Eternity is Now

Dear Family,

Well this week was a little bit more tranquilo than the last one. No lynchings, no hidden cripts or Dan Brown style adventures, but it was a good week.

I’m going to start with the questions because Grandma Andy told me that Mom said that I don´t answer questions very well, so this week I will try to repent. Is there traffic? Well, in San Juan there is traffic about the same as the traffic when people are going home from Hanford, usually only in the nights. But in DF.....there are 30 million people living in and around this place and there is traffic that we would never dream of in the U.S. Also people don´t really know how to drive here and the traffic is really scary sometimes...tons of people cutting people off and screaming things and braking really fast.

The food has been the same, I´ve only had to eat chicken feet two times. The other day I tried rabbit for the first time. It was pretty good and tastes a lot like chicken, and no that wasn´t a pun. I don´t know what I am going to do when I come home and we don´t eat tortillas with every single meal. I love tortillas, but they make you fat really fast. I also can´t really eat anything that´s not spicy anymore, it just doesn´t taste good anymore.

Yes we told Presidente about the whole lynching thing. Apparently lynching is normal in small towns in Mexico. Don´t worry about me, I am safe. Nothing is going to happen that God does not want to happen.

As for General Conference, who knows. Normally we would go to the Stake Center to watch a live broadcast...but someone has robbed every single capilla in the stake with the exception of Teotihuacan because it is so far away from anything else. They robbed the computers and the satellite and the telephones and the TV´s and everything. They broke in the doors, cut the locks to the gates outside, and when they couldn´t get through the doors in the chapel they just cut a hole in the wall. So I don´t know.

The Zocolo is the main one in the center of Mexico City, Zocolo means town square...but it refers to the main one in DF. It is about 3 hours away, which sounds like a lot, but people here travel a ton. I´m used to traveling everyday in cars, buses or subways.

I got the package !!!!!! Thank you soo much. I loved the pictures and the candy. The trail mix reminded me of BYU and tastes really good because they don´t really sell trail mix here.
I love the mini PME. It will be much easier to carry around to meetings and things...I just wish it was easier to transfer all my notes and thoughts from the big one to the little one. Thank you soo much.

I also received a letter from Jason and his family. Jason I hope you keep choosing the right. I love reading your letters. Even though life might be pretty boring in the Tri Cities you are very lucky to have the family you do and the friends that you do. I think about you every now and then and I miss you too. In 17 months we can catch up.

I got the Christmas Picture from the Hares. Thank you, it sounds like everything is going well. Tell Michael not to lose his VLC on his first date.
Grandma Andy I got your letter also. Thank you so much. I appreciate your prayers and support. When does Jacob return from his mission? I am so glad I had grandparents who were firm in the faith and who taught my parents to be firm in the faith who taught me to be true to the faith.

Bro and Sis. Beldin thank you for the calendar. I put it up on the wall in our apartment. I didn´t have one before and so it will be really useful. It was really thoughtful of you to send the calendar and card. I hope everything is going well for you.

Ok....I think that was all the questions. Today is my cumplemes. 7 months. I don´t know where all the time is going. I thought I should tell you a little bit about the people that we are teaching.

The family Islas Mosquero. We found them several weeks ago by contacting their son Yonatan. He was walking by himself home from school and something told me to contact him. But we don´t usually contact jovenes because their addresses are unreliable and many times their parents get really mad. So I didn´t contact him. He went down one street and we went down another...and 3 minutes later he emerged from a street right in front of us. I took this as a sign that I should contact him. He told us that we could come by, and we put an appointment. Then later that day he sent us a text that said that he wasn´t going to be there for our appointment. So we basically forgot about him until 2 weeks later we were eating with a sister in Puxtla, where Yonatan lives, and we decided to find the house and see what happens. We went and found a family of 5, ready to hear the gospel. We brought them to church Sunday and they really liked it. They have their baptismal date for the 6th of March. Moral of the story, if the Spirit tells you to do something, do it. Don´t reason your way out of it because God knows more than us, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

Also I don´t know if you remember but Elder Llanos and I baptized a lady named Sonia. She has two kids that are still JW´s and so we have been trying to contact them for weeks. We finally got to teach them. We taught the restauración and I felt the Spirit so strongly. They said that we had cleared up a lot of their doubts. They promised to pray about Joseph Smith. We went back to check on their prayers and the boy (Sonia has 2 kids, a girl of 16 and a boy of 11) said that he prayed. He felt a feeling like electricity crawling all over him, and said that he felt like it was an answer from God. But he doesn´t want to go to Church, and doesn´t want to be baptized because he is scared of breaking his commitment with the JW´s. It is so frustrating because Sonia told us to give him more time...so we had to drop them. He KNOWS it is true, he knows it. Agency is a wonderfully sad thing sometimes.

I read Casey´s letter about giving everything to the Lord. That is something that I had been pondering for a while. I cannot be an effective servant of the Lord and hold back a little piece of my heart. He has to change me. My will must become His will as His will is one with the Father´s. I don´t want to be the same as I was before my mission. I want to give everything, everything to Him. I cannot afford not to. Some people say that returned missionaries are weird, I want to be weird. I want to give soul heart and mind with an eye single to the glory of God. And how great is His glory? I can´t be afraid, I can´t be timid, I don´t have time to be anything other than what Christ wants for me. Eternity is now. I want to fall at the feet of Christ at the end of my life, and mission, and tell him that I have given everything, that I have been changed. I never ever want to do anything that would offend or hurt Him. He is my King, and my Savior, and I love Him so, so much. The time to change is never tomorrow, it is always now. There is no gray, only black and white. Christ or Satan, and every thought, action or word that is not helping to build the Kingdom of God is helping to build the kingdom of Satan.
(Note from Peggy: This goes along with a great quote from Elder M. Russell Ballard, "Remember, eternity is now, not a vague, distant future. We prepare each day, right now, for eternal life. If we are not preparing for eternal life, we are preparing for something else, perhaps something far less.")

I love you guys so much. More than I ever thought possible before my mission.

As for Egypt, I had no idea. We really don´t know anything that is happening in the real world. I heard that a senator from Texas got killed the other month...but not much more than that. Nothing happens that God does not want to happen. All things work together for His will and our good.

Dad thank you for your letter this last week. I am getting a long with E Ramos, he is a really good missionary and I am really glad to have him as my companion. He sometimes lacks self confidence, but I have been there and done that too. I love you all so much,

Elder Nelson

P.S. I think you should tell the lynching story for the ward news letter.- I want to see their reaction...but don´t tell Grandma Nelson...I don´t think she would like it.