All you gotta do is PRAY

February 8, 2016

This week we had a very cool experience!!! So there is a cute hermana that lives here that is from our area - her name is Maggie. She is from the US but has lived here for several years with her husband. The hermanas before were passing and visiting her but for the last little bit she hasn't had missionaries cause there was no one to teach her in English. Now let's fast forward to this last Thursday. And we taught her the restoration. Well, we meaning I taught her in English.... and when I would look at my companion she would testify of the things that she understood in Spanish :) (we got a little system going down) We started with prophets and she just looked at us amazed saying that she had never even thought of these things before. As we went on, the spirit was there so strong. I mean I couldn't recite the first vision perfectly in English but I did the best I could to summarize and she just stared.... A few seconds later she just said,

 ¨¨Wow that's some powerful stuff¨¨ She just stopped and stared then said....¨You must be really special and lucky to have gotten a witness that all of this is true¨¨

¨¨Hermana, God loves us all the same. You are just as special as me, my companion or the prophet. You can get the same witness of the truth if you pray.¨¨

And that's all there is to it. If we can just pray and ask, God will answer us. He will tell us directly if we ask.

This week we were walking around and it was randomly raining and freezing, my comp has been really sick and all of our appointments fell. So we had just sat down and said a prayer. We asked for direction for someone who really needed to feel the love of God. So we stood up and just started walking. We found ourselves in front of a member of the bishoprics house. We knocked and he came all the way down to the door. He took one look at us and invited us in. As we were walking up the steps we asked him how his day was and all he said was....¨¨Well by the look of it, just about as good as yours.¨¨ We continued to have a delightful chat... laughed a ton and shared a small message. Everyone needs a little bit of love sometimes. It doesn't matter if they have fallen away from the church or are fully active. We are all children of our Father in Heaven and he wants us to always feel His love!!

I am so grateful to be here on my mission. It has been such a blessing in my life!! I can't express how much I have learned or how humbled I have been, or the patience I have been tested with, or the love I have been shown and felt out here. You'll just have to take my word for it :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! 

with hna Cuella :)

She always invites us over. She says the pantry is yours you've just gotta cook it! Its the best :)

we got the Denny's fever :)

some cooking going on :)

The Best 2 Years REPLAY

February 1, 2016

So I dont know how many times you guys have seen The Best 2 Years because for me its been awhile. BUT im starting to understand it a little more each day. Lets run though most of our days this week. I would like you to reflection about the part where the younger missionary guy is running back and forth across the screen chasing poelple down to talk to WHOEVER will listen to him.... NOW just change the setting to residentials in Honduras... change it to sister missionaries and change that person to me....

HAHA I we have been starting to become more and more creative with how we contact and how we start.

 I mean what do we do start with a joke yeah a joke. (On the intercom) ¨Hey hermano how did the chicken cross the road??¨¨ (CLICK.) ok dang that didnt work.

 ¨¨Hey hermana do you know a lesly torres? (the most random made up name we can think of)¨¨ ¨¨No I dont.¨¨ (CLICK.)

(In the street) ¨¨Hey hermano do you know where the 7th tapa is??¨¨ Uh no where close to here¨¨. Oh ok.... (starts riding away super fast on his bike.)

Hahah you get the point :)

But dilligene bring miracles. So the more dilliegent you are the more the Lord realizes that we are WILLING to work and WILLING to see His miracles. And then we started running into all sorts of great people that are so prepared to hear the gospel!

Robert is a guard that has only been wroking there 2 days the day that we found him. Hes new and right beside him is a guard that just got baptized!! We asked him if he knows about the church and he told us about how he is reading the book of mormon. The missionaires we visiting him awhile ago but lost contact. We talked to him about the importance of the gospel and accepted to be baptized.

Kevin is a young man that has only lived here for a little bit. We asked him what he thinks that God want from him and he didnt know. We asked him if he has ever felt peace in his life and he said once.... but has never felt truly happy. We talked to him about the plan of salvation and he said that he would love to pray and ask God to see if it is true.

David is a middle age man that works in our area that we found in the street. He has NEVER been visited by missionaries. He started talking about how it is weird that God is a God of order but there are SO MANY churches. We taught him about the apostacy and the restaration of the church and he loved it.

No matter what moment we find ourselves in there is always a moment that we have to testify about the gospel of Jesus Christ. God bring miracles he just waits sometimes to see if we are doing EVERYTHING in OUT OWN power first. If we are loosing in this great ´spiritual race´ we are in, that just means that Satan is working harder and more dilligent than we are.

The Church is true!! 

I love you all!!! I hope you have the BEST WEEK!!! MWAH!

Hermana Nelson

some good old tracting in the streets :)

hermana reed. My comp in the ccm

the ladies of the zone :) ( my old comps hna niu and hna hernandez are here. Im STOKED)

hna sequeira mi hija!!!

the classic zone pic....

