Hunter Mission October 8-14 2024

 What is happening my friends and fam how are yall doing hopefully super well. This week was absolutley crazy and so fun the entire time

I started off the week in the city of valparaiso with Elder Bean who is a stud og a guy, we were both getting new comps on wednesday so they put us together for the day so it would be a easier transition to travel to Viña, we worked in his sector for the day and had some awesome success it definitely prepared me to train the next day a little.

So wednesday we got our newbies finally and it was an awesome day we started of by meeting them and eating the best burgers in the World from roof burger. But anyway my new comps name is Elder Wilson. An absolute stud like 6'4" with some crazy Spanish already. We were able to chill a little in Viña for a little bit then we headed off to our areas, the only problem is that none of the members could bring us to our sector so we rented a private micro to takes us there, basically a party bus for all the missionaries that were stranded in Viña. But good news is that we eventually made it to our sector (the bus did break down 4 times in the middle of the road on the way) but we officially got there and worked a little with the members that first day

After the exciting Wednesday we had a litte but of a slow Thursday, starting off with our shower pipe bursting and our first district council which went auper well. But we ended up walking 30mins to find a part to replace the shower and get food because the apartment was bare. But we were able to get in some good work after we got a lesson a lot of contact with members over all a good day (one of the members gave us homade bread )

Which leads us to Friday the weirdest day out of all of them we traveled a little ways away for a zone breakfast and created some goals to help us work and then we headed off and it seemed to be going super well we were getting into houses and cooking in lessons... for about a hour or two then a dog bit me which ruined our plan. We ended up having to go to the hospital for the rest of the day (after two more visits to a member of course) and now I gotta get 4 more shots  so that's an experience.

But then we got back to work on Saturday and had a lot of success, we had lunch with a super hilarious member that knows a little of english and uses it for the soul purpose of insulting the missionaries and we love him for it, oh and we ate chicken foot which was another fun experience but we were chilling. We also had a awesome lesson about baptism to a family of 6 hopefully they will find the motivation to act we'll find out this week

Sunday was a fire way to end of the perfect week, we gave out testimonies in sacrament meeting and we had one of our friends Javier show up which was awesome. Then we had an amazing Chilean culture lunch which was huge and amazing. After that we had another lesson with our friends and we had contact with two less active members who we absolutely love and we are going to visit all of these people again next week! 

Over all this week was super dope super awesome and we're chilling with everything. I know God's been helping me a lot with the language and with building relationships I would not be able to do it without him and I can feel him with me every step of the way. My invitation for all of yall reading this would be to find were God's at in your life because I know he's there just gotta look for it.

Love you all so much have a great week!

Elder Nelson

Lincoln Mission October 8-14 2024

 Another great week with some good highlights. A long detailed email was requested, so skip around if you'd like.

Ukupa = promised land

Life has been great recently. We have some great relationships with the members, some great services lined up, and are teaching a lot of youth. We would like to teach more adults, but they are either already baptized and inactive or don't want to be taught/ change their lifestyle. But overall, everything is going great.

Magebgandi

We are also working to open up a new area and it's awesome. We took a boat ride to a village called Magebgandi and talked to all the chiefs about building a church there. Apparently, a while back the Baptist church worked out a deal with the Kunas that in the fine print said that if the Baptist church was already in a village, no other church could set up there. In November they're going to have a big meeting to get that fixed. In the mean time, we can hold sunday school classes in their big chicha fuerte hut, (where they make their traditional alcoholic beverages to get wasted. Us being there is probbly the holiest thing to have happened there.) We had 62 people there, and we think we'll be able to get more the next weeks when we can do personal visits and lessons. Super cool experience to say the least.

Water situation

Well, currently some people have been stealing our water because they don't want to go to the river and get their own. We would go to the river, but we don't have a boat and only have minimal water storage. Usually we don't need to because we have two massive tanks at the church that collect rain water. Unfortunate situation.

Jungle

On our way to get some coconuts, a massive bird takes off, shaking all the trees around us. The guy we were with instantly turns around, tells us to wait for him, and takes off running. He then came back with his gun. He couldn't find it again, but after we had done the work we came to do, the bird flies overhead. We dropped what we were carrying and then the guy disappeared into the jungle. We waited silently until we heard a loud BANG. He came back with a bird they call "guama" and a huge smile on his face. He cooked it up into some dule masi. It tasted like turkey. If any of y'all know (ethan), hit me up.

New congreso hut

They just built a new massive hut where they sing their oral history and discuss certain things going on in the village. Because it's new, a bunch of chiefs from a bunch of different islands came to participate. We were able to get a good seat and hear the chief go off singing in Dulegaya. I understood nothing. 

Ibeorgun

A really cool part of the history of Guna Yala is that they beleive a white God descended from the heavens and taught their anscestors. The crazy thing is that's exactly what the Book of Mormon teaches. The Book of Mormon teaches that after His death and Resurrection, He visited His people in the Americas to teach them, give them His priesthood, and establish His church their. The Kunas have a ton of stories about him that resemble a lot of what takes place in the Book of Mormon. How He's God's son. How a nele (wise person or prophet) would come to help them. How he said the Kunas have "white brothers," how he taught them the symbol of the cross is good, and more. Super cool connection

Well, thats all I can think of

Elder Nelson

McKay YMSL October 2024 Meeting

McKay was able to go to the October meeting of Young Men's Service League. He and his friend Blake were in charge of the leadership moment for the meeting and they taught on Responsibility in Leadership. 

They were able to listen to LeKevin Smith who is from Georgia and played college football for Nebraska and played for the Patriots in the NFL. He knew some pretty famous football players. 

He said so many good things about life, having goals and making good choices. I think the boys were all pretty mesmerized by him. He was a very good speaker.