Heeeeeeyy! It's me again! This week has just been great, we had a great time; lots of teaching, working with amazing missionaries (splits!), and just teaching wonderful people.
On Monday we had a little different program with President Foote coming down to visit and do some activities with all of us down here in Antsirabe. Then that evening we had a special visitor with us, Elder Razafimandimby (my last companion) came down from Fianarantsoa with Elder Obioma to attend the activity with us so he wanted to go visit some people that he had taught when he was here so we stopped by a few houses.
Wednesday I went on my first split of the week with Elder Heo (pronounced huh) and we had a great day. Elder Heo was trained by Elder Pinson (one of my former companions) and he is just a great person to be around, always smiling and looking for somthing to laugh about.
Then Friday I went on my other split with Elder Hull who only has one transfer left when this one ends. We had a great day; talking about great important things like pokemon(:P), life after the mission ect. Even though we taught a lot of lessons one that I really do want to talk about is about this couple and their family called Rivo and Fara. In our previous lesson we had learned about Joseph Smith while touching a bit on the Book of Mormon, ending with a baptisimal invitation which then declined, wanting to think more about. I come back with Elder Hull and we focus the entire lesson on the why, why is the Book of Mormon important and why we have to read it.
There have been many times on my mission where I have felt the Spirit but this time was one of the strongest and I knew that the entire family felt it as well, they were all quite and contemplative, seriously thinking about what we were saying to them. We bore our testionies to them and there was such a great feeling in the room. We again asked them if they would follow Christs example and be baptized, to which they replied that they had already been baptized in another church, was it ok to be baptized again?
I tell them that it is indead fine to be baptized again if the first one was not done by the authority of the Priesthood. I shared Mathew 5:22-23 about authority, Mathew 16:19 on how that authority was given to the Apostles,and tied it into Joseph Smith restoring the priesthood again. Finally I told them "really this all relies on Joseph Smith being a true prophet, if he is real then our message is correct, if not then all that we have said is false. So how can we know that Joseph truly was a prophet?" The answer to that; read the book. At that point they just got it and promised to read and to pray, great lesson.
Last thing, Saturday we had two of our investogators be inerviewed for baptism and they both passed! They will be baptized on this up coming Saturday.
We had an amazing week, it was just awesome. Lets all strive for another one, love you guys!
Elder Nelson
Monday, January 25, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
P-Day Fun!
Miharaba anao ireo ny tenako! Haha, manao azafady aloha izaho fa taraika be ity email ity fa izany dia noho ny famangian'i Filoha Foote anay taty tamin'ny omaly!
Hey everyone! We have had a great week but this letter is going to have to be very short, as you can see I am writing this late but that is because President Foote visited us yesterday and wanted to do an activity which pretty much took all day, it twas a blast! We cleaned/ dug tree rings around a bunch of little trees at a members in Manandona and played a lot of basketball with President and the APs.
One thing from this week is that we have a great family of investigators named Jean Louis and Nirina. We have been teaching them for about 4 weeks now and they are just amazing. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom this past week and they just accepted it, and had even been trying to get off their addictions for awhile now. An amazing thing about them (I wasn't there, split) is that the day or so before knocking on their house for the first time Nirina had actually prayed to know wat church to join. Then the next day or so we are walking and I think "you know, we have never actually gone up this path, wonder what is up there" so we went and found one of the most amazing families that I have ever seen!
This past Sunday I had that great opportunity to interview four people for baptism, two I had done before which have now passed (yay!) and two others that still have some things to clear up before being baptized but I have 100% confidence that they will pass in the near future!
We are have a blast down here and the work is going so well, I feel so blessed to be able to work here during all of this growth and I am just so excited to see what will happen soon in the future!
izay no email kely azoko natolotra fa ny foko manolotra azy no zava-dehibe
(polite way of ending a short yet important thing such as a talk, presentation, or this email:)
Have a great week everyone!
Elder Nelson
Elder Nelson's mom here: Below are a couple pictures provided by Sis. Foote of their activity yesterday.
Hey everyone! We have had a great week but this letter is going to have to be very short, as you can see I am writing this late but that is because President Foote visited us yesterday and wanted to do an activity which pretty much took all day, it twas a blast! We cleaned/ dug tree rings around a bunch of little trees at a members in Manandona and played a lot of basketball with President and the APs.
One thing from this week is that we have a great family of investigators named Jean Louis and Nirina. We have been teaching them for about 4 weeks now and they are just amazing. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom this past week and they just accepted it, and had even been trying to get off their addictions for awhile now. An amazing thing about them (I wasn't there, split) is that the day or so before knocking on their house for the first time Nirina had actually prayed to know wat church to join. Then the next day or so we are walking and I think "you know, we have never actually gone up this path, wonder what is up there" so we went and found one of the most amazing families that I have ever seen!
This past Sunday I had that great opportunity to interview four people for baptism, two I had done before which have now passed (yay!) and two others that still have some things to clear up before being baptized but I have 100% confidence that they will pass in the near future!
We are have a blast down here and the work is going so well, I feel so blessed to be able to work here during all of this growth and I am just so excited to see what will happen soon in the future!
izay no email kely azoko natolotra fa ny foko manolotra azy no zava-dehibe
(polite way of ending a short yet important thing such as a talk, presentation, or this email:)
Have a great week everyone!
