AHHHH!

WHAT!!! How did I miss this email??? I wasn't even checking for an email! Ben told me that they probably wouldn't email with Skyping on Christmas, so I didn't even check. Jon asks me right before bed, "Hey did you see that Ben emailed today?" I shot up in bed, frantic and grab my Ipad. "No, I didn't know he emailed!"

I open my Gmail and there it is... an email from Ben. My heart sank. I have NEVER missed his emails before and felt HORRIBLE! All of a sudden I was "Mom" worried about everything. What if he felt we didn't care? Was he looking for an email from us and there was nothing there? Was he waiting for a reply and just silence? AHHHH, I am the worst Mother ever!! 

The worst part of all of this is having to wait until next Monday to talk to my son and explain why there was not an email. I sure hope he is OK and his feelings are not hurt. 😬😕 

Mom!

Hi mom! We don't get a large amount of time to email today. I don't even know if I will have time to respond.

I was so glad to see you and the family yesterday! Everyone has grown so much it is crazy!!

This week was great and we are working with so many people. Thank you for all the amazing presents you gave me I appreciate it so much! It isn't letting me upload pictures... but I have pictures of all the presents.. Hank and Tina came up and gave Elder Willes and I presents! We got some google socks (he will be working there) and other cool stuff. They said they plan to be Sealed in April!!! So many amazing miracles.

Love you so much mom!

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Seeing Isn't Believing. Believing Is Seeing!

This quote DOES NOT apply today! LOL😁
I cannot begin to express how excited I get to talk to Ben. Not just talk to him, but to see his face, read his body language and to REALLY communicate face to face. 

I got a text from Brother and Sister White that they were going to let Ben and Elder Willes come to their home on Christmas to Skype. I am always so grateful to those people that open their homes to these boys. 
I get a text on Christmas morning that said, "He's going to call you. Our computer broke." 
My heart dropped a little, but I was still so excited to be able to hear his voice. Then immediately I get a text that said, "Just kidding! It's in 40 min."
AHHHH! 
Then the call comes in and there is no picture on the screen. We can hear Ben's voice saying, "Mom, are you there? Sorry, their camera broke so we can just talk here on the computer."
I have to admit, I was almost in tears. I told him that it was just fine and that we were just excited to hear his voice. Then he pops up on the screen and yells, "JUST KIDDING! Hi everyone!"
Honestly...that kid! He knows me so well and knows that I was heartbroken but would put on a good face. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a jokester with him when he was young! 😏

This year was total CHAOS, which is pretty normal for us. All the kids wanted to talk to him and of course all at the same time. We made sure to let Sam go first because he was so excited to show Ben his pump. Ben said, "Sam, does that make you a SUPER HERO?" Sam said, "No. It keeps me alive." Hahaha! So funny!
As soon as they were done Ben say, "OK! Have you guys seen Star Wars?" LOL He then proceeded to show us a list of all the movies he has written down in his book that he wants to see when he gets home. I'm so excited to just sit for like 2 weeks and do nothing but hang and catch up on all the cinema he has missed. 
We talked about his mission, filled him in on things at home a little, he shared his testimony with us in Chinese and we said a prayer together! 
He looked and sounded AMAZING! He has a spirit and light about him that is so bright it felt like you could touch it through the screen. 
I am so proud of that boy and the sacrifice he is giving. The tender mercies that we receive as a family and the journey that we get to have through him and this experience is a blessing on a whole new level. I will forever be grateful to Ben for the example that he is being to all of us. 
I will admit-as spiritual and as radiant as his testimony is, he is still the witty, funny, spirited and down to earth Ben we all know and love. 
This Mama's heart is filled to it's fullest today!♥♥♥ 

We had the blessing on Christmas Eve to spend some time with one of Ben's first Companions, Elder David Zeng who brought along Elder Merriman from the Riverside California Mission too. What a treat it was to get to talk to them and know them a little better. 

The Christmas Mice WERE Stirring

Almost CHRISTMAS / TRANSFERS!!!

One week to Christmas! 

I can't believe how fast time is zipping by! We're one week to Christmas and I just hit my 13 months on the 16th!!

This week was super lit! I would like to start with a very interesting Service Project we had on Wednesday.

