Week 44: Que Esta haciendo perro cochino!? (What are you doing dirty dog?!)

Buenos Dias!!!

This week was a week of success and hard work! We invited lots of people to be baptised and many accepted! We will see if they will keep the commandments and the promises they made.

This week I started out a little bit disappointed and frustrated with lots of things that are going on. But I decided to read a talk that I found in the apartment already called "mental Toughness" by Elder Ballard. It talks about making success happen even if all the situations are against you. It talks about not complaining and just giving it your all. It humbled me a lot because I was doing all the things it said not to do ha ha. I decided to take the advice that I had received by reading it and put it to the test... And what would you know... It passed. 

This week After reading that I decided to give it my all and not care about the rest. After deciding that and working super hard we managed to invited many people to be baptized and we now have 7 people who have accepted to be baptized on a specific day. We have more success than I have ever had in the mission. I know that if we follow the advice and the revelation of the prophets and apostles we will receive the blessings that they promise. We just have to be willing to humble ourselves and accept the advice. 

So this week the work went well. We encountered many new investigators and helped many progress. We had many intense lessons in which I felt the spirit strongly and so did the investigators. One night we invited an investigator to keep a commandment that is a little difficult to keep. He said that he would have to think about it so we invited him to pray and ask god if it was something that he should do. The Next day we passed by to see if he got an answer and he said that he had. But that before he prayed he already knew it was true. In his own words "yeah I prayed, but there are some things that I don't have to ask god, and I know they are true after I hear you teach them. It was like that with this commandment." I know that the spirit is the real teacher .

It is getting colder, a lot colder. But luckily (or unluckily) it hasn't rained. I am grateful that it hasn't rained, but apparently Chile is having a really big bad drought. The area presidency (The area 70s) have asked all of Chile, Peru, and Argentina to fast this Sunday for rain (which I'm not too thrilled about) but if Chile needs it than I will fast for it.

 

This week we also had some funny experiences, and yes one of them includes a dog :)

"Que Esta haciendo perro cochino!?":

I thought I was all done with the dog stories. After not having an incident in almost 2 months I was not expecting this to come. We were working in an area where we haven't worked very often so I was looking at a map. While looking at the map a dog walked over to me and I thought "dang it, I am going to get fleas now and it is going to touch me and give me all of its nasty." But I was busy looking at the map so I decided that I didn't care. But to my surprise the dog didn't touch me, so I kept looking at the map. Then all of a sudden I feel something touching me, but it wasn't the dog so I looked down to see what was up. In that moment I saw something that I never would have expected... The dog had lifted up its rear leg and was... Yes... Peeing on my leg and on my shoes!!! I jumped and started yelling at him. But after 2 seconds of yelling at him I started dying laughing. The dog had marked me as his territory and my pants were covered in dog pee. I had to spend the next 10 minutes laughing my head off. But now I have an owner.

"Uh-Oh"

We walked into a store one day and there were some little girls buying some stuff for their mom. They turned around when they heard us come in so I smiled at them. Before I could even say one word the little girls said "Uh-oh." Normally I would have stopped smiling and not talked to them but I decided to be more assertive. "UH OH? UH OH? what is so UH OH? I didn't think I was that ugly, and I know that you wouldn't say that about my companion would you?" The little girls started laughing and we talked a little bit. But now I am friends with two 7 year old girls ha ha :)

This week I had experiences with drugged people doing weird things but it doesn't matter what they did ha ha :) 

I hope that you all have a fantastic week and I love you all :)

Stay Golden!

Elder Nielson :)

Week 43: "If I am going to dance than I have to go pee pee first!"

Buenos Dias!

This week was a good week! We have 2 investigators that came to church so they still have their baptismal dates for the 11th of July! So hopefully we can achieve those and invite even more people to come unto Christ :) 

This week we didn't have many experiences but I wrote down some quotes that I really thought were funny :)

1) While visiting a recent convert her grandpa was watching bugs life and was really into it then said to us as if he had received revelation "I never noticed that before... but the ants from bugs life, especially the queen, look like the sisters from relief society!" I died laughing at that one, but it is true, the relief society president looks a lot like the queen ant ha ha :)

2) While visiting an inactive family a little boy who is 4 years old was about to play just dance with his older sister. The older sister was picking a song and came across sexy and I know it. When she decided to dance to that song her 4 year old brother shouted "If I'm going to dance this song than I have to go pee pee first!" Then he shot off to the bathroom. It was hilarious and I almost died laughing :)

This week we had changes and as part of changes something sad happened... My district that was a district of 8 missionaries got cut down to a district of 6 missionaries. The sisters from levarte B got taken from my district and put into another one. That made me sad because I liked talking to them, but oh well. 

