2017 01 23 Excitement and Danger...and Nicknames

Muchas cosas, este es que paso,

we had an interesting week, on Tuesday we had a baptismal interview for one of our investigators who was getting baptized on Friday, and her husband brought her to it, and before we had asked him to pick a date that he would like to get baptized. after his wife's interview we asked him if he would like his interview now to get it over with. he agreed, and they both passed their interviews, and when he came out he said he was going to be baptized on Friday with his wife.🤗 Then on the day of the baptism, about an hour before, i remembered i hadn't written my talk yet, so i threw one together, and it wasn't half bad if i do say so myself. the boiler in the church doesn't work right, so we turned on the cold and were going to turn on the hot later to warm up the water, but we forgot to turn on the hot, so it was full of cold water.😒 And then, when Elder Jones and Elder Cota were moving the piano to the gym, it fell over and Elder Jones tried to catch it but couldn't and smashed half his fingers. we gave him a quick blessing and he didn't want to go to the hospital, so we finished the baptism. we had members baptize them, and everything went fine even though we had to redo one of them. they both got baptized, and confirmed, so everything is all good.

Except for my companion's fingers, they are now black and blue and very swollen. he ices them, and members have told him to soak them in hot Epsom salt water, he hasn't yet. the other day, he tried to stab his finger to let out some blood, but it didn't work because its the muscle that's swollen. i got some pretty good videos and pictures of it. since then i have been driving our car, for the first time in 4 months, so that's fun.

yesterday, our chapel had a gas leak, so we had to drive 13 miles out and back to get to Fabens capilla, and we carpooled, so the other elders wouldn't waste miles, we only had one hour of church, but more people than i thought showed up, so that was good. but only two of our non-progressing investigators showed up to church, so that's a bummer.

We had a bunch of service opportunities this week, one was with the family that gave me the tea that made me puke, we were laying down bricks for a pathway infront of his house. he was making fun of Elder Faber and I, and Elder Cota less, and Elder Jones he was treating like a son.😒 he gave the 3 of us he was making fun of nicknames. Elder Faber's  was Guero Loco, Elder Cota's was Chavalote, and mine was Minion, because aparently, i look like a minion. thats not even the first time!😤 our ward mission leader compared me to Milhouse from the Simpsons.😖

other than those things, everything is going good, we are having plenty of lessons, even though some of our investigators, have fallen of the baptism wagon, and one of our investigator's mothers hasn't let us in to teach him in almost 2 weeks. but we are getting ready for more baptisms, and more of sharing our testimonies with new investigators.

i am still having fun here, and i feel good everytime i share my testimony. thank you everyone, for supporting me in my calling.

Love you all,

Elder Nielson

2017 01 17

As usual, I am behind in posting Luke's letters. Luke is in a tripanionship, and one of his companions is from Yelm. Note in the picture that Luke is promoting Winlock, and his companion is promoting Yelm. Way to represent Washington! - Ross

feliz ano, sorry I forgot to let you know that because yesterday was a holiday, p-day was switched to today.

everything is still going here in El Paso Texas, it started to rain this week, but not a lot. there was this huge puddle that disappeared after being there for over a week, and then it rained again so the lake is back. it has been mostly warm here, until the clouds came in and made it cold and windy. its getting better, it usually ahs 2 or 3 days of rain or wind, and then a week of sun, its fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun ,sun.

we have had some trouble getting ahold of one of our investigators, brian, who is the son of a less active recent convert. he was planning on going to church this week, but his parents didn't let him. his whole family is baptized but him, and he wants to get baptized, his parents are friendly to the church but just difficult. every time we set a time to go and visit them we went and they weren't home. we will find them eventually.

this other part member family that we just started teaching gave us their phone number but we wrote it down wrong and we called someone else instead, and it was a person that pretty much skypes with the person you call, because they are deaf, and they sign with them while translating to you. that was an interesting phone call because my companion had never seen that before either.

another fun thing that happened, was we ate some bad discati at a members house, discati is a Mexican sausage cooked up with cut up hotdogs. we all had a stomachaches starting 2 days after, but elder jones for only one morning, and elder faber and I got hit hard. then elder jones and went to dinner at a members house, and we told them I was sick so I wouldn't eat a lot. so they made me a home-made tea that they said would help my stomach feel better. I ate a little bit of dinner while sipping the steaming hot tea, once it was cooled down enough, they told me to just chug half of it, I looked at elder jones and he said go for it. so I thought why not? so I took 2 big drinks and it didn't taste the best, but 10 seconds after I felt something and I thought,

oh no, so I quickly got up and went to the bathroom and started spewing what little dinner I had eaten. it didn't taste as good coming up then going down. I did feel much better after that, except for when I blew my nose after, food came out. now I know to be careful with Mexican women and home-made remedies. it worked, but it wasn't fun.

I am still working a lot on my Spanish, I can usually understand what words people use, but I still need to work on understanding the words, its coming slowly but surely. I learn a lot from my companion, he teaches me what to use in certain instances and what is better to use in others. we have fun doing it too.

con amor de me,

Elder Nielson

Service project, Yay!

