thank-you" to the people in Chile for feeding him and the kindness and friendship shown to him there. We look forward with great anticipation for his Monday emails and are so thankful for the technical gift of the internet and email where we can get a fast "letter" and also chit-chat back and forth. We love to hear his stories about all sorts of things from dog bites to baptisms. We especially love hearing his voice on the holiday phone calls and all of the pictures that he sends each week.

We love to see pictures of him as a missionary, his new companions, the area, the members, the food and yes, even the perfect stack of juice cans that he and Elder Tondevold drank during a 6 week exchange.

We love the instant pictures like when he had a bad hair cut and he said..."wait just a minute....I'll send a picture and show you." or the "Good Morning Mom!"

So...we're reliving a few great memories from this past year today on his blog with some favorite pictures....we're excited for this next year and of course, we're counting the days til he's home. If this next year goes like the last one...it will be here in a flash. Thank-you to all of his family and friends for the letters, donations, reading his blog, asking how he's doing and all of your love and support.

My First Greenie! Hola! Elder Tensmeyer

2009-08-11T13:41:00.001-07:00

Elder Tensmeyer-My first "greenie" - Ogden, Utah

Hey everyone how are things going? So this week has been pretty good. We got our changes last Monday night. Turns out that I am TRAINING this change! Haha. I went down to Viña on Tuesday morning and was there by 9:00 in the morning but had to wait there until around 4:00 to meet my new companion. There are only 7 of us in the mission training this change. Two from my group that came to Chile together are training…Elder Mower and me. Well my new companion is Elder Tensmeyer. He is from Ogden, Utah. He is a cool kid and likes a lot of the same things that I do. We get along really well and have a good time. It is so weird to see someone that is in the same shoes that I used to be in only 10 short months ago. He speaks really good Spanish and will be a great missionary. The only thing is that he almost understands nothing. Ha. Good thing that happens to everyone though and only time can help that.
So this week in the missionary work, I had a really good experience. We were teaching this less active lady one evening who hadn’t been to church for a long time and had just moved to the area about a month ago. Her name is Nativity. She is a single lady with three daughters. They are really in a financial problem but she did come to church last week and is really excited about getting back into being active again. We shared with her a document called “Permaneced” which talks about the importance of staying active in the church so that one can receive all of the blessings that God has for us. She really liked it and then talked about when she used to have a book that she would read that really helped her feel closer to God but that she doesn’t know what happened to it. I pulled out one of our copies of the Book of Mormon to give to her. I don’t think I will ever forget the look on her face and her reaction when I gave it to her. She was so grateful for it and the way she held it really showed how grateful she was to receive this gift. There aren’t many people who accept that book in that way. The member that went with us even told us that it was a great experience for him to see how she accepted the Book of Mormon. A couple days later, we were walking in the street and she stopped us and told us that she had been reading it. She said thanks to us again.
Well other than that, we are just keeping busy with the same ole. It is weird that a year ago today I gave my farewell talk. Even weirder that I hit a year in the mission on Thursday! Wow how time flies. Well change #8 here we go!
Take care everyone. Chao

Felipe & Matias Baptisms!

2009-08-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

Felipe and Matias

Pablo Alcayaga and Novia Camila

family Macchiavello and their young one
I'm getting good at frying eggs :)

Hey so this week was a busy one! We had the baptism of Felipe and Matías Romero. It was a very nice program and a lot of people came. After Felipe was baptized, he started going up the stairs and then turned around and jumped head first into the font haha. I was one of the witnesses and had the doors closed with my head peeking in and saw it. It was pretty funny. Matías then got in and got wet up to his neck even before getting baptized haha. This week we had a lesson with Caterin and she told us that she really wanted to get baptized and realized that she needed to go to church-that was what she was missing. Well she came to church yesterday and loved it! She was already walking to the church when we went up to look for her. She said that she had had a work party for her husband the night before and hadn’t gotten home until like 2 in the morning but was going to church no matter what. It was pretty cool. We had been working with a lady named Jessica. She is really receptive and loves the “classes” we give her. She has the problem that she works on Sundays. We were wondering on whether or not we should keep teaching her because she can’t really progress and we have other people to teach. We even fasted to know what to do as well as to help her know the importance of going to church. She told us this week that she was going to take an indefinite amount of time off of work so that she could go to church and prepare to get baptized. She doesn’t really need to work because her husband does but did it for something to do. She said she was going to church this coming Sunday so we will see how things go. The two families that we have been working with to re activate came to church as well. We went around yesterday to a few families and got pics with some of the families in the sector. Tonight we have changes. Wow the change has gone by fast. I really hope I don’t get transferred. We have a lot of potential for this next change in the sector. Well that’s what is going on here with me. All is going great and I am lovin it. Talk to you all next week!

Elder Davila - Happy 6 months!!!

2009-07-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

To celebrate ......Before!

and ....After!

Little Copito our dog friend

all we had to do was count and he would tilt his head-it was hilarious.

copito means little snowflake in spanish para que sepa

hey everyone how are things going? this week was a good one. we had three investigators coming to church yesterday. We have a baptism this weekend for Felipe and Matias Romero. They are brothers in a family menos activa. the family is starting to reactivate themselves now as their kids are getting baptized. their two older siblings are going to seminary now and enjoying that. they are an awesome family. This past week, we had interviews with our new Mission President, Pres. Gillespie. As we were walking down the hall he asked me how i was doing. out of habit i answered in spanish and then he said, " is it alright if we just talk in english?" it kind of caught me off guard but it was fine with me. we did the whole interview in english. it was just getting to know each other a bit more. he shared with me the importance of not measuring our success by the numbers...what we do in our sectors often times will show up in numbers long after we leave but what we do everyday has an impact on the sector and the people. I also had an interview with Hermana Gillespie. She is a really cool lady. She sure does struggle with the spanish though. I had to be a translator for her interview with one of the sister missionaries in my zone who is from Colombia. It was a get to know you, how is your mission going for you type of interview. So the girl that Elder Watkins and I found when we did interchanges a few weeks ago is going to get baptized this weekend. I did the interview for her on Saturday. She is really excited for her baptism. So this week, we were also able to finally find and teach Raul. He has been working a lot and we havent been able to find him for over a month. We talked to him about the power of prayer. He is trying to stop smoking. I told him to give me his box of cigarettes and then i just started eating them. Haha just kidding, i took two out and soaked them in milk. when they dry, he is supposed to put them back in the box all mixed up so he doesnt know which ones are which. we will see how things go the next time we see him.
Well, we are now going into the last week of my 7th change. pretty crazy! take care everyone and talk to you next week. chao elder nelson

One great breakfast!

2009-07-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

one great breakfast i made...my first successful fried egg.

i have gotten to be a great cook lately... my fun after playing soccer on wednesday...

