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Hola, 

I hope everyone had a great week. We sure did!

The main event this week was the mission tour of Elder Ochoa, general authority seventy and the second counselor in the Mexico area presidency. The theme for the conference was "now is the time for Mexico,"  a prophetic talk given by Elder Gong to the leaders here in Mexico a few months back. Elder Ochoa talked about our part in fulfilling this prophecy. Now is the time to work here in Mexico to build up the Church. He also taught how our missionary purpose can be simplified to 2 words: "baptize converts.'' When we work towards this and focus on the doctrine of Christ we will fulfill what the Lord needs us to do, helping our friends become converted to him. 

The rest of the week was regular missionary work. I did get to do my first Baptism interview Sunday night for the Elders of Tlálhuac. I was a little nervous beforehand, but it went great, and I can happily report they will be having a baptism this Sunday. 

Also President Lyman announced that on the 8th of september Mark L. Pace, the general president of the sunday school, is coming to the mission! This transfer has only begun and it looks like it is going to be a good one!

Hasta La próxima,

Elder Neilson

Early morning Camion 

The Zone with the Ochoas and the Lymans 

Mission tour 

 In the rain

Me with the arch of Tlaltenco

Tlaltenco por 18 Semanas

 Hola, 

Sorry about not writing last week.

So to start a few highlights for that week:

Wednesday the 10th was overall normal, district council followed by music counsel, then after normal missionary work we had the Tláhuac stake mission coordinación. 

Thursday the 11th we had interviews with President Lyman. I have grown to love interviews with President more and more over my mission. To have that one on one time to have an accounting of my mission is something I have learned to love. 

Saturday the 13th was the baptism of Daniela. The service was great. The old bishop did the baptism and a member of the bishop brick did the confirmation on Sunday. Being able to prepare her for this ordinance was great, being able to see her love for the Gospel.

Tuesday the 16th, last P-day we went to La Vaka, it is a super awesome buffet in a mall in our Zone. It was super good, tons of everything, really all you could want. We all left very stuffed. 

On to this past week. 

The big thing was we had the baptism of Lucio on Thursday, another child of members (I seem to have specialized in those recently). The missionaries have been teaching him for the past 6 months, and I met him on my first day here in Tlaltenco. It was great to be able to do the ordinance for him. 

Monday was transfers and I´ll be here for another 6 weeks but Elder Sanchez left. My new companion is Elder Basauri, he was my Zone leader back when I was in Milpa Alta and San Pablo. He is a fire missionary and I'm really looking forward to this transfer. I'm also going to be a district leader. I am looking forward to a new experience!

Hasta la Próxima,

Elder Neilson

Some baby birds we found 

huge burgers 

I bought 2 kg of watermelon

The new companionship 

Baptism of Daniela

La Vaka 

Last Transfers last district counsel 

Baptism of Lucio 

Agosto

 Hola,

This week has been chill, a lot of just normal missionary work. The two big events were on wednesday and saturday. 

Wednesday: were exchanges. I got to go back to El Molino and worked with Elder Yáñez, our direct leader. It was a great day, we had a ton of awesome lessons. And I was able to learn a lot from him. That night I also got to finish a game of monopoly that the Elders of Molino started with the Elders of Mirasoles. I ended up with a divisive win, all thanks to the greens, a great way to end the day. 

Saturday: The Elders of Milpa Alta used our chapel for the baptism of Hellen. It went great. The Elders of Iztacalco also came as Hellem chose Elder Macfarlane to do the ordinance. In total the set up baptism and linger longer were a good chunk of time, but it was all fantastic. I never taught Hellen when I was in Milpa Alta, but it is always great to be able to help, and see someone make covenants with the Lord. 

Sorry it's short this week. 

Hasta la próxima, 

Elder Neilson

Clouds on the mountains 

Morning sky

Baptism de Hellen

Last Days of June

 Hola, 

It has only been four days since I wrote my last letter, but I have some news to report.

