Hello!

This week we had Stake Conference, and luckily for the first time in a LONG time I didn't have to do translation, so I was free to just sit back and take in the talks. I really enjoyed the talks and learnt from them. President Bellumo, the Stake President gave a talk about living water, and compared it to the other waters we can buy, and how much we have to pay for it. It made me think, alot. Living water is the most essential, in the long run, and most helpful, of all water, and we don't even pay for it. We just have to sacrifice our egoism and selfishness. As we give up our self-centredness, we get a little bit of living water, that gets added, little by little, each day. As we do that, we are healed. We can be healed of any kind of wound, physical, spiritual, emotional, it can all be healed, as we give ourselves up, and start looking towards Christ. Does that seem hard? To have the faith to give up looking at ourselves and look at others? Alma teaches us that if we can't muster the faith, then if we just have even the desire, then we can grow it until it becomes what we need. I've learnt that living water is essential, and without it, we can never have that higher happiness that we really need in our lives.

I love you all!

Anziano Nelson

Hello everyone!

This week has been another week of illness. First my companion, then he left, and now I've got it. Hopefully my new companion will survive without catching it! It's meant alot of thinking and reflection for me, on the Mission and other things. Something that keeps coming back to me, again and again, is about listening. Really listening to what other people say, and taking it in. Often Missionaries know what they have, and are so eager to share it with others, that they are not very quick to listen. The problem is, if you're not receiving anything, if you have no income, pretty quickly you're going to run out of things to give. If I have £5 in my bank, but do not get an income, and I give 50p to everyone I see, then very quickly I'll have nothing to give. It's only through receiving that we can give, and the magic of the Gospel means it's only by giving that we can receive. A commitment I'm giving to myself, the Missionaries in my District and to you, is to really take the time and listen to everything that people say, really listen. Take it in. Then speak. I promise that it will make things alot more easier, and we'll all be more effective in trying to help others, and get things done.

I have to go, I really do love each one of you, hope to hear from you!

Anziano Nelson

Hello everyone!

So this week has been a Blessing! We had another Baptism here in Alessandria! Right from the word go, when I found out about her in Ward Council a few weeks ago, she's been a miracle. She decided one day that she wanted to attend Seminary. The Bishop said, we can do that. Then she said she wanted to get Baptised, and Anziano Nelson said, we can do that! I don't think I've ever become such good friends in such a short time as with this person. And the crazy thing is I don't even know why! I think it's just because right from the beginning she wanted to do the right thing, and was so close to the Spirit, that the relationship just formed. It's a testimony to me of how that when we do what is right, we follow the Spirit, everything else comes. Friendships, and everything else, just comes.

I love you all!

Anziano Nelson

Hello everyone!

This week has been a real test of our resolve to work, with alot of our work disappearing in a matter of days. After a few prayers we went back out and did more finding work. It's been an interesting lesson about grace, and it's role. It made us realise just how much we rely upon the Lord and how only He can make things work. Often we start to let things go unappreciated, especially when we get alot of them. I've really learnt a lesson that we have to appreciate anything and everything that we get from the Lord, and that there is nothing that we have that isn't given to us of the Lord. I realisd just how much I cared for the people I worked with when I found out that I wouldn't be working with them anymore. There are so many lessons that we learn when we lose something. People very often ask me why, if there is a God, we lose things. I can't help but think everytime that it's because there are just so many lessons that we refuse to learn until we suffer a loss. I didn't realise how much I cared for those people until I realised I might not be working with them anymore. I would never have given even a fraction of the gratitude to God that I owed, if I hadn't suffered the loss. Maybe, just maybe, if we were willing to learn through gentler means, we wouldn't have to suffer loss quite so often. I'm grateful for the experience, and I'm also grateful for the help the Lord gave after in helping us to recover. The area is still doing well, thanks to a few turnarounds and miracles, but I, at least, have learned a valuable lesson.

I love you all!

Anziano Nelson