Hey so this week was a pretty sweet one. On Sunday night we were a little bummed about the sector not having anything left since we had just baptized Mauro. Monday morning i worked hard to have a good class for the district and it payed off as the assistants showed up to be in our meetings. On Tuesday, i think we had one of the best days of my mission so far. We were able to get 4 lessons with a member. One of these lessons included a family that is kinda new to the area. The kids names are Felipe (12) and Matías (11). We also found a single lady this week who was really interested in what we shared. Her name is Ximena and has a son 5 years old. We taught her on Friday and had an appt. with her on Saturday... We have also started teaching the mother of a kid who was baptized about a year ago. She is on the poorer side of things and is now pregneant with her 7th! She told us that she would come to church on Sunday and she came! She has a baptismal date of 15th of August. So now we have things rolling again. We have been really busy coordinating lessons with these people as we cant enter into houses without a guy there. This will keep us busy for the rest of the change for sure!
It did rain on Saturday and the temperatures have been dropping. We did have really nice sunny weather for about a week and a half but they are calling for a lot of rain this week :(
We are staying busy and workin hard. Take care everyone and HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!

Mauro's Baptism

2009-07-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Monserat (5) the Bishop's little girl

Sunset in Chile

Hey!
So this past week was a busy one haha. We had the baptism of Mauro on Saturday afternoon. There was a problem with the baptismal font though…the water heater broke and a lot of dirt rose up from the drain or something and the water was a dark greenish brown. Gross! We were worried that he wouldn’t want to do it but told us that it doesn’t matter what the water is, he just wants to get baptized. So that was pretty cool. When they went down into the water, Mauro started laughing at how cold it was. Everything worked out well and according to plan (except for the font).

The weather has been really nice and warm this past week with the exception of yesterday which was a little on the cold side. We are still teaching Erwin and Joselyn but they weren’t able to go to church yesterday. We watched the Restoration with them. Erwin understands and believes it all but for right now seems more curious than anything. He also has problems with the word of wisdom. He smokes, drinks coffee and tea, and drinks, but only drinks on social occasions.
I forgot to mention that last week during sacrament meeting, a big dog came walking into the chapel just trotting around. I had to do a double take. It was pretty funny.
I was able to do intercambios with Elder Watkins this past week. That was pretty fun and a nice break from the sector. We were doing mainly contacts as they have nobody to teach right now. We were able to get into a house of an older lady. Her daughter is a less active member and lives there as well as her three kids. Well the oldest daughter is 10. We taught her and turns out that she is going to be baptized on august 1st. She went to church yesterday and everything too. How awesome!
We are really busy looking for more people to teach. All of our investigators are hard to find during the week and for a lot of our lessons, we would show up to an empty house. That kind of stinks but its part of the mission I guess. Well thanks to those of you who wrote me. Things are going good down here. Take care and talk to you next week! Chao, Elder nelson

Goodbye Pres. Wilhelm - Hello Pres. Gillespie

2009-07-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

Goodbye President & Sister Wilhelm
Presidente, muchas gracias por todo. Palabras no pueden expresar mi gratitud para usted y su esposa y las cosas que han hecho para mí personalmente. Yo nunca los voy a olvidar. Gracias por su consejo y enseñanzas.

We had a mission conference on Friday in Villa Alemana. It was a mission conference for the interior. There, we met our new mission president and his wife. They are from Vancouver, Washington. His profession is a dentist. They are really cool. They are really different than Pres and Sis Wilhelm. First of all, it has been about 40 years since Pres. Gillespie used his spanish and you could tell. He told us that it would take him some time to get used to that. His wife has been learning for about 2 months now and hardly knows anything but she is really nice and is a music freak. so i guess the sunday before leaving for chile, they had a special sacrament meeting in the MTC with the entire first presidency of the church and 11 of the 12 apostles. Crazy! the only one not there was President Packer. How cool would that be! they got to hear each one of their testimonies too...
On saturday night this week we found a really sweet young couple. the husband is evangelical and the wife is catholic but neither are active really...just born into the churches. they have a daughter that is 2. they were both really interested and had a lot of questions. They asked us when we could come back and visit them and answer more of their questions about the Book of Mormon after they were done reading the chapter we left them to read. It was a really sweet lesson. At first we were just going to leave them with the pamphlet and come back another time but they seemed so interested that we just kept teaching. we were really behind in contacts and needed to do more and it was 6:30 at night which was like the best time to do contacts, but this was more important. This weekend we have a baptism for a 9 year old named Mauro. He is a ball of energy. he is cool and really excited for his special day.
oh, hermana cofre says Feliz cumpleaños to dad :)

Chao, Elder Nelson

Zaida's baptism & the rain in Chile

2009-06-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

On friday, the rains came and came hard. They were expecting them to come on Thursday, but on Friday morning around 8:00, they started coming. By 10:15, we had received a call from our Zone Leaders saying that we were permitted to stay in the pension that day unless we had set appointments. The rains came down so hard and the streets started flooding. there were parts of town that had the streets as lakes. In all, it rained a little over 3 inches in a period of 14 hours.

Well, we had Zaida's baptism that evening and with us living half an hour from our sector we had to leave the pension anyway. We filled up the font and then went over the the bishop´s house until the baptism. We did end up having the baptism even though there were poor weather conditions. It was my first opportunity to get in the water to baptize. The font took a little longer to fill so the baptism got started late but all went smoothly after that. On Sunday, Zaida was confirmed a memer of the Church.
What a great week to end off the change. Wow...6 down already! (10 more) haha. Take care! Chao Elder Nelson

The bishops family...the Muñoz family. cool people. Juan, Marcela, Valeria (13), Mizti(10), Monzerat(5) (Monzi)

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

2009-06-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

hey everyone so this week was a really good week down here in Chile with a lot of things that went on. On Monday, we had our mission conference with 9 different zones. On Wednesday, we had a special Conference with the whole mission and a special guest speaker...Elder Dallin H. Oaks! We arrived at the mission office in Viña around 7:30ish in the morning and then checked all of our extra stuff into a room. All we could take in the chapel was our scriptures, Preach my Gospel, and a notebook to take notes as well as our hymnbook. We all got lined up for the picture with all 180 of us missionaries and awaited the arrival of the Apostle. Well when he and his wife as well as Elder Corbrige (of the 70) and his wife, and Pres and Sister Wilhelm, we all started singing our Mission Hymn. It was so sweet to see an Apostle so close! At the end of the hymn, he said Gracias. We then took the photo and were able to "bump elbows" with him. we werent allowed to shake his hand because of the H1N1 thing going around...but still it was pretty sweet. In the meeting, i was seated on the front row. That was pretty cool as well. They spoke to us in english and had their translators for the latins. Sister Oaks spoke about the name "Elder" that we carry and that it is the same as Elders Corbrige and Oaks...She said how important it was and what all it meant. She then left us with a quote from the MTC that says, "Be the missionary your mother thinks you are." Elder Oaks talked first about the mantle or title of Apostle and that we dont respect the person who has the title, but the title itself. We spend our whole lives trying to fill our mantle and likewise, we spend our whole missions trying to fill our "mission mantle." He then spoke about tithing and how we could teach it a bit better to our investigators. He came down and stood in front of the white board. (He was right in front of me. I could have tripped him if i wanted to haha). He wrote this on the board..." 90% + Blessings is greater than 100% w/o Blessings." After that, he then shared with us what exactly we do as missionaries. He talked about the name that we carry. It is Jesus Christ. But all throughout the scriptures, we read that it says, "In the name of Jesus Christ"...but what exactly does "the name" mean? He then shared with us a few scriptures that showed what exactly it meant. After 5 or 6 scriptures, he summed it all up...that "the name" of Jesus Christ is His Gospel, His Atonement, His Essence. And that when we take the Sacrament, when is says that we are willing to take upon us the name of Christ, it means that we are willing to be exaulted, or that we are willing to receive Exaltation.
It was really deep for me at first but then after thinking about it it really made sense. I had always thought that a misisonary had it easy to take upon him the name of Jesus Christ because we have our plaques with His name on it...but Elder Oaks explained that it is so much more than just a plaque...it is Everything. He told us that it took him 50 years to figure that out and said that this little bit of information could give us a little head start in our study of the scriptures. He said after that that he hopes that we never read "the name of Jesus Christ" in the same way again. A day or so after, i realized how we close our prayers that we say...it really gave me more meaning to my prayers to know that we close our prayers by saying "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." What an Experience!!!
Well a great happy late Father´s Day to all you dads. Take care!
chao, elder nelson