Saturday we had the baptism of Kaori. In my last letter I mentioned how for various problems we had to postpone her baptism, but it turns out it was only for a week. Her family rescheduled it for Saturday night, we had no problems with that, so when Saturday came around we had a baptism. We also got to help out with the baptism of Abigail, the daughter of the Primary President. It was a couple hours before Kaori's and I was asked to give a talk about baptism and covenants. It was a great day with two baptisms. However as we were helping with the baptism we sadly weren't able to go to the Stake Youth activity but I heard that it was great. 

Sunday was a normal Sunday, I played piano, every time I play I learn what hymns I don't like to play and I will have to add "Called to Serve" to the list. I love the hymn just not when I'm at the Piano. Church was great this week with the emphasis on missionary work, we heard some great testimonies from the RMs here in the Ward. 

Monday we were able to start teaching two new people. During one of the lessons I felt inspired to invite our friend to church. It was totally off topic for what we planned but he accepted the invitation and we are really hoping he comes. One of the funny things was that right after I invited him Elder Sanchez told me that he was thinking the same thing. We also had a Mission Zoom that night to announce that the Mission hit the Goal of 35 baptisms in a month. It was awesome. We have had this goal for the past few months and have gotten close, but were finally able to hit it this June. 

I have been reading the Book of Mormon a lot lately: and what has become more and more apparent is just how much it testifies of Christ. It is exactly what the title page says "And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ.''   

Hasta la Próxima,

Elder Neilson

Cloudy Morning Sky

Kaori´s Baptism 

Roof water

I'm only 2 days late

 ¿Que Onda?

Thursday isn't normally pday but I will get to that in a bit. 

This week has been great. The last 5 days have been especially noteworthy.

Saturday: We were supposed to have Kaori's baptism but due to some scheduling mishaps and a lack of water here in the Chapel we had to postpone to an unspecified date. It was a letdown but I'm sure in the next few weeks I will be able to report on her making this covenant with the Lord. 

Sunday: Besides playing the piano again in church (I think I'm the unofficial ward pianist at this point) we went to the stake center for a Youth activity on missionary work. It was the introductory meeting for the activity this Saturday where the youth will be "called" on a mission to a ward in the stake and will visit people. I'm not entirely sure what will happen but I will give you all a report next week. We were there to sing in the choir made up of RMs and the full time missionaries. After that we booked it back to Tlaltenco to teach a lesson in one of the further parts of the area. We arrived late as no buses wanted to pick us up but the lesson was worth it. We were able to teach a great lesson about repentance. It was the best lesson I have had in a bit and a great way to end the day.

Monday: This was an adventure, we got to leave the mission for the day as Elder Sanchez had a medical consultation. To get there we got to take the metro, a first for me, and it is awesome. It runs on tires which gives it a totally different feel than NYC. It really made me wish that the Metro Line here was working*. It would make getting places so much easier. (*Sadly part of it collapsed last year so the city is working on reinforcing the entire line)

Tuesday: As I have almost hit a year in Mexico it was time to renew my green card, so in lieu of Pday I had Immogration. We had to show up at the Mission office at 11:00 am, then the group of us getting green cards were off to the immogration office. One hour waiting outside and then waiting inside while they process the paperwork, then the waiting to have your picture and fingerprints taken, then you wait  to get the physical card. It's what you would think. However most of the waiting is in the beginning, and it really isn't that bad. One of the great things I realized is that in contrast to my first time through this time I understood everything that was said to me in spanish. 

Wednesday: This was Zone Conference, It was great as always. The theme was "Trying to be like Jesus" with the topic of Christ-like attributes. One of my favorite things was what President Lyman taught us. "Obtaining Christlike attributes is more than just self improvement, they are gifts from God, and we can't obtain them without his help." thi changed how I think about them, sometime i get caught up thinking that they will come passively, but that isn't true. They take work on our part. We must seek them out and when we do this God will help us. 