2017/01/09 and more pictures

Here is the latest from Elder Nielson:

buenos dias familia de mio,

estoy bien, siempre estoy bien. this week has been good, we haven't gotten many new investigators recently because we are trying to prepare our other investigators for baptisms, so this month we should have a bunch of baptisms. one of our investigators is really funny, we were teaching him about the word of wisdom, or in spanish, la paladra de sabiduria. he was telling us about this dog he had that hated everyone, but respected him. he was telling us about when he would smoke weed, and he would give some to his dog too. we had a member going on visits with us, and we were all cracking up laughing by now. he wasn't really meaning his story to be funny, but  it was hilarious, he is great, and he is one of the investigators we have on baptismal date. he has some more stories like these,and most of them are funny, or just the way he tells them are funny.

we are having transfers tuesday, for those who don't know yet, transfers are every six weeks. i have been in a trio for the last half transfer, we have had two areas, but now they are being split again back to how they were. now that elder faber is done training, he is still in san elizario, and his new companion is elder cota. elder jones and i are staying in ysleta. we are getting new zone leaders, and a new district leader. we have a lot of good missionaries coming in and a lot of good missionaries leaving.

one of my favorite experiences this week, was with a couple we are teaching and are on baptismal date. they have a son and are living together but aren't married. they were planning on him moving out so they could get baptised, but we dont really want that. they said the only thing they have in common is their son, so we advised them to keep having lessons with us, and to try praying together everyday. they have been doing this and they said that they are getting along better and that its actually working😁 so they are actually thinking about getting married instead.

andele pues from the land of enchantment,

elder nirleoc

whoops, i spelled my name wrong, i just started typing and this is how it appeared, so i left it.

this is a picture of a recent convert who baptized his daughter this week, and she is shy so she was trying to hide. its funny, she isn't this shy when go to teach the recent convert lessons.

2017/01/03 and Pictures

Here is Elder Nielson's letter from 1/3/2017. Sorry so late. 

Here are pictures from my first zone conference, and a cool picture my companion took of the moon.

hola, estoy bien. the holidays were great, other than the fact that most of our investigators are or were in Juarez for the holidays. we still had a bunch of lessons with investigators, less actives and members alike.

one of the few investigator families that didnt go to Juarez, we went to go give them blessings because they were all sick or around someone who was sick. we gave almost a dozen blessings, our arms were tired from holding them up for so long. afterwards, we had a lesson with all of them. there were 15 peolpe there not including us missionaries, and only five of them were members. it was a good lessons, we got the kids involved with the ten commandments, it was fun.

we found out mexicans, when they saw "happy new year" they instead say "happy year", in spanish it is "feliz ano", but i dont know why. on new years eve, my companions, a couple other elders and i, popped open a bottle of bubbly (dont worry mom, the non-alcoholic kind) and said some toasts for the new year.

our mission did this activity called, "A Day With the Lord" it started saturday because we had to be home by 6 pm because of the drunk and crazy people. we were given 9 separate letters, the first one told us to clean our apartment, and really how dirty can it be?😷 the next couple had some talks that we read and they had some soul searching questions we were to answer as well. the next one we opened was yesterday, and we all were told to get a brand new copy of the Book of Mormon, so we started at 6:30 am and started reading, marking references to Jesus Christ and the Atonement (separate colors) and we read until about 11:30 pm, me and elder Faber didn't finish all the way, but elder jones stayed up until 2 am to finish. after that we had one more talk to read and some more soul searching questions. it was all great, i felt the spirit a lot while reading BofM and the talks. and the questions made me realize more some things i need to work on, as a person and as a missionary.

i had a great time this holiday, we had fun teaching and some challenges with everyone being in Juarez.

until next time on "The Elder Luke Nielson Chronicles"

Elder Nielson

here is a picture of the border, the wall. It isn't building very quickly,

2016/12/19 Update and Pictures

Here is the latest from the Lukester. Note that I have never seen Luke smile such a huge and authentic smile!

hola pops, thanks for the info about skyping, and the blog.

my companions and i are busy trying to get both areas settled, because we now have more investigators. but we are getting there, we are getting more in the hang of it.

i havent eaten many strange things yet. the weirdest so far is probably when a member (the Gay family...tee hee:) took us out for tacos, and you order small tortillas and a couple different plates of meats, and then you can go and get other things like lettuce, salsa, onions and others from  salad bar. one of the meats we got tripitas, which is intestines cut into small pieces and then fried. it was pretty good, but not my favorite.

we had a ward christmas party, it was all in spanish, but it was good, it was a play about the birth of jesus. one guy in the play would over act and it was funny, in one scene he was dying and kept talking while dying and it was very funny, everyone was laughing.

i was thinking of some other things i would like, for christmas or whenever. i bought two sweaters, but i would like some more. if you can the v-necks would be the best so i can show off my ties.

we had another baptism this week, and some of the people she invited to her baptism felt the spirit so that was cool. we are going back to teach the rest of her family too.

we also have a bunch of investigators lined up for baptisms in january, so our schedules will be full.

todo es bien,

Elder Nielson

BTW these are some pictures from our first two baptisms, they are Jose and Joselin.

