Thursday, December 31, 2009

Importance of Good Eye Contact

hey,


it was great getting to talk to you guys too. but this past week was crazy with all the things we experienced. sunday we had a good show up of 13 people at church and only the branch pres was there so my companion presided on the spanish side, i played the piano (top hand only), he conducted, i blessed both bread and water, then i taught the gospel principles class, then me and my companion taught elders quorem too because no one was prepared with a lesson. it was the most id ever done on a sunday at church.

but then this week weve had some great lessons a lot more member activity and visiting less actives so thats been great. but one less active we saw, we helped move them down the block to another apartment. then after we helped em move, we taught the wife whos a non member a lesson. but so imagine this, we're in this small apartment with stuff all over the place unpacked, her little 1 year old boy running around, and her husband(the less active member) isnt there yet. but so we're teaching her, and after about 10 minutes of teaching the baby sitting on her lap starts actin up like hes hungry, so the lady without even thinking twice, just pulls down one side of her shirt and the baby starts breast feeding right there infront of us. i was shocked and my companion turns to me and starts to laugh a little bit, but we just kept our eyes up and let me tell you that was the longest i have ever looked into someones eyes, it was bad. so we're trying to end the lesson and get out of there so we dont have to keep fighting this, but the lady keeps talking and telling us how shes catholic and all about the life of Jesus Christ. so after her feeding that kid like 3 different times and us not knowing what the heck we got ourselves into, we finally end the thing and get out of there. haha it was so crazy.

but we had a great rest of the night and had awesome lessons after that. we have become friends with a less active guy from mexico whos name is Ether and all is family members have Book of Mormon names. but Ether had a drinking problem and lost pretty much everything from it. he shakes still because he is trying to stop it. so hes come teaching with us this past week for the first time and it has been so awesome to see him change and how much happier he is from not drinking. at first he reminded me of the dad on hoosiers who is the drunk and then he finally gets his act together and coaches the team, you know dad? this ether is just like him i swear, but it has been an awesome experience working and teaching with him.

so the gospel is real you guys and God lives and loves all of us. He loves us so much here in Philly that he gave us snow today to cover up all the trash. but i hope you guys have a great new years eve and stay out of trouble. thanks for the sweater, socks and card. i havent sent the pictures yet so ill try as soon as i get time. but you guys are awesome keep it up and dont just let the wind blow by you.

love yall
norman

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Day Before Christmas

hey guys,

ya i want you to call me at 4 in the morning your guys time cuz i know you'll already be up probably. no not really, 7 at night my time. but no i havent got your letter about the boys goin down to utah. i did get your christmas card and one from parkers family, the johnsons sent me a package (i dont know why, i told em not to) and ya thats an interesting card mom, very clever.
thats cool if you guys got a lot of questions because i dont even really know what to say so ya just ask all you want.

thats good you guys got snow though, hows skiing looking? the snow is still here and there are big piles on all the corners but the streets are mostly cleared, some still arent accesible and the sidewalks have ice on them. my companion has fallen a couple times but hes ok, im not being prideful but i havent yet. the snow was so deep though, i got pictures of it, and it covered the cars. i guess it was like 22 inches or something like that. it was awesome. i didnt make any snow angels though, my companion was going crazy though because hes from arizona though ya know so he was all wow and wanting to make snow angels and stuff. he had a kid throw a snowball at him just so he could say it happened to him. but luckily we have a shovel at the house and my companion doesnt know a lick about using one so i shoveled out a lot of cars in our travels this week. we had a lot of people stuck and they were either asians or mexicans so they had trouble. one family we helped for like a half hour get down their street and after about half way the father told me to drive and so i actually drove his dodge caravan out of it so that was funny.

but this week was great and we've been having some great lessons and committing people to baptism so things are moving forward. last sunday though it was kind of depressing because we only had sacrament meeting and this was right after it dumped snow here, and we only had 2 people at church and they were investigators so that was crazy.

but glad to hear you guys are having fun and i hope you get to go skiing soon. we'll talk tomorrow then i guess so have a good one and if you cant get a hold of me then ill call you guys from the calling card i have at like 710 or 715 PM alright. merry christmas and i love you guys.

oh and mom its mucho amor not mucho lovo hijo mio que paso mami, como esta la vaina y los ninos que estan en utah? tuvimos almuerzo ayer con una miembra de la iglesia y la comida estuvo bien rica. fue arroz, pollo, y mole. pues gracias por su tiempo y hablaremos manana ok?

les quiero chase

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Gooey Louie's

hey guys,

what do you mean you didnt receive my new address, i sent an extra email after i sent the first one that had my address. but here it is:

2432 South Fairhill Street Philadelphia, PA 19148.

but as for the packages i got them at zone conference on tuesday, also the one from g and g wilson. but the cooler arrived the same day we had zone conference so the elders in reading couldnt bring it down. but theyre planning on gettin it to me before christmas so its cool.

as for calling you guys, its goin to have to be at after 7 my time and you need to call me at around 7 at the number 215-271-5023. and if that doesnt work then ill just call you at like 710 from the calling card i have and ya. but it shouldnt be a problem, we'll have like 40 minutes max to talk so im glad you guys are planning what you want to know. oh and dont worry about the english, i still know english, we study everything in english, mostly, except for our hour of spanish study. because the mission president and all our meetings are in english so its really not that much spanish, just with the wards, people, and between ourselves is when we use spanish.

