Last Transfer

So much happening, so little time!

HELLO EVERYONE! 

So sorry, I have so little time to shoot out a few emails today. I will hit the major highlights of this week.

Transfers happened I am now going to Eastvale to finish my mission with Elder Crowther. Crazy how I started in the MTC with him and now we will finish together. We are excited about this transfer and the amazing miracles that are in store. 

I also said goodbye to everyone in Riverside and it was hard as it was my last one. Linda and Jean got teary-eyed and gave me a big hug before I left. They said thank you for all you have done for our family. I have some pictures of them, I think they will be baptized and I am so excited for them and the mighty growth they have made.

This is a new transfer filled with miracles to come. Luckily I am in a car now and can work 100% of the time now. I am so grateful for this opportunity to serve! I said goodbye to Elder Willes who is heading home tomorrow. That was super weird since I have served with him almost my whole mission! Crazy how fast time goes by...

I love all of you so much, so sorry for the short email! 

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Ben, Elder Johnson and Elder Lai with some 

friends from Riverside 

Ben was able to give a little more of an update in an email he sent to the family. Here is what is said. 

Zing:

We met with Zing and had a great lesson! We reviewed the Word of Wisdom since that is what came up in his interview. He expressed how he was struggling with alcohol. He expressed how he had no desire to smoke anymore. He said that it was a miracle and I couldn't agree anymore! We are excited for him and we made some great goals to help him overcome his addictions that he is facing.

Linda and Shen:

We met with Linda and Shen and had a great lesson! We talked again about how God answers our prayers. Shen said he has such a large desire to know God is there, he explained how he is lacking faith and doesn't know what to do for it to grow. We read Alma 32 with him and he loved it, he said that he felt as though his seed was already sprouting! Linda testified that these things were true and that she knew God was there for her.

So this weekend we received transfer calls and were told all 3 of us are going to Eastvale! They are tripling us out and doubling in Elder Maxwell and his trainee. So I will be finishing my mission with Elder Crowther!!! We were so excited that was happening, we had been joking that this would never happen and BAM it happened! Elder Lai and Johnson are going to take over a Chinese/ English area.  So that is quite crazy and I am so excited to finally work again.

I just said goodbye to Elder Willes, that was super weird. I have been around him like my whole mission. So to see him go home kind of breaks my brain a little bit haha. He is a great guy and I am excited to see him again in the future.

Update on my back! I went to the physical therapist and he has gotten me on the come around! I am doing lots of stretches and am slowly VERY slowly getting better. He has me in a back brace when I walk around outside. But that is temporary for now. He is a great guy who really cares about my health I am very blessed for his help.

LOVE YOU GUYS

It has been really hard for me to be here in Utah knowing that my son is in pain with his back and I cannot be there to help. It is taking A LOT of trust and faith in the Lord to know that He can take care of my son. I know Ben is strong and can get through anything, it is just always a sad and hard lesson to learn when you suddenly realize that you are sometimes not in charge of your body and that you may or may not be able to do things like you use to. 

I love Ben's attitude about everything he is doing. I have always said that Ben is a happy kid and takes things in stride. This little bump in the road with his back is no exception. What a proud Momma I am to have a son with such a GREAT attitude! 😍

21 Months!

大家好! 

I cannot believe I am now at 21 months! It is weird to think how far I have come in my mission. It feels like I also have a long way to go. I have been very motivated to improve with the time I have left! 

Update on my back:

I got my MRI and it came back normal, which is a HUGE blessing. I will now be going into physical therapy and hope that I will be on the turn around from now on! I have felt a lot better with the medicine I am currently taking and I know the Lord wants me healthy again! 

This week was a little bit slower with all the medical craziness that has filled the week but still had some cool things happen.

First off is my trainer Elder Zeng came to visit me again. We went to get some Chinese food (obviously). It is so weird to go from training where I couldn't even talk to him at all to now speaking NO ENGLISH! I am so grateful for the Gift of tongues and the blessing to be able to learn this language. It was good to see an old friend again and great to catch up with him! 

