Hey there family and friends.
So this week has been pretty good for us here in our area. We were
able to confirm to baptismal dates and take some recent converts to the temple.
But lets break it down a little more.
So we have two investigators that are really really really close to
being baptized here in our area. We having been working really hard with the
ward as well to help them know the investigators better and help the
investigator feel welcomed here to the ward. So one of the investigators names
is Celeste. She has been listening to the elders for along time and she has a
great testimony. Remember when i told you all about that investigator that
wanted to bear her testimony_ Well this is her. We have been really pushing to
help her make that this choice and be baptized. We have taken her to the
temple, we have had the ward stop by and visit her, and she has visiting
teachers. But she hasn’t taken that step of being baptized. So we had her talk
with the bishop and talk about everything really. So that was going on and all
that, and then the bishop pulled us into his office and we were there with
celeste. We talked for a bit and the bishop told us that she had made up her
mind and was gonna get baptized. We got so happy when we heard, it was awesome
to be 100% honest. We just have to plan it all out so that her whole family can
come. We got get that rolling this week.
For the other investigator we have Adolfo. Now he is kind of a weird
one to be honest. His whole family are members of the church, He has been listening
to the elders for about 2 years now, and he is still not yet baptized. Like I don’t
understand sometimes like who is it that someone could be listing to the elders
for so long and not get baptized. Or how could you be living in a house full of
members and you don’t know anything about that church. Like what do you talk
about with your family? So anyways, we have been working really hard with this
investigator was well. We have been trying to get his family more involved and
having them get more supportive with him. His wife has been a member here who
life and knows a lot about the church. We are really trying to help her see
that if she wants to be with her family forever she needs to have her husband baptized
so they can go into the temple together. But we did the same thing for him as
we did for Celeste. We had him go into an interview with the bishop to talk
about everything. Now when we heard that he had committed to a date for the 23 I
was shocked. I didn’t think that it was ever gonna happen. Yes I had faith that
one day it was going to happen but I didn’t think it was going to happen in my
time. But we are both really excited
that both of our investigators are now committed to a baptismal date.
We have been really working hard with those two right now. We have
some other investigators that are coming along little by little but it will all
come in time. I have found that we teach a lot of people with the same need.
For example I have taught a lot of people about taking that step of faith. And
there was a story in the bible that talks about this kind of step taking. It
tells the story of a group of men that are gonna pass through the Jordan river.
But there was a prophet that told them they would be able to cross through the
river because the river would open up. But once they got to the river, it was
normal. It hadn’t changed or anything like that. So they sat there for a while
until one of them put his foot into the water. And the water started to open
up. They walked a little bit more and then the whole river opened up and they
were able to cross. The morale of the story is that we need to take that step
of faith until something happens. We need to act on something if we want to
change something in our lives. Now I have used this example with almost all of
the investigators in the mission. It’s really interesting how we can say we
have faith in something but we just wait for something to make our faith grow.
Unless we act on the faith we have and help our selves grow in faith. We will
be standing by the edge of the water waiting for something to happen. This is
something as well that I have taken into my life here in the mission. If we
have faith that there are people here in our area, we need to act on and work
hard and search for these people.
The saying I have been using my whole mission is keep moving
forward. And it has become something really special to me. It helps me know
that there are going to be hard time here in the mission but we just need to
keep moving forward to open new doors and do new things. Because we are curious
and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. And the paths that we go down
here in the mission are the paths to people’s doors. The paths to our own
conversion. The paths to help build our testimony. There are hundreds of
different paths to go down but we need to first move forward to find
them.
Thanks for all the love and support always! Thanks for all the help
you all give my family and me! Hope you all have a great week!
Love Elder Nelson