That's all folks. 

Hasta La Próxima,

Elder Neilson 

Street in Zapotitlan 

The Shrek water canals 

Metro 

¿Thor? 

Mole

 ¡Hola!

I hope everyone is doing well. Another good week. Not one full of news, but I will share a few highlights:

Wednesday: Elder Sanchez didn't feel well so we stayed at the house all day and he slept. I got todo a ton of Book of Mormon reading which was great! I'm trying to read the entire book of Mormon in Spanish over the summer and had fallen a bit behind so it gave me the time to grind and do a bit of catching up.

Saturday: We had a fun tarde de hogar (family home afternoon). The original plan was to have it the night before but it got cancelled at the last minute. The great thing was we were eating with that family the next day so after lunch we used the object lesson we had prepared for our spiritual thought

Sunday: I played piano in church again, another epic opportunity to serve. 

Food section:

One thing I have learned here on my mission is that "Mexican Food" in the States is not a true representation of the culinary extravaganza that exists here in Mexico. So I'd like to share some of the food I have eaten this week. 

Mole verde: I have talked about my undying love for Mole before, and this is no exception. The special thing about green mole is that it is made mainly with pumpkin seeds and green chiles. So the flavor profile is very different. It reminded me of a lot of sauces in Indian food, a lot of spices. 

Tortitas de Pollo en Salsa Verde: chicken pancakes (think Latkes but instead of potato, chicken ) in green salsa. Something in a green salsa is very popular. 

Spaghetti: Spaghetti noodles are super popular. It's not spaghetti and meatballs but the noodles with a type of sauce. It's usually an appetizer of a side dish, not the main course. One of the most common and a favorite of mine is Espagueti blanco. It is spaghetti with a white cream sauce, pieces of ham, and can include pineapple chunks. 

Albóndigas: Meatballs usually in a tomato sauce. They can have an egg center, which was a surprise the first time.  

Spiritual thought:

Alma and Amulek. Reading the account of their mission to the people of Ammonihah, I was impressed by how they worked together to preach the gospel. It made me reflect on how I can work better with my companions. I like how in Alma 10 it is when Almulek starts speaking that the people are astonished, when it was only Alma, they said "who is this guy." But now that he has a companion, they have to give him and his message more thought.

Hasta la Próxima,

Elder Neilson

Mole Verde 

Tortitas de Pollo en Salsa Verde con Espagueti

A huge bug, the size of the first segment of my thumb

Albóndigas

  

Tlaltenco Lives On

 ¿Qué Onda? 

The end of a transfer has come and gone, and I'm saying here! Elder Sánchez and I will have another transfer together here in Tlaltenco. I'm really looking Forward to it, I love the members and we have some great investigators. 

It was another slow week here. However we were able to do a lot of work with unbaptised children of members.

Wednesday night we got to celebrate the birthday of Lucio. It was great fun. We have been working with him to get him ready for his baptism for longer than I have been here, and we are getting close. His family is not the most active, but they are slowly coming back, and are some of the most fun people I have met here on my mission. 

  

Thursday night we went back to Lucio´s house for a Noche de Hogar (family home evening). We had a great lesson on strengthening our testimonies using Jenga. When we stop: praying, reading the scriptures, going to church, etc. Our testimony gets weaker and weaker, just like the Jenga tower when removing blocks, and we risk it falling down.

Friday night we had another great lesson with Daniela about the Plan of Salvation. 

Saturday we taught Kaori, and then Monday she had her bauptisiml interview and we have the green light for her baptism. Teaching her is a struggle but it's great to see that it wasn't in vain.  

A spiritual thought to end:

In king Benjamin's sermon, after teaching about keeping the commandments of God and repenting in Mosiah 4:12 he says

"And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true." 

When we follow Christ we learn who he is, and what we need to do. We can't know a master we have not served. 

Hasta la próxima,  

Elder Neilson