Elder Nelson In Madagascar: Last News from the MTC!

Manahoana ny namako sy fianakaviako! ( Hello my friends and family),

This is my last week here in the MTC. Last Friday I recieved my travel itinerary, if for some reason it is not up here are my stops; Salt Lake to Dallas, Dallas to London, London to Johannesburg, and Johannesburg to Antananarivo Madagascar. This last week have been amazing and I have loved it.

First off I learned an interesting concept from my teacher Brother Burton, it is that everyone views the world throught 4 "windows" Beliefs, Rules, Actions, and Results. The way this works is you have a belief on something, there are rules that apply to this belief ( usually an if then statement), you see the actions that validate your belief and brush off the ones that don't, you see the results that confirm your belief which confirms what you believe, repeat process. My teacher related this misisonary work, that we need to change how people see the world and how the world see's them, that they are sons and daughters of God but that it will be a process.

I am becoming very good friends with all the elders in my district and zone, especially with Elders Mack and Snell. We are all abit different but it is fun to talk and hang out with them.

So here is an embarassing story. We are just begining to teach a less active member named Jean Pierre and we go in for our first discussion. We get in and ask him how his family is doing, he said that his four and six year old sons are doing fine but his seven year old daughter has just died. I not noticing the for death/ to die say to him when he finished "tsara" which means good. We get throughn out soon after that, ya my bad. But we were given a second chance later which a clean slate. We go in and since my mom had just happened to send me some cookies I gave Jean some in an attempt to make him feel better and I think it helped. I have to say right now that i don't remember much of what was said. I remember what we discussed but what I said and what was said to me I can't remember. I can say that the gift of tongues and the interpretation of tongues is real, that I was able to understand and reply correctly without thinking to hard, It wasn't perfect because I am still learning but the Lord bellsed me with understanding, I am sure of it. The Lord will take care of those people who put their faith and trust in Him.

This Tuesday night devotional was very cool and special. I had the opportunity to sing in the MTC choir for an Apostole of the Lord, Elder M. Russell Ballard. It was very cool, we sang an adaptation of Joseph Smiths First Prayer and Elder Ballard spoke on so much stuff and stupidly I left my notes in the class room but I will try to send some details soon.

This Sunday I was released from being zone leader which is good as I am leaving Monday but still it is a little nice to have no aditional responsibilities.

Spiritual thought for the week hmmm what I have to say comes staight from our lesson with Jean Pierre. We do not know the reason but God knows, that should be enough. Really that is something we can all live by, we don't know why some things happen but we know that God knows and that He has a reason, we merely have to trust in Him.

I hope you all are having a good week, be safe everyone, I am thinking and praying about you all. Have a good week, next time I write will be from madagascar!

-Elder Nelson