October 29, 2011

Hi Family!

For the majority of this week we were at Welfare Square, taking tours and helping people fill their food orders at the Bishop Storehouse. I really love serving here; we meet so many people. And when you help with hosting (filling their food orders) you can be sure that you are going to have a great conversation with people because they always have a story on why they are coming in and how their life is going. It is really sad to see people going through hard times but it is such a testimony builder of what the Church is all about, helping one another and supporting ourselves through hard times. We personally go to church to be uplifted by the messages that are shared but we build relationships with our ward family for support. One such story was a lady who was less active for many years. Her husband left her but because her neighbors were always supporting her she came back to church and has felt such an outpouring of love. She knows this is where she is supposed to be. So whenever people say that they don't need church to worship God, tell them to read Moroni 6 for further explanation.

I also called a man who recently lost everything and is looking for a place to live. I talked with him about being physically set (house, job, food) before we are able to sit down and be spiritually fed. He paused and said, "You are the first person who actually understands what I am going through!" Wow. Yea, Welfare Square! That is what Sister Mata'utia and I have focused on this whole transfer, and I love when the Lord gives you people who need what you have really come to understand.

Welfare Square is slowing down but sometimes it is CRAZY. We sometimes have back to back to back tours and we have no time for anything. By the end we are dead.

Friday the International Missionaries came to Welfare Square. The MTC always sends them to the Humanitarian Center but after taking a tour, decided to switch to Welfare Square. It was so much fun! But they were more camera-happy than listening. That’s ok, the MTC people came up to us after and thanked us for a spiritually uplifting tour.

Oh oh! I forgot to write about this last week: The apartment complex next to the main Sisters’ apartments had a HUGE fire. I was sleeping and having wonderful dreams when I heard our doorbell going off. It took me forever to register what was going on. But I heard the door open and a sister yell "SISTERS, GET OUT OF YOUR APARTMENT; DA IS ON FIRE!" DA is our main apartment complex. My first thought, “I don't care. They are 1/4 mile away, not my problem.” But I stumbled out of my apartment and we watched the apartment NEXT to DA burn for about an hour. President showed up and cancelled our sacrament meeting since we had been up for over an hour at this point. It took us all at least an hour to fall back asleep. But nothing happened to the apartment complex-which was a miracle because there is a tree that touches both apartments and it was on fire. But if another fire happens over there, tough! I am sleeping through it.

That's my week! Until next Saturday!

October 22, 2011

Hi Family!

This week was gone in the blink of an eye, but we did have some cool experiences too! One of our investigators in Puerto Rico who speaks perfect English finally got in touch with the missionaries! She is awesome. She even stayed up till 2 a.m. watching On the Way Home and Together Forever... yeah, she must be golden if she still wants to investigate after watching those movies.

We also got in touch with a lot of old former investigators who ended up not getting baptized. So that is our goal get them back on the path, since they are not with missionaries anymore and get them wet! We have a new mission focus, baptisms, shocking I know. But in the past it has always been call them till they meet with missionaries but to help us remember what is the most important thing, which is getting them on the path to the temple, they need to be baptized! We called a recent convert in Liberia who has moved away from the Church and is trying to have us get the Church established there. I told him that the only way to get the Church established in his area would be for him to do lots of missionary work himself. So we are helping him out by calling his referrals so we will teach them and maybe we can be like the Sister here who spoke Swahili and a congregation put her on speaker whenever she called... yeah that would be cool. But we are helping him get a good spiritual uplift when we call by reading the Book of Mormon together. It just is so sad to see how these people struggle, yet they are pioneers paving the way for others to have the gospel.

Funny phone story: I called this lady and her phone connection was terrible. She couldn't hear a word I said but she heard “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and “missionary.” So she asked when we were coming over. Why can't everyone be like her? Sure feels good to be a harvester again. Puts it into perspective on how people are genuinely seeking truth. All we have to do is go by the spirit and be there when our Heavenly Father needs us.

Took a man around today who is looking into the church. He is so worried about not knowing enough and is trying to understand EVERYTHING. We told him that it must come line by line. We took him to watch a clip from one of the Apostles and he picked President Uchtdorfs talk "The Road to Damascus." I was praying that he would pick that one; and it totally met his needs and concerns. He loved the analogy of how revelation is like a puzzle, we put it in one piece at a time and then take a step back to see it all come together. Hopefully he ponders what he felt here.

But everything else is going well! Still doing our time at Welfare Square and loving every tour we take, except when they come every hour and half hour... then you just start walking in a daze and forming complete sentences is not possible. Dinner breaks turn into naptime. Wouldn't have it any other way! Until next week!

October 15, 2011

Talofa!

