He will qualify who he calls

This week in the Florida Tampa Mission and especially Tampa 1 (my area) things are going crazy... 

It's hard to talk about because of how deep my feelings and emotions are here. But Elder Langi is being transfered and I am recieving a companion from the MTC. Serving with Elder Langi has been the greatest time of my life. He is one of the most honorable men I have met along with my Brothers and Father. I tell all who read this, that This man is not going to do small things. I know that My Lord loves me, for allowing me to be taught and learn from one of his elect. He has so much love and wisdom of the basic and fudamental things of the gospel. His testimony is simple and yet so strong. He has shown me what missionary work is really about. Shown me that every soul is great and that we must forget ourselves. He has shown me how to overcome our own faults and mistakes and allow the savior to save us and serve in return. We have done so much incredible work together and he is my brother. We just were a team and served the best we knew how. It's now time for change, but I will always cherish these times! He has left his mark on the Tampa First ward and we are all changed becasue of him. What a disciple. 

On Tuesday we will meet at the Temple Terrace Building at 11 where we will have a training meeting for President Cusick to speak to all the new trainers. Then all the missionaries will find out their new proselyting areas and compaions and I will meet my trainee! I am so excited to find out who it is! I am nervous but i know that this will bring me closer to my Father in Heaven. I know that this is what is right for this time in the mission. We will also be getting at least two more sets of missionaries in our ward! And our zone is now BIGGER! And these changes are across the whole mission!! Our new Ward mission leader is absolutely incredible and I KNOW that the hastening of the work is beginning in the Tampa First Ward! I know it! 

We spent a lot of great time with our family the Hess's they are getting ready to be baptized and they LOVE!! love love church! Their kids always get excited for church and they always remind us to pray and they are GOLDEN! They are unfortunately moving at the end of November to a new ward, but they will be baptized here! Elder Langi and I are so close with them and they love us too! Man... I am just filled this week and today. I know that Christ is the Leader of His work and Heavenly Father is blessing his children! I am excited for this fresh start and my new compaion and I can really work hard here in the Lord's vineyard! I love all of you and bare my testimony that the Savior lives and that this IS the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! Invite all to come to him! 

Be not afraid; Only Believe

Elder Nelson

We are only instruments

SO!!! This week was just a week of miracles. AS EVERY WEEK IS!

We had two great lessons with a part member family the HESS's! They are so ready and their dad is ready to progress in the priesthood! They have given up their old ways and have jumped on the road to CONVERSION!:) they were scheduled for this saturday for baptism but they need a couple more lessons and will be ready probably sometime in november:)! She is from Germany and they've made me fall in love with it! They are big soccer fans and now i am all for GERMANY!:)  Sis Hess cooks for us ALL THE TIME!!! WE have some schnitzel and Brotwerzt and german cheesecake and ITS SOOO BOMB!! Langi and I LOVE!!! going over there and there two sons (twins) call us the two mans with the same first name and they think we are brothers! Their father (who is a DIIIEEEE HARD BRONCOS FAN!) was explaining to us how if it wasnt Me and Elder Langi who were here at this time they would have never wanted to come... such a testimony to me that the Lord sends us where HE needs us. I know that Christ is leading us and this work. Wherever we are!! They come to church EVERY week and LOVE IT! :) I don't know why we are so blessed here... we have had soo much success... i am so unworthy of all of it. We have just been showered by love from our Lord and I am just in awe of the miracles... HUGE MIRACLES!! 

This last saturday we had a baptism for the McLeans. They were contacted by Elder Waite back in JANUARY and he had been working with them EVER SINCE! Elder Langi and Him made some huge progress with them just before I came into the area and then Elder Waite went down south. While I was here they seemed to become less and less interested. So, we just occasionally visited them. They were going through some family issues and ended up moving. They came to church A LOT! and then we helped them move! We met with them a couple of times and then one night... madison texted us about something and mentioned that they wanted to get baptized... the next day we talked to Dana and she said now that they have moved and settled down... she thought it was time. WE WERE BLOWN AWAY and Elder Waite could not contain his LOVE FOR THEM! HE CALLED US EVERY NIGHT ASKING IF IT WAS STILL HAPPENING! so it went on! And saturday we met at the beach and laid some blankets down and had a violinist (Sister Agster the sweetest lady ever) play the hymns and it was honestly a beautiful sight to see and the spirit was SO STRONG! and to top it off Elder Langi and I prepared a musical number, we sang love at home on the ukulele... it was amazing!

