Dia de Diamantes!!‏

Whoo..

For once in my life, I feel calm at this computer, the difference is, I prayed for help, and so far I¨m doing a pretty good job at managing my time, ha, such a simple thing, but it really just stresses me out to try to respond to your emails and share some of these awesome experiences with you all.

Okay, so I would have to say this has been one of the most Babylonic weeks of my entire life, festivas de España are intense! And that is why this week and I am MOST grateful for the safe haven of our capilla (chapel) that I was able to feel yesterday in our Sunday reunions. I love our ward so much, we had our fast and testimony meeting yesterday, and we just have these rock solid members, not a single gap at the microphone... I will always remember these people, many of them our really new members, but their faith and the way they put God first in their lives amazes me. Not to mention, our sweet little Lucia, that was baptized two Sundays ago is now serving in the Relief Society Presidency, increible, this woman is a rock, like she just gave up smoking last month and now she´s preparing for the temple with an eye single to the glory of God. And I¨m sorry, we don´t really use last names here, but there´s this family, Rosi, Carmen, Monolo, and they were the strongest catholics and now are the strongest Mormons, and they´re still waiting upon their other siblings to choose this path, but they don´t doubt. The thing that I love about these converts is that they don´t take anything for granted, they´ve been searching and preparing for this Gospel their entire lives, even though they didn´t realize it, and now that they have it, they´re never looking back!

Anyways, just a heads up, today is the first day of our new traslado (transfer) and I am extremely grateful to report that I get to be with Hermana Ross for another six weeks, she´s been in Murcia for seven months already and so we really weren´t sure if she´d be leaving or not.. And don´t tell her, but I prayed a lot of times that she could stay here in Murcia, she´s just what I need, and obviously Heavenly Father agrees, on the day of transfer calls from President, I was so nervous, ready to drop my heart at any moment if we got a call from President, but we didn´t!! Anyways,

K, sorry for the rambling.. This week! Okay, I say Babylonic, because it was another entire week of festivas! Except this time it wasn´t Easter related, Spring instead! So Tuesday, we had a bit of a forewarning, it was supposed to be some kind of a Mardi Gras, and so we planned smart and set tons of citas (appointments) to avoid being stuck in the streets with the borachos (drunk people) but guess what, everybody and fallared us (direct translation, not sure, failed, didn´t show up) and so we tried to visit members and menos activos, but our plan B was weak, and so Tuesday was kind of a rough day. There´s a not a lot of value, let me rephrase, there is NO value in trying to contact the borachos or the people around these areas, so we were taking a lot of back streets and trying to find others. It was just really sad to see, I mean this holiday, used to be a beautiful Spanish tradition, all of the girls and guys dress up in the traditional vestidos and they have, of course, a bunch of parades. BUt now it´s all about the alcohol and the jovenes (young people). Solo para que sepa, just so you know, it´s the busiest day in the hospital, and as we were contacting we overheard a couple groups rushing off to visit their unconscious friends in the hospitals.. Needless to say, kind of a dark and dreary day.

Things brightened up though! As en entire mission we had set apart this last Friday, Dia de Diamantes (Day of Diamonds) to only contact or tract for the ENTIRE day, we found out about this about 10 days in advance, so we were all pumped up, we fasted as a mission the day before so that we could have more direction in where to go finding and set goals for the numbers of futuros that we wanted to find! And as a mission, we found 1400 people, in this day, that are que tiene interes para aprender acerca del Evangelio de Jesucristo, as in 1400 people offered us their telephone number and direccion (address) , we refer to these people as futuros!! It was one of the most exciting days, our President had promised that we would see miracles and that we will baptize people that we would find on this day. It was the best, that morning when H Ross and I left the piso (apt.) we were stoked, we had fasted and prayed, and selected specific streets for each hour and we reallly did find a lot of people. It´s just a matter now of deciding who to focus on and go visit! We had so much fun though, we talked to hundreds of people, I heard my first swear words, since being set apart as a missionary, not my favorite at all.. Anyways

As far as our investigators go, we really had a lot of opposition, we´re coming up on Mari´s date for baptism, and we were only to meet with her once this week, not without a LOT of attempts, and Andrea, her daughter, we´ve set up 3 different citas to teach the Law of Chastity and the 10 commandments with them together, and they keep fallaring us, so it´s been frustrating. But we´re not giving up on em.

