Everything but the Kitchen Sink

 I'm back guys don't worry,

Sorry for no email last week. P-Day has a way of just slipping away sometimes. 

Last week was great. As you guys know it started off with a baptism. Getting there was a fun experience. Google maps said it would take 30 minutes but in reality it was 1 hour. Due to this we got there late but it all worked out in the end. The baptism was great, I was a little stressed as I was giving the baptisamal prayer in Spanish, but I was able to get it down. 

Tuesday was Zone Conference. It was a great time. Learned a lot of things. President invited us to teach with the doctrine of eternal families in mind as that is a key part of the gospel.

On Wednesday we went to the temple. It was amazing. A member invited us to go with her and her sister-in-inlaw who is learning about the church. We jumped at the opportunity. The Mexico City temple is awesome. I have seen it a lot in pictures but in person it is much bigger. The Mayan inspired architecture is super cool.

On to this week. On Tuesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders. Then on Thursday we had exchanges with the assistants. The Zone leaders and Assistants live in the same house so it was about funny to go there Tuesday morning leave to our house Wednesday morning to only return there on Thursday morning. Quite a bit of travel but the exchanges were great. I got some helpful tips on what I can do better which I'm implementing. We also got two of our investigators on baptismal dates. The one asked us when he could get baptized which I was blown away by. His baptism on the first of November, the last day of transfers. Hopefully everything works out. 

Talk to you next time (hopefully not in two weeks this time)

Elder Neilson 

Pictures: 

- Violleta's Baptism 

- Temple 

- view from our roof

Constitución part 2

 Hey everyone,

This week has really flown by. It was go go go. The week started off with a district conference combined with a small zone meeting. The main objective was to set Zone goals for the transfer: baptisms, new baptism dates, church attendances, and new investigators. The district conference was the first time I met the rest of my new district. It's a little funny because there are only two companionships, mine and one other. 

The rest of the week was full of lessons, a lot of them went great and we were able to find a lot of new people to teach. We started teaching this part member-family, who missionaries have taught in the past but they focused on baptism. We said that if they don't want to get baptized that is fine we are here to help them grow closer to christ. For me this was a good experience of focusing on the person and their needs. They are children  of God, not just numbers for a baptism count. 

One thing that happened multiple times this week, which is funny but a little frustrating, has to do with the references we get from the church's "Come unto Christ" page. We don't get a lot of these references in Constitución so we do get pretty excited when we get one. However this week whenever we would get one they wouldn't even live in our mission! We would teach a lesson which would go fantastic, the spirit would be super strong, and they are really receptive. Then we would have to refer them to other missionaries because they don't live in Constitución. It can get you down but you just gotta keep going. 

On Sunday a good amount of our investigators came to church which was great. Two came in person and when we talked to them after they said they really enjoyed it. 

One of the investigators I taught in Molino is getting baptized today (Monday). She asked if I could baptize her. I'll report on this next week so stay tuned. 

Elder Neilson 

Picture:

- new companionship

Constitución de 1917

Hope everyone had a great conference weekend,

As I told you guys last week I got food poisoning. I was able to get some loperamide and Pepto Bismol and that got me back into fighting shape for transfers. My new area is Constitución de 1917 it is in the same zone as Molino but a different stake. My new Companions are Elder Vega and Elder Bowdan. Elder Vega is from Veracruz and Elder Bowdan is from Layton Utah.Elder Bowdan Arrived with me so we have two Trainees. 

On Thursday we went to the stake center as a lot of the native Mexican elders were going to get the vaccine (sputnik V is what is available down here). We all gotta wear street clothes that day as the church doesn't want a large gathering of missionaries in white shirts as it can make us look like a cult. When we got there all of the missionaries getting the vaccine left in a bus and the rest of us stayed at the Stake center until they got back. Elder Vega got the vaccine but had a bad reaction to it so for all of Friday we partied in the house so he could rest. 

General Conference was great. As a missionary I looked forward to it like never before. One of the themes that stood out to me was the need to not have contention. I really loved Elder Renlund quote of how "contention weakens our witness of christ"

I'm out of time,

Elder Neilson