20 February 2017

So our p-day is really different inside the cap. Reason for that is that we don’t have to write in an internet cafe. As well the church here has A-C! So we played soccer today in the shirt I got from Kiana.  We all had a good laugh at that and after we started to win haha. So It’s been rough being here in the mission and I found one scripture in D and C 128'22 And there’s one part where it says [go forward and not backwards. Courage, Brethren and on, on to the victory. This is neat for me because it’s got my saying in it as well, [keep moving forward this is something we all have to do to have victory. It’s been pretty crazy here in the mission. I had a thought today when we were out talking to people in the street. In my mind I always say, well I’ll try it but I remembered some great words from a Wise little green guy. He said to someone do or do not! There is no try. This made me think we just need to get out there and do the work and not try but do. 

 

So we have some really slow days the past couple of days. And what I mean by that is our lessons have been falling through every time. We have one new guy we are teaching though. He read the whole lesson one and had a lot of questions for us. So we put a date for him to be baptized and he said sure. As well he wants to read the Book of Mormon. As well one family bought 2 pizzas for me and my comp. It was a good dinner let’s just say that as well we got to drink A/W root beer again!! 

 

So we and a special visit from a member of the 12 on Thursday. Elder Rasband! But we had a member of the 70 there as well. We had our whole mission in this conference as well we had Mission Central with us as well. He was a great speaker and talked a lot of how we can talk to more investigators, Help them gain faith. Help them understand the church. But something he really said that the work isn’t done by superheroes but that the fullness of my gospel might be proclaimed by the weak and the simple unto the ends of the world, and before kings and ruler. D/C 1Ñ23= This really hit me because I think that we have to be the best person or superman to do this work but when I read this I know that this work is for us who are simple reason for that is that we teach in a simple manner. This is for anyone to think that this work isn’t for them. To understand that even the weak can teach and teach by the spirit. He talked a lot about how we have a great spirit and that we need to teach with power. This was a big highlight for the day and my mission.

 

So we had divisions here. I went to the area of the District leaders. It was good we finally got domino’s pizza! It was a good way to end the night. As well when I came home here to Ecinmoica I was told by the DL to look at the photos on my camera. So i came home and seen that he took my hockey jersey and put it on! He took some funny photos. I told him I never thought I’d see an American wearing a Canadian jersey. We had a good laugh about that. He’s pretty chill. So we went to visit the bishop to see how

district leader he was doing and how his family were. We got there and we started talking about star wars because the bishop is a big star wars fan! And of course i am too!! So we talked about that for a good while as well we talked about other movies as well I’m surprised that I could talk to someone about movies in Spanish! Maybe I’m just getting better. Haha 

 

So it’s been pretty crazy in my mission. And the reason i say that is that is because of my comps... 2-3 of my comps are not very good and always have problems with members. For example, my first comp was disobedient and left the house. My new comp has a problem with one of the members. We talked with this member on Sunday to figure out where he was feeling with everything. After I told him. [I’m sorry I didn’t say much. I just didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I told him I agree with him and as well I agree with my comp but it’s hard to say what is correct. It’s been really hard to work with this comp. He is so prideful and doesn’t listen to me. On Thursday it is our weekly planning and we plan for our investigators. He asked me what I thought we should do and after he completely changed it for a different lesson. He then said, I know what everyone needs and you know nothing. I had enough and went to work. 

 

 

The district leader who high jacked the team Canada jersey

 

The only other Canadian in Jordan’s mission….he is from BC as well

In the middle is my second trainer and the elder on the end was his trainer. So the elder on the end is my grandpa.

13 February 2017

My new area is all the way on the other side of the mission. So I went from one side to the next in my first 2 areas. It’s pretty alright. Its way bigger then Catocha was. We basically have 3 levels to work in. But let’s just say that as you go down the “levels” you see a lot of people have less and less money. We are in the second part and its pretty okay I guess. Not a lot of money but it’s okay. We went to visit the bishop tonight. And let’s just day he has money. Both he and his wife have iPhone 6s. As well they have 3 cars. Never seen things in Catocha like that. It’s weird with my Spanish. Today I almost under stood everything. I’m really happy to see how far my Spanish has come!! There has been a lot of improvement with everything. So all in all today was a good day. As well I got my package!