This week while doing planning at night we were in the apartment and our neighbor was jamming out to music. All of a sudden Mr Roboto by Styx came on, it was pretty normal but then he started trying to sing along to it! He started singing really loudly and off tune. After singing almost the whole first verse he stopped singing because the voice got really high pitched, so I started singing along to the song in my falsetto and did it really loud. After that he turned the music off, so I am assuming that my bad voice hasn't improved much :)

The work is going well. We have 2 investigators that are going to be baptized in July and we have some futures that could be baptized in July as well. But besides that the mission work is just going along like normal :)

I miss you all and hope that you have a fantastic week!

Stay Golden! :)

Love,

Elder Nielson :)

Week 42: Death by Marshmallows, Flirting, Playing Pranks and Break Ins!

Buenos Dias!!!!

This week was a good week, lots of events that took place that made it different than normal. The work was pretty normal, we have investigators and people listening to the lessons, but it is pretty normal in that aspect :)

This week we had a Family Home Evening with the girls who got baptized and with their family. It was super fun! We taught a lesson and then played a game. They were all dying of laughter and loving the game. It was so awesome to see them grow closer as a family in a matter of 15 minutes and it really taught me the power of Family Home Evening. Our families will be strengthened and will overcome any trial if we do our Family Home Evenings.

This week we almost died from marshmallows! I always make brownies with marshmallows on top for our District meetings, but this week I decided to make some for a member to share during lunch. I had a lot of marshmallows so I decided to put on triple the amount of marshmallows and left them to cook. After a little bit I started to smell smoke. I went into the kitchen and the oven was spewing smoke! The extra marshmallows and fallen off and were burning in the oven. By then time I was able to cut the oven and stop the burning the apartment was visible full of smoke. We ran around and opened all the windows and were okay. But we could have died from some stinking marshmallows!! :)

This week was also a week of learning... Learning how to flirt! Whenever we talk with a flaite (flighty a Chilean gangster) who is like 23 they always ask us if we have Chilean girlfriends. This week we did a contact with a flaite and he asked us if we had Chilean girlfriends. We told him no and he got a look of sincere concern on his face and began to tell us "Its okay, its okay, its okay, don't worry, Ill teach you how to do it!" We spent the next 5 minutes receiving tips and the guide on how to flirt and get a Chilean girlfriend, and his tips on love and how to make the relationship work. It was Hilarious! But what made it so funny was his sincere concern that we didn't have a Chilean girlfriend ha ha :)

This week I might have played a prank on the sister missionaries that are in our ward. After a meeting with some leaders and the missionaries everyone left and the sister missionaries went into the bathroom. We have the keys to the church and the leaders asked us to close the church. So we left the church turned off the lights and locked the door (With the sister missionaries still in the bathroom). They came out and we could hear them talking a little bit and they tried to open the door, but it was locked so they couldn't open it. They tried yanking it and everything and finally accepted the fact that they had been locked in the church and started calling someone. At that point we opened the door. But it was super funny, but now we have to be careful so that they don't get us back :)

This week we went to go visit someone in an apartment complex but when we got there the apartment had 2 locked gates to get inside. The person was a really good contact so we wanted to talk to her. After thinking for a minute I decided it was worth it to break in. Using a pen, some broken glass, and a stick and some time we managed to break into the first gate. As we prepared to open the second gate we noticed that the apartment had buzzers to call the people, which would have been awesome if she lived there... After calling the apartment we realized that we had broken into the wrong apartment complex! 

That was my week ha ha :) We have the brothers of the little girls with baptismal dates in July and some investigators but the brothers are the only ones progressing. 

This Wednesday we have changes but I don't think we are going to be changed because we are both pretty new to the area :) 

I love you all, stay golden!

Love,

Elder Nielson :)

 

 

Week 41: Baptisms and the Pants of a thousand tears!

Buenos Dias!!!

This week was a good week that flew by super fast! We didn't do much but we also did a lot! 

