Hola mi familia!!!!
My last day in the CCM before I become a real missionary:) Very exciting and such a fun opportunity to be here! We said goodbye to about half of the people who are leaving to their missions. It was sad to say goodbye and I am a little worried about one of the sisters in our room who left today, but I know she can do it!! I have packed basically all my belongings and it is so SO nice not having to worry about weight this go around.
Fun week, I told you about the fleas last week and I cant remember if I told you about the cockroaches... in case you were wondering I have been dreaming about them and spiders crawling all over me, especially my face, in my soon to be bed... Well as we all know, I am not the most quiet person, and rarely do I share my opinions on anything:) but one day, one of the supervisors thought it would be funny to play joke on me. I told everyone I was terrified of the potential cockroaches and all of a sudden the supervisor calls my name while I am eating lunch and I look to my left and there is a COCKROACH!!!! ON THE TABLE!!! Zach and Karli, remember my reaction to the spider the night before my farewell... well this reaction was almost as good! He thought he was so funny and I could have beat him!!! EWWWW!!! Please start praying that I will be able to rid my apt of cockroaches if need be. I have promised everyone that I plan on buying a machete to kill them all... cockroaches beware!
Anyway so that was a fun part of the week. We were in a class this week and I am not sure what mission it was but I believe it was a mission in central america and they had on average 97 BAPTISMS A WEEK!! Crazy huh?? I have no idea what the average was for Zach or Karli but seriously, that is a ton!!! They also on average had over 1000 investigators!! A mission that was in the same city.... 34 baptisms and 400 investigators! Holy smokes! Shows what a little desire can do!
I played the CCM violin in church two sundays ago and today we played a childs prayer before the nortes left. It was really special and every time I play the violin I am sad I dont have one of my own. People have told me the instruments arent expensive down here, we will see. I definitely dont want it to be a focus in my mission but I have come to appreciate more than ever the talent heavenly father has blessed me with. The thoughts of continuing with music have even crossed my mind.... shocking I know!!
Anyway, now to the most exciting parts of my week! Something that I will always remember and is an experience I would have NEVER had without coming to the CCM. No missionary in the Prove MTC would ever have this experience! First, guess what... Hna Parker and I taught an inactive member of the church this past saturday. She is the sister of my teacher Hna Ayala (AMAZING TEACHER!!) She left on a mission and lasted like 4 months and came home and hasnt gone to church ever since. Our teacher wanted us to teach her and so we did. We talked about the atonement... shared a scripture in 3 Nefi 18:18-21 I think... she couldnt even finish reading because she was so emotional. I finished reading it, trying to emphasize what was important in spanish, and we continued. She got emotional again because the spirit was SO strong. It was so great and such an amazing experience. She was such a sweet girl and I am so grateful for that opportunity. We committed her to pray every day this week and to read her scriptures every day. She said she would and I hope and pray she does! We also committed her to go to church... she kept saying Voy a ver which means I am going to see.... guess what!!! She went to church!!!! My teacher Hna Ayala said this was a HUGE step for her. That she isnt emotional to the point of tears ever and that she got up to go to church. It was such a great experience and I cant wait to start experiencing that every day.
Second great news... RUDY!!! Oh my goodness! He is the perfect definition of a golden investigator. I told you we committed him to baptism and he agreed. Sadly he lives outside of mine and hna parkers missions so we wont be able to keep teaching... BUT! He is progressing so well and we have the number of the new missionaries to hand him off. This past weekend on Friday night, I gave Rudy the Liahona magazine. We had wanted to give it to him in our lesson, but for some reason he didnt come. We were planning on teaching him another time, but when he was at work that night and I saw him, I knew he needed the magazine then. We gave him the one with the conference addresses in it and in Rudy style.... he read the ENTIRE thing in like two days! He has also read more than 150 pages in the book of mormon. The best part of it all... we committted him to go to church and he WENT! Plus, his girlfriend went too AND we got to meet her yesterday. We told Rudy that we would be leaving Tuesday and we wanted to teach him one last time. So we worked it out that Hna Ayala would drive to his home to go to church with him, and to take his girlfriend. Then later she would bring them to the CCM so we could teach them one last lesson. They all came, all went to church, and we were able to teach a good lesson!
Of all the topics we could start with, with his girlfriend since we hadnt taught her yet... we started with the Law of Chastity. Horrible starting point I know but I KNOW she felt the spirit so strong. At the beginning I gave a quick review of the plan of salvation... which I LOVE!!! It is such an amazing point in our church... Families can be together FOREVER!!! So beautiful! Anyway, after that we moved into the law of chastity and how it was necessary to obtain eternal life with our families. Saturday, Hna Parker, Hna Ayala and I gave Rudy a bunch of things. Hard cover book of mormon and bible... a picture of the salt lake temple and guatemala city temple, and a different Liahona about the savior. We all wrote our testimonies on something and gave them to rudy.While we were teaching him he told us he wanted to go to the temple... he has hardly begun to learn about the church and already his desires are the temple!! So crazy!! His girlfriend also told us she has been seeking a religion, that she wants to be part of a religion. She has also read basically everything we have given to rudy. It was such a priceless special experience for me here and I am so grateful I had it!!
We leave tomorrow morning around 8. I am hoping we will spend the night in the mission home for some transition time... I think we will, but there are 15 of us going to my mission and the mission home might not be big enough. Anyway, it is about a four hour bus drive and I have heard we should be able to email when we get there. We will see! GREAT week for me! I hope you are all doing great!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! I am almost a real missionary:)
Love, Hna Nelson
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