Also, this week we taught a mother and son, for the first time, Jean and Tania, they´re from English class, and they´re awesome! We set a date for baptism for the two of them, Jean is only 11 but he has sincere concern about his salvacion, I love that, we´ve seen that with several investigating families, a lot of the times it´s the children trying to push their parents along! Whatever it takes right?

Well, I gotta run, I hope you enjoy the photos!! Love you all,

Hermana Nelson

Familia!!‏

Woo..

There´s a lot, I feel like I¨ve really been neglecting to share about the Spanish and better yet Murcian culture, so I thought I´d offer a few descriptions. Murcia, is a relatively big city, H Ross and I cover the central and souther portion and the other Elders Get the Northern half and pueblos, and we also have like 4 or 5 pueblos ourselves.. Which are just smaller little towns, in the mountains or just further out of town? Today, H Ross and I visited the biggest city Cathedral and the Casino, which I don´t really understnad what it is, kind of like a super fancy, couple 100 year old country club.. Super pretty though, someday I´ll send pictures.. But the Cathedral is absolutely gorgeous! Kind of nice to get a chance to do some of those things, they were actually in the middle of misa (mass) when we were in there.

Um, so we´ve had a lot of Huelgas (strikes) recently, for who knows what.. There was actually a huge one last week, it almost felt like Newsies. It was like a parade in the street with tons of people marching along, so obviously the bus system was not intact and we just had to do a lot more walking in between appointments, so that eats up our time, but other than that, it wasn´t scary or anything. We just did our best to avoid the crowds.

This past week we got to see a lot of the Semana Santa which is basically shut everything down to have 4 ¨processions¨ a day, which are, again, a lot like a parade, but all of the people dress up and they carry statues of their Saints or Jesus carrying the cross, it´s really interesting, I don´t know if I really like the Spirit of it. I´ll be honest, it just feels sort of wicked. But that´s how they celebrate Easter here, for a whole week, and you know they say that Catholics just got to Mass twice a year, Easter and Christmas, welp, it´s more like, not, most of the people just hang around for the big Procession Sunday, and call it good. Anyways, those processions have been interesting, we only saw a minute of one. It kind of struck me as ironic, really religion is more of a tradition that a way of life, because 90% of the catholics we talk to in the streets are not practicing, but it when it comes time to do these big festivals and things, they are ¨religiously¨ participating and they take it SO seriously.

Other fun facts, Murcia is famous for her lemons and oranges I´ve never tasted such delicious oranges in my life as here? So you find that everything comes in lemon flavor, kinda fun. It´s pretty green, there´s little stretch we pass on the way to our capilla (church) that we call the jungle! It´s super pretty, but once again, we live in a big city, so it´s mostly just buildings and things. Oh, I¨ve gotten lots of questions about the food.. It´s different, nothing to crazy, they just have interesting combinations of food.. They love to just throw fried eggs onto things. I don´t know, I guess all the ¨ weird¨ food I´ve become accustomed to. Have to admit, H Ross and I got duped the other day, we ate brains without knowing it, and afterward when we looked up the name  in the dictionary we both wanted to vomit.. So, that´s different?

Okay, now for the real stuff, Oh man, ups an downsof missionary work, I thought I´d just share the highlights!!