Here in the City!

January 25, 2016

Well for about my whole mission I have been proud of the fact that I was a city girl. Never served in the city.... didn't really know it very well and little less KNOW how to teach or contact in the city. So I'm pretty sure that's why they took me out of the humblest town and put me in the richest part of all of Honduras. Los Robles. But I absolutely LOVE IT!! you can see the temple from our window and our ward building shares the parking lot with the temple!!

It is so very different to work here from what I'm used to. Haha I mean just a run down how it usually went in Flores and the rest of my areas.... You could meet someone in the street and I mean usually they weren't occupied so you could stop, talk to the them, and even get a good little mini lesson in. Or if not I mean you could go house to house and 99% of the time they would let you in. There were only a few times a week when someone might tell us that they didn't have time or that they didn't want anything. Here in Honduras there is a strong belief in Christ so ¨¨Anything that has to do with the word of God is welcome¨¨ NOW 15 months contacting finding new investigators under my belt THIS WAY always having someone to visit has now changed :) Im starting to get used to getting rejected over the speaker doorbell. Hahaha so we have started making different plans wiht how were going to start working :) But the ward here is SO GREAT!!! All the members do their visits and are so willing to work. So were STOKED!!!

This week we have been visiting Family Alvarado. They are sooooo great!!! So the missionaries have been visiting them since about October and the Hermana has been going to church pretty consistently since then but the Hermano went the first time and since then has been back in forth. But for the last 2 weeks HAS GONE TO CHURCH!!! WE asked him how he liked church this last week and he asked us to go take a foto of the presentation that was given in Sunday School sot hat he can explain what he learned to his 6 year old son. ¨¨But I need the diagram to be able to explain it and it was presented so nicely by the teacher!!¨¨ (It was the tree of life) They are so great. This week we had to film a video on how we invite people to church and how to use the members. They were sooooo excited and the kids were stoked to be in the video. The only problem is that they need to get married. But other than that they're perfect! You can really see how the Lord has worked to help this family progress and receive blessings in His Gospel.

This week I have been thinking a lot about the talk that was given in this last Conference...¨What lack I yet¨. Each one of us needs to think internally... what can I do better? What can I change to be better.? Maybe we think that we are doing the basics and that's good enough.... but there's always more we can do. Maybe we are starting from ground 0... and we don't know where to start. But what the Lord wants from us is not Perfection immediately but He DOES want progression immediately. Little by little we can become like Him. So no matter where we are we can start NOW. And be a little better. I love the part in Meet the Mormons when it says... I cant be perfect, but I can be perfect in one thing, and that's TRYING! So today we can be better than yesterday and tomorrow we can be better than today!!! So that's my goal. I still got a long way to go... like a long way.... but tomorrow I can be a little better!

I love all of you!!! Have the best week!!! MWAH!

Hermana Nelson

PS HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE NIECE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD!!! I LOVE YOU APSEN!!!!

Changes!

January 18th, 2016

Hello!!!!!

First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I love you so much and I hope you have the best day ever, you deserve it!!!

So this week has been good. I mean pretty relaxing. For most of the week I just stayed in Presidents house with Hermana Ferman as my companion. I have been reading... and reading... and writing.... and well thats basically my life. This last thursday President took me back to Flores to pack my bags cause he decided it would be a better idea to stay here in the city. So I packed up and so for the weekend I was with the Hermanas in Los Robles and LAs Americas. Its the sister training leader house in the city, center to everything.... with right next to the temple! so I have been staying here and staying with the members here- It has been so fun. I have just been chatting with all the sweet hermanas I have been staying with and learning so much from all the stories and all of their testimonies.

But heres the big news!!! we just found out those cambios ANNNDDDD IM STAYING HERE!! HEre meaning In Roble Oeste! Thats the area with The temple and with President and his family. So I wont be moving too far (Actually at all.... just upstairs!) My companion is Hna Flores. She has 3 months in the misison and just finished her training! It is going to be so great!!

I love you all so very much! I hope you have the best Martin Luther King day!!

heres some fotos from a early morning hike to see the sunrise.

Theres some up and some downs.... but mostly UPS!

January 11, 2016

Hi family!!

So this last little bit I have been thinking a lot in you guys I hope you guys are doing okay and just know that I am doing fine. 

This week might have satrted with a little bit of a sacre but I have found myslef thinking a lot about my family and most importantly the atonement of Jesus Christ and how beautiful it all is. We are so blessed with all the things that we have and the trials that God has given to us. God has a plan for every one of us and for the last 15 motnths He has been So GOOD to me.