Every year Jurupa Valley (my area) does a service project. They give out gifts to 1000 under privilege  kids. Our job on Wednesday was to go get the gifts from various storage units and put them at the church. Our last storage unit was super tightly packed and had mouse poop everywhere! But we just loaded it and dropped them off at the church. As we were unloading it into the church, a mouse flew out of the box!!!😨 Everyone in our Zone was chasing this mouse throughout the church. We finally caught it and put him outside. So we then proceeded to pull apart all the packaging to find more mice! As we opened many boxes, mice began to run all over the place. We were running all over the parking lot catching these little dudes! It was super fun and very tedious.🐭

Moving to Thursday, Elder Willes and I were SOOOOOO busy. We had hour to hour appts from 3-9. We taught 4 new people that were all so amazing. One in particular was name Pius, we taught Pius along with his son Arthur the Restoration. They were eating it up, they love the Book of Mormon and committed to read every day! We also taught a man around 8:30 by the name of Cliff Yang. The last time we went over to teach, he was super suppppper drunk. He was preoccupied with the ant crawling on his hand during the lesson. So we set an appt for Thursday when he was a little more sober! His lesson on Thursday was great! He loved everything about it. He took a baptismal date for 1/21. He truly wants to follow his Savior and we're excited for him!

This week was full of many miracles, were super hyped for this upcoming transfer!!! 

We are now in a 4 man, which means 2 more Elders live in our apt so we will see how that goes! 

I probs won't be emailing next week due to we will be Skyping! 

WO AI NIMEN! 

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Aileen & Linda gave Ben & Willes some American chocolate-YUM!

Ben & Willes with Crystal

EVERYTHING about these 2 boys makes me HAPPY! 💗😍

One of our Christmas traditions is we buy the kids an ornament that represents something about them that year. Ben's ended up being Lego Missionaries with hearts leading from Utah to California. ♥♥♥

We sent Ben and Elder Willes the 12 days of Christmas this year! One of the first things in Ben's email this week was his excitement for the presents (which of course makes this Mama happy!)

"I have been loving the package you sent. The 12 days of . Christmas has been great! It's the first thing I open right when we get back from the gym in the morning!"

 

Ben's recording:

This week Ben let me know that he is ENGAGED! 😨 WHAAAAT!

Annie is determined to have him marry a Chinese girl and is ALWAYS trying to marry him off. When he went to Annie's house to teach her daughter, there were A LOT of people in her house. All of them , except Annie were drinking, hanging out and having a good time. 

Annie grabbed Ben said to Dave, "Dave, can Ben marry his daughter?" He said, "Ya, of course! And then I will buy you 3 houses in China!"

Ben said, "Ya, so that was super dope!" 

It makes me chuckle because I'm pretty sure he gets engaged about every 3 months! Hahaha! 

Elder Casper and Elder Hale are the new missionaries that will be living with Ben and Elder Willes. Elder Porazzo was moved to La Sierra which is really close to where they are now which is great so Ben will still him on Mondays! 

On Thursday they went to meet a guy named Pias and his son Arthur who was a referral from the Corona Elders. Pias has been here for 30 years so his English is really good, but when Ben and Willes started to speak Chinese to him, he flipped out! They had a really good lesson with him and he's excited to read the BOM. I can't wait to hear about the progress with him and his son. 😁

Obviously referrals are really common in missions but this is the first time Ben has had a "Ring" referral. They went to meet with a man by the name of Brian Chen who they spoke to and scheduled another meeting through the "Ring" Doorbell. LOL They are really common in California so I wouldn't be surprised to hear Ben speak of more meetings this way. 

My favorite part of the recording was to hear Elder Willes get on at the end and speak to us in Chinese. He said: "Hello Nelson Family. I love your son and he is great missionary."

I am always in awe when I hear either of them speak. It seems like such a difficult language and to speak it and have the accent down is just an absolute testament to me that God has a hand in their work and the success that they are having! 

Sometimes The Smallest Things Take Up The Most Room In Your Heart

One of my FAVORITE things about Ben's Mission is the little random texts or emails I receive every now and then with pictures and stories of my handsome son. 