I¨m most grateful that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers.. We´ve been working with Mari and Andrea, mother and daughter from Ecuador. They have a whole family, but the brothers and father aren´t interested in the gospel, that´ll change. But anyways, Mari, was a golden find, total miracle, how H Ross encountered her, the week before I got to Murcia. But anyways, we´ve been teaching them, and Andrea has just been really lukewarm about everything, however, she listens to all of the lessons, follows her mom to church and to our english classes.. But just hásn´t really opened her heart. Well, in the last few weeks or so, she´s been faced with this super big decision, she would never tell us what it was, but she and Mari kept asking us to pray for her. So we did, and let me tell you, we´ve prayed and prayed, and we´ve just been wanting for her so bad to take this to the Lord, seek his guidance right. Well, something in there clicked, obviously she showed a little bit of faith, because she got this miracle answer, at the eleventh hour in the crossroads of this huge decision, and the night she told us about it was actually just after English class. They just so happened to be the only ones that came (thank goodness, else we woudln´t have had the chance to talk). But she finally told us what it was she was deciding between, and she told us how God had answered her prayer, and that she is pregnant!!! So, I guess that kind of gives away her big decision, but she´s really open about it, or at least now she is.. Anways, the trick now is helping her realize how she needs to act on what she´s been given, we´ve invited her to baptism, a few times now, and she´s praying now to decide whether to be baptized this month with her MOm!! Anyways, really neat.

We also, set a baptismal date with an old investigator, James, and then he didn´t show up for church or answer our calls, gotta love that. I have SO much more I want to share, seriously though, everyday, when I put my heart into this work and we do our best, we see so many miracles. Numbers of miracles, there are NO coincidences in the work of the Lord, it´s all just a matter of HIs timing. It´s been a good week, tough for me, if I¨m being honest, but good, I know that Heavenly Father loves all of His children, and he answers all of our prayers, but there really is only one way to return to Him and that is through our Savior Jesus Christ. And the only way we can accept his sacrifice is through our faith, repentance and baptism with the authority of God. These simple truths are powerful and the most important!

Love, Hermana Nelson

I Believe in Miracles!!

Family

I hope one day I can learn to manage 60 minutes of time, to write Pres Clegg, my 15 family members personally, read their emails as well, write this letter and upload pictures...Yep, we´ll write that down for a Mission Goal.

Anyways, first off, Lucia got baptized yesterday!! As of the last week, we didn´t even have a fecha (date). It was the coolest thing, Lucia is one of a few of what we call ëternigators¨or eternal investigators that we have, she´s been taking charlas (lessons) and working with missionaries and attending church every week for over a year, and within the last few weeks she´d finally been able to meet the requirements for baptism.. But then there was this gap of not having the faith to take that next step!! She was just waiting on the shores like the Brother of Jared and his family (See Ether 2, they wasted 4 years) anyways, we had this Noche de Hogar (family night) planned with her and this other family in our ward that are super close with her. And in our nightly planning, H Ross and I received the lesson from heaven, it´s not like it was spectacular, but it was exactly what she needed to hear, which was quite obvious, because we left their home witha  baptismal date for Lucia the following weekend. Lucia was baptized and confirmed  yesterday right before Conference. Now, I don´t know everything about Lucia, I haven´t been there every step of the way like the other missionaries, but I can tell you how precious it was to see her make this decision and follow through with it. It was one of the most powerful baptisms I have ever witnessed, when she came up out of the water, she just burst out in tears and embraced Neri for a good 10 or 15 seconds, it was like everything she´s been fighting and all of the pressure and weight of all of whatever just released and was gone in that moment. So tender.

I don´t really have any more time, because I´m awesome and took too long with other things, but I just wanted to kind of share that this week I´ve had a couple experiences, where I¨ve just been knocked off my socks with gratitude. I truly feel blessed, I have everything I could ever want or need in this life, I know my purpose here, I know my Heavenly Father lives, and that I can communicate with him through prayer, and I´ve got all of the tools to return to live with Him again with my family FOREVER!

I really loved Conference, I learned so much, and can´t wait to start applying some of the personal revelation I received to be a better missionary and representative of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Love you all,

Hermana Nelson

Mi Familia Eterna

So..

I can´t really believe that a whole week has come and gone, it was fast, but it also sort of feels like forever? I have no concept of time as a missionary!

