Close Call

Dear Family,                                                                                                  

To answer the questions, transfers are in 2 weeks from tomorrow. No I will not have changes and nor will Elder Bringhurst. At least we don’t think so because I’m pretty sure that President would have talked to us about it before now if one of us were going to have changes.  Also...those weren’t pyramids in Tulancingo those were the Teotihuacan pyramids but just the view from the highway passing them. I don’t actually know how long it  is to Tulancingo, but it is about 2 hours in car. But there is really no speed limit so I don’t know how fast we go. I would guess it´s about 150-200 kilometers.

Tall "T" to clean in

Ami

This week on Thursday we had to be in the house at 7 pm because it was Independence Day. The 15th of September is when they celebrate independence...and they really know how to celebrate here. The pictures of the dancing people were from our ward’s "Noche Mexicana" which is a pot luck thing kind of like a ward party for the 4th of July. They were doing a traditional Mexican dance. Since we had to be in the house way early Elder Bringhurst and I had a movie night...we watched "The Testaments" (we have a little portable DVD player that the church recently gave to every pair of missionaries in the mission. It is to watch the PME movies and for training purposes...but we can also watch videos produced by the church) and ordered a picsa (that’s how they pronounce pizza here.) We figured we would celebrate American style since on the 4th of July we had tacos. 

Before I forget I have a funny story. We were contacting over by the chapel one morning when we saw a fat old woman about 20 meters away. She yelled us over by yelling "¡Hermanos de Dios!" and waddling over to us. She had a huge mustache (I thought Kolby would think that was funny) and greeted me first by taking my hand and kissing it. We thought she was pretty crazy so we were asking her where she lived so we could invite her to church and get away from her when all of the sudden she put one hand on one of my shoulders and one hand on the other and started going in for the kill. My stomach jumped up into my throat and I thought "oh no, my first kiss with a fat old crazy Mexican lady with a mustache..." But luckily she stopped (she must have seen my fear) and the crisis was averted as we ran away quickly.

The people we took to the visitors center was the Family Perez. They were a member reference and are going to be baptized this Sunday. I will talk more about them next week. The baptismal picture was Ami. She was a street contact who was having a lot of family problems. Her son recently got out of drug rehab and she is really looking for a change in her life. She read the Book of Mormon, prayed about it, knew it was true and wanted to get baptized. Her husband is also in the picture...we are still working with him. He is heavily involved in a Christian church and is a police man so he is never home to teach him. But in her baptismal interview Ami commented that she had had a baby die stillborn. Elder Falslev (who was doing the interview) testified that she would see her baby again and would be able to hug him and talk with him. Her eyes got about as big as saucers (I guess she really hadn’t understood the plan of salvation the first time) and just said "wait till I tell my husband about this." So we´ll see what happens. 

Elder Bringhurst and I are just going to give it all we have this week. This is the first time I have been with a companion since Elder Llanos that really had a huge drive to work hard and have a lot of success. I am so grateful to be with him. I really want to just work so hard that I have to drag myself to the house at night. I realize now that time is going by really quickly and that I need to take advantage of the precious opportunity that God has given me to leave my nets behind and feed sheep. Don´t worry Mom, I know sometimes it sounds like I´m beating myself up...but it always works out in the end. I love you all so much.

Love,

Elder Nelson

p.s. the other picture is of me cleaning the house last p-day. I love it when the house is clean. I found a tall t in the house in Pachuca and have been making use of it.