McKay Goes Back to Hendricks to Emcee Multicultural Night

McKay was asked by his former Student Advisory teacher to come back to Hendricks to emcee multicultural night. He was happy to go back and see everyone. His friend Hudson also came. McKay had such a wild day. He had wrestling after school, came and emceed and then went to basketball practice. Crazy!

This has definitely gotten bigger than the first year they did it (this is his 3rd year as emcee).

Because McKay was the first class to go all the way through Hendricks, he is in every one of the the HMS photos. One for each year. 

We checked out the taco truck that came. Yum.

McKay and Ms. Barrett. She's the best. 

All ready with his jokes. 

It was fun for him to see all of his old advisors and teachers. 

We have a lot of Indians in our community and they are so awesome at dance. 

This Peruvian couple was awesome 

McKay had a hard time pronouncing all of the names of the people in each dance, this cute lady came up to tell him he did a good job. 

McKay with a lot of the performers. He did an awesome job! It was fun for dad and I to come along. 

Hunter Mission November 5-11 2024

 Hola fam and friends, how are y’all doing just gotta let you guys know love y’all and God does too.

 

Anyway, let's start out with the week. First off Felipe and Ana are on date for baptism! They are an absolutely incredible example to me. They've been so willing to change their lives around and now they want to be baptized. The first time we met them they seemed really different, Felipe has a nose ring 4 piercings in his ears and tattoos everywhere, but he is the funniest guy ever and is trying to become a model figure for his 1 year old son. He is so willing to drop all things preventing him from baptism and now he’s choosing to be celebrating his birthday with his baptism and the baptism of his wife. So yeah, they've given me new view on the gospel and people in general. Sometimes the people that seem to be unpleasant or unfriendly are actually the ones that can help us to learn more about this life and the "worth of souls" "which is great in the sight of God"

 

Anyway, funny things that happened this week are that I got bit by another dog but like it's all chill because I'm immune cause of them 5 shots they already done gave me. Also AI is a little too hyped up, I asked it to give me a recipe to make some snickerdoodles and somehow it forgot some of the ingredients, but I didn't know that, so I made them and in the end they looked weird so I asked AI what's up and it said oh yeah, you kinda need butter, but like it was too late so I improvised and made snickerdoodle bread with whatever I had.

 

I don't have too much more time to tell you all that happened this week but just know God works miracles. The natural man will never be able to see them but as we become closer to God, we will see so many miracles in our lives. So the invitation for you guys us to work on the little things and be a little closer to God this week than you were last week. 

 

Have a great rest of your week. Hope it goes amazing!

 

Elder Nelson (Hunter)

Lincoln Mission November 5-11 2024

 Go Cougs. 9-0.

The Work

This week went well and we're seeing a lot of progress with our friends. We have 4 people right now that are working towards baptism, so we're praying that they can make it. We also have an adult that wants to get baptized! He's the husband of a strong member of our branch, but deals with a lot of problems with smoking and drinking. If we can help him overcome that then he'll be able to get baptized. It'll be a hard process, but miracles do occasionally happen.

Chicha Fuerte

Unlike BYU, here in Ukupa we did not win our holy war. In Guna Yala they have a tradition they believe came from God called "chicha fuerte." One of the devil's greatest successes was establishing this tradition among the guna people. They basically crush the juice out of sugar cane into big containers, prepare it, and let it ferment until it's super strong. They then drink it all day until it runs out, getting black out drunk. They usually do it for a ceremony when a girl "becomes a woman." They believe if you drink it it'll help you go to heaven. The chiefs here teach it at every opportune moment, meaning a lot of people do it. This past week they did chicha fuerte in the village next to us and a ton of people went and came back wasted. Super sad to see. And in a few days they're going to do it here, so it'll be a hard day to say the least.

Service

This week we were able to get some good services in. We went with a member named Arturo to the jungle and helped him plant more platanos and cut down super tall trees. Super satisfying. Another day we helped all the women in the village clean their farm with machetes. I also volunteered myself to clean the well near our house. I had to scoop out massive amounts of sand and then clean the inside of the well with soap and bleach. Quality experience.

Other things

- internet went out

- the village aidirgandi has a lot of potential to get the church soon

- started the new "Saints" book

- I absolutely love Ukupa

- felt like Christimas morning when I woke up to BYU being 9-0

Elder Nali

C.A.R. Veteran's Day Parade

We went to the Veteran's Day Parade with Children of the American Revolution. I missed a picture of all of the cool sports cars the veterans were riding in in front of us. 

Washington crossing the Delaware. McKay is such a good sport...

I was just so touched by all of the veterans everywhere. I just respect these people so much!

McKay and Colson are the best. 

A lot of ROTCs were there. They were impressive.

We were at the end of the parade, so we got to see a lot of it as it passed us by. They handed out candy, which the boys loved.

                                         

Love these two!

 

Hunter Mission October 29-November 4 2024

How is everyone doing friends and family! 

 

This week started off insane. We had a bunch of lessons, all of them with potential to progress. All those people were super interested told us that they definitely want to go to church, but they weren't going to be available for the rest of the week... It was awesome to hear that these people want to hear more and complete commitments, but this was a weird week. One of our friends went to Argentina for a week and the others were working at the Expo de Quillota which is a crazy concert that went on all this past week, so they were working from 6 in the morning to 1 in the morning. It was absolutely crazy. For the entire week we could hear them going crazy a mile away from our apartment. We'll just say sleeping was rough and kinda hilarious. 

 

For the most part this week we were finding, because our friends had to work, and the best day to do that was Halloween! It was an absolutely hilarious day. A bunch of random people asking us for candy, so we gave them a church pamphlet. We also had a lot of people that saw that we didn't have candy and felt bad, so they gave us some of theirs. I kinda felt bad, but I definitely ate all that candy. We got a few lessons in and one lesson asked us to return this upcoming week, so over all a success 

 

We also won a huge lemon pie this week. Well technically last week, but it took until this last p day to get it. Basically, we had to talk to anyone we could see in the street and share a scripture about baptism. Whomever talked to the most people and shared a scripture won and we actually found a few people doing it and got a lemon pie so there's no downsides here.

 

Overall I'm still absolutely loving the mission. Always hard, always things to improve on, but it's amazing. The members are absolutely aweesome and so willing to help us out for lunches or just be our friends. Shout out to my boy André that gave me a super dope sweater and always is willing to help us in our lessons. 

 

My spiritual thought today is going to be simple and it's just an invitation, be happy . There's no better feeling in life then to choose to be happy when there is absolutely no reason to be. God will always give us the help we need we just got to ask then make the decision to be happy.

 

Love you all hope you all have a great week!

 

Elder Nelson