Ah man, so many miracles to share.. I´ll have to choose wisely! However, this week, I gotta say I´m most grateful for the chance to remember Whitney yesterday, of course, I knew the day was coming up, but Sunday we´re walking to our capilla (church) and I´m like, ¨Shoot Hermana, I forgot to wear pink.¨ And I¨m really embarassed to say that I didn´t have a touch of pink of my person in this moment of time. Whitney will forgive me, because I got to honor her in a better way! We got to teach the Plan of Salvation to Genny and Jose and their sweet 3 year old, Arelles. Genny is a member and has been trying to smack some faith into her husband for lots of years, they´re from Ecuador and have lived in Spain for years.. Pero, I´m thinking that this is Jose´s time. We were reading over his history in our Area book and the Hermanas had visited their family like 15 times, over a year ago, but Jose wasn´t present in most of the lessons.. And then a couple weeks ago Genny had this dream that we told her if we could have a Noche de Hogar (family night) it would change everything with JOse.. So no pressure, we went and taught last week about the atonement and how we can only become clean through Christ, and we invited them to start reading in the bom everyday as a family. Welp, we went over yesterday and guess who hadn´t read?!!! JOse!! But, we taught the Plan of Salvation, and bore testimony that families really can be together forever, and we said ¨guess what Jose, right now you´re wife is on track for the Celestial Kingdom WITHOUT you!¨Ah man, we´ll see, but he says that he will come to Gen Conference next Sunday!

 

IN Murcia, we´re heading into the rainy spring season, and we had a couple pretty chilly and wet days.. One in particular, last Tuesday night, we had about an hour and a half left in the night, it was rainy and wet and I was shivering in my boots.. Ha, but Hermana Ross and I were just having a gay old time. We were trying to get in contact with an old investigator but he wasn´t home, so we ended up toqueing the rest of the doors in the apartment building, and then we had to head back into the cold again! Ahh! It felt useless, not many people were out, and who wants to stop and talk in the rain right? But I just kept praying and praying, please just let us find one person, somebody that will listen. And H Ross turns to me at this corner, ¨K Hermana, which way should we head?¨ OH no, I didn´t know what we were supposed to do, I´m thinking, ¨Greenie here, you tell me where we should go?¨Ha but I´m like, that way? Ha, don´t worry, it was down that street in the last ten minutes of our freezing cold night where we encountered, not one, but 4 new futuros (future investigators). It was just a testimony to me, that we work, and we work till the very last minute, rain or way too hot shine, and then the Lord provides. Also, as we headed into our piso (apartment) we got this call from some lady who was frantic and asking if we could come visit here the next morning, H Ross asked her how she got our number? And she told us something about how she called Jesus and her friend had a pass along card with our number on it.. So we visited her the next day, her name is Maria,and she´s ready to drink up anything we have to tell her. We get to get teach her again tomorrow, so we´ll see!! ´

Okay, I just got to fill you in on something, as you may have heard, southern Spain is quite the melting pot, so as I jump around with investigators from Africa to Bulgaria to Ecuador, bolivia, Spain... Don´t be all to surprised. Hermana Ross and I have this little game, when we´re out visiting in different pueblos or neighborhoods ¨What country are we in now... ¨¨Hoy Estamos en Bulgaria, Estamos en Italia, o... Hoy, Estamos en Mexico or whatever.. It´s crazy. But, I gotta tell you about our Investigator, Omar. He´s from Mali, Africa, and he´s Muslim, for now at least, and we met contacted him in the street my first day here and decided to call him up last week. H Ross, hasn´t had a lot of good experiences with the Africanos, just because there´s often a language barrier, cuz they don´t speak Spanish often, and whatever. So although we had a cita (appointment) with Omar in the capilla, she wasnt really thinking he´d show up or anything.. But I was super excited, the glory of green perhaps?? Ha so we were just street contacting in the meantime, and don´t worry the time for his cita had come and passed, and I felt bummed out.. But all the sudden we find 3 missed calls and call back and it´s Omar. He just got the wrong time, so we meet up with him, because he didn´t know how to find the capilla.. And then we walked over to the church. And part of me is like, ah this is a bit dificil, he´s a guy, we´re girls, we gotta be super careful not to give the wrong idea. And that´s part of the reason we had to meet up in the capilla. But in turns out Hermana Ross and I were both eating our words in regards to Omar. He´s genuinely seeking to know if there is a God. We only had like 10 minutes before we needed to leave for our apartment. BUt we were able to kind of get to know some of his concerns, talk a bit about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ and then at the end we taught him how to pray. And this has just really hit me this week, what a blessing in our lives to be able to talk directly with our Father in Heaven, this man has never prayed to God before or really heard much more than the name of our Savior, but he genuinely wants to learn. I just can´t describe the joy of kneeling in prayer with someone for their first time EVER. Coolest thing in the world.

