Preaching in Puerto Rico: Wow! Coolest Week Ever!

WOW COOLEST WEEK EVER!

NO JOKE

IT WAS NUTS

PERO SOLO HAY QUE COGERLO SUAVE

This week was nuts. I can't even remember exactly how it all happened. But it was actually really stressful too. Being in a tri with a guy you don't know makes everything like 30x harder. It made teaching weird, walking weird, car rides weird, eating weird. Like everything you can think of about the daily routine that Munoz and I had got super weird because we had to work Elder Powell into it. He came from Dominica for the week before he went home. It was a headache in all honesty.

But holy cow we saw miracles! We got to Maria's house on Wednesday and we were talking to her and the family and she was talking and showed us how she moved into the other room in her house, away from the boyfriend. So she said that and literally a light bulb went off on top of my head! I was like boom baptism! So we talked a little more and turns out that she's going to be moving out of the house in about a week or two. So Munoz and I talked and I called President Boucher and explained the situation, that she doesn't want anything to do with the boyfriend, and he gave us permission to baptize her on Sunday! So boom we told Maria about the plan and she was all for it. Boom boom boom super fast work. So then it's Friday and we were out at some lessons with the bishop and being in a trio our teaching was weird and took longer so we were running behind and stuff and so we flew up to Maria's house in a different part of town. Got there at 8:30 with the bishop. She says "I thought you guys weren't going to show up!"

So we get into it. We tried to get her daughter to make the decision to be baptized with her. The bishop was pulling out super awesome scriptures and it was a sweet lesson. But in the end only Maria committed to baptism.

Saturday: Maria had her interview and passed with flying colors. Tight. Baptism secured.

Sunday: Maria got baptized and it was one of the most special moments of my mission. She got baptized and came out smiling a super big smile. Then she dried off and came and sat down. The bishop said some words and then invited the 3 that got baptized to share their testimonies. At first none of them wanted to. But then Maria got up and bore a SUPER strong testimony. She started bawling and saying that she knows it's true and she's so thankful for the gospel. Man I hadn't felt the spirit that strong in a long long time. She's super great.

The other parts of the week was just contacting! We found some cool new areas to contact that are just gold mines. So hopefully we can explode those areas this transfer.

Saturday was super stressful. Because we had 3 baptisms in the district, and the zone had 6 baptisms, we had to do interviews all over the San Juan area. So we had to do weird splits and stuff in order to cover all the interviews. I was sooooo stressed about getting everything done. But we did it with a little bit of thinking.

I got to baptize the little 11 year old girl. She was a reference that we sent to the sisters. Her name is Neidalis Quinones Rodriguez and we contacted into her grandma one day who's less active. She said "hey teach my granddaughter" and so her and I like instantly clicked playing little games with her. So she asked me to baptize her. Super special girl.

The Zone Leaders had a real miracle too! They had this investigator named Cristian. He was kinda like slowly going through the lessons but then on Wednesday they went and he asked if he could be baptized on the 20th. Then Elder Orr says "you can be baptized on the 13th if you want!" And he was all for it. So they taught him all the lessons and then it turns out he's actually been listening to the missionaries for 6 years!!!!!! When I did the interview on Saturday the dude new EVERYTHING. Super prepared.

BOOM so as a ward we baptized 3 and everyone was extremely happy.

Then we got the transfer calls. I'm going to be staying here in San Juan. But the weirdest part is that I'm going to be companions with Elder Colon. I trained him 3 months ago. I'm going to be with my hijo again! Super weird, but it's cool!

I think that's all that happened this week. It was nuts. If I missed anything, I apologize.

But seriously this week was just a testimony to me that the Lord has plans for us! He guides us in everything that we do and even though lots of times we don't quite understand, He does. This is His true church. The only true church. I love this work. Wouldn't trade it for the world.

Love you all!

Elder Nelson