Transfers

 Hi Everyone,

The main thing to happen this week was transfers. The transfer ended last week, and we had a zone zoom meeting where they told us that no one was leaving. It was a little underwhelming for how much they hyped it up. However they told us that we would be having another transfer in one week as 8 visa waiters were arriving. On Sunday we had this zone zoom call for the new set of transfers. It turns out a lot of the Zone is leaving, including myself. I have no idea where I'm going, so you guys will just have to wait for my letter next week to find out. I´ll show up at the mission office Wednesday morning and find out who my new companion will be and where I'm going. 

We have two baptisms scheduled for the first full week of October, but now I won't be here for those, I'm a little sad I'm going to miss them. It happens and the covenants that they are going to make aren't with me but with the Lord. 

On Sunday I got hit with some food poisoning, so I haven't had the most fun the past two days but I'm starting to feel better. Hopefully I'm back to 100% by Wednesday or the start of transfer will be an interesting experience. 

I'll leave you guys with a quotable quote from Elder Robert D. Hales:

"Selfishness Suffocates Spiritual Senses"

Elder Neilson

Viva Mexico

To Whom It May Concern:

This week was great. We had two major events. The first was Mexican Independence day, and the second was the mission tour of Elder Montoya, The first counselor in the Area presidency over Mexico. The funny thing is these happened on the same day!

Día de la Independencia, as it is called here in Mexico, is the 16th of September, and marks the start of the Mexican revolution against Spain. The celebration begins on the night of the 15th with the Grito. The Grito was at 11:00p.m. so sadly we didn't get to watch it live. These days can get kind of crazy, with fireworks going off all over the place, we had to return to our houses by 7:00p.m. instead of the usual 9:00p.m..

For Elder Montoya´s tour of the mission we had a Zone Conference the morning of independence day. It was great. I learned a lot. Elder Montoya talked about the need to be one with local leaders. They are our best friends as missionaries, and can really help us with the work. Sister Lyman (mission president wife) talked about the importance of a study journal. At times I have thought "why do I need one?" However as she pointed out (and I have found) when we write down things it helps us remember. Sometimes I totally forget what I have learned in Personal study, but when I write it down I have it right there and can come back to it in the future. 

Additionally, we got another baptism scheduled, for the 9th of October, hopefully I will be reporting on a few baptisms in the coming weeks.

Elder Neilson

Pictures (I told you I would get better)

 Eruption of Popocatépetl

- Independence day photos 

- View of the city from our roof

 The members', we live above, dog had puppies

Earthquake

Hope this finds everyone well,

This week started off with a bang! Tuesday night as we were walking home a siren started to sound. Me and Elder Crain weren't sure what it was, but our trainers said that it was the earthquake siren, and that we would see the power lines start waving, any second. Everyone started coming out of their houses, we just kept walking as the safest place to be is outdoors, and sure enough the power lines began moving. Then the actual earthquake hit, it felt like the earth was rolling. (The best way to describe the feeling is walking when you are super dizzy). About halfway through the rolling the power went out. (there were these big green flashes of light in the sky which we think were the transformers exploding). After 20 seconds the rolling stopped. We just kept walking home. I had my headlamp on me which was a big help as without it we would only have had the phones for light. When we got to our house we had to wait outside for a while. Once we could go inside we just went to bed. (we got power back sometime during the night, all I know is we had it when I woke up). 

The rest of the week was normal after that. Friday was the only change up. We had interviews with President, and the exchanges with the APs (this was the one that got cancelled last week). The interview and exchanges were great. For lunch we went with the APs to a member's house and they gave us fried rice and chicken. I found out the fried rice and fresh corn tortillas actually go pretty well together! (who would have thought) As the exchanges were with the AP it was back to the Haunted House. This past week the Elders Living there have embraced the hauntedness and when Elders come on exchanges they have begun to scar them. (The classic jump out from behind a wall). I was an unlucky recipient of this endeavor. They showed us some of the videos of the other elders and they were hilarious! Unlike last time, this night I didn't sleep so well. There was some sort of party happening right outside that was super loud and it kept me up for a while.  

We have an investigator who we have been studying the Bible with for the past 4 weeks. We have struggled to know how to teach the gospel without being overbearing or forcing it. We had invited her to Church several times but this Sunday she came. Then during our lesson later in the day she asked tons of questions about what she heard in a fast and testimony meeting. This allowed us to teach her more about the gospel and what we believe than we have been able to in our other lessons. To me this experience showed the importance of going to Church. When we go to church we hear others' testimonies which can strengthen our own. I have had many experiences like this where what someone said in sacrament meeting, or one of the other classes, has given me new insight and strengthened my testimony of Christ and his gospel. 

Elder Neilson

pictures: (only one :( i will get better at taking pictures)

- storm that rolled in late last monday afternoon

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