Jean-one of our current investigators- made us lunch on Friday! She is super awesome and is progressing very fast. As we ate we answered all of her Book of Mormon reading questions! She has been working really hard to receive an answer to her prayers! 

We also met with Linda who has been reading very diligently too. We talked about the importance of Eternal families and helped make some goals for her to accomplish that. We hope that she will be baptized very soon.

Many more miracles on the way to come. We have been able to talk to a lot of Chinese people when I can get out. I accidentally contacted a couple yesterday and asked the wife if her husband was her son.... Awkward! He didn't like that too much. But he was maybe 4'3 and his wife was about a foot taller than him. It still ended up being a good contact, got to have a few of those on your mission haha.

Love all of you! 

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Ben with his trainer and friend Elder Zeng

Jean made food for Ben, Elder Johnson, and 

Elder Lai...YUM!😋

We sent Ben a new recorder because his old one was stolen. He hesitated to even open the package with the possibility of him coming home was still being decided. But, GOOD NEWS....He's staying! He is so happy to be out there and continuing the work! 

This has been an incredible example of the Lord knows you and what you need. Benjamin was scheduled for an MRI that would take place 5 weeks from now and he went into the MP and expressed how the pain was just too much and to see what they could do about getting one sooner. There is a Mission Nurse who had taken Ben under her wing and called around looking for anywhere that would take Ben earlier. She eventually found a place, but it was an hour away. No worries, the Elders all hopped in the car and off they went. Ben received the MRI and actually was able to get the results 45 min later!😮 WOW! That never happens. They were able to get Ben the medicine he needed and schedule him with a Physical Therapist to help get him back on the road to recovery. What a blessing it has been to listen to his testimony grow of the power of FAITH and watching Miracles happen right before your eyes. 

My favorite thing to hear from Ben this week was even though he is discouraged about his back and health he has taken this rest time to improve his characters and practice his Chinese. It makes me so proud to hear him trying to take something that could be discouraging and turn into something positive. 

This week Ben also found out that one of his Best Friends, JD has Leukemia. Ben and JD have been friends since 9th grade and have a very close and special friendship. He is not a member of our faith but has been one of the most supportive people in his life and all throughout his mission. I can't wait for these 2 to be reunited when he returns and I have the opportunity to continue to watch their friendship. 💗

Ben and JD...Friends for life

Miracles are always better in Chinese

Hello everyone! 

It has been another fantastic week out here in the Riverside mission. As my title indicates we have seen many mighty miracles. The Lord knows of our situation and the difficulty of this language. He knows all of our needs and abundantly blesses us! 

 I would like to share some of the miracles from this week: 

1. Zing:

We met with Zing on Tuesday night. Some of our members invited him over for dinner and we shared a message with him after dinner! It was such a good lesson. We explained to our best ability how important baptism is and how it is his next step. Our member Jordan testified of how he will be there the whole way through all of it. Zing accepted a baptismal date for this Sunday coming up! We hope that his interview will go well and we can go through with that! I have been teaching him for quite some time now and we are just so excited for him! 

2. Linda and Shen

We had the opportunity of finally teaching Linda with her husband Shen. It was so great to teach them as a family. He is also very prepared and kept talking about how he needed to be praying and reading. He expressed his large desire to know if God was truly there. They committed to praying and reading as a family every day! We are so excited for them and the mighty progress they are making in such a short time.

3. Sunday:

We had Linda, Jean and Zing come to church which was great. It was quite a special Sunday. We had Brad Wilcox visit our ward and wowowow he is amazing. He is a professor at BYU and the author of " The Infinite Atonement". I have never met a more loving man! He walked in and said, "ELDERS, I AM SO GLAD TO SEE YOU!" He began hugging us and just thanking us over and over for what we do. He grabbed all of our investigators after 1st hour and just started mauling them haha. He said, "I am so glad you are here, please keep listening to these boys!" He is one of the most sincere people I have ever met. He talked in the 3rd hour on Grace and I would like to share a few of his thoughts here.