All Together in Viña del Mar

2009-06-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

ten months earlier at the MTC....

(I'm on the front row far right)

ten months later.... My MTC Group all together again in Viña

(I'm on the front row far left)

hey everyone how are things going? my week went well even though the cold got pretty bad for me. i am used to the nice warm weather but it just isnt that anymore. So i experienced my first rain in chile yesterday as it rained basically all saturday night and all through church and lunch. it kept a lot of people from coming to church sadly.

Today we had a zone conference in Viña. This one was a little different. There were 9 zones there! All of the south! usually they do two different conferences in the south and one in the north. it was really cool with so many missionaries. the photo above took awhile to coordinate. i have now finally seen all of the missionaries from my mtc district. i saw the last two today (elders stratford and crouch). The conference was really good. It was about having effective study and how it will help us not only in the mission work but in our lives afterwards. we also saw some pictures of our new mission president and his wife, President Gillespie. he is a dentist from vancouver washington. Well we have a special mission conference again in viña wednesday. we are going to be having a special guest coming to visit us. well so that you dont die of guessing i guess i will tell you who is coming to talk with us on wednesday...we get to take a apic with him and meet him too... Elder Dallin H. Oaks !!!!!!!! crazy! more to know from this next week ;) well i had a good week and all is well. we are just working hard this week to finish off the week strong as well as leaving the sector in good shape for the next change.

take care, Elder Nelson

June = COLD!

2009-06-15T13:45:00.001-07:00

Vina del Mar is considered a rich city in Chile.

It makes missionary work a little difficult.

A mansion in Vina.

Hey everyone how are thing going? This week has been a really good one. I am now all better concerning my health. my doctor visit on tuesday, the tests came out negative (just bad food) so I am good but he put me on the bland diet for another week to be sure. i thought i was going to die when i heard that. i didnt think that it was necessary and needless to say i didnt really follow it that well but havent had any problems with it...so i´m all better.
We now have 4 people that have baptismal dates. Zaida ,Raul ,Mauro and Israel. We are teaching a lot now. We have found the importance of good planning so that we can meet our other goals of contacts and stuff as well.
Well the weather is really getting cold now. i went to quilpue to get some winter stuff. I am going to get a scarf today which is something I never thought I would do. I´m not really the scarf wearing type but being outside all day with dress clothes on I guess it works. It actually hasn’t rained yet which is really weird for here. It actually hasn’t rained since I have been here in Chile. I have heard though that when it rains, it pours. There aren’t drainage systems either so the streets flood over for days.
Well thanks to those that wrote me this week. Hope you have a great week and enjoy the warm weather for me! Talk to you next week! Elder Nelson

Happy 16th Birthday Jentry!

2009-06-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

A beautiful view of the Andes Mountains.

Our bunks in our pension...I'm on the bottom.
Elder Davila & me.

Hey things are going a lot better down here. I am feeling much better and am all but better now. After 3 weeks of being sick, i had forgotten how great a normal bathroom trip felt. that actually sounds a little gross. so other than the physical improvements of the week, there were many spiritual ones as well. First of all, Zaida, accepted a baptismal date. Our other investigator, Raul, who has a baptismal date for the 4th of July was gone on saturday so we left him a note on the door saying that we were going to come by to get him for church. We got to his house at 9:15am and he was sitting on the couch waiting for us in a shirt and tie with slacks and shoes, reading the book of mormon. What a great sight. Both Zaida and Raul came to church and loved it! We had a new gospel principles teacher who started yesterday. He did an awesome job and they both really enjoyed it! There was also a couple that had commited to go to church to see how it was there. well they ended up coming and really enjoyed it as well. Caterin, another investigator set a baptismal date as well. so that is what has been going on for us these past few days. some great experiences. It is great to see the change that happens with the people when they start learning and understanding the gospel. We're busy and we have a lot of work to do.
well, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jentry! hope its a great 16th bday for ya! take care everyone and talk to you all next week. love you lots!

chao elder nelson

Still sick!

2009-05-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Map of the zones in our mission.

Ours is the tiny pink one.

A lady in our ward tried to give me a haircut with this tool. Afterwards I had to go to the barber.
My new diet so I can get better.

hey everyone...
i am feeling a lot better today however this past week i still had diarrhea and wasnt feeling too good. I've been fighting this sickness now for almost 2 weeks. the office elders came and got me on thursday to go to the clinic to see what was wrong with me. last thursday was a holiday here so the only place that was open was the emergency room. they gave me an IV because i had gotten really dehydrated from losing so much water for over a week...i also have to do stool samples for a lab to see what is wrong with me. i have to go back to Viña wednesday. i am still on the bland diet but the hospital gave me a written diet so i made photocopies and gave them to the families that we have eaten lunch with and has been good. i am on the diet until wednesday at the least. I've been fighting the sickness and trying to find people to teach. This week the other Elder Nelson in the mission and I went on exchanges and had a lot of success. We had a good day. Well thanks for the letters. take care and talk to you all next week. chao elder nelson

Transfer again...El Belloto, Estero Viejo

2009-05-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

My new companion,

Elder Davila from Fort Worth, TX.

Cecilia, Macarea, Daniela....investigators in Vina.

Goin' home....Good-bye Elder Schneider...you're a ROCK!

(First comp in Chile....last night in the mission field)

Hey everyone how are things going?
This past week we had changes. It turns out that my stay in Viña was to be for only 6 weeks. I am now in a town called El Belloto in the sector of Estero Viejo. It is in the city or outskirts of the city Quilpue. We are 30 minutes inland from Vina. Our sector has lots of apartment buildings and that means lot of stairs. My new companion is Elder Davila from Fort Worth , TX. This is only his second change in the mission. He was trained by a latin who was in his last change so I am teaching him a lot of what goes on in the mission. Everyone here says that my comp looks a lot happier now that he has a companion from the same country. I can only imagine what it would have been like with a latin for the first 6 weeks of being in Chile. The sector is pretty cool. We live 25 minutes outside of our sector and its only us two that live in the pension.
This past week I have been pretty sick. I thought it would just pass by but on the 4th day I called Hma. Wilhelm and got the medicine I needed. I had to stay in the pension on Saturday evening and rest. I am now on a special “bland diet” as you could say. Only rice and white noodles with lots of liquids. No milk products, raw veggies or fruits, and no bread. Its not that fun to tell you the truth. Our pension is pretty deprived on appliances too so my normal eating habits wont take place here either. There is only a fridge and a stove. No microwave or sandwich maker…..AHHHH! Well I am on the diet until tomorrow evening so I can make it until then I guess.
In the sector I came to nothing again so we are in the searching business. Well that is about all that has been going on for me this week. Just hangin in there and trying to find people to teach. Thanks to those that wrote this week. Take care everyone and have a great week. Say hi to everyone for me and good luck Jeni with Graduation and everything this week. I´m proud of ya :) Have a good week. Chaíto, elder nelson

I'm a Chilean Citizen!