2016/12/12 and New Mailing Address for Letters

Elder Nielson has moved apartments, apparently in the same complex. Here is his mailing address for letters/cards etc.:

Elder Nielson
13041 Soccoro RD, #206
San Elizario, TX  79849

This is his email from 12/5/2016:

we usually study until about noon, just various stuff, and then we go out and visit members, less actives, investigators and referrals. then come home, plan for tomorrow, then go to bed.

the ward is great, they are very nice, the bishop and ward miss. pres. are great they are helpful. the spanish is coming slowly, it is more difficult to understand them. but it is slowly getting easier.

how does the sharing my emails work again? and what is it called too. Nelson wants to recieve it too.

btw this was my district, and will you add them also to the "Lukie Times" the "Lukie Planet" or wathever you call it, por favor. gracias.

Elder Nielson

Here are the emails from 12/12/2016

To Ross:

for christmas right now i would like some ties, maybe some tiebars, and another of the mission belts. ties with cool or interesting designs. i would love a doctor who tie, but we arent supposed to have ties with pictures or caricatures.

we are in Ysleta, and in the San Elizario area, one guy finished his mission and went home, so we combined with the other guy, so we have a trio and double area. im getting along well with them both, Elder Jones is from Utah, and our 

new trio comp, Elder Faber, is from the lacey stake, and we went to the same camp helaman, we didnt know each other, but once we started talking we found this out. on P-Day, we usually go shopping and clean and play sports as a zone.

on christmas we will go to a members house and skype with you. if you could give me the name to your skype that would be great. we are planning to skype around noon or one your time, but if things change i will let you know next week.

at the store i found a pie face, and thought of you i dont remember how much it was, but i thought it was funny.

i was wondering if you could send me a thing or two that i have at home, like my black nike coat, and my white cardinal waterbottle wherever it is. if i think of anything else i will let you know.

A spiritual/funny thing happened yesterday. we just combined with the other area today so it was just Jones and i, and we decided to fast for our investigators, and to get more new investigators. we did find two possible investigators that we set a return appointment with, and the San Elizario area showed us a list of their investigators, and it was a good sized list. they arent new investigators, but they are new to us, so that was funny. but any way the fasting did work, in an odd way but it was good.

we had two baptisms this week, they were inherited investigators. i baptized one my comp the other, their aunt is the only member so now we are going to teach the rest of the family. we also have a lot of investigators coming from San Eli that are close to baptism, so we might have a lot of baptisms in the next while.

last thing can you send me a list of everyone who can see my emails, plz and thnx.

love yous, have fun stormin the castle.

Elder Nielson

To Jill:

things are doing great, i told dad about my first two baptisms, so more about it is there. the was windy for about a week, but now its gotten up to high 60s.the people are great, everyone is nice, pretty much averyone here knows spanish so im learning. 

there are christmas decorations everywhere, alot of people like the lazer light shows on their houses, its cool. it doesnt feel like its going to be christmas in just a couple weeks. i told dad a couple things i would like you to send me por favor. tell every i know im having a great time and i miss them.

there was a parade for the virgin mary, there is supposedly, MEXICO spelled out and spread out in giant letters across the border and this is one of them (see picture below), and guess what i found in the apartment, VHS tapes. also could you send me, like with the package, a picture of the whole fam, you, me, dad, dec, rebec, and ty. por favor and thank you.

Love you guys, and there are circle Ks everywhere,

Elder Nielson

To Becca:

NM is great, i can see the border to mexico, and everything is more expensive. about half the people here are from Juarez or Chihuahua, and mosty everyone speaks spanish so i am learning, slowly but surely. im looking forward to all my christmas gifts. tell ma y pa that we moved apartments, so if you want to send letters you can send them here: 

13041 Socorro Rd. Apt. 206 

San Elizario, WA 79849. 

mom was telling me about the bear, she said is was Click from dance revolution, LOL.

thanks for emailing, and try not to kill zach (Becca said she may have scared Zach driving in the snow),

Elder Nielson

2016/11/30 Mailing Addresses, and Welcome Back to the U.S.

Hi all!

I googled Luke's location, and his place is a couple miles from the Rio Grande and Mexico. He is about 10 miles from Juarez Mexico. Exciting times! He just arrived in his first area last Monday, and we should get his first P-Day email on 12/5 or so. Thanks for following, and here are some addresses if you feel the need to send him something. He is very fond of cookies and Reese's candy. 

Thanks,

Ross

Here is his transfer email:

Hey im emailing to tell you I made it to my first area safely. my trainer is great, his name is Elder Jones, and I think I am his last companion. I am in a place called Socorro Texas. My new p-day is Monday so that is when I will next email you. 

If you send me stuff please send packages to:

9460 Ariel Rico Court

El Paso, TX 79907 

This is a member that my companion has his fam send packages to a because we live so far from he mission home. My mission home address is 

4400 presidential Dr. NE suite E

Albuquerque, NM  87109 

You can send letters if you want to 

13071 Soccoro Rd, apt #722 

San Elizario, TX 79849

Elder Nielson