but you guys this past week was so good. i had an awesome experience with my zone leader on exchanges and really learned an important principle, then on sunday i was shocked at church when we only had 15 people at church and the whole rest of church we talked about plans to help the ramita, little branch, grow. it was pretty depressing.

but we had a good monday, then tuesday we had zone conference and had a great training and instruction from pres murray, then after the two zones did christmas plays and that was fun, after that we had a christmas feast of famous daves, which was pretty good, we then played games. group games that you normally dont do as a missionary, but we played dodgeball too and it was a good time. but this week has been great. we began teaching some guys who work in a chocolate factory and so we get a lot of truffles and valentines day candy after our lessons from them. the members like to go there with us too. but it has been a great week and really learned a lot as to what this is all about and what i need to do.

my companion is from phoenix and hes 20, good guy, has lost 50 pounds so far on his mission, hes been out the same time as me. we get along good, except for we have troubles sometimes deciding what to teach because he thinks im too serious sometimes. but hes a good guy and is good at spanish so we do great together. also he likes dunkin donuts so we've gone there a couple times.

i had the opportunity last week to have my first real philly cheese steak and man it was awesome. ill describe it to you later but it was good. at a place called Gooey Looeys and the Pats and Genos places are about 2 blocks away but they arent as big and good.

but things are going great and we are going caroling down at center city today so that will be sweet. have a good week and read the book of mormon.

Samuel the Lamanite.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Transferred to South Philly

hey guys,

you wont believe how awesome this past week was. i have seen so many different things it is unbelievable. we had a wedding on friday, that was ok, then the baptism on sunday, which was great. a member baptized the three of em so it was really neat. i took a lot of pictures so ill work on getting em developed. but then friday i got a call from the zone leaders that i was gonna get transfered. so i packed a little saturday and then sunday as well. we had a great time going around to all the people and taking pictures and saying good bye.

then that night i get a call from president murray telling me that im going to be district leader, but i dont know where. so then we go to transfer meeting on monday, find out im goin to South Philly and am the DL too. haha it was so crazy man. so right now i am in philly at a library writing you guys and it is so crazy here. haha i wish you could see all this stuff here and how fun the people are. there are a ton of asians, no dominicans or puerto ricans, just mexicans, and a lot of thugs. but it is so cool.

we live in a two story house and from the top window you can see the skyscrapers of philly. this area is so crazy man, we have SEPTA passes to all buses and underground trains so i feel like a tourist man. the stadiums, center city, everything cool is in this area. the church is in a business building and is pretty small. we are smaller than a branch and there are a lot of in-active members here. its going to be tough and things are crazy man. haha its so cool.

but in our house the hot water went out the day before i got here so ive been taking freezing cold baths, theres not enough pressure for showers, every morning. we do have good exercise stuff though so all is well. but things are really good and sorry i dont have much time. ill try to write a letter today if wee find time. but its hard to focus because im always looking around or up so im gonna have some cool experiences coming up. no more of my people from the dominican republic.

but you guys take care and have a great week. love yall. chase

oh its not too cold here either, it was warm yesterday, but tell brother wright that his coat is awesome and i like it a lot. peace

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Thanksgiving

hey you guys

sounds like yall had a good thanksgiving break and especially you brooks. thats good that its cold over there. the weather here in Reading is crazy. today is really warm with a warm breeze but yesterday it rained all day and was freezing cold. its been pretty nice though not too bad. i guess its suppose to snow/rain this weekend though so we'll see.

so as you all have probably been wanting to know, my thanksgiving? how was it? well it was pretty dang good ill tell you that. we played soccer/football games in the morning and that was pretty fun to run around and get worked in soccer by the latinos but then dominate in football. they dont really understand football all the way. but it was fun running around and in the mud. we then went home and studied, wrote, hung out, went to the mall for my companion to buy a GPS, then at four we went to our first dinner appt. with the fam. palacios who are members. we were suppose to eat there right when we got there but ended up waiting an hour and a half for the food. so we were there for 3.5 hours eating and talking. it was a good dinner though, turkey(she didnt know how to cook it so it was just cut up) , chicken, mashed potatoes(without gravy, they dont like it), cactus (was pretty good), ham, salad, pie, corn bread, other stuff. it was pretty good. but since we were there for so long and we had 4 dinner appts that night we ended up just going to two. so we went to the Fam. Lunas house after that. they had rice and beans, turkey(cooked as a whole turkey), flan (fatty cheese cake like stuff, its good), ham, mangu (mashed plantanes with cheese, like mashed potatoes but not), and other stuff. so after we left there we were really stuffed and it was an awesome night with a lot of food and good people. it was a good day.

but for the rest of the week things went well and we've been preparing for our investigators wedding tomorrow, baptism on sunday. this weekend is going to be sweet and ive been takin a lot of pictures so dont worry. but we had interviews yesterday and that was awesome. President Murray is the man and shared some cool stuff with me yesterday that has me excited. but as for me moving anywhere, ill be staying here for another transfer at least so thats got me excited.

but all is well and thanks for the email. keep up the good work brooks and blake in basketball. sarah stay out of contentious or places you know have something bad with em. norman and wendell keep smiling and read the talk by President Monson this last conference "What Have I Done For Someone Today?" well you guys take care alright and dont enjoy the snow too much, and no sarah i cant go skiing on p days what kind of question is that? maybe someday you'll be able to keep up with me on the slopes. haha no just kiddin. but all is well and life is good.

viva philly, mi amor.
Elder Nielson