So this week has been a lot of running back and forth. We had leadership council on tuesday and the chance to got to the temple! We got back around Wednesday at 6. And thats when it all started. So on Wednesday night I started getting a really bad pain in my abdomen that never went away. I mean I had had it before but ya know I was just thinking about maybe all the indigestion was getting to me ;) haha but the thing was is for some reason or another the line of our phone was cut and we had no way to communicate with anyone.... but it just kept getting worse. So we said a prayer and literally in the moment (out of the blue) we were able to call the nurse. She gave a pill but didnt work. turns out she didnt have any credit on her phone either but miracles follow miracles. We had just enought credit on our phone to call her again, and to call the only member in Flores with a car to ask for a ride to the ER. And then we had no access to other lines. By the way. Bucket list. ride in Ambulance in a forgien country. CHECK.

So we got to Tegucigalpa... all the people are so great there. by the way... Next time you are about to go into a hospital make sure you watch the Brian Regan Emergency room act. It just makes things just a little more humerous! SAY 8 SAY 8!!! (after rationalizing for awhile... that was usually my pain level) and I can testify that moaning wars are true.... I was up in a battle with an 5 year old boy getting shots (I think I won though) and just in case you are wondering even all the was here in Honduras YES they do validate parking ;)

About 6 o clock on thursday night I was admitted into emergency surgery and left about 9. Turns out that all those pains that I was thinking that was coming from the food here wasnt so much of the problem. Turns out that I had had a cyst on my ovaries that had been growing for the last 6 months and grew to be 15 cm long (about 6 inches.... bigger than a softball). But I came out just fine and as far as we know without complications :) from the time the test started and by the time they ended it felt like an eternity but something I can say is that Chirst got me thorugh. I know he was there at my side the whole way.

Throught the whole experience there are some things that I do know for certain. God loves us. God has a plan. Chirst never leaves us and he roots for us becasue he knows that we can. The atonement of Jesus Chirst is a beautiful thing. Not only did he suffer for our sins, but also He suffered for our pains and sicknesses. Every thing that we have ever felt He has felt too. It brings us such comfort that we never have to go through anything alone. He is our number one fan helping us along the way. Preisthood power is real and it can protect us from harm and give us comfort when needed. This really is the Lords work. That ¨¨He was there also, for He went before my face. He was there on my right hand and on my left, and his spirit was in my heart, and His angels were round about me bearing me up.¨¨

I mean on the happier side of things... Im one for one on my New Years resoulutions... Loosing weight? I mean Id call that one a success ;) that thing was taking up a lot of room!

Also you never realize how funny your campanion is.... or how much you laugh each day UNTIL it KILLS to laugh. So heres the up to having funny companions. And being happy (just no laughs please!)

So Ill be here in the the mission home for a bit longer and then I think Ill be headed back to Flores. Also the doctors say that just give me 3 weeks time and Ill be back to playing soccer... so heres to a lot of scripture reading :)

I love you all so much! have the best week ever! :)

Hermana Nelson

We spent most of the last few days playing uno (ps shes PRO) and working on her Personal Progress.

I have the cutest companion. Her name is Sarai and 15 years old. Haha she has been put to take care of me for a few days. Today shell be leaving and my companion will be Hermana Ferman (the presidents wife).

when we got to go to church (well just sacrament mtg)... so we hobbled over to the garden to make sure the pic looked good :)

Well my first and hopefully LAST ambulance ride....

My first meal after the operation (after about 40 hours of not eating.... it was the BEST FRENCH TOAST I'VE EVER HAD. Like I think it could take on Kneaders hands down.)

The office elders and their artistic abilities (I mean and they brought Subway... so we were pretty happy with them :))

The view from my room... not too bad!

Me and my get well soon wishes after the surgery!

From small and simple things

Hiiiiiii fam!!! hahaha sorry Im writing a little later (well I don't think I ever really write or get to the computer place on time...) But Im late for good reason. WE met 2 men. SO we left our house always in the fast rush that we are always in to run and catch the 30 minute bus ride to Comayagua to write you guys and there was a truck behind us. Huh weird. I mean there's cars here but not too many. Well he pulled up right next to us and started talking to us. He was a nice older man who just started talking really fast to us.... between it all we heard. I want you to visit me and my kids. (but it was in English that is why it kinda threw us off a bit). he then went on how the hermanas passed years ago but they never went back... but you could just see it in his eyes... he wanted his kids to learnt the gospel. So we took down his name and address (we hope we can find it cause all it was was.... follow the canal up up up up annnnd you'll see a really big house. That's where I live. ha. ok. #pray4us.)