2009-05-12T13:58:00.000-07:00

It's Official....Today I became a Chilean Citizen!

Overlooking the beautiful city of Vina del Mar.
The sunsets here are killers....they're so beautiful!
Another beautiful picture of the city.
Flea bites...ouch!

hey everyone!
how are things going? well its hard to believe that this change is now over. we have changes tonight! This was a busy weekend that we had. we had our stake conference. elder corbridge of the 70 came and spoke to us as well as the temple president of the santiago chile temple. they are all from the states. the temple pres speaks really good spanish! elder corbridge struggled a bit on the speed of his but it was fine. the stake president is amazing here. my comp and i think that he will be a general authority someday. Leo has been really sick this week and went to the hospital earlier. basically his whole body has been swollen and painful.
the highlight of the week was last night when i got to talk to my family on the phone for a little bit. We are able to call our families for Mother's day. it was good to hear them as well as the dogs :)
It's been a frustrating week on the missionary work of finding people but we just need to keep on going. alright well i guess we will see where i will be emailing from next week...if its still in Viña or somewhere else. till then, take care elder nelson

The famous Flower Clock in Viña

2009-05-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

We had to wait like half hour to take a picture...there was a guy weeding the "MAR" part. he took a little water break so we jumped in there and took them.

hey how are things going? This week has been a busy one. We havent left our sector this week as we have had to do in the past few weeks. We had to go down to Viña for a special meeting with the stake president as we have stake conference this coming weekend. Elder Corbridge of the 70 is going to be there and we are going to be having a special meeting with all of the investigators, recent converts, and less active members in the stake. it should be a really neat experience. we are leaving the pension an hour early everyday this week delivering letters from the stake presidency describing the meetings and the invitation. we are to invite the spirit and read the letter with the family and investigators so that they will go to this meeting.
Leo is getting pretty excited for his baptism. Yesterday went by Leo's house to see how he was doing. he was still in bed and said that he was sick. He said that he was not doing good at all so my comp and i gave him a blessing. As we were getting ready to do that, the member noticed that his sheets were all wet. He had had some problems and so we took off our sweaters, jackets, and ties and got him to the bathroom and helped him shower and clean up. we got him all dressed and ready for bed. He really needs to get out of bed everyday so that he doesnt have these problems with his legs and feet. When we saw his feet his toenails were really long and overgrown. No wonder he was walking so slow. He was really grateful for our help. The member is going to help him go to the Doctor this week.
so that is kind of what has been going on this week. thanks to those that wrote me. it is good so to hear from you. sounds like things are going good back home. take care everyone.
chaíto...

Fall in Chile

2009-04-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

My new glasses....ya right!

Hey! How are things going? Things have been going good for me. This week really flew by for me. I have been really busy here in Viña it seems. This past week Leo came to church. The normal 5 minute walk for us to the church took about 35 minutes with him. He walks really slow and i think he was trying to keep his pants from falling the whole trip. This next week i think we are going to try and find someone that can come and pick him up. He has no problems with walking but we can tell that it is a little hard on him. We have had a great support from some of the members in our ward that come with us to our appointments that we have with him. We were able to get 11 lessons with a member this week which is the highest in this sector for over a year now. There is still work to do though. SO kind of the highlight of the week was that we had interviews with the President on Tuesday morning. I was really nervous for it since he has a longer interview with me to go over the district and stuff too. it was a really good interview. We talked about the difficulties of contacting a rich sector like Recreo with all of their intercoms and nannies and stuff. He gave us some really good ideas.
This week has had some really nice weather surprisingly. The sun came out and we were rockin short sleeve shirts for the week. Saturday night though we all just about froze. Sunday was really cold. Today it is overcast and chilly. I sure do miss the nice hot summers. I would take that over the cold anyday.
Thanks for writing me this week and letting me how things are going there! Love you all lots! Take care con amor, elder nelson

Sweet things in Viña.

2009-04-22T12:43:00.000-07:00

Sweet sunset ocean views
Clay courts...sweet!

Hello everyone. Things are going good for me here in Viña. I am in a really rich part of town and most of the contacts we do during the day are with the nannies that work in the houses. that's not too good especially since our sector is so small and even smaller with all the big houses here. in church i havent had to teach anything yet but being district leader, i have to teach a class every monday night....i dont enjoy that muchl...i am liking Viña though. i am a bit dissappointed that i am here for all the rain though that is going to come. in Ovalle it rains 3 times a year... later on today we are going to go to the flower clock to take some pictures. this past saturday i was hardly in my sector. we had to go down to Viña Centro to do a baptismal interview for the zone leaders and then out to Quintero with one of the zone leaders to fix some problems that are going on out there. there are sister missionaries out there. my comp went with elder schneider to the other sister missionary sector in Con Con. apparentely they had only done 12 contacts as of friday night...normally we have to do 150 each week...160 for district leaders and zone leaders. then we got back from those around 6pm and worked in our sector for 2 hours and had to go up to another sector, Nueva Aurora to do another baptismal interview so i have done 5 now.
well other than that we are just workin hard. we have someone that we are teaching right now. he is 72 years old. his name is Leo. he couldnt come to church yesterday for some reason so we had to change his baptismal date but he really enjoys when we come over to teach him and loved going to church last week.
well that is about it. thanks for the letter and dad go play a round of golf for me. i think there is a course in La Serena but no idea if there is one down here. as far as i know we can go there on pday...that would be an experience...well take care! love you lots! chaíto!

More Pictures of beautiful Viña.

2009-04-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

Jaren sent a lot of really beautiful pictures this week of Viña and I wanted to share more of them with you. Viña del Mar is the vacation spot of the Chilean Riviera. He's in such a beautiful place and very happy to be in the city named for his mission. Enjoy!

Lovin' it in Viña del Mar

2009-04-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

A sunny day in Viña del Mar
Another beautiful coastal view of Viña.
Elder Palmer and the dirty dog encounter
My new companion Elder Watkins.

Me in Viña. It's turning fall now and cooling off so we're wearing long sleeves now.