Where to begin with this week!? It was one of my favorites in my mission thus far (and that is saying something). From when I last wrote we have mostly been at Welfare Square with a few hours here and there on the Temple Square. Sunday we were asked to help with "announcing" where Sisters stand outside that tabernacle and announce that there are tours in different languages. A man approached us asking if he could take a tour. We usually would say to join the group that is going with the English-speaking Sister but we decided we would take him around. He was awesome - searching for truth, really confused about all those churches out there. You know just a typical product of the apostasy and a shoo-in to accept the fact that a Restoration happened. The neatest moment was when we had him translate Moroni 10:4-5 from Russian for us (he speaks Russian so it wasn't completely random) so he had to really think about each word in the verse. We stood there as he pieced it together and we invited him to learn more, which he accepted. We will call to teach him more soon!

The rest of the week we were at Welfare Square, which isn't our typical schedule but they had meetings so life was crazy. Anyway we have made goals to help us make every stop full of the spirit and relate everything back to Jesus Christ, not hard to do when you are talking about welfare because Jesus Christ set up the perfect system. People (not members) have come through and asked, "How do you get your members to donate their time and money?" We simply say, "The Church just asks them to do it." Mouths drop. Everything runs so smoothly; there is no way it could have been conjured up by men but only through a perfect person with perfect motives, “To lift those that cannot lift themselves.” We have already seen so many hearts change (mean, grumpy people in the beginning to happy people by the end... I am sure the free samples of chocolate milk and cheese help). But when we don't have tours we help with "hosting" or filling their food orders. It has been so busy and tours are starting to be less and less so two days in a row we spent 12 noon to 4:30 p.m. running around and filling orders. We took naps when we got home instead of dinner. So we have made friends with all the workers at Welfare Square too. We watched as they filled bottles of cookies and cream milk and asked them if we could have one. Not only did they bring us bottles but offered to give us a personal tour of them making butter and cottage cheese! We didn't have time, but next time we will do it, hairnets and all.

We had an amazing morning today with alcoholics anonymous checking out Temple Square. We decided we love them all very much because they understand the atonement without understanding the gospel. All you need to do is testify and invite. We don't speak Spanish but managed to get three Spanish referrals in an hour! We felt grateful that the Lord put us in the right place at the right time. It was nothing we did; they were prepared; we were just the harvesters. Then we took a super less-active family around. Talk about awkward tour. We figured we needed to salvage it somehow so Sister Mata'utia had a great idea to take them through God's Plan for His Family. It did the trick and they were all crying by the end. Even if they didn't make the decision now to go back to church they felt the spirit and they know that it is true. The rest is up to them. Well, gotta run but until next week!

October 8, 2011

Hey Everyone!

How was conference? I bet it was great, can't wait to read it in the Ensign! What a welcome back to Temple Square, it was just how I expected life to be. The mission had set a goal of receiving 7,041 member referrals in two days. Thankfully the weather stayed nice for those two days. But Sister Mata'utia decided the day before that we were going to just work, work, work and get as many as we could get with the Lord's help. So we ran up the stairs that morning and hit the square. Sunday morning we had an emergency meeting saying that we had only reached 2,000 member referrals and we needed to step it up. Even though we felt really good about what we had accomplished the day before we felt we needed to step it up even more. By 10am we had surpassed what we had received Saturday. Funny, how the Lord blesses us according to what we expect of ourselves. If we shoot low, He will only give us what we expect. Now if only I had faith to walk on water...Anyway so we were able to attend the Saturday PM session and it was a great way to end the two days of swollen feet and happy hearts. We had a mission meeting at 9 to unveil what we had accomplished. As 8:15 rolls around we don't see any sisters and we said, "What slackers! There are so many people out here!" So we kept talking to people and then a member walks up and says, "Hey sisters aren't you supposed to be in that missionary meeting in the Tabernacle?" Uh... we book it over there and arrive a half hour late! Who changed the time?! Obviously the line of authority didn't work this time. But we got 9,222 member referrals!! Now it is time to call them all.

I thought life would slow down after that. NOPE! We are at Welfare Square 4 days a week with bus tours after that. Since everyone is still hanging around after conference we have tours every half hour. We scarf down food as they are watching their 15 min movie then run to the theater. When we finish with our time at Welfare Square we need to run to the Joseph Smith Memorial building to greet bus tours. We are their only contact with missionaries since they don't go to Temple Square and we make sure that all their needs are met. We had a great conversation with a bus driver who loves everything about Temple Square. It was great to tell him WHY we need Jesus Christ and WHY this church is the only authorized church on the earth. Not interested in missionaries but he will later! Another miracle we had was a tour at welfare square. We had these two ladies from Jordan (who now live in Australia, I swear I have met more people from Australia in this last week than my entire life) who loved everything about what the church does. It was such a spiritual tour and they were so open to learning more. They grabbed the cards themselves! Just goes to show how some people are just ready to hear the gospel, we simply need to invite them.

Life is such a blur and we go to bed exhausted every night. But we are working hard and loving life. Until next week!

September 30, 2011 Temple Square

Hi family!