The other man that we found today I mean wasn't that positive.... we stopped us in the street and was trying to sell a 4 condo house to us with a beautiful view and when I mentioned that we were missionaries he was like.... eh ni modo! You can still by it. So by the time I was trying to teach him a little bit about what we do as missionaries he just went OFF. Ya know the usual. No certain religion will save you. The bible is the only thing that is keeping us from burning in hell. Money is destroying humanity.... All that good stuff. He didn't even stop talking when my campanion activated the fake call on our phone and pretended that we were in a HUGE rush and that someone needs us RIGHT NOW!!  But after a good 20 minutes of that and a lot of walking more.... we made it. Ok wow sorry long explanation later....

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!! I hope you guys all made real good resolutions and and still going strong on them! New years eve was a little slow and New years was basically us teaching a bunch of hung over people about how drinking is bad and how they need God and change their lives.... All the way down to my companion confiscating a liquor bottle from one of our investigators (Id never seen him so sad in my whole life) I mean there was a lot¨s of fun games like....  Hid from the sister missionaries.... Run from the sister missionaries and Pretend like you are sleeping in front of the sister missionaries going on this week but trough it all we still saw MIRACLES!

So there is this Man named Juan in the branch. He got baptized about 2 years ago and he was even president of the Elders Quorum for awhile. But for some reason or another he got very resented against the church and during my time here (6 months) in Flores I've seen him maybe 3 times.  And he has never stayed all 3 hours. That was Until the great ward choir came to sing to all of the less actives. Including hermano Juan. Turns our the day previous was his Birthday. So when we entered we found that out and the whole ward council same him Happy Birthday and some good Feliz Navidad songs. He explains later that it was an answer to his prayers. He has now been to church 3 times and has stayed for all 3 hours. This Sunday as it being fast and testimony meeting he passed to give his testimony. He started crying and explained everything that had happened. He said that he was at the point of going back into all of his bad ways but something changed in him. He was shown that he was needed that he was a clave member of the church. God is good and through the little love that he was shown he has now become a full active member of the church once more. He asked for forgiveness from everyone and gave the most beautiful testimony. Later that night when we visited him he was expressing all his desires to go the the temple to be sealed to his wife.

So here ya go. Little acts of love can CHANGE someones life for forever. So go out of your way this week. And visit someone. It doesn't matter if you think they will never accept you in and it doesn't matter if its even just a smile or a plate of cookies. From small and simple things big things come to pass.

 I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

HAVE THE BEST WEEK!!!

Hermana Nelson

Also Shout out to papa Nelson..... for New Years we got ANOTHER frozen cheesecake! THANKS DADDY!

sorry... no pics this week. Ill try to get some next week!!

OUR BELOVED CHEESECAKE AND ROOTBEER!!!

OUR BELOVED CHEESECAKE AND ROOTBEER!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

December 28, 2015

Hey sorry I skipped last week!!!

But I just want to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! aw it was SOOOO great to be able to talk to all of you over skype!! And little Aspen? She's SO BIG!! Im pretty sure I heard her say FAVORITE AUNTIE AUBIE at one point ;) Sorry Aim!

This week was sooo great! Honestly the best time of the year to be a missionary!! 

I dont think I have ever eaten so much in my entire life!! I was starting to feel a little sad cause about 2 days before Chirstmas we didnt really have anywhere to go for dinner, Well Like I have said before.... DON'T PREUMPT. The people are so great here annnd well lets just say that we had a few more than a few dinners all within like 5 hours of each other. The people here are all sooo giving. Even if they dont have anything they for the least have a little cracker to give or a cookie.... maybe another tamale but it for sure is the SEASON OF GIVING!! but it hasn't ended yet!! don't end yet!

We had the coolest experience this Chirstmas. We went up to the Mercedes to our citas that we had made but no one was home.... but we didn't want to leave without teaching anyone so we went to the pulperia (store in house) where some lady had self contacted her the other day. It started off a little something like...

¨¨Hermanas you look so happy.... I just want to know where I can find that. I remember feeling peace in my life one time but I want to feel it again¨¨ 

Little does she know that that Book of Mormon we gave her is about to change her life and bring her so much peace.

At the beginning of my mission I still remember the first time I had to testify that the Book of Mormon was true. I hoped it was true I had faith it was true and I came on my mission with that hope and faith. So I just started reading and reading and reading. I wanted to have the certainty of a TESTIMONY. I never had an angel or some loud voice yelling me and telling of the truthfulness. It came much more smoothly. Like Elder Bednar says... Its not like a light switch that one day turns on inside of you... its like a sun rising into the new day. It will come gradually and you feel in in your heart. And now I can say without  a doubt.... It is so true and it changes lives. So read it and feel the light inside of you :)

I love you all! Merry Christmas!!

Hermana Nelson

part of our huge rice krispie display!

Christmas Dinner!

Christmas Dinner!

SOME CHIRSTMAS SKYPING!!!

SOME CHIRSTMAS SKYPING!!!

SOME CHIRSTMAS SKYPING!!!

FIRST ROOTBEER IN 15 months!!!