Another view of the hills we climb everyday in Viña.

hey everyone.
things are going good for me here in Viña. the weather for sure is changing. there has been some light rain this week but will for sure only get worse. we have been wearing long sleeves during the day and our suit jackets at night. this week we were able to get into 13 houses. that is quite a bit. one of the houses we got into was pretty funny. the guy was old and couldnt really hear so we had to like shout everything. the prayer was kinda funny as I was not used to shouting one. turns out this guy was like a bigwig factory owner back in his day and made bank. he had his slacks and sweater on to just chill in his house and had this funny fur hat thing on. he was pretty cool and invited us back for tomorrow. my easter was like another day in the mission. i will say something though....i absolutely hate holy week in the catholic religion. we got that like all week as an excuse for everything...it is good that it is all over with now though...we can get back to working without the excuses from everyone. yesterday, the family we were going to eat with had company with them so gave us lunch to take to our pension to eat...so that was our easter.
things with the new comp are going good. we work good together. with the whole district leader stuff, i went and did interchanges with elder palmer in the sector of chorillos. you met his parents at the rest stop going home from the mtc. it was a fun day although he got mud splatted on him by a dog too...i have a pic i´ll send. i did get my package this past week and must say i love it! thank you so much for it and everything!

it is really getting cold here at night. even with socks and three blankets, my feet freeze.
well thats about all thats been going on with me...just hangin in there and working hard, getting used to all the new stuff to do...well thanks for everything and tell everyone hi for me. take care. love you lots!
chao, elder nelson

My First Transfer....Viña del Mar

2009-04-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

A gorgeous view of the city and ocean in Viña del Mar. A Sunset view of the ocean in Viña del Mar

Hey Everyone!
How are things going? Things are going good for me here! Well we had changes in the Mission this past week. I finally left Ovalle. That night I had to be in the Zone Leader´s pension at 10:00pm and then at the bus terminal at 1:00 in the morning to VIÑA!!! I am now in Viña del Mar. My new sector is called Recreo Alto. My new companion´s name is Elder Watkins. He is from Vegas area, Nevada. He has one change less than me. I am now senior companion which is a little overwhelming…especially going to a new sector. It felt weird being toted around the sector this week but I am getting the hang of the sector. There are tons of hills and stairs. I am not really a fan of these haha…I miss the flats of Ovalle. I was so tired when I got to Viña! We got there at 6 in the morning. It only got worse as the day went on. I was replacing an elder who had been in the sector for 7 months and the people were sad to see him go. I am finally in a ward again but from what I hear, there are only like 50 people that go every Sunday which is about half of what came to the branch in ovalle. My trainer is a Zone Leader here in Viña right now too which is cool. He is in his last change. When he was with me he still had six months to go… This weekend we had the opportunity to listen to general conference. We had to listen to it in Spanish which took away from it a little. Some of the speakers had recorded their talks in Spanish too so we got to hear them speak. Elders christofferson and scott are crazy good in Spanish haha… So to welcome me into the sector, my first day we were doing contacts and we went down this little path. At the end there was this old tiny house. We yelled and out comes this little 10 year old kid that is just mad and tells us to leave and starts pushing me. I told him that all I need to do is talk to his mom. He told me that mormons weren’t welcome here. He started pushing me again and I told him to stop. He asked me if I would like him to punch me in the stomach…I was like fine we will go. As we turned around he went to kick me. I grabbed his foot and tossed it to the side. As we started leaving he and his friend and little sister started throwing rocks at us. Good thing they are bad shots. Well they followed us the whole path throwing rocks at us. When we got to the end of the path, I turned around and pretended to pick up a rock and throw it at him. He curled over and hid but when he saw that I didn’t throw anything or didn’t even have a rock, he got mad that I had embarrassed him so he threw his rock hard right at me. Well I caught it and got right into the motion of throwing it back and he ran away…stupid little kid… Well that is what is basically going on for me right now. I am getting used to my new sector and all the stuff to do now as companion mayor. The ocean looks awesome! Our sector boarders the ocean and is right inbetween Viña and Valpaíriso. It is so pretty. Alright, well that’s all for this week. Love you all lots! Take care! Elder Nelson

Last week in Ovalle

2009-04-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

Me & Elder Gulbranson

The Pieto Family and their son Santiago

So this week has been a busy one. After a not so great week last week, my comp and i decided to see how we could improve and in what areas needed fixing. We set goals and decided how we were going to achieve them. On Tuesday, our day was awesome. We were able to get into 2 houses and get 4 new investigators.We now have 3 people with a baptismal date. On Wednesday, we had a mission conference up in La Serena. We had to be at the bus terminal at 6 in the morning. There were a lot of new things established…for one, now we arent allowed to go eat in restaurants on pdays… that is kind of a bummer. The other was that we cant communicate with people within our mission. That was kind of already established but he went over it again. On Thursday, we had our interviews with the President. He shared with me a really awesome scripture ( Mormon 9: 19-20). It talks about how we need to have trust in the Lord. Of course, this is His work. This was exactly what i needed at this point. I was really discouraged from our last week and this interview really helped me. He also gave me good insight on the importance of planning and writing down everything. He shared the scripture of the brother of jared and how they needed light for the barges….he had to have faith and ask the Lord specifically what he wanted Him to do. Pres. said the exact same thing to me. On Saturday, the elders that we live with had a baptism. We went to support them for a little bit. When we got there, their ward mission leader pulled me aside and asked if i could give a talk on baptism and confirmation. It went pretty well for not having any prep time. I shared Mosiah 18: 8-10. Yesterday in church we got a new branch president. It is the old Elders Quorum Pres, Hermano Honores. His wife is our mamita. He will be good.

Last night, chile beat peru 3-1 in soccer. The game was in Peru. There are a lot of problems between the two countries right now as they are having border issues with the sea. Things could get worse pretty quick up there… Well tonight we have changes so we will see if i am once again going to be in Ovalle for another 6 weeks. I am now two weeks short of ½ a year here in Chile. It sure doesnt seem that long though… Alright, talk to you next week. Thanks for writing me. Take care and know i love you! Chao Elder nelson

8 de Julio and the Big Dog Attack

2009-03-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

Just one of the friendly smiles we usually get.

The creapy dogs here..

Hi everyone how are things going?
Well I am now in the last week of my 4th change! Crazy! I must say that I have had better weeks than this past one. My companion, Elder Neilson, and I were walking down to confirm an appointment in a neighborhood called 8 de Julio (July 8th). It is like the slummy part of our sector and is kind of known to be a bit more dangerous. Well we were walking and as we came around the corner, there was this big black pitbull. It started growling at us so we kinda backed up to go around it but it barked louder and out came a big Rottweiler from a yard. They both started getting mad and coming closer. Both my comp and I took off our backpacks to hit them with if we needed to. I kinda backed up fast when they both started coming. Elder Neilson didn't really and they both went for him. Well he ended up getting bit on the butt by the pitbull. Not hard but it did cause a little bit of bleeding. It looked like a scrape more than anything. He got two holes in his pants. It was kinda scary. It happened so fast too. I was going to throw a rock at the dogs but didn't want to hit my comp either so didn't. they backed away after they bit him too. Today we went to the flea market and I found a night stick that the cops use. It was like 5 bucks. I will keep that in one of the side pockets of my backpack from now on...dumb dogs.
The weather here is cooling down at night. I had to go back and get my jacket in the evening. The time change here is no good for missionary work. It is completely dark at 7:30pm. When we try and do contacting during that time, people come to the door and say they are in bed already.... It is kind of annoying but we need to change and do contacts earlier and set appointments for the night time I guess. Our contact Nicole, who was going to get baptized this coming Saturday didn't come to church yesterday because she had to work in her dads little business. This means that she doesn't have 3 times of going to church and at the first part of april she is going to be leaving to enter the army.
Well that's about all that has been going on here this week. take care everyone!
Chao Elder nelson

Lovin' it in Chile!