So I made it alive to Temple Square!!!! Life is fantastic! I didn't realize how much I missed Temple Square till we were up and talking to everyone in our path. I think I bore my testimony in an hour more than I did in a day back in New York. Just a different pace; work is the same. Funny Story: The night I flew in all these members were coming up to me at the airport wondering where my companion was and how terrible it was that I was alone. Uh... are you kidding? This is awesome! But after all of their concern for my well being while I insisted that Sisters would be waiting for me at the baggage claim.... no Sisters were there. There was a family who was bringing their daughter home from her mission in Spain and they were talking to me trying to figure out whom I could call to have someone pick me up. One problem - none of us had cell phones and it was 11 p.m. Yeah.... but don't worry! I started walking the sidewalks and out pops Sister Despain! We threw my stuff in the car and headed home. I was so glad they were there as I was on the verge of a heart attack. Yeah, being alone. Awesome.

I am in the Extended Zone at Welfare Square!! My companion is Sister Matau'tuia from Australia (Samoan= awesome) but our assignment is unique. They have put us in charge of bus tours. It is a new thing. Basically we are church hosting but missionaries. There are large bus groups that come in and pay extra money to get V.I.P treatment. We are in charge of greeting them, taking them places, giving them tours, etc. It is similar to when I was doing my thing with motor coaches before I left for outbound, but on steroids since we can do VIP groups and stuff. I am amazed that President Holmes trusts me do be the face of the Church. They were going to have only Zone Leaders do it but decided to make it a specific assignment and chose us to do it. I guess I am happy or something, because I love holding microphones. We also get CELL PHONES. It gets really hectic when you have 10 buses coming in at once. Also we can trump the schedules from the Zone Leaders and Guest Services. Kind of a big deal! Oh and the BEST part is (drum roll) we get fed lunch everyday at Welfare Square and dinner at the Lion House (if we want) when we take those groups through. We did it last night and the Sister just said, "Put this on Tiffany's tab." Oh, I am living the high life!

I am so excited to be comps with Sister Matau'tuia! She is in her 4th transfer and has had a difficult time with comps because they never work hard. So we have had 1 day together and have decided that this is going to be an awesome transfer. Everyone told her that "Sister Nelson works super hard; you both are going to tear it up!" So my fame precedes me. It feels so GOOD to be back on Temple Square.

We had a huge mission meeting the morning after I returned and everyone ran up and hugged me and it was great. I felt really loved. Even Sister Holmes ran up and gave all of us returning Sisters a hug. But here is the catch, 40 sisters are going outbound! Everyone is leaving!!!! I feel so alone because I don't know a lot of the Sisters anymore. Since the mission meeting we have just been getting ready for General Conference and our mission goal is 7,000 member referrals and we are ready to hit the ground running. Anyway that is my update! Gotta run, I will e-mail Saturdays so look for me then. Enjoy Conference!

Goal #1: Make Conference Ensign.

Karly Sighting in Utica, New York

Dear Bev:

It was so amazing seeing your daughter on Saturday. There were several hundred workers sent to our town to help with the relief effort. I was a team leader and they were going to assign the sister missionaries to me but then assigned them to another person. We worked the morning and then after lunch I informed the organizers of another need at the museum. I said I would take my team there but actually they assigned it to the team with the sisters. So we were working across the street. When we finished we went over to help at the Museum. I was talking to the sisters and asking where they were from and I was like no way, when your daughter said Rancho Cucamonga. Then she asked if I knew Craig and Beverly Nelson. I said, "Sure, they run the bookstore." She was so surprised. We talked about a lot of things and about my son who just got back from Spain. It was really fun. Catha and I were going to take them out to dinner today so Catha went to the Temple and we were going to get together for dinner. When I called them to get a time they said they were leaving early so we would have to do lunch. I asked a friend who works in their area to come with us. So it all worked out. Turns out that Catha gave them a referral. Catha works front desk at the Courtyard Marriott in their area. They visited the young lady and gave her a Book of Mormon. We had a nice visit at lunch. She does know Catha’s sister, Summer, and remembers Jack Morgan. I told her she would have to meet Megan when she returns to Salt Lake. She said she probably would not be able to, but I said she graduated from the Y with a Landscape Management degree and just started working on the Temple Square grounds crew yesterday. She was like, "Sure, I am sure. It will be easy to find her since they are mostly guys." It was so fun to talk to her. When I was the ward mission leader I loved having sister missionaries. I miss not having them now. Tell your daughter I appreciate her service. They can touch hearts that the Elders just cannot reach. I would have told her but my friend talks a lot and kind of takes over conversations. Enjoy the pictures.

Last day in the Utica, New York Mission

We Love Karly Sightings!

This New York photo, taken in mid-September, 2011, shows Karly and her companion with PJ Smith, a former Alta Loma resident many years ago ... before Karly was born ... that long ago! Involved in a Mormon Helping Hands project both members and missionaries were assisting after the significant flooding caused by Hurricane Irene. While conversing PJ and Sister Nelson discovered their common Alta Loma roots. PJ knew us, Karly's parents, from that long ago. PJ's wife is Catha Morgan Smith, sister of Summer Schwendimann. Such a small world in the church!