Gentiles!

G'day Gentiles!




REPENT! How ya goin mates? I hope you all had a great week. Ours was

full of meetings meetings meetings but it in the end it was very

fruitful.



We had Zone Council, Leadership Training, Interviews, Zone meeting and

also a few trade offs. Which, as a missionary, leaves you with only a

little time left to get some work done in your own area. But President

promised us that we would be blessed and we were. Our lesson with

Ziggy was a great spiritual experience. He's kiwi as and so funny. He

loves his old legend stories but he's got a good heart and we're

working hard to help him to his baptism. The biggest thing right now

is smoking. We've committed him to quit and we're doing all we can to

help him to do that. He's been smoking his whole life so its just

second nature to him so its really hard for him. We're praying hard

that he will be able to break the habit. We talked a lot about the

Atonement the last time we saw him so I hope that he will trust in our

Saviour during these hard times.



Arthur and Eric. Our two Taiwanese friends are doing alright. We had

an amazing miracle happen this week. We taught Arthur at the Leota's

house which was good. We watched Finding faith in Christ in chinese

which was Hilarious. It was so funny because I've seen it so many

times in english that I pretty much have it memorized and then we

watched in Chinese. It was like watching one of those old chinese game

shows. So now to the amazing miracle: we thankfully got them to church

again even though its so hard for them because they dont understand

very much english. While we were in Sacrament Meeting all of a sudden

this older couple walks in and they look like they are possibly

Chinese. Both me and Elder Christiansen are praying the whole time

that they speak chinese. After the Benediction we just B lined it

straight to them and asked them where they are from. They said "Where

we from? We from Taiwan!" The angels were definitely singing the

Hallelujah chorus. Brother and Sister Kuo are just visting Australia

on Holidays and visit family and they just happen to visit our ward!

So cool! That was our exciting miracle this week. Luckily they are

staying for a few weeks so they will be teaching Arthur and Eric with

us while they are here. They thought they were on Holiday. Psssh.

ha....psssh. NOT!



Another AWESOME miracle was on thursday. The Chin family invited us

over for dinner. They are a cool couple. Bro. Chin is a music

producer. He's awesome. The more he talked about it the more it

sounded like something that I would love to do. He also plays the

Sitar! Haha its awesome! The sitar is that Indian guitar thing you

always hear on movies ya know? So they are cool and they just happened

to have this flat mate Haryuo. She's from Japan but speaks really good

english. I told her that Uncle Jerry served in Japan and lived there

for two years and she thought that was really cool. Well we finally

sat down for a spiritual thought after dinner and we started a

discussion and then Haryuo was like "yeah when I first came to

Australia I went through a very dark time and I did a lot of spiritual

searching." "I always thought to myself What is the purpose of life?

There must be a place after and there must be a place where we were

before." Elder Christiansen and I thought it was a joke! It was just

too perfect. We were like Uhh and then we saw Brother and Sister CHIN

and their eyes were wide as and then we knew it wasnt a joke. They had

just never talked to her about anything having to do with the gospel

and they live with her everyday. So obviously we talked about the Law

of Chastity! haha JOKES! We of course talked to her about the Plan of

Salvation. It was a great discussion. A few days later we picked up a

Book of Mormon in Japanese(because they didnt have any plan of

salvation pamphlets in Japanese) and then introduced that to her. She

was very excited to learn about it. That night I learned that It just

goes to show that no matter who they are in your life you just dont

know until you ask them if they are interested in the gospel. The

Chin's were so suprised. It doesnt mean she will get baptized but at

least it will be a great spiritual experience and it will definitely

plant a seed.



So those were just a couple miracles from our week. We had more but

those will just have to wait for later :). I love this great work and

I know more than ever that the Lord is FOR SURE in this work. This is

HIS work and he is not afraid to show us that it is. We just have to

have the courage to open our mouths. Hopefully we'll be having a

baptism on the 22nd. Melesia is looking pretty good for that date.

She's been in Brisbane with family but the Leotas told us that she has

been calling and is really excited for her baptism. I'm thankful to be

on a mission. I love you and I wish you the best. Latas!





"Parramtta, Service with a Smile :)"



Elder Nelson



Mum,



Hey!! Thank you for approving the Extension. If I just end the next

transfer after the 31st of May then I will probably be coming home the

2nd week in July. I'll let you know when I actually know the official

date. We had Interviews with President and he just asked me how much

longer I have on my mission because I told him that I want the

opprotunity to train. I said well my release date is for the 31st of

May and Sister Wight has already given me my "trunky call." Which

means she calls and tells me she is getting my flight plans ready and

everything. President just rolled his eyes and then I said I was

wondering if there would be a possibility to extend? He said he loved

the idea of keeping me longer and he asked when I went into the MTC. I

said June 17th. He was like WHAT?? Becuase our transfers switched to

theirs at the merge. President said he has the ability to extend 30

days after the original release date. But of course he said I had to

clear it with the fam first. We talked about how this will give me a

better chance of having time to train. Since originally I would have 3

transfers after this one and I've only been with Elder Christiansen

for 1. Also a typical training period is two transfers. I hope that

helps you understand a bit better. Now, I dont HAVE to train. But

President said that I should definitely be given that opprotunity and

the issue right now is that he needs good, experienced leaders. And I

cant really be a Zone Leader and Training at the same time. I mean its

been done but its not really effective. So thats the story. I love you

all. I havent gotten the package yet. Did you get mine and the letter?