Dear All,
The hardest thing about the mission thus far was probably leaving La Sarena. :/ And so...greetings from Valparaiso! :) I basically went from the Northern-most city of the mission to the southern-most city of the mission. It was another long bus ride. But it´s good to be here.
Elder Boyd and I were finally separated; it´s weird not to have him around. Haha. The saddest part, though, was leaving my good friend Elder Briones. The night I left, he said (in perfect English), "You are the best missionary that I know." And then he started crying his eyes out. :( I shed a few tears, too, and it was probably one of the saddest things I´ve ever seen. Elder Briones was miserable! (He ended up staying up in La Sarena for a third change in a row.)
And although I do miss all the Elders from up north, I know this is where I am supposed to be, and I AM enjoying it thus far. It´s very different, though. For example--wow--this is basically a city build in the mountains. There are SO many hills, and we are walking up hills/stairs to every lesson. Timmy, you know the hill at Foothill that we run up every day for volleyball? The hills here are three times steeper. :( Haha. It´s a challenge to walk up and down hills/stairs every day for 10+ hours. But I am getting used to it, and I am going to lose a lot of weight. :)
Also, I am in a branch down here. It´s actually kind of sad. I was told that there are 1000 members that live in this area. But guess how many are active? 50! It´s a lot smaller than what I had up north; up there, we had a ward of 200 or so, which was way good. Especially since it meant that we had lunch with the members every day. ;) Haha. Here, I´ve eaten more in the pension than anywhere else because the branch is a lot smaller. But it´s not too bad. Now I don´t have to force myself to eat all that food every day. :)
I was surprised by the amount of English-speakers in my branch yesterday, too. We four Elders speak English, and then there is a sweet RM from Utah here (he´s here for school), and he speaks English obviously. And then there is even an investigator that speaks English, along with this visitor from Austraila. It was a little weird hearing all that English yesterday, but it was kind of sweet at the same time. ;)
Anyways--this is a kind of random e-mail. But yeah--my companion is Elder Mann, and he´s cool. He´s from Texas, and he´s been here just as long as Elder Dupre. So...about a year and a few months. :) We´re already having a lot of sucess, and we are going to have a baptism May 8. Tara´s birthday! ;) And then she will be confirmed on May 9--Tara´s LDS membership birthday. :) The greatest! (I still can´t believe we are almost in May again.)
Elder Mann and I live with two other Elders (Elder McMannamon and Elder Yost), and they are sweet. It´s weird because Elder Yost came the change after me, and so I am actually older than him in the mission. Weird. I was so used to being the "new guy" so that really surprised me. Haha.
Well, I am going to continue working harder. I don´t really have any other exciting news because I am still adjusting to this new area. It´s weird because I feel like I´m on a whole different mission now. Haha. I guess the mission kind of is like that. We serve a little mini mission in one city and then we serve another in another city for a time before moving on to the next. It´s fun, and I just need to continue progressing. We had interviews again a few days ago, and the mission president said that I need to be prepared to be a "senior comp" because it´s going to be here before I know it, he said. Haha. And so I have a lot of work to do.
Sorry this week´s e-mail is so lame. :) I know that this work is the greatest, I know Christ lives and this is His only Gospel, and I know that we are blessed according to our obedience. I love you all, and I look forward to hearing from more of you next week. :)
Con Mucho Amor,
Elder Nelson IV
Helaman 5:12
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D&C 122:7
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