Southaven, Mississippi

Soaked after 3 seconds in a Southern downpour!

Welcome to Southaven, Mississippi

My new ride, we call her the "swagger wagon"

Brother Luther's sweet Truck "thing"

Great People of the South!

Diamond and Stephanie...

Darian, a stud (16, and planning on a mission at 19)

My New Missionary Lineage...

From Left to Right
Elder Lebaron (my Godfather's son), Elder Badger (my Godfather), Elder Boice (my daddy), Me! My Baby Brother (Elder Ivens, Up front is Elder SMith (my Uncle), in back is Elder Koyle (my little sister), and then Elder Adams (my mom)...

funny how it works, My mom is actually my little sisters dad... We are in the south...

Last Baptism in Memphis...

Canitra's Baptism!

Me, little Comaria, Star, Canitra, Elder Badger, Elder Labaron

Great day, Great People, and Great Baptism

(I was able to go back to Frayser to perform Canitra's baptism) Special!!!

My New Companion, Elder Zendejas

My new comp in Southaven, Mississippi

June 27, 2011

Hey yall!

So this week was a tough one. We haven't had many lessons and are struggling to find some new people, but there were some highlights. I think I told you about Willie, he is an awesome investigator we found. We play disc golf with hi every Monday. (if anyone wants to send me a disc golf set, that would be incredible:) haha but we went by on Monday with a member of the ward and taught him and it went awesome. The member ended up inviting him and us over to his house for dinner and a lesson. So, we had that on Saturday night, and it was great. Lessons in a members home are always a blessing, the spirit is so strong. We talked to him about baptism, and he wants to get baptized. He just wants to attend church more before he does. He will get baptized, it's just when. He is so awesome.

On Saturday morning some members play soccer and they invited him, so we went and played soccer early Saturday morning, which was way fun, as much as I hate soccer...it was a good time. I went and bought some cheap cleats after so I wasn't sliding so much. haha
The ward is being awesome with him and he feels really comfortable with them, so things with him are going good. Other than that we are just striving to work hard and find some people. The work is so different in wealthy areas compared to places like Blytheville and Frayser. It's pretty tough, but we will work through it.

I wish I had more to tell yall about, haha but it's been pretty uneventful.

I love you guys, all is well.
Love Elder Nelson

June 20, 2011

Hola Mi Familia!

So transfers are this Wednesday, but I am staying here in Southaven, it sounds like. It's all good though. Elder Zendejas and I are going to turn this area around...

So Brother Pierce stopped me yesterday at church to tell me about when he was in Utah. He said that you told him to give me a hug. Right as he said that, this big guy in our ward who is from the Island of Yap... Kind of Polynesian, came up so brother Pierce had him give me a big bear hug instead. haha it was pretty funny, he is a huge guy... Brother Pierce was saying that they had narrowed it down to 3 places to live and one of them were the Boulder Apts. that are in Lindsay's ward...so that would be cool.

So the chick that wanted to date me is still being taught over in Frayser. She has a baptismal date and is looking pretty good for that. haha She had better get baptized, is all I can say.

We have been able to find a few really good investigators here in the past couple of weeks. One of them came to church yesterday, and I think he liked it. His name is Willie, and his wife is actually a member, but we tracked into him, pretty funny story... anyways we are going to play disk golf with him this afternoon, should be pretty fun. I'm getting 0pretty good at it.

We also contacted a referral this week named Sarah, who is really cool. The only problem we are facing with our new investigator's is that they don't want to meet more than once a week, so it is hard to help them progress. It's all good though, we will keep working at it.

Everything is going well. I was told that the ward kind of had a bit of a bad taste in their mouths from past missionaries, but they seem to be warming up pretty quickly. There are some really cool members here. We are going to start playing soccer every Saturday morning with some of them and get some investigators there with us. I know Willie is big into soccer, so that should be helpful.

I love you guys, thank you for all of your support.

Love, Elder Nelson

CHANGE OF PLANS...

I had reported a few months ago, that our dear friends "The Gibbons" had been called as Mission Presidents over Jake's mission. This week they were reassigned to the Novosibirsk, Russia Mission... (I told Julie, she will need a big FUR hat)... So we won't know the Presidents after all... We wish them good luck, and safe keeping!!!