There´s so so much more I wish I could say, but I gotta report to my President too! I just want you all to know that we are so incredibly blessed. We have the truth, God is our Father in Heaven and he loves us so much, he wants the best for each and every one of his children on this earth, he gives so many chances, again and again, he anxiously awaits for us to come to him. I´m so grateful that I can pray, something so simple but so powerful. I can have my own personal relationship with my Heavenly Father, I know why I´m here on this Earth and I know where I am going.

I love you guys, you´re in my prayers and I don´t doubt that you are all being taken gentle care of!

Hermana Nelson

 

Murcia!!‏

AH man Ah man

NO mucho tiempo, pero. Yaáll gotta know, I¨m in the best city in the best mission with the BEST Mission President and Mom, and the BEST Companera with the BEST barrio (ward) full of member missionaries on fire! And all I gotta say is that Murcia doesn´t know what´s hit her... I¨m in Murcia (pronounced Mor-thee-uh with the lovely Spanish theta).. I can´t even believe it, gotta meet President and HErmana Clegg on Friday and my companion, I pegged her from the first second. I´m most grateful for her, she´s just like me, 5 10´´, we have the exact same birthday, we both love basketball and running, country music, missionary work and... We are the same person. Okay, not really. But I gotta say, we do have a bit of an intimidating factor together, with our height.. Ha, two contactos en the street with these teenage girls alone, that were both quivering, all we said ¨HOla, we´re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ, do you believe in God? And they looked like they were going to cry.. Ha it´s so hard not to giggle, because we´re the furthest thing from harmful, but we´re just both so tall and excited and... Yeah.

Entonces, Ah Hermana Ross, seriously, she´s so great, she´s encouraging, she´s patient with me, and she lets me participate, even though I havén´t got a clue of what I¨m doing right now. She´s well seasoned as a missionary, shés been out a year, she´s awesome in the language, and we´ve only had a couple lessons so far, but she´s powerful as a teacher and a representative of Jesus Christ.

Our sweet little EUropean apartment has got serious character, and it´s actually pretty big, 4 rooms. But.. Anyways, our ward is incredible. I can barely keeep all. the names straight, like I said, member missionaries, I don´t know what we would do without their help. All of our investigators right now, except for a couple, are friends or relatives of our members. It´s powerful, The members are all ready, with their sleeves rolled up! Por ejemplo, Saturday, my first day, Carmen (member) shows up to the R.S. activity with a friend she met on the street, Rafaela, (Carmen told us that she has been praying for weeks to find someone she can share the gospel with and then she meets Rafaela whose struggling with various things in her life).. Welp, Rafaela came to church and this activity and we have a meeting with her this week. Tender mercy.

I don´t have time, so I just want you guys to know that ͨm so overwhelmed with all of the things that I have to learn, but I have to much hope and excitement, because I know this is the Lórd´s work and he´s gooing to help me do it, I just gotta give him my heart and obey every little rule and commandment and it´s all going to buff out ( in the words of Brooke Maples). I know that Christ is our Savior, he´s the only way we can return to God again! WE just need faith in him. I love you guys, thanks so much for your love and support, I don´t get a single second to think about you and then I come read all of these emails and I just have chills all up and down my body because I can feel your love and I´m so grateful for that.