 

So we like I said we have 3 different parts of the area. Today we worked in Compton. It was pretty fun to work there actually. I got to see the church and is away bigger than the one in Catocha. As well it turns out that almost all the members live in this part of our area. We are working with one family. The mom is a member, the daughter was just converted and all the kids are members. But the one son isn’t. He goes to another church and doesn’t like the Mormon Church that much. So we are trying to work with him a bit to come to church and learn more. So I found the new member in this area. He is a returned missionary. He served in Mexico and he practicing English. He said to us that if we need any help with anything he is here for us. But the catch is that we need to be worthy to have his help. It’s been pretty good here in the new area, Econmica.

  

The thing I do not like that much about a mission is weekly planning... It takes forever and it’s so boring. Yes I know that we need to do it to be prepared for our investigators but it just takes forever. Something pretty crazy as well is that I have had 2 inspections in 1 week. I had one in Catocha and now I’m here with one haha pretty crazy. That’s the life of a mission though. 

 

We have worked up where everyone has money. We have to go through a gate where there is a guy holding a shot gun to get to this part. As well we need to show ID and tell him exactly where we are going to visit. So we went to visit one family that are really good to the missionary’s. They bought pizza for my comp before the change as well they had A&W root beer! Took me back home for a second. As I work more and more in the new area I notice that it is way bigger then my first area and I thought that was big. Lessons are either go good or really bad. And what i mean by that is that the people want to hear us and want to know more and other times they cancel on us or they ask for a different day or they have their kid lie and say that they are not home. It’s crazy. As well we talked with one really crazy guy. He would say “Amen!” after everything my comp and I would say. But I swear the drink he gave us was straight vinegar, salt, sugar, and some fruit juice. It was so bad... But let me tell you it was so nice to drink that root beer right after.

 

So we work down in Compton a lot in this area. We have a lot of investigators there as well as members. We talked to a lot of people in this area about coming to church and all that it seems to be pretty good just need to see if they will come or not. We have one investigator who wants to come to church but doesn’t feel anything where she is there. It’s hard to help someone with this because we can’t make someone feel that the church is true. So we hope she works to find that the things are true. As well we talked to one family that has really good questions about the church and everything we do. It was good I just think they will continue to attend their church I don’t know. As well we talked with our ward mission leader. He’s pretty good he wants to help us with lessons it’s just hard to find a time for that.

 

So the church here is really nice for where we are. The members are really nice as well. Things are different here then Catocha on Sundays. We get to eat at members houses. What I mean by that is that we have members that actually want to feed us. So we taught one new family that is super good. They have read 2 pamphlets and came to church. So we put a date for them to be baptized. They were all really excited to have that. So everyone has asked me what state I live in, in Canada... I laugh and tell them that we don’t live in states in Canada. Life isn’t to bad in the new area here in Ecinomica. Hope everyone is doing well in the cold weather in Canada.

 

Love you all.

Elder Nelson

 

06 February 2017

Okay. How will we start this email?

Well let’s start on last Monday after we wrote. So we are pretty close to El Salvador in our area. So we decided as a district to visit the boarder of Guatemala and El Salvador. It was pretty cool as you walk up to it. There’s people trying to sell everything. It’s about the same as a market in Mexico. So when we were there my comp said, I wonder where the line is from El Salvador and Guatemala. So we asked a guard at the front of the boarder and he said, Yeah its right there as he points behind us.... oops hahah we were in another country for about 30 seconds hahah. So after that we can home and played some ball. So another thing that happened is that I got food poisoning last week on Thursday... Not very fun. I’ve been sick ever since. But we are getting a bit better.

So we have one investigator that his really progressing. He just needs to stop smoking and he can be baptized. So we made a list of goals and reasons to stop smoking. The number 1 reason was for his mom. He wants to show his mom that he can overcome this bad habit.

