Fantasmas

Hello Everyone, 

This week went great. I said in my last letter that we were going to have 3 transfers this week. The way it panned out we only had two, I'm not too torn up about the last one getting canceled if you were wondering. The transfers we did have were with the Zone leaders. Usually the zone leaders are in the same companionship, but since Mexico City south is so young (all of us, excluding a handful, have 6 or less months in Mexico City) both the Zone leaders are training. One of them we live with, Elder Iglesias the other is Elder Clark. Our first Transfer was on Tuesday with Elder Clark and his two trainees. The exchange went great and for dinner we had tacos al pastor which were really good. However they live with the APs in the haunted house. Apparently there have been supernatural occurrences like a momentum treadmill running in the middle of the night, things flying off of shelves during prayers, and child footprints appearing on the walls and the ceiling. The house has been blessed multiple times but things still happen. I had a great night there though. Slept fantastically! It must have been my nightly prayer! It kept the evil spirits at bay. 

The other Transfer was with Elder Iglesias and Crain on tuesday. When I was with Elder Crain, who is a gringo like me, it was a fun experience to call people when neither of us are fluent. We made it through but it was a struggle at some points. Once we were mid call and had just shared a scripture when the lady just hung up on us, I thought it was pretty funny.

We got some of our covid restrictions removed this week, so we can now street contact and eat in members' houses. We haven't taken full advantage of these yet, but hopefully we will in the coming weeks. 

We also had Stake Conference this week, We invited one of our investigators, who we are preparing to baptize in the coming weeks, to the Sunday general sessions and she came, which was great. I wished I understood more of  what was said in the talks, but my spanish isn't there yet, hopefully it will be soon. The one funny part about Stake conference was that they brought food out at the end, but as it was the first Sunday of the month us missionaries were fasting, (the stakes must have fasted last week or will this week). The way we do fasting here in the mission is Saturday dinner and Sunday breakfast as members give us food for lunch. The member who was giving us lunch said that she would bring it in about 30 minutes so we each got a plate of food and waited until our food arrived and our fasts broken to eat it.  

For P-day the Zone got together and played some soccer and Basketball which was super fun.

Sorry no pictures this week.

Elder Neilson

Immigration

This week started off with Zone Conference Tuesday. (I said Saturday in my last email, that was wrong) It was great. A lot of food for thought. The big announcement was the Area athourities' expectation for the number of baptisms per month by our mission. 100 per month. Right now we are doing 26, so just a four times increase. When I first heard it I thought it was crazy but President Lyman walked through the numbers and if we can just improve a little bit in a couple of different areas it should be easy! After zone conference we had exchanges with some elders in our district, but since zone conference was for most of the day it ended up being only 4 hour of working with a different missionary. This week I think I have exchanges 3 times so if I missed anything I will learn it this week.

On to what I mentioned in the subject of this email, Immigration. Thursday night me and two other greenies went to the secretaries house, to sleep, so we could get to the mission office early Friday morning to meet everyone else going to immogreation. There were 8 of us immigrating, 6 elders and 2 sisters. We took a one hour car ride to the immogration office which is a more metropolitan part of the city, which is not in our mission. It is the Mexico City West Mission. It supposedly can take 5 hours to do immigration so I was not expecting the most fun day. The experience is best compared to the DMV. A lot of waiting. We first spent a while waiting while our paperwork was checked, they then gave us a sheet of paper which allowed us to go to another office that entered our information, we then were able to go upstairs to wait until we were called to have our picture taken and our green cards printed. In total it was about 3 hours at the office so it could've been much worse. We then returned to the office and had pizza for lunch. 

Sunday we had in-person church for the first time, It was great we invited one of our investigators and he came! The only downside was that they talked a lot about seminary which confused him, so we had to explain it to him after. Also before Sacrament meeting  started one of the sisters pointed out Popocatépetl (a volcano 40 miles east of the city) was erupting. It had a big ash plum coming from it, which was super cool. This was the first time I have seen a volcano eruption in person. (The eruption wasn't dangerous, it has been erupting since 2005 which is confined to the ash plums.)

During Zone conference I found a new Hymn that I had never seen before (there are actually a lot of those) Number 281 "Help me Teach With Inspiration" The words struck me as it is exactly what I want as a missionary, the spirit with me as I teach. Later this week I then read a talk Elder Packer gave "The Candle of the Lord," in it he gave this great insight "that any ordinary member of the church, sustained by the spirit, can do the work of the Lord". I know that when we have the spirit we can teach the gospel, we might not be the best teachers, but the spirit will make up for what we lack and help us teach the message that we need to. I know that it has for me. 

Sincerely,

Elder Neilson 

 pretty volcano (not Popocatépetl) we see on our walk ot the church

PDay breakfast at IHOP

Hurricane Grace

 This week went great. Not a whole lot different from my first week. We went to the chapel, called a lot of people and talked to only a few of them. However, in addition to calling people we had a few great experiences. 

In the beginning of the week we had 3 family home evenings with members. One Monday night and two Tuesday night. I think they went great! I don't understand everything that the members said but that's ok, I just need to keep working on my spanish. 