One of the major things that stuck out to me was "Instead of thinking Christ makes us the difference, we can think Christ is all the difference." Grace is given to us if we are willing to use it! I thought this to be so true. He said "Grace doesn't just get us to heaven but more so it makes us Heavenly". We must allow the Savior's grace to change us.

He taught so many amazing principles, I invite you to listen to his talk "His Grace is sufficient". 

Small update on my back. I am currently confined to a couch or bed which hasn't been too fun! I hope to have my MRI this week to see what is happening. Thank you for all the love and support that has been sent my way. I truly to feel it and angels around me.

LOVE ALL OF YOU! 

Elder Nelson 孙长老

My son in his email this week expressed this to me when I inquired about his back:

"I am still resting but when I feel half decent I will go out for about 15 mins and just about every time we find someone! The Lord provides miracles no matter what situation we are in!" 

What an example! What an AMAZING kid!

I am so proud of him and the way he is trying to do the BEST he can with the affliction he is going through. 

Life's Little Medical Surprises

Quite the week!

Hello everyone!! 

Oh, how weeks fly by I cannot believe we are already sneaking into August! 

This week has been quite the interesting one. Our mission has been pushing hard this month to be a month of miracles. Every missionary is working diligently to see miracles and we are all doing whatever it takes. Our baptismal goal is 103 baptisms this month. That goal is double any other month I have ever had on my mission! So we are definitely in need of those miracles. 

I have been struggling a little with some back issues which have kept me bed bound quite a bit. HOWEVER, that does not stop the work! The times we did get out we saw many mighty miracles.

We were able to put one of our investigators named Jean on date this week for baptism! She is loving learning about the church and is progressing very quickly. Jean and Linda plan on making us a Chinese dinner this week! They are so kind to us.

The biggest miracle came later this week. We met with Linda on Friday and we were very clear on the importance of baptism and the fact she needed to do it. We read 3 Nephi 11 and asked some important questions.

"Linda, do you believe God exists?" "

Yes, I know he does.
"Ok, do you know our church to be God's one and only true church?"
"Yes, I know this is the true Church."
"Do you believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God?"
"Yes, from reading it, it has testified of the truthfulness to me." 
"Therefore you know that you must be baptized in order to be saved, it teaches us this in the BOM". 
We then invited her to be baptized and these were her hang-ups. 
1. I want to fully read the BOM before I am baptized. Which I promptly countered with Alma 32:16

"Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe."

She chuckled and said, "I asked my husband and he said he wouldn't like it if I was baptized." So we ended the lesson by committing her to invite her husband to take the lessons. 

So here is when the miracle kicks in. Saturday (day after that lesson). We go walk around for like 5 mins because of my back. We see one Chinese man outside and start talking to him. He said, "My wife goes to your English class!" We figured out his wife was Linda!!! I had never met him before and had just invited Linda to invite him to take the lessons! He was very interested in our message and taught him right there. He expressed how he wants to know God and we gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him how to pray! What an amazing miracle, we plan to start teaching them as a family from now on!

I have a full testimony the Lord knows of our needs and blesses us according to our obedience.

We just got back from the temple about 30 mins ago and it was my last trip!!! Super weird how time flies, but it was so amazing. We only go every 6 months as missionaries so when we get to go the peace is so refreshing.

Thank you for all the love that has been sent my way! Have a great week everyone.  

Elder Nelson 孙长老

Last Temple Trip

When Ben wrote us he said this, "I prayed very hard in the temple today about my future as a missionary. I didn't receive anything directly other than peace. Which tells me, whatever happens, I know the Lord is at the helm."

My son's strength and trust in God is such an example to me. It is never easy to be in pain but to have to work non-stop while hurting is a whole other thing. I am anxious to hear how things are going with him next week. He is supposed to get an MRI and we will see where that leads. To know that HE knows where my son is and through the Atonement can succor him is a small comfort for this mommas heart who is so far away.