I hope that we can still qualify for the miracles to come, and that the hastening of the work continues to press forward and those souls who are ready to be found and to join with us can be found and progress and receive the fullness of the gospel... The Lord will do this work, we just need to be clean, worthy and ready. Just invite and do our part... clean our instruments and let him play the song of redeeming love through us. I know my Savior lives and loves us. I know I am never alone. I know that this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ no matter who are where you are. 

Elder Nelson

Be Not Afraid; Only Believe

The Giboney's

Elder Nelson and Elder Langi were given a personal tour aboard the

U.S. Coast Guard Ship by Chris Giboney . 

(silly boys!)

Chris is married to Laurie who is a member of our Ward.

The Giboney's live on the military base. They have 3 cute curly blonde headed girls.  They are like our favorite family to hang out with.  Bro. Giboney has never had the missionaries over. We thought he did but we were the first! He's the coolest guy!  We wanted to work with him more but he leaves a lot for Coast Guard stuff.  So, since transfers is the 28th and he'll be gone until November, we went over and gave him a tie and a Book of Mormon with our testimonies!  Then when he dropped us off we took pictures then bore our testimonies to him!  A very cool POWERFUL experience.  Then the next day he came to church for the first time in a year or so with his family!

A miracle for sure!  So, that's them:) We love them!

D & C 82:10

D and C 82:10 - I the Lord am Bound when ye do what I say but when ye do not what I say ye have no promise.... every time I read this scripture, but i read it a couple days ago and it was different. Instead of making me think of all the things that I do wrong, that cause me to lose the Lords promise I thought of all the covenants I am keeping, all the times i have tried and succeeded to do what he said and HE KEPT HIS PROMISE! Teaching about the word of wisdom and the Law of Chastity, and HE KEPT HIS PROMSIE to those we were teaching... and every day when I am obedient he keeps his promise! Being a Mormon is HARD! (being a mormon missionary is pretty hard too ;) but ALWAYS TRYING TO IMPROVE is hard! So many people DONT care to do that! They make excuses for why they dont need to!! but no, we suck it up and say IM going to work on this! that is so hard, and then BOOM!! I get to read sooo many emails about how I am loved. I was almost brought to tears reading the words people were saying to me... and I realized the Lord is fulfilling his promise... D and C 84:88

All these angels bearing me up. You are all angels. The people who I meet here, they are angels to me!! The people who the Lord has prepared and the Lord is keeping his promise, he is hastening his work! and we are TRYING TO GET BETTER and boom... a mother and daughter, fighting through every problem you could think of, decided its time, and Elder Langi and I get to be a part of that... A woman we met at the gas station, decided that she wants to change churches, and has come to church every sunday (that she could) since then!! A woman who works at the gym, who we invited to the baptism said she would love to come and wants to get baptized herself! AND!! As the Ward is using the To The Rescue Program as our prophet has recieved revelation for us to do, A MAN was prepared to come back as Pres. Uchtdorf invited all too, and HIS WIFE was prepared as well!! AND ELDER LANGI AND MYSELF GET TO BE THE INSTRUMENTS! The Lord is BOUND and he LOVES IT! He loves fulfilling his promises!! As we make concious efforts to improve our behavior our thoughts, STAYING HAPPY:)! Refusing the temptations of the adversary we will see MIRACLES! Those conscious improvements are done by faith! Because the Lord asked us and by that faith we will see miracles ( moroni 7:37) i could not be happier. I love it. Do not be discouraged, do not fear! 

If we could see the end so near, we'd surely lose our fear! Press Forward Saints! :) What an exciting time to be a missionary, and EVERY MEMBER a missionary! Pray for miracles and they will come!!