Tuesday morning we had our first district/zone conference. It started with a Zone meeting where everyone introduced themselves followed by a few announcements. We then broke up into districts. It was great to meet the other elders that I'm serving with. (There are no hermanas serving in my zone or district) Quite a few of the elders in my generation are in my zone which I thought was cool. We are having another zone conference this coming Saturday (I think) because a member of the seventy is coming to our mission. So we are preparing for that. 

Saturday was the day Hurricane Grace hit. As a category 3 hurricane I was expecting quite a storm as it was predicted to go right through Mexico City. As it would be my third hurricane I was ready for whatever it would bring. However, it ended up going more north than originally plotted, so we only got light rain most of the day. 

On Sunday I gave my first talk in the mission field and first talk in spanish! I was hoping to go a little longer than two weeks until I had to give a talk, but that wasn't to be. The topic for the talk was "missionary work," so I talked about 3 things I have learned so far during my mission. They were: God answers our prayers, God's love for us is real, and what persevere to the end means. I thought the talk went well and members said it was powerful, so I guess it did! I'm not going to share the entire talk but I want to share my testimony about God's love for us. I know God knows us individually and personally. He loves us more than we can even imagine and wants what is best for us. He will help us in everything we do if we allow him. Every trial we go through, every hardship is for our benefit so we can become more like Christ and our Father in Heaven. 

Elder Neilson 

Tacos from the members.

Hammock at a member's home

ducks the members have on their roof!

Zone conference. All elders in our zone.

more tacos!

Mexico City

 I'm in the field,

As my MTC p-day was Wednesday, and the field p-day is Monday I have one and a half weeks to catch you guys up on.  

Finished the MTC and it was great. I loved my district. They are a bunch of all-stars. The last few days were what they have always been: class in the morning then class at night. I was sad to leave the district and teachers I grew to love over those six weeks.

One week into the field though and it feels like the MTC was forever ago. I flew down to Mexico on the 10th. It was a flight from New York to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Mexico City. The 14 new missionaries had dinner at President Lyman's (Mission President) house that night- tacos al pastor (it were delicious). The next day we went to the office and got assigned to our trainers. My trainer is Elder Colmanares, he is from Chiapas, Mexico and is fantastic. We like a lot of the same things, and have been getting along great. He doesn't speak any English though. It has been tough but nothing good is ever easy (Google translate has been a great help!). 

I'm serving in the Nopalera Area, it was the one area the older missionaries warned us greenies about when we got here as it is the most dangerous in the mission. I have loved it though. The Members are great. They give us Lunch almost every day and it has been delicious. And for being the most dangerous I have felt very safe. 

The weekend before I got to Mexico city. They reentered the Red level for Covid, so we can't do any street contacting or eat in members' houses. Not much you can do but the work will move forward. Due to this, our days consist of going to the church and calling investigators and referrals. We don't get to talk to a lot of people as the numbers we call don't exist or they don't answer. It just reminds me of the last principle of the gospel "endure to the end." The work may be hard but we just need to never get discouraged and keep pressing on. 

Sincerely, 

Elder Neilson 

Me and my trainer Elder Colmenares

Walking home in the rain (it down poors about every day here) 

P-day trip to Walmart

Me and one of the ducks that live on our roof 

El Vuela a CDMX

The missionaries of my generation

Us greenies and the secretaries at the Airport

So Hard to say goodbye

 My flight to Mexico City was super early in the morning....

said goodbye to grandpa the night before

woke Laura up early for hugs

One Week Til Mexico!

 Coming at you for that last time from the Mamaroneck MTC-it is Elder Neilson,

Sorry for no letter last week, I totally forgot and when I did remember it was already bed time. Last week was the week when my family went to Lake Tahoe. I spend most of my time in MTC class in the basement of the Cabin. But on P-day and during down time I was able to do some fun things with my family. I'll give a few of the highlights. The first is a hike we did on Tuesday. We went to an old railroad tunnel which was filled with graffiti, it was super cool and some of the graffiti was very impressive. The other highlight was Wednesday we rode some electric bikes along the Truckee river which was super fun. Electric bikes make biking super easy! 

Onto this week. First and foremost I can't believe this is my last week in the MTC. It feels like I just started but I have less than a week until I go to Mexico! I got my flight plans for Mexico and I fly out the morning of the 10th. This week has gone great! We have done more and more mock teaching and I feel I can teach the lesson pretty well. 

This p-day we went to the Natural History museum in NYC. It was awesome! I always love going there and this time was no different. 

This week the importance of the spirit was something I felt came up repeatedly. In our lessons and the Elder Holland devotional we watched. When we are teaching the gospel, we are not the one that are converting the people listening, it is the spirit. We can only share what we know the spirit does the rest. For me it was a reminder to do all I can do to have the spirit with me. as when I don't have the spirit I can't teach effectively.

Sincerely,

Elder Neilson

Pictures:

- pictures from the train tunnel hike 

- the group that went bike riding 

- natural history