Familia! Oh how I love you!
How are all of you?? Thank you for your emails and thank you to NATALIE for the first handwritten letter!! Woot woot!! She even included a beautiful piece of artwork. The bar is set high. ;) Thank you so much for the emails though. I am LOVING reading them!!
This week was Crazy!! FUn! Crazy! and humbling.
Friday we went to get some of our visa paperwork worked out... it was fun to drive into downtown Lima! Beautiful city! Then we talked to a few people while we were there and shared a message about Christ with a guy that was in line with us. It was a very cool experience.
Saturday. Procelyting! Ugh. Good. But this time was way harder. We only visited less active members in the area. It was difficult because I felt like their hearts weren´t as open to hearing our message as much as random people that were more seeking it out. It was a really good learning experience, but difficult. Luckily we had a teacher and a member with us. I did better speaking moer this time, but it was still hard to understand people a lot. Even though I didn´t always understnad people´s whole story, there was a common feeling I had in each lesson... That was that God loves each of us so much and wants us to truly be happy. That was actually a common theme of the week. Let me explain...
Sunday was a little weird. I wasn´t on my spiritual high as much as I usually am and that was getting me down a little. Things were annoying me more than usual. I knew that I needed to change something. I read an article in the Ensign about expressing thanks to Heavenly Father, then I happen to read a few scriptures about the same thing... then I heard a devotional by Elder Richard G. Scott about conversing with our Heavenly Father and expressing our gratitude to him. Well, if that wasn´t a slap in the face, I don´t know what is. I decided to start that night and all ofMonday only thanking Heavenly Father for things rather than asking for blessings. As I did that, my day, attitude, and EVERYTHING changed. I found so many opportunities to serve as I forgot about myself and focused on being grateful. Sunday afternoon, my companion and I were called to be the new Sister Leaders in our Zone. That has been such a blessing. I have grown to love so many of the girls and found great opportunities to serve them in the past two days.
There is a girl in our zone that has been under a lot of stress from day 1. Her sister has meningitis and had to get brain surgery. The prognosis was sketchy and they didn´t know what was going to happen. She can only get updates once a week through email, so you can imagine how stressful that would be. We saw her walking outside with her companions (they are in a trio) just crying. So we looked at each other and knew that we hsould go talk to her. As we sat down to talk with her, I felt so incredibly humbled. She sacrificed SO MUCH to be on a mission, yet she is so incredibly strong. She is the most positive, happy, and has an incredible spirit with her always. She is an inspiration. Her companion shared with us that she lost her brother recently in an ATV accident and how she knows that he is with her in spirit helping her serve. After talking to them, I just cried! I realized how aware Heavenly Father is of each of us. He knows exactly our strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and joys. He knows what we need. I don´t feel like I was prompted to go talk to Hermana Burgraff because she needed my help, but because I needed to hear her powerful testimony. I am constantly reminded of the love that Heavenly Father has for each of us. We all were given specific trials according to our own strengths and weaknesses... they are made to make us stronger.
I have learned a lot about charity. The minute I started forgetting abotu what blessing I needed and what I wanted, I felt the spirit. My comp and I are focusing on being more Charitable this week. We have been writing anonymous notes to a few girls that we feel need it everyday. Just a short note on a hot pink sticky note and a scripture we feel like they might need. It has been so fun. I realized the importance of charity more when I read the scripture (in mosiah I think) saying that what we do to others is like doing it unto God. Or something like that. It´s good. Look it up.
The Book of Mormon is true. Heavenly Father is truly our loving Father in Heaven and knows what we need. Trust in him and ask him for help! Or just thank him! You´ll be amazed at what happens.
I have a really funny story. REALLY FAST: The older district played a nice prank on us. 2 of the Elders (Zone leaders) came in our room and told us that the President is really mad. That some bad things happened while procelyting that day and that some of the people in our district were mentioned. They told us to just wait and read our scriptures until the president came in to talk to us. Then two other elders came in, shakign and basically in tears. Told us to get out our handbooks and turn to the page about relationships with other missionaries. We were freaking out!!! I have never seen our disrtict more reverant in my life. We were all racking our brains to think of what we could have possibly done wrong. We all thought we were going home. Then all of a suddent their whole district runs in singing ´´We wish you a merry Christmas´´!! We died. It was so hilarious!!! Itá a tradition here that a Christmas tree is passed on to the next best district in the CCM. I guess we got picked. Oh man, it was good. Can´t wait to plan what were going to do to the next District. I´m taking suggestions for the prank... Brian?
Thank you for all your support and advice. Brian, Thanks for your advice about not getting over confident or too doscouraged about the language. Definietly realized the importance of that on Saturday proceltying.
I love you and miss you so much!!
Love,
Hermana Nelson
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