This AWESOME picture of these 2 came from Elder Willes Mom, Marianne. 

Just look at this picture!! 😍😍

I know the Lord looks out for His missionaries, but to receive images where I can see the light, the happiness and their funny characters and personalities always puts my worried heart at ease and brings a smile to my face and warmth to my soul. 💗

We are on a mission from God😁

Jurupa Zone Christmas Devotionals

Ben, Medearis, Crowther, Herald, Shurtleff, (Williams in the background & Elder Clark peeking😊)

Winter Of Palm Trees And Sunsets

Nimenhao!!

Sorry I'm sending this out on a Tuesday. We were so busy yesterday we had no time to email...

This week was honestly not that crazy. Elder Willes and I went seeking alot this week we have been trying to find more prepared people to teach!

We are working with some great people at the moment. Xun and Sara are one of those couples we are really hoping will be baptized soon! We started teaching them about 4 months ago. They have come to church almost every single week! They are going to go to Utah this week and see the Temple lights with some of our members. We really hope that they will have a spiritual experience while they are there. We hope that they will take a baptismal date soon and partake of those blessings! 

We had a good amount of people at church this week too! We had 6 investigators there. They all loved it and are all willing to continue to meet! We taught Crystal before church, she is super shy and looks like she is on the border of crying every time I talk to her lol😀. However she is doing great and is progressing quite a bit, We have her paired up with a member who LOVES to talk so they are a good mix lol.😀

Other than that it is still in the 80's and there are still tons of Palm trees. I got some sweet pics for you this week, hope all is well with all of y'all!!

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Exchanges with Porazzo

♥LOVE♥ my tag pics

The Week Of Walking And Miracles

Hello Everyone!!!

This week was very grindy and full of walking. However, many great things happened this week!

We have seen lots of many amazing miracles from working our butts off! This week consisted of about 5 hours or more walking around to find the prepared. We have lots of potentials and met a lot of great people.

On Tuesday, Elder Willes and I went into the AP's area. I was with Elder Dew who is a Spanish speaking missionary. So now I know how it feels to not understand a foreign language, but I got him back by taking him to a Chinese dinner!! 😁

On Saturday, I went on another exchange with Elder Lowry. He is a very new missionary, but is awesome! I love going English every now and then because you meet the most interesting people! One of the last guys we contacted was fairly old. I was yelling at him from pretty far since he was in a awkward spot. He walked up to us and said, "You are one of the lucky ones". I replied with " What do you mean by that". He said "It's because your happy in this doo-doo of a world". Then he jumped right into politics LOL. He told me that Obama was the Anti-Christ and led our Country to destruction. Then told me that Mitt Romney was wayyyyy too Mormon so that wouldn't have worked out either. LOL I love talking to people...😁

Then we had a miracle with a couple we met by the name of Brother Yang and Sister Yang. We were walking down the street and saw a couple working on their car. We found them trying to  communicate with a Hispanic man who knew no English. So it was very interesting to see two Chinese people who don't know English talk to a Hispanic man who didn't know English either! We showed up and they were amazed we knew Chinese. We helped them find the trunk lever they were looking for. We talked to them a little bit after about our purpose and what we do as missionaries. We exchanged contact info with them and called them on Sunday. They didn't answer us so we decided to stop by. They are still in the process of building their front yard porch so it was kind of hectic. We asked her if we could come by later that day and they agreed. We came over around 7:30 and taught them the Restoration in their new home. We got to prayer and began explaining the role of prayer and how the Book of Mormon can help them receive an answer to their questions. Sister Yang (the wife) chimed in and said "We have attended many churches and never really found happiness or satisfaction in any of them. However the message you bring has brought a new peace into my heart I have never felt before". She continued, "We bought this new home hoping to find new happiness (at this point she is crying), but we haven't. You have brought a new peace and comfort in my life that I want". Then Brother Yang agreed and talked about how they are feeling such great warmth on the inside!! The lesson was amazing! We taught them prayer and that they can know these things are true. They accepted a baptismal date for 1/14. They are excited to read and can't wait to meet again. Miracles come from hard work... it's as simple as that. 

Great week on the mission!

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Exchanges-Ben and Elder Lowry

 Happy Birthday Jesus