Have a great week for me,

HErmana NElson

P.S. TAsh, Happy 24th bday.. Haha I know it´s more, but You look 24! LOve you.

Just for those of you that send letters to Kelsey, here is her apartment address:

Calle Acsiclo Diaz 7, 2A

30005 Murcia

SPAIN

Mision Campo, Here I Come!!!

Hola and Adios....

I head for the Mission Home in MALAGA mañana en la madrugada!! (6 15 am ah!!! ) I can´t wait to meet President and Sister Clegg, I get butterflies in my tummy just thinking about it, I remember opening my call packet and seeing their sweet picture, like 6 months ago.. and now I finally get to greet them in person.. Welp, I don´t have tons of time today, cuz I used it writing personal emails.

However, I am most grateful this week for the intricate ways that Heavenly Father blesses my life, I know that when I do what´s right, he can guide me throught he Spirit.

This last week my companion was sick and so I got two full days of personal study time, but to be honest I felt like she got sick so I could have this special time to ponder and come closer to the Lord. It´s kind of crazy to think that my MTC time is over and that my ¨real¨ mission is now beginnning, because I´ve now been an MTC missionary for two and half months, that´s too long!! Ha, but I just want to relate two neat things from this week and then I gotta run becuase we´re visiting the Madrid temple for the last time in 20 minutes!! Yay.

So, I missed the big saturday in the park because Hermana Yardley was ill, but they planned an extra tracting day for Monday afternoon..  wE found out that there was actually an 8 year anniversary from the terrorist attack in the Metro, so we weren´t sure if we´d still be able to go, but the President okayed it. So, thus far with our Park experiences, it has been thee most difficult to talk to people in the Metro, because we enter with like 20 missionaries, somewhat spread out and immediately everybody is ten times more interested in their ipad, nook, book, cualquier cosas... And so we just keep setting goals, we just gotta talk to somebody!! And it´s only like a 5 minute to the park, so not tons of time.. But Monday, H Yardley and I were just so excited because we missed the last park day and we just wanted to overcome these silly fears.. So we´re like doo da doo.. And we plop down next to this 20ish young man, oh no he´s got his earphones in, how do we talk to him.. But we look over and say hi and he´s like super friendly.. Before we know, we´re talking to him about our church and missionaries and we´ve already missed our stop for the park... So we followed him out on his salida (exit) because he was in a rush to get to work, but he wanted to give us his information so we could send over missionaries, ah man, he was SO sweet, and so excited that young people have faith in God. Because he said most of the youth in Spain don´t care about God. Anyways, we also left him with a book of mormon but we didn´t get to say much becaust it was super hard to hear on the metro, I had a hard time understanding his spanish and then after he had to take off for work.. But anyways, we gained a testimony of talking to people on the metro, even though it´s hard and awkward, but awkward can´t exist when people´s eternal salvation is on the line!!!

>Next, k, we got to listen to the coolest fireside last night by Elder Bednar, it was a recording from 2009, but I am so grateful that this was the selected devotional, because I sure as heck needed to hear it. His whole talk was centered around the question ¨how can i know if it´s the Spirit or just my own thoughts¨ Well, his answer was, quit worrying and fussing and stewing and GO to work!! Press forward, the Spirit can´t work through you while  you´re sitting around. I´m so grateful for this message, I´ve got to use my own reasoning and if I¨m keeping the commandments and doing my part I can have confidence that my thoughts are in harmony with the spirit. I know that this is true, I¨ve seen it so many times and in so many tender mercies, the Lord is so involved in the great details of my life, what a blessing. So, as Elder Bednar said, just be a good boy or a good girl and go to work!

I love you guys, and can´t wait to report from my mission field next week

Hermana Nelson

Hola!! Como le va?

Hola familia

Okay, where to start? I feel like I didn´t get to send much of a real message last week, but oh my goodness!!! I´m so excited to tell you guys about some of my experiences in this international MTC! Happy Birthday this week Em, Sweet 15! You´re all growed up ha.

Ooh, I´d have to say that I am most grateful this week for the opportunity to talk about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon with Mecaela (close to Mckayla in English).. Um.. which leads me into my first report.

