Dec 28th

It was great talking to you on Friday, you sounded happy and positive. How have things gone these past few days? I hope Kim is starting to get her blood cells back.
This week has been a weird week for me. We spent a lot of time with members and didn’t get many chances to teach. It was fun though. Now its back to work- nothing special will be happening on New Years… we don’t even have a dinner for that night. So it will be a nice quite evening- exciting huh? And we used all our silly string already so we will have to do something else.
Sunday was weird. Bishop Gantz canceled all the meetings before church so we had a normal morning for once. I even got to study for an hour before the Denninghoffs picked us up. They have a son serving in Cali, and Sister Denninghoff talks about him all the time. On the way to church I spoke with Even, their youngest son, about his Eagle Scout project, and he talked about all the stress he was under to get it done. I told him it was well worth it and to get it done as soon as he could.
I’m excited that the days are getting longer. I hate not having light because it cuts back on the amount of work we can do; even if its 5:30 the people seem to think the day is over because its dark outside, and they don’t have to talk to you. It’s a pain.
When does dad go back to work? After the New Year?
Em told me about when kim was crazy and she talked about me, and said no one was home to eat the crackers. What else did she say? We can use it against her later on. I don’t think I said anything weird after I had my wisdom teeth taken out. Did I?
The closest people to Baptism we are working with right now are Chris Wohlhueter and Sam Mikekills. Sam has a date for the 9th of January and everything seems to be going well for that. Chris we will be taking to the temple to give him a tour of the grounds then commit him to be baptized to join his family forever. So pray that his heart will be softened. I love him and his family dearly and I know that he will be baptized sooner or later.
Elder Barney and I will be going to the Temple on the 8th to do a session with the Bairs. It’s about time- I haven’t been there in a while.
I love you all with all my heart and hope you have a wonderful new week full of the Spirit.

Love,
Elder Nelson

Mike's Christmas Phone Call

Mike was able to call and talk to us this Christmas at the hospital. It was so wonderful to hear his voice and talk to him. It sounds like he is doing great. He was really worried about Kim, but being able to hear that she's getting a little better was a huge relief to him.
I need to get off pretty soon, but I wanted to say that I asked him how many baptizms he has had so far. He said he wasn't sure, they're really not supposed to focus much on numbers like that. But after thinking for a minute, he said he was pretty sure it was somewhere around 18-20. Wow, how amazing is that?
I am so proud of him. In just a short hour, it was easy to see how much he's grown in just under 10 months of being a missionary. I love my brother!

Dec 14 and 21

Dec 21

I'm not sure what time I will get to call sometime after 3, I know that. Most likely not long after that. I sent you all a package too, except don't open it till Christmas. So you will all be at the hospital again? I thought we were done with that. Just when we thought it was going to be okay.
So its just some infection that wrecking havoc on Kim because she has no defense against it? Stupid, everything was going so well.
We had our zone conference this past week, we talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and sang lots of Christmas songs. They gave us a Book of Mormon to read and to mark all the places where Christ is talked about all the names of Christ and everything he says in red. Which makes reading the BOM fun it turns in it to a game almost. So far I have found over 500.
I went caroling last night with some of the ward members; it was lots of fun and it was in the 40s so it was close to what it should be. We went to a bunch of houses and sang bunches of Christmas songs. The people were happy to see us as well.
I love you all so much. Everything was going so well- I hope Kim will be recovering by Christmas- that will be the Best gift. I hope I can call on your cell phone so we can use the speaker- that will be much better. That and I wont have to work through the hospital again. Last time was a pain trying to get through to you.
I love you all, I hope you will have a Merry Christmas

Love, Elder Nelson


Dec 14

This week went pretty well- we went on lots of exchanges. We had our zone p-day, ate lots of junk food and had fun. We had a district meeting the next day we talked a lot about planning and then practiced our tracting skills running around the gym contacting one another and teaching each other. Sister Freeman went a little nuts while contacting. It looked like she was going to eat poor Elder Moon while she tried to get a "new gater". You would have to see a picture of her to understand why Elder Moon about died.
After the meeting I went on an exchange with Elder Lussier in my area, we tracted and had a good member exchange later that night. Elder Lussier was very excited to be right on the beach pretty much. He about wet him self out of excitation. He is from Mesa Az.
The next day I went on a exchange with the APs, we found a few new gaters one of which might be positive. It rained on and off that day and we got pretty wet. We had to hurry and get to our apt, dry off and eat- then went out on another member exchange to teach Sam, one of our gaters. The lesson went very well we set a baptismal date with him for this coming month.
Sunday was pretty busy as usual- we went over to the church at 6 then had our meetings like normal. President and Sister Darrington came to our church meetings, which was awesome. They tore the members up for referrals and we got about 20 people we can now follow up with- sweet! They need to come more often now. Right after church we had a baptism. Emily Wohlhueter. Because it was right after church we had a ton of people show up. They had lots of support. She asked me to baptize her, which I was happy to do. Later that night they brought us a Christmas tree, which we now have up.
All in all it was a good week. I hope Kim recovers, I cant believe she got this everything was going so well... oh man not good.
Well I hope good things happen this week.
Love,
Elder Nelson

Confession

I have to admit, getting ALL of Mike's past emails onto this blog has been a bit too daunting a task, and I have therefor not even begun to try. So, what I am going to do is just start now, and post his current emails as they come in. I'm sure you will get the general drift.
Thanks to all of you who care about Mike and will check here to see how he is doing.
Love, Emily