I love this gospel and this work, this place, these people more than anything. I love my Savior more than anything. He is my all. I love him, and he loves me. He loves me for my soul, my true desires. And i hope ONE day my truest desires become my EVERY action. I love you and the Church is true. 

Malo Aupito

Elder Nelson

Be Not Afraid; Only Believe

Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy lade and I will give you rest.

This week in Tampa Florida, has been incredible. In these early parts of my mission here I am simultaneously trying to teach myself and those around me. I often allow my own mistakes, and weaknesses to take priority over those I am teaching. But the Lord helped me and has given me time to learn and teaches me every day. I have found so many faults in myself that I want to fix that I can be a greater disciple of Christ and servant of my Lord and Savior. I knew that when I figure this out I could serve with more confidence and testimony! So this week It started with a testimony of fasting, I knew that if I truely wanted and need assitance and words from the Lord, I need to sacrifice and show him that i need it. So all week I studied and pondered and prayed. In preparation for conference this weekend and boy were the questions of my soul answered. I wanted to know, how do I fulfill my potential? how do I serve the Lord the way he deserves to be served. How do I overcome fear, and...DO THIS!!

I recieved so much revelation! Part of which was from Elder Ballard, he said that fear will be replaced with faith when members and missionaries kneel and ask for missionary opportunites! This connects with my own fears! A lot of time, we are afraid of missionary opportunites, and we are afraid of doing good continuously and afraid of doing ALL that the Lord asks. As missionaries, we are held to a higher law. so part of the revelation was from a member of the Bishopric we spoke with along with conference, he told me that we must first want...to want! We can pray for the desire and then TRY! We will DO what WE want! That is the whole point of having a savior, we need him because we will always at sometime do what WE want. So if we can train ourselves to do what the LORD wants we will then become in tune and serve him to our FULL potential!! 

yes this life is hard, but if we KNOW what we must do, then we need to WANT to do it. As we do it more we will condition our minds and hearts to do those things!! and that will become us!! When the Savior died and suffered for us, we became His, if we were held to the Father's law, we would be destroyed instantly! But because the Savior, we answer to His law, and he grants us MERCY! Mercy enough to keep going. Elder Uchtdorf said, we are doing better than we think! and no matter how bad we ARE doing, its never to late to change as Elder Nelson said. In his talk I recieved the most inspiration. We are not destined to fail! We are the chosen ones, the noble and great ones, the ones who said I won't stop trying father. I love you so much that I won't stop trying. When we TRULY TRULY want to do better, we can FIND our answers! And we can get that desire and we can do this! The same words and scriptures, faith, repentance, love and the atonement. Will suddenly mean something different, or hit you stronger. This is the way the Lord wanted it. Keep TRYING! And don't be afraid! I Testify that the Savior knows what we are doing, and how we are doing and all we must do is come unto him. Come unto him and let his gospel, his full gospel to give us rest, unlock new love and thoughts and desire that will bring us the love and the spirit. Which i know we all want to feel. We don't want to be lazy, we don't want to be weak, we don't want to be afraid, but we know we want it to be easier. Well, in Christ it is. i know this to be true. So true and I know that right now in our lives, if we want to be more like the Savior we MUST do missionary work! We must do what we are asked!! Whatever YOU need to do to recieve strength, or the spirit, do it and JUST TRY! We are given so many promises and I know they will be fulfilled! Don't lose faith. 

I know Jesus is the Christ. And i am so grateful that he is. I need him, and I love him. I love this gospel more than anything. I love being a missionary and love my God.

p.s.i'm sorry about last week! We literally had NO! time to write! But its okay!! I forgot to add the things that are happening in the mission so maybe add that we are teaching a family where the father used to be a member and went inactive and one of the members (trying to hasten the work) invited him to basketball and he came and i would invite him to church afterward every time and they finally came! With his whole family!! they have three boys and the mother is from Germany! And they have come to church twice since and love it!!! So a lot of potential there! Pray for them!! The Hess family! They are the BOMB! 

Elder Nelson

Be not Afraid; Only Believe