We got to do REAL PROSELYTING and REAL MISSIONARY WORK in the park for our very first time last Saturday.. Can you hear me? Oh my gosh, it was insane. I was shaking in my boots, so nervous and so excited. They split us up from our regular companions and I was with Hermana Williams, we both just came from the Provo MTC, entonces, none of us are fluent, or the trainer, both completely green and vulnerable. I really didn´t know what was going to happen. But our first contact took place in the Metro, her name was Selena and luckily for us, she actually was quite interested and wanted to talk, but she had to exit so we just got her phone number and left her with a pass along card.. Okay, so then they release us into this huge park comparable to Central Park in New York, and although it´s a big park, we´ve got a saturation of about 40 or 45 missionaries who are as eager as ever. So Hermana williams and I decided to veer off in a different direction.. We talked to a couple people along the way, with not much understanding (woh they speak fast here!!) and then we decided this little park with kiddies and mothers watching on benches was where we needed to be. Welp, we pointed out one sister but as we approached her, it just didnt´feel right.. So we continued on, and on, until we saw Mecaela sitting by herself, she was the last person we passed and so I´m thinking, well we came for a reason... Ha, and so I tried to break that first awkward HOla como está?  And before we knew it we were sitting next to her and I can´t even remember how it happened, but we ended up spending the rest of our full hour in the park answering her questions, and teaching her accordingly. Oh my gosh, I can´t tell you how amazing it was.She had three sweet little boys who were playing in the park, and so from time to time, usually during one of those ideal testifying moments.. she´d have to look over and make sure they were still alive.. But I´m here to tell you, this lady is thirsting for more in here life, she´s emigrated from Romania ten years ago, her husband currently lives and works in france because he can´t find any work here and we could sense that they´re struggling financially, not completely impoverished. But she was just pure and as we looked into her eyes and told her that Father in Heaven loves her and wants to be able to communicate with her right now, I just could see her drinking it up. I love her, I couldn´t stop thinking about her and praying for her for days, and I probably will never see her again, it was one of those referrals when we had to hand it over to our maestros at the end of the day, we were like, ¨please make sure the missionaries visit her and bring her the book of mormon in romanian, so she can understand it completely¨ she was hesitant to accept a BOM in espanol because it´s not her native tongue but as we showed her a few passages, it was clear she could get the gist out of the verses. Anyways, she´s so great, she tried to explain to us how she the Spirit speaks to her, ¨I get warm inside and little chills all up and down from my toes to my head¨ we´re like, that´s so great, and we taught about the restauration and Jose Smith and how she can read the book of mormon and know for herself if it´s true and he was a prophet, and I think she was a little bit confused, ¨how can I pray about jose smith if I don´t know him¨? My favorite part was when we were talking about how joseph smith had a question, he wanted to know what church was true.. and so he prayed, and she´s like, ¨¨ I´ve been wondering the same thing for myself¨¨ I just felt like everything we taught her, she already had thought about or was so receptive to. Anyways, the park went so well for all of us that they planned 3 extra visits during our stay here! So I´ve already been back another time, but I don´t have time to elaborate on those experiences.

Today, we´re heading into the city, we´re going to see the Madrid soccer stadium and the Plaza Mayor and other awesome sites in town. But I just want to take the last couple minutes and describe how amazing this internationa MTC experience is. I didn´t realize because I thought we would only have us american missionaries, Spain bound. But we´ve had Itallians, russians, ARgentinans, just got some French and Chilean missionaries.. It´s so great. We constantly have translators and several languages being spoken in every meeting, I have loved getting to know, especially the russians and chileans because it reminds me of Hermana Bosco and Elder Harris.. I know that they´re loving the people of Ukraine and Argentina, if they´re anything like the ones I have met. It´s just incredible, I love this Gospel, it can unite all of us through all of our differences. I´m so grateful for our Spanish teachers, they ooze with love and they are so excited that we can be a light unto their nation. I love my life,

Hermana Nelson