Be of good cheer the Elders are here

G'day Everyone!

How ya goin? I hope everyone is doin alright. Elder Stringam and I had a pretty interesting week. First of all, Johnathan isnt getting baptized on this next weekend....AWwwww....yup...BUT the story is pretty good. So we went to teach him this week and LAST week when we committed him to be baptized we left him 2 Nephi 31 to read and ponder about. Its all about baptism. Go figure. Good news was he read it! We left him a homework assignment so that he could focus on key doctrine and recieve his own personal revelation from the scriptures. The bad news was thats exactly what happened!! haha jk...sorta. He read and he answered the questions perfectly and we were so excited! And they we asked him if he learned anything else. He said well I read and I noticed this scripture that said "After you are baptized you must keep the commandments(quoting Johnathan)." He said he wasnt ready to be baptized yet because him and his friends like to go to the pub and have social drink while they go watch the horse races. Gotta love Australia. Serious Buzz kill but at the same time we were very excited that he recieved that revelation and felt that it was important for him to keep the commandments. After he told us why he wasnt ready we taught him the rest of the Plan of Salvation so he completely understood the purpose of life and then we taught him the Word of Wisdom. We followed it up with: When are you going to quit drinking? He was like Ah well II've been thinking about it and I really want to get baptized but I'm thinking that......in a couple years I'll be ready. ha...ha....yeeeeaaah. In my head I was like ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??! But calmly I taught about SATAN. haha. I will say that one of the strongest times in my mission where I've felt the spirit speaking through me was while I was teaching Johnathan about the reality of the Adversary. I spoke from the bottom of my heart(It almost made water come out of my face!) and I testified to Johnathan that we loved him. Heavenly Father loves him. The commandments are there to bring us happiness. When we keep them we will be ready to be recieved into a state of NEVER ENDING happiness. I told him that satan is real. And that He will do EVERYTHING in his power to keep Johnathan from truly being happy and from keeping the commandments. I told him straight up that sometimes satan will decieve us and say to us "Hey....you could probably keep that commandment but isnt it so much for fun to just go drink with your friends. Just wait a couple years. Then you'll be ready." He got the point. He came to Stake Conference with us which was great and we're going to see him in a couple of days to see what conclusion he's come to. We told him to pray about it.


On another note we've got a mean new investigator Nathan. I'll have to tell you his whole story another time but we had a powerful Restoration lesson with him just yesterday. By the way we're emailing today because we went to the temple today. We are going to Zone Conference tomorrow. I'm so excited!


Another awesome experience we had this week is we met up with a Less active member of the church who has been meeting with the Jehovah's Witness'. yeah. We taught her the Restoration and the spirit just smashed her...with love :). It was sweet as. Long story short at the end of our lesson she said "I need to call the Jehovah's Witness' and tell them to not come anymore. I want to come back to church so that I can take the Sacrament again." SO AWESOME! One point for the Mormons!! haha.



Well I love you all heaps. We are seeing a lot of miracles lately. Pray for Johnathan. I think he knows that if he gets baptized he'll have to make a lot of changes in his life and that scares him. He even asked me about tattoos at Stake Conference. Have a good week. "Be of good cheer!"



Elder Nelson

(Note: You better proofread my emails before you forward them)

Mum, The house looks great. I wish they celebrated Halloween here. So lame they dont. Well some people do. Not really though. We should just go trick or treating as mormon missionaries. haha. Good on Bryce for finishing strong. He'll do great in wrestling. Take it easy though Bryce dont get too big of a head. You'll be great though. What a stud. Yeah it wouldve been awesome to have done Football but thats alright. Remember when I almost did it for Senior year? That wouldve been good I shouldve stuck to it. Its all good though I love my music and I still love to play basketball. I like Rugby too. Sounds like Dinner with Katie and Cassie was good. Man sounds like Cassie was trying to be Miss Impress haha. Dont let her know I said that!!! Her letters are always awesome but to be completely honest I cant really see myself ever marrying her. She's cool as but yeah I dont know. She's a good friend. Katie said she's scared? She'd be a gun missionary. Its true you get over the talking to people way quick you just gotta get really submerged in the work. Its a great feeling to be able to just talk to anyone and not worry about getting offended even though they might cuss at you. By the way I hate to say this but my clothes are falling apart. One of the pairs that I bought with the money that I got from Trudy and Don is still alright but the other ones...weeeelll....lets just say....my butt is huge. haha a massive hole ripped in the butt. yeah....i know. So I was thinking you should send me a pair of black blue dickies because they are cheap. What do you think? Also my right proselyting shoe of my Eccos is ripping on the right side because I'm such a hard worker. Its not looking too good clothes wise at the moment. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I havent heard from Sophia for months. I heard from Denisa again and she always sends me gum haha. explain your dream about the mountain again? I remember some of it but what was the meaning behind it? By the way I used one of your dreams for a lesson the other day. Remember the dream you had where you were driving down the highway and all those accidents were happening around you but you felt safe? Yeah that one. Good luck with the job! Well I better go. Catch ya lata.