2009-03-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My mom's favorite picture.

Me & my little Sis & Bro at the ice-caves in July '08 before I left...good memories

Hello everyone!
so this week has been a busy one. both me and my companion were sick for a few days. We didn't let it get us down and still were able to get out.This morning i began the paperwork for my carnet. That is my identification card for chile. it is kind of a long process and the offices that do it are very slow. We are still working with nicole. she is sceduled to get baptized the 28th. she is excited and cant wait. right now we are busy looking for people to teach. we are doing a lot of contacting. this week we were contacting a guys house and he came to the door hobbling. he said that he cant really stand and talk to us so i just flat out asked if we could come in to talk to him. he said sure. we have an appointment to go back this week. he will be home for the next 3 months straight because he broke his leg and cant work. he seems really good and is open to us. when we came in his house he said how nice it was to see two young people with short hair and a clean shaven face. i guess the appearence thing is important afterall...but of course, the mullet has taken over chile so when someone doesnt have it it is a nice change too. ;) So i completed 7 months this week. wow. time is flying. i am over halfway done with this change too which is weird to think. well know that i am doin fine and lovin it down here.
take care everyone and talk to y'all next week chao elder nelson

Summer vaction in Ovalle is OVER!!!

2009-03-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

Elder Neilson & ALBA
a BBQ with Carla's family & friends

Hey everyone!
How are things going? So this week was alright. First of all, I went on intercambios this Tuesday which I did not enjoy it at all. The elder just flat out bugged me. We have had problems with our investigators neither of them could be found this weekend nor went to church yesterday. We will have to work a bit harder this week I guess to get them to come to church. SO school is now finally back in down here. I have been in Ovalle for all of the summer vacation! I am so glad its over. People are now in their houses. In Chile they don’t exaggerate on the word vacation. They are gone for like months at a time it seems. Many people we were able to find said that they were leaving for the month or something. Very hard to find people to teach when everyone is gone. Well my comp has this little dog whistle that is electronic. Its pretty funny to play with while we are walking through the streets. Its like a little remote that makes the high pitched sound only dogs can hear. Some dogs do the funniest head tilt. Some just get really mad. Well everyone take care this week. Talk to ya next week. Chao Elder Nelson

Jonathan loves French Toast!

2009-03-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Farias - Our returned missionary friend from Chile.

He goes out teaching with us. He is NUTS!!! about French Toast

Hey everyone!
Hey how are things going? So this week has been a good one and surely better than the previous week. We found two people to teach who have a baptismal date for march. The first one is a friend of the girl we just baptized a couple weeks ago. Her name is Nicole and is 20. The other is an older lady named Benilda. Both of them came to church with us yesterday which was cool.
Well the weather is getting a bit nicer for me. Not so hot. It still gets up there but this past week there has been a pleasant breeze that has been nice and cool.
This morning we made French toast and omelets for a member (Jonathan Frias) who has helped us out quite a bit. He is nuts about French toast. He is actually going to study in the states this april. He is excited to go and I have left him with a bunch of things to try and places to go eat.
Things are still goin strong down here. Hope all is well in the north. Take care everyone and talk to ya next week. Chao Elder nelson

The new duo: NEILSON - NELSON

2009-02-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

Elder Neilson & Elder Nelson Ochoa family says a teary "Good-bye" to Elder Tondevold

"Sweet Ties" Elders: Blood, Owen, Tondevold & me

Ovalle at twighlight

hey everyone how is it going? well i dont have that much time to write this week...i had a nice birthday. we had companion changes that day as well. elder tondevold got changed to Villa Alemana and i am staying here in ovalle for another 6 weeks. people here are pretty upset that he is leaving but hey, its the mission...my new companion is elder neilson. Yes, NEILSON...they will have fun trying to keep our names straight. he has 18 months in the mission. he is cool and we should have a good time working together. well gotta get goin. talk to ya next week. take care! chao elder nelson

Happy Birthday Jaren!....and you hit your 1/4 mark

2009-02-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday! Mom sent me my favorite...a Funfetti B'day cake mix! Not sure if the oven would bake it or not as it has 2 settings: On & Off! But it was great!

Carla Vega's baptism - 2/14/09
Yep! That's me stuffing it.

hey everyone how are things going? things are going good down here in Ovalle. i am a little sick with a sore throat but its not too bad...Today is the last day of the third change of my mission. Tonight we have changes. i really have no idea if i am staying or leaving. honestly either one works for me. i love the people here and the weather should start getting a bit more mild after this past month and a half of scorching weather.
So this week has been a busy one. this past week we had a zone conference. the mission president couldnt be there. it was only our zone and the assistants. it was a good conference. The baptism was at 6 and was really nice. we made homemade raspberry-blueberry cheesecake and brownies for the baptism which turned out really good. they were both a huge hit and when we brought them out, immediatly like 4 ladies from the branch were asking us how to make them and the recipe. they went nuts. that evening we played basketball with a few guys who thought they were pretty hot stuff.
this sunday i confirmed carla. it was a good experience for me. later that evening we went on divisions with a couple members from the branch. it was a good time.
This morning i got all packed just in case i leave i can visit people this evening. our president told us that we should be able to pack in 30 minutes if we needed to so i practiced this morning...didnt do it in 30 minutes but got it done...thanks to those of you who wrote me this week. take care and next week i guess we´ll see where i´m at...chao.

Chile Soccer Cup - Congratulations Ovalle!

2009-02-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

Cheesecake we made - YUM!!!!!!!
You know I love it!
I make an awesome omlet too!
KATA a member in our branch and her cool shades!

Our Zone Activity....a day off...kinda

and Mexican Food at El Relajo!

We meet again....Elder Owen from the MTC now in my area.

Hey everyone how are things going? its all going good down here! its hard to believe that its the last week now of the change. We are having a baptism this saturday! Carla passed her interview on saturday and went to church on sunday so she is all ready. She has found a happiness in her life with the gospel. This week we are going to have a conference and interviews with the Mission president in La Serena. It should be fun.
So there is a big soccer tournament going on in chile called the chile cup. anyways, the New York Yankees of the league down here, Colo Colo, lost to OValle! haha ovalle is a div. 3 team that beat a pro team. how embarassing.
Well gotta go. Thanks for all the emails. Next week i´ll do a little recap of the change.

Chao - Love, Elder Nelson

Happy Groundhog's Day!