This week we prepared the girl to be baptized on the weekend. It was so exciting and so stressful at the same time! We had to prepare everything for the baptism and everything for the lessons and it was super stressful... But we Did it!  The girls got baptized on Saturday and Confirmed on Sunday! The baptism was super awesome and the  family was super happy :) We are going to continue working with the whole family so that they can progress together as a family and go to the temple :)

This week one of my pairs of pants turned into the "Pants of a Thousand Tears." We were teaching a lesson to A recent convert who is 11 years old and after the lesson we invited her to share the gospel with her friends. We gave her some cards and had her write a message on each card to give to her friends. She messed up writing (said that it was bad handwriting, but I was able to read it) so we gave her another one, and she "Messed up again" so we gave her 1 more and she messed up again. We told her that we could read them so her friends would be able to as well. Then she put on a puppy dog face and we started laughing and telling her that it wouldn't work. Then she started crying... we thought she was playing at first, but then she started crying for real, I still have no Idea why, but then she buried her head on my leg and cried for like 5 minutes. I didn't know what to do, I mean what do you do if an 11 year old girl is crying on your leg and you don't know why and her parents and grandparents are just looking at you??? After she finished crying we talked some more and she was okay, but we still don't know why she cried ha ha. But as we left I noticed my pants were wet! I had a 4 inch circle of tears next to my knee! So now the pants are called my Pants of a thousand tears ha ha :)

Being a District Leader is super fun and awesome, but also very time consuming! There isn't time to do anything... Not even to use the bathroom. A couple of times I haven't used the bathroom in like 3 days so I got sick. After experiencing that a couple times I decided to use the bathroom once a day no matter what. Yesterday It was almost the end of the day and I still hadn't used the bathroom. I had to go super bad but I still had to call my zone leaders and give them numbers and inform them of some things. I couldn't wait and neither could they... so we had to compromise a little bit... I had to call them in the bathroom... Can I say Awkward, because that sure doesn't even come close to describing it. My voice was echoing so I am pretty sure they knew I was in the bathroom, but they didn't say anything. But In the end it worked out, I called the zone leaders and managed to use the bathroom, I guess you can say I am a pro at multitasking ha ha :)

Besides that not too much happened!

I love you all and hope that you all stay golden! :)

Love you tons,

Elder Nielson

 

 

Week 40: The Spirit of God like a fire is burning

Buenos Dias!

This week was such a wonderful week! A week of Miracles, even more miracles, and good news!

This week we got some really good news! Our branch and the district (like a stake) have finally been approved to become a ward and a stake! This is big and I am going to be here for the conference with the general authority and everything! It is going to be super awesome and super exciting! :)

This week we were door tracting (knocking on doors and doing contacts). We knocked on the door of a house and no one answered, so we knocked again, no one answered, so we knocked a third time. No one answered so we started looking up the direction of an old investigator who lived close by. After a minute of looking some music turned on in the house the we had just knocked at. At first I was kind of frustrated, because that meant that someone was there but didn't want to answer us. But after hearing the song for like 30 seconds I decided I really liked the song and decided to knock on the door just to ask what the name of the song was... and do you know what happened!?! Yeah that's right, they didn't answer... so I didn't get to know what the name of the song was.

This week we encountered some little girls who have been going to church for a year but aren't baptized so we went to their house and talked to their mom (A less active) and asked her if we could baptize them. She said yes, but that we had to ask permission from her husband on the weekend (when he would be home from work). So all week we taught them lessons and started preparing them for the baptism. Finally the weekend came and we went to their house after church to talk with their dad. We got their and he was busy so we had a lesson with them and then asked again if they could get baptized. Them mom called in the dad and we asked him. And he said no, that they are too young to make a promise with god and that they think it is just a game. I was just thinking "Fetch, we just lost 2 baptisms right there, how dumb" but I kept talking hoping that we could talk some sense into him, and that is when the spirit decided to take control. We talked about baptism and repentance, and then the spirit just took full control. I started sharing a very passionate testimony about repentance and life experience and baptism and the holy ghost. I had no Idea what I was saying, the Spirit was just putting the words into my mouth. Everyone was looking at me stunned and amazed, and in that moment I recognized the power and authority I had. After sharing that we asked the girls about why they go to church and they answered "to learn about Jesus and God" and I was about to say to their dad "Look, they are going to church for the right reasons, what more do you want?" But I didn't and decided to ask one more question. "And why do you like to learn about Jesus and God?" The girls (9 and 11) answered " To be happy, to get closer to him and to..." Then everything got quiet and they started crying and she said "And to help my mommy and my daddy" When she said that a spiritual bomb exploded. The whole family started crying and we sat in silence for about a minute. Then the dad said "I didn't know they felt that way" and then more silence. After that we shared more and let the spirit teach. It was so intense and so powerful. I have never had a lesson like that in my whole mission! It was amazing. In the end we got permission to baptize the girls this weekend! And the spirit was so strong that the other kids (15 and 19) accepted the invitation to be baptized. I don't know if I have ever felt the spirit so strongly, but in that moment I received a strong testimony about the spirit and the power of the spirit.

That was our week in a nutshell. I know that this is the Church of God and that He loves us. I Know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet Called of god to restore the fullness for the gospel.

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week!

Stay Golden!
Elder Nielson :)