Elder Nelson
Elder Nelson's mom here: Below are a couple pictures provided by Sis. Foote of their activity yesterday.
Monday, January 4, 2016
Tratran'ny Taona Vaovao! Samy tratra ny ho avy indray!
Hey everyone! We had a great New Years, there actually were not any problems with parties, and my actual full year in Mada is now over.
So I am just going to go right to Wednesday where I didn't even work in my area! I went on a great split with Mahazoarivo with my good buddy Elder Tangarasi and we just had a great time. I got to meet some awesome people in his area andjust got SOAKed when a giant rain storm just came out of no where, literally all of the roads turned to rivers, it was way fun.
Then as the next day (Thursday) just happened to be Elder Sweetens birthday and because he had gotten me so good on mine I put some evil designs to work. Just before we left on the split I grabbed the phone number of a member that we would be visiting for our last appointment on Thursday. I call while on the split and get everything set up for the big day.
The split ends, had a great district meeting and went to work.We stopped by a members house to share a spiritual thought and strengthening them in general, caught a few other times and went to the evening soiree. Really we were there to teach a young man named Yan(?) and the lesson went very very well. As we were ending some 10-15 young single adults come in carrying music equipment, they were going to throw a big new years party. Because of that Elder Sweeten got very distracted talking to everyone which allowed me to get everything ready for the birthday suprise.
I have the eggs, a member has the flour while another takes the video, everything is good and I just get Sweeten so good, he just got hit so hard! Then that was quickly followed by a ton of flour, it literally turned his hair white, he became Jack Frost. Elder Sweeten loved it, he washed of a bit, and then we went home so he could take a shower.
Friday was the first day of the year and we were so tired, Elder Sweeten got up to bang stuff and we talked for a while so lets say we were tired but still went out to work. Two member families had invited us over for New Years so we went to one where they insisted that we keep eating so we ate a good amount. We then go the other house and they insisted too that we just eat so by the time we left we were just so stuffed, twas great. Then for the rest of the day we were teaching, we some how managed to catch three less actives that day, we were way suprised but very glad and greatful at the same time.
Last thing would be from yesterday. We were teaching some new investigators, they had never learned before, and we were teaching as we normally would but it just was not going. I get the idea that was something like this "tell them what they are" so I change how we were going at it and just stress on how important they were to God because they were his children. I asked them "why did God send Jesus here on earth?" , they say "to save us" ok, but why, why not to save pigs or the birds, why did he come to save us? Because we are Gods children, that is why. I had never really hit that subject so hard but it really changed the mood of the lesson, I feel that those investigators got so much more out of it. Now I am not going to give a big general comittment or anything like that, I just want to say that I know that we all are children of God and that Jesus came to save us, not pigs, or birds, but all of us.
That is about it, have a great week everyone, lets get the new year off to a good start,
Elder Nelson
So I am just going to go right to Wednesday where I didn't even work in my area! I went on a great split with Mahazoarivo with my good buddy Elder Tangarasi and we just had a great time. I got to meet some awesome people in his area andjust got SOAKed when a giant rain storm just came out of no where, literally all of the roads turned to rivers, it was way fun.
Then as the next day (Thursday) just happened to be Elder Sweetens birthday and because he had gotten me so good on mine I put some evil designs to work. Just before we left on the split I grabbed the phone number of a member that we would be visiting for our last appointment on Thursday. I call while on the split and get everything set up for the big day.
The split ends, had a great district meeting and went to work.We stopped by a members house to share a spiritual thought and strengthening them in general, caught a few other times and went to the evening soiree. Really we were there to teach a young man named Yan(?) and the lesson went very very well. As we were ending some 10-15 young single adults come in carrying music equipment, they were going to throw a big new years party. Because of that Elder Sweeten got very distracted talking to everyone which allowed me to get everything ready for the birthday suprise.
I have the eggs, a member has the flour while another takes the video, everything is good and I just get Sweeten so good, he just got hit so hard! Then that was quickly followed by a ton of flour, it literally turned his hair white, he became Jack Frost. Elder Sweeten loved it, he washed of a bit, and then we went home so he could take a shower.
Friday was the first day of the year and we were so tired, Elder Sweeten got up to bang stuff and we talked for a while so lets say we were tired but still went out to work. Two member families had invited us over for New Years so we went to one where they insisted that we keep eating so we ate a good amount. We then go the other house and they insisted too that we just eat so by the time we left we were just so stuffed, twas great. Then for the rest of the day we were teaching, we some how managed to catch three less actives that day, we were way suprised but very glad and greatful at the same time.
Last thing would be from yesterday. We were teaching some new investigators, they had never learned before, and we were teaching as we normally would but it just was not going. I get the idea that was something like this "tell them what they are" so I change how we were going at it and just stress on how important they were to God because they were his children. I asked them "why did God send Jesus here on earth?" , they say "to save us" ok, but why, why not to save pigs or the birds, why did he come to save us? Because we are Gods children, that is why. I had never really hit that subject so hard but it really changed the mood of the lesson, I feel that those investigators got so much more out of it. Now I am not going to give a big general comittment or anything like that, I just want to say that I know that we all are children of God and that Jesus came to save us, not pigs, or birds, but all of us.
That is about it, have a great week everyone, lets get the new year off to a good start,
Elder Nelson
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