Hello Family and Friends!

This week has been so good for Elder Lopez and I! New investigators coming out of the woodwork, success with less-actives, and we continue walking, and walking, and walking!

Impressions of Mexico!

1) Okay. So, the Relief Society President here in Lomas del Real truly is our best friend, but she is also a little crazy. Every time we eat with her, something horrible happens.

Meal 1) She gave me a seat that had a broken leg. I collapsed during the middle of the meal.

Meal 2) She left little pebbles in the middle of the beans. And I bit into them.

Meal 3) She made cucumber water but did not put sugar in it or anything. It was the most bitter thing I have ever tasted but she made us drink it.

She also tells us on a regular basis that the moment her son returns from his mission in Guatemala that she is going to go inactive in the church, or, as she puts it, "I am going on vacation." And also that if we drink Coke that we cannot participate in the Sacrament the following Sunday.

2) Smiling in pictures is still a problem here in Mexico. Literally I have to force them to smile in the pictures that I take, because, if I did not, they would never smile. Weddings, birthdays, holidays, the occasion does not matter, everyone in the picture looks like someones has just died.

3) Everytime it rains on a Sunday here in the mission field, the number of people that attend sacrament meeting goes down at least by half. Well, yesterday it was raining all day and our branch mission leader got up to give a talk. He said something that I thought was funny and true. That everytime it rains, the Lord is cleaning his flock.

4) In English it is hahahahaha. In Spanish it is jajajajajaja.

Well, Elder Lopez and I continue to teach and reactivate. And we have truly seen miracles in our area. We had been teaching a less-active sister named Betty and her husband Elías for quite some time now, but she had said that she was not going to return to church until her husband got baptized and Elías, well, he told us plainly that he had no desire to change. So we invited him to pray and had stopped visiting him regularly. On Saturday night, the thought popped into my mind that we should go and visit them. So we went to the their house and Hermana Betty answered the door. She had been coloring her hair but was so excited and grinning from ear to ear. She said, "Guess what Elders, yesterday, during dinner, Elías told me that he had prayed and that he wants to be baptized. And we are all ready to go to church tomorrow!" *Cue Elder Nielsen jaw-drop/shocked face.

I feel humbled right now. I am so grateful for the love of my Father in Heaven. He continues to teach and tutor me every day. I know he lives because I have felt his love. And it is so gratifying to be able to try to express that love towards others each and every day. The message that I have to share is one of hope, love, and peace. It is so perfect to me, the gospel. And the more I apply it and live it, the more perfect it becomes. Every day I am more willing to be humble and submissive to what my Father wants. Every day I am learning and growing. Every day I see miracles, big and small.

I am so grateful for the chance my Father in Heaven has given me to serve him and be one of his missionaries. To have the opportunity to teach and testify, to serve and bless, and grow personally, it is just amazing and wonderful. God lives. Jesus is the Christ. It is through his Atonement that healing comes to my soul and to the souls of so many that have been battered and bruised by the trials and harships of this life. I know that he knows me. And that I can change. There is hope. And there is so much light, life, peace, hope, and truth to be found in his restored gospel. I love you all so very much and I love the people I serve.

Elder Nielsen