But something more interesting has happened.... I have received a change, yup I’m out of Catocha and I’m going into the capital. Seems weird that I had to pack everything up and get ready for tomorrow. But one good plus is that there is dominos in my area!!! 

 

Love

Elder Nelson

30 January 2017

Hey everyone,

Life is good here in Catocha! Things have slowed down with our investigators this last week. We are still trying to work with them to make them understand more.

So we will start this off with a good story. My comp and I where walking to go meet up with a contact when a guy yelled, Elders! Come Here! So we walked over to say hi and talk with him. He asked where we were from and how long we have had in the mission. After all of this he told us that he loves the missionary’s because we are nice to him and always talk with him. So after about 5 mins of talking he said, do you elders like pizza. Of course I said yes. So he took us up to his restaurant and gave us a free pizza to try. He told us it’s the best pizza in Catocha and it wasn’t too bad.

So something I have learned on my mission in the little time I have is that I need to have patience with everyone! My comp, other elders, and members. Be thankful that we live where the bishop or branch president want to help everyone. It’s been hard to work with some members of the church here and the branch presidents.   But we need to love everyone! Hope all is well and people are loving life.

 

Love

Elder Nelson

January 23, 2017

Hello everyone in Canada! Hope all is well and you are all doing good. So we had a crazy week this past week. Lets start with basketball in Catocha. We decided to take a break and shoot hoops one day.  Then we played a game with some of the people there so it wasn’t really a break because we contacted them all. They ask me every time we see them when can we play again haha.  So we went to watch one of the members play basketball for their team one night and as always during half time people go shoot around.  I went up and shot around for a bit and then after a kid came up to me with a paper and asked for me to be on there team hahah I had to tell him no but I wanted to so bad haha.

So in other news I had my first baptism last Saturday! I was able to do the baptism. But that wasn’t the plan haha. We were going to have the grandpa do it because he is a member. But he needed an interview beforehand, and you can all guess what happened if I was the one who performed the baptism.  So my companion told me, hey you have to go get changed. At first I thought he was joking around but then he looked at one missionary that is from Idaho and said tell him in English. The missionary looked at me and was like it’s not a joke. So that was really fun. It was super awesome to have a baptism in my first area.

So lets talk about food for a second hahaha.  We went to a member’s house yesterday and we had lunch. The mom said that she was going to cook this meat for us but I didn’t hear it totally so we went to the house and can you guess what it was.... Dog! That’s right it was dog meat! The correct name for it was little dog. And they didn’t just give me one piece, they gave me 3 pieces!! It was a crazy week here in Catocha haha.

Hope you are all doing well in the cold it was +35 yesterday hahaha loving everything and life is good.

Love you all 

Elder Nelson

Jordan's first baptism in Catocha, Guatemala 

Getting ready to perform his first baptism in Catocha

January 16, 2017

Jordan's letter this week...no pictures tho :( Maybe next week

So we didn’t have our baptism this past week... We couldn’t have the interview. But we had the interview last week and now we have a baptism this weekend! Super happy about that. 

So about our week. Nothing really new has happened in Catocha. We have been trying to find new people to teach but it’s hard. I’m the kind of person that’s like, Okay let’s get this done let’s get teaching people lets go here, or lets go there. I don’t like to be doing nothing. But my comp is very lazy when it comes to work. We came home from church yesterday and he was like I’m too sick to go work so he went and laid down but I told him after 1 hour okay lets go to work. I feel like I’m really more of the senior comp at this point. He makes me laugh because yesterday after we taught 2 lessons he had to go sit down because his foot was hurting him and said he can’t play sports today. But as soon as we woke up he’s like okay let’s go we need to get ready for sports. So maybe he just likes sports more than work HAHA. Some good news as well is that we had 6 investigators at church. We got the most in the whole zone and then the guys in our district had 5 at church so we were the best district for investigators at church. 

Well we only have 2 more weeks in this change and I might get a new comp or I might be put in a new area who knows. Hope all is well in Canada! 

Love you all
Elder Nelson