2009-02-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Happy Groundhog´s day!
Things are going good down here in Ovalle still. As I say every week, and its still true, it sure gets hotter!
So our investigator Carla is progressing well and will probably be baptized on Valentine's day.
A member who lives in Santiago came back up to Ovalle this past week and will be here for another couple weeks. His name is Jonathon Farias. He served his mission in Paraguay 2004-2005. He has gone out with us almost everyday this past week. It is sweet to have a native come with us to give lessons. we were able to give 9 this week.
Today we are having a zone activity. We are going to a mexican restaurant called "El Relajo." It is sooo good and is a nice change from the chicken and rice we have been getting lately. Afterwards, we are going to the church and playing basketball and futball. For this, we get to wear regular "street clothes" all day until our district meetings this evening at 6. it is pretty nice walkin around in jeans and a t shirt for a change but still feels kinda weird at the same time...
Thanks to all those who wrote me this week. take care.
chao, elder nelson

Rough Week

2009-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Another beautiful picture of Monte Patria
Wow! My very short haircut. I didn't know how to tell her in
Spanish how to cut it so she just cut it short.

This is the internet cafe where I email every Monday.
The Arancibia family.

The first family I ever ate with in Chile. They are awesome!
Leather scripture covers I had a lady here make for me.
My fam in August at my farewell picnic.
Thanks! Chelsea for the picture.

Hey everyone hows it going? So this week has been quite a busy one with some ups and downs for sure. The beginning of the week started out horrible. I was also doing intercambios with an elder from Monte Patria that day and nobody was coming out of their houses to talk to us. It was a rather lousy day. Within 12 hours, we lost our top two investigators and recent convert as they were going out of town til February. Later on the week got a lot better. We were able to get into 7 houses off of contacts this week and now have 7 new investigators with 2 that have a baptismal date. We have been getting a lot more help from the members to come with us as well which helps. So we are now on the downhill slide of this change. It is crazy how fast the weeks go by. ...well thats kinda been my week. Its still hotter than ever here and my watch tanline is pretty sweet. Alright, gotta get goin. Thanks for everything! Love you all. Elder Nelson

Still in Ovalle

2009-01-23T13:29:00.000-08:00

Some beautiful Chilean countryside...Monte Patria

A crazy dog that sits next door on the roof top.

Our Branch President Gutierrez & Family

I made French Toast for breakfast...Yum!

" Our Teams" (Me & Elder Tondevold)

On the way to Villa Seca

hey everyone! so this week i went on divisions with the zone leaders. i went down to their sector which is the main part of ovalle. it was a good day but pretty darn hot. so something funny that happened...last night we were teaching this one lady and her little 2 year old daughter who cant stop talking to save her life found like a small cherry or something. she showed it to me and then stuck it in her mouth. apparently it was really sour because she puckered pretty good. she pulled it out and the juice was running over her fingers. it was deep red and she started saying it was bleeding. it was pretty funny.
so a lot of people leave for the summer time for their vacations. we had 1/3 of the people go to church that normally do. i gave my first blessing to the sick in spanish yesterday. usually i just do the first part. well thats all thats really happening for me. we have found more people to teach and have one person scheduled to get baptized on feb 14th. we´ll see how it goes. well until next week, take care! love, elder nelson

Zach's Mission Call

2009-01-09T20:55:00.001-08:00

Congratulations Zach!

Cincinnati, OHIO - March 18, 2009

Happy New Year! 2009

2009-01-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

The ties I've bought in Chile....nothing's too flashy down here!
The chips Elder Tondevold & I have eaten in the past 6 weeks.

Happy monday everyone. This week has been full of all sorts of things to talk about. First of all, new years. We were allowedto be out until 11 but had to be driven back to our pension. We were able to go to the family Honores for a nice dinner. The families Ochoa and Tello were there as well as some other people from another branch. The food was really good. I must admit i spent the new year chime sleeping but it was well worth it. on new years day everyone down here is wasted from the night before so there wasnt all that much to do in the streets. We went to a family and they offered for us to have a snack which turned into dinner. They played all our favorite rap songs we had given them a list to look up a few weeks ago. Last monday my companion and i decided to buy some presents for a family in our branch that doesnt really have a lot. We got both of the boys some nice ties, the girl some of her favorite chocolate, our convert a picture frame and pics from the baptism last week, and then another kid who was staying with them while his parents were out of town working some battle bots. One of the boys loves to play basketball and told us he was saving up for one so we went and got him one. He loved it! he actually had to leave when he got it because he was crying i think. They were grateful for their gifts. They are probably my favorite family down here. The kids left for their dads house up north for january so saturday night we went and got pictures with them and played uno with them. They all wrote us letters and their mom gave them to us Sunday evening.

So on the funny side of things this week, whenever there is a guy that we contact that is rude and slams the door, we pretend to count things on his house and act like we want to make "re-adjustments" to his house. well there was a guy who was way rude so we started doing it and he came flying out of his house yelling and asking why we were taking down notes of his house. we told him that we werent but then he said dont give me that...i know you are spies from the u.s. but i havent done anything wrong. i am not a robber. it was hard to keep a straight face. he thought we were from the us government.
Well it is hard to believe that my 2nd change is over. We are having changes tonight. Okay...i guess i will let you all know where i am at next week :)
Take care everyone! love you lots! enjoy the snow for me ;) Con Amor, Elder Nelson

A five layer flower down here...very cool!
and these huge spiders everywhere!

Feliz Navidad!

2008-12-31T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!
Hey how are things going? SO this week has been a good one. Christmas was fun. The people down here do things on Christmas eve instead of Christmas day so that night we went caroling with the Branch President´s Family for an hour or so and then back to his house for a dinner. The dinner was way good. There was tons of steak and pork as well as sausages called chorizo. yummy. There was also a bunch of potatoes and rice as well as bread. Elder Tondevold and I made Brownies to take over for them. The other elders that we live with came over for dinner too.
Christmas day was pretty relaxed. We played games in our pension with the other elders and then went to lunch at a members house. SO there is a family in our branch that doesnt have a lot of money and it is a single mom working 2 fulltime jobs to support 4 kids. She is really awesome and has taken her sister in to live with her so she can still go to school. We have been teaching the sister for the past few weeks now. Anyways, we got a box and stuffed it full of candy and some toys and took it over to them. They loved it. Later on that day, I got to talk to my family....finally. The guy who said we could use his house phone to receive the call wasn't even at his house when we told him to be and then our families ended up not even being able to call. After like 3 hours of going into town and then buying minutes on a cell phone and having a guy call around, we got the code to get out of the US and got everything worked out. PHEW!!!
Phone number they called us at in Chile 0115653636681

Okay, so now on to the good stuff. This past saturday, we had a baptism! Her name is Nayareth Rojas and has moved in with her older sister who lives in our ward. My companion baptized her and yesterday in Church, I confirmed her. It was a cool experience for me but I was pretty nervous! I hope everyone had a great and safe christmas! Take care and i´ll talk to ya next week. -Elder Nelson Nayareth's sister, family & us.