June 13, 2011

Wassup Family,

Here is what happened last week with my transfer. We taught this lady twice and then she came to church with us. After church Elder Badger gets a text on the phone that says "Hey, I need to talk to Elder Nelson...but he was on the church bus, so he just text back as me. Anyway, she then asked if I was taken. haha I guess she didn't know that missionaries couldn't date. So I had to get moved so that she wouldn't get baptized because of me, but because it's true. So no big deal at all. I am now in Southaven. It is one of the wealthier areas in the mission. It is really different, a lot more people with the "I'm Good where I'm at" mentality, but it's all good. We will find some people. They had one investigator when I got here, but we were able to go and find a few more this week and found a lady named Kristy that is really cool. She has been going through some stuff, and when we asked if we could help her with anything before we left, she started crying and said "she thinks we already have started too". It was cool, she is an awesome lady.

The ward is a lot more like a Utah ward, it is much bigger and doesn't have any of the baptist mentality like Memphis lst ward did...a lot of the members are students at the Optometry school here, so it is a good mix of old and young people.

We have a set of sister missionaries that serve nearby and are in the same ward. They are cool, one is heading home this week, and the other is from a little island in the pacific called "Kittypes" or something, pretty sure I am slaughtering that. haha

My companion is Elder Zendejas. He is from San Bernadino, CA. He is pretty cool, real into computers and whatnot. He has been out for 18 months.

So Canitra was baptized on Saturday! and she had asked me to baptize her, so they allowed me to go back up there so I could. It was really cool and fun to be able to see everyone up there again. It was an amazing baptism. I hate to say that some are bigger than others, but his one was really cool. She has changed so much since we first met her. She and her mom are going to be amazing members of the church. Before I left, I made them promise that they would never stop going to church. haha

Not a whole lot else going on. I don't know how long I am going to stay here, but hey! only a handful of missionaries here ever serve in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and Mississippi, and I have already done it in the first 7 months... haha

I love you guys, sorry for making yall worry. I told you it was nothing big...

Thanks for all the support... Love Elder Nelson

ps. Matt Glazier's aunt and uncle (that were in Lake Powell with me) were called to be mission presidents in Argentina.. I wonder if that is the same mission as Matt Kelly??

TRANSFERED...

Hey family,

I was just e-mailing you because I got transferred... My new address is:

4740 Hwy 51 Apt. 15-203

Southaven, MS 38671

Love you guys:)

June 6, 2011

Hey yall!!!

Alright, if you have the missionaries over don't feed them spaghetti...that is always the go to for people out here. haha I think they would love BBQ. Don't do a roast either, they would also like enchiladas.

So this week was insane. On Tuesday we went to ball and this kid named Reggie (thug) started a fight with like the nicest kid ever. Things went nuts and I had to carry him outside and kick him off the church grounds while he was telling his posse to go kill the kid. Then he immediately called one of his friends to go get him. It was crazy.

Then on Wednesday, I was on exchanges with Elder Cyre (seer) he has been out like 3 weeks. We went over to a recent convert named Stephanie's house, and when we get there there were some people outside arguing, so we went inside and all of a sudden the argument went to people screaming and yelling threats and running around. Then one of the kids went and got like 30 of his friends and they came back and were throwing stuff at the house and I'm pretty sure there were some guns and stuff. Anyways, while all this was happening, Stephanie was like "Yall might want to get out of here, it is going to get messy", but I just told her we were going to make sure she and her kids were alright, so we said a prayer with her and then sat on the couch until everything had calmed down. No gunshots went off, but when we went out after it was all over, there was an ambulance there, so I don't know exactly what happened... she was kind of acting funny the whole time though and I was worried that she may be mad we were staying, but then yesterday she went up in front to bare her testimony (which was really cool to see her up there) and she went up and told the story and started crying because she had never been apart of a church or known anyone that would do that for her...It was really cool. I started crying...and then I looked up at Brother Floyd (he is like the missionary's right hand man in Memphis) and he was crying, it was pretty cool. The church really is like a family and it was funny because the whole time I was there it didn't seem like that big of deal. It was awesome.

THEN, last night we went to another recent converts house, Star, she is pregnant and she told me that if she has a boy it is going to be named after me...haha at least the middle name. Coolest part is regardless of what it is, it is going to be named after someone in the Book of Mormon. Either Sariah Cumorah Taper, or Mosiah Jake Taper. haha pretty sweet.

Things are going well though. We are supposed to have a baptism, a girl named Kenitra. She is Star's 12 year old daughter. We are pumped for that. She is really cool.

I love you guys, thank you so much for all of your support. Tell all the fellas in the ward that are heading out "Hello" for me!

Love, Elder Nelson