Little Rays of Sunshine

2008-12-31T15:23:00.000-08:00

My favorite flower down here "Little Ray of Sunshine"

Hey Everyone!
How are things going? So this week has been a busy one. We had our Christmas Conference up in La Serena this past Thursday. We had to be on the bus by 6am so we got an early start to the day. The conference was really good. Pres and Hma Wilhelm spoke to us. Our special musical number went really well also. It was I heard the bells on Christmas day. They also asked me to play the opening, closing, and prelude. It was fine this time because it was all just christmas songs. But, we had a nice lunch and then a gift exchange. We all got mission shirts. I will have to take a picture of mine and try and send it next week or something. After that we had like a soccer activity. Friday was full of events as well. We had interviews with both President and Hma Wilhelm. Hma Wilhelms interview is about like our health and then memorization stuff....she also has us do pushups for her and then set goals for next time. I got44 and my goal is 60. she doesnt count them either if you dont go all the way down. So after that, we had an activity where we sang the songs that we had been practicing. We went to like a children´s home to sing to all the kids there and then had a santa claus give out gifts. IT was fun and the kids liked it. After that, we had our singing in the plaza with some of the members. It was a lot better than i thought it was going to be. They had mics and speakers all hooked up so we were jammin the whole plaza . Between each song the missionaries had to give a little minute long thing to introduce the next song. we had to write it by ourselves. i introduced silent night.
Well everyone is getting ready for Navidad down here. There are people who set stands up for wrapping presents and stuff and a lot of people have lights hanging up. its funny because some people have those lights for drapping over bushes just hanging on the side of their house...and its only like one square too so it looks kinda funny to see a patch of lights on a house.
Alright, well I hope everyone has a great week and a feliz navidad! Love you all and take care!
-Elder Nelson

Vote on our ties

2008-12-15T10:24:00.000-08:00

Me & my companion Elder Tondevold from Murray, UT

play a game with people. We ask them to vote on whose tie they like the most.

So...who's tie do you like the most??

The first family I met in Limari. They are moving up north to work.

Christmas lights in the down town plaza of Ovalle
A little country town of Punitaqui, 30 min. from Ovalle

Well hello everyone. Things are going well down here in Ovalle. Just when you think it cant get any hotter, we get a nice little overcast day. It is wonderful but I am sure the clouds will go away before too long. So this past Saturday night the 4 elders in our pension(apartment) invited a bunch of the member young men and their friends to play some basketball. It was way fun and i can now dunk it with a mini ball. it was funny to see how they play. it is like unorganized churchball from the states. I am pretty sore today though still.
Earlier this week I went on intercambios (exchanges) to a small town about 30 minutes east of Ovalle. It is called Punitaqui. It was way hot there and kind of a little country town. Not much out there but it was fun.
We are still practicing Christmas songs for our mission conference this Thursday as well as to sing in the town plaza this Friday with members of the church. It should be fun. Yesterday at the practice with all the members the person who plays the piano for that never showed up so i had to play. I didnt know a couple of the songs but I winged it through them alright...
Well hope all is going well with everyone! Love you all and thanks for everything! Take care!
Con Amor, Elder Nelson

It's Hot!

2008-12-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

A dog that greets us at our pension...we named her Luda.

Jaren's Christmas package from home finally arrived!

He has a mini Christmas tree, presents and pink walls!

elder smith (left), me, elder villagra (right).

they are both so funny.

elder smith said that he was going to smile like a

south american in his pic haha

Our zone.

Hey everyone!
So this week i gave my first haircut today to elder halverson. it turned out good but it did blaze a spot right above his ear but he doesnt care. We found Nayareth to teach. She is going to be baptized on December 27th. She moved in to live with her sister who is a member and they came to us at church last week saying that they wanted to start the discussions. It is pretty cool. So tonight I am going out to Punitaqui for intercambios (exchanges). so i will have been in every sector of the ovalle zone. Things are going well with my companion and I. We like a lot of the same things and found out that a lot of the little annoying things we do to family and friends are the same. Its a good time and we enjoy working together. I am playing the piano for the Christmas conference this month...its only 4 songs and i am able to practice them every day so its not that bad. We are also singing in the district conference for Ovalle. We had a practice yesterday with members and the lady complemented my singing a couple of times--haha...i was doing bass too. I dont think it was me she was hearing because I don't sing...SO on the funnier side of the week, we were walking down this big hill earlier on tuesday, and this guy who was probably like 22 was at the bottom and walking the opposite way we were going...anyways, he turned up to wave at us and took his eyes off the ground and hit a curb and did the goofiest looking fall i have ever seen! The first thing he did was look back up at us to see if we saw it. I gave him the thumbs up and just kept walking. He was laughing...it was funny. Well, just enduring this heat...take care everyone and enjoy the snow for me ;) Love you all! -Elder Nelson
P.S. Happy Birthday Uncle Neil, Uncle Andy, Uncle Byron & Erica! Hope its a good one :)

Crooked mouths & a new companion

2008-12-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!
Hey how are things going? Things are good here. It sounds like Thanksgiving was a good time. I didnt even notice a difference down here.
So drumroll....I am still in Limarí, Ovalle. I do have a new companion. His name is Elder Tondevold. He is from Murray, Utah and has been on his mission for about 13 months now. He is cool and we get along good together.
So, yeah this week was full of contacting. So i dont remember if I told you this earlier but there is a superstition here that makes me laugh just about everytime I see it. It is called the "boca chueca"...not really sure how to spell the second word, but it means crooked mouth. If anyone is drinking a hot drink or ironing, they will come to the door with their mouth covered because they think if they talk and the cold air hits their mouth, it will get stuck. My comps like to have a little fun with these people sometimes and kinda make fun of them without them realizing by like cautioning them not to come out anymore. Its pretty funny.
So its weird to think that on the 13th of Dec. I will have been on my mission for 1/3 of a year already. The time really flies down here but the MTC seems like forever ago.
I am still working hard and learning the language. It its getting easier for me to understand people but speaking still is a challange at times.
I better wrap this up but I hope all is well and you are enjoying the cooler weather...its only getting worse each day and I would kill for a cool breeze. I'm getting quite a tan line where my watch is. Well today is still overcast and nice but we will see how long that lasts :) I love you all!
Love,
Elder Nelson

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! everyone! Things are going good down here in Ovalle. I cant believe that my first change is already over! It sure flew by. Only 15 more changes to go ;)
So I played the piano for the primary program yesterday in Sacrament meeting. It went well and the kids did really good. I thought it was going to be hard keeping them quiet and sitting still but they were really good. So Juan, the boy we baptized a couple weeks ago passed the Sacrament yesterday which was pretty cool. We found a family to teach this past week. I dont know if I told you about them already but we taught (did) a kid´s english homework for them one night so we went back and asked if we could share a message with them.
Another cool thing that happened was way back in the beginning of my stay here in Ovalle I went on splits with Elder Smith from another district and we taught this lady and she accepted a baptisimal date. She had me pray both times. Well my companion had to do the baptizimal interview so we went down there with Elder Smith and Villagra and she had me say the opening prayer again! She is getting baptized this weekend.
Well that is about all the excitement that has been going on. I guess I will tell you all where I am at next week but I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Eat some turkey for me and some ranch dressing too...(unheard of down here...) okay, love you all lots! Oh, happy Birthday Zach! Hope it was a good one. Thought about ya yesterday and how things are going. Hope all is well.

Love, Elder Jaren Nelson

My First Earthquake

2008-11-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

So during the lesson, i had my first earthquake experience. It was only like 10 seconds long and just a little rumbling but it scared me because we were on the third floor of an apartment complex which is the highest building in our sector.