Wednesday 28 October 2015

It's "cold" in Mexico


 

Looks like it is nicer there than it is here! (I sent her a pic of the snow we got the other day)
I’m never coming back to Mexico after this. Id so much rather be where it is dry :) the hurricane isn’t helping much with dryness either. It's weird weather here it is wet and freezing and nasty until about 2 and then we all just boil.

 I am currently healing from a cold I was hoping I wouldn't catch, but I caught it :( so I wasn’t able to sing on Sunday after all. I was super sad, but it’s all right. I was also going to sing a duet with Hermana Stone, it turns out she sings soprano opera! And she asked me to do the alto on "Jesus the very thought of thee" we were supposed to audition tonight for a devotional with a general authority, but alas my throat is still too sore. I’m 99% better now though! I’ve basically been living off of prayers.

 I am so excited to get to Chile already!!! The food here is either so spicy I die or so bland I can’t taste it. It’s all just nasty even Silva (her teacher) said the food here is only for emergencies.
(Spicy to Shaylee is bland to most people. Lol!)
You should tell Riley to send me a letter! Then I will have a letter from everyone! 
 I miss you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And seriously going through tuff (her dog) and tucker (her horse) withdrawals so I absolutely love the pictures you sent :) thank you!

Savannah Jackson sent me a letter and made me cry. It was so cute. Tell her to be a good ninja for me k?

 I love you so very much!!!! Miss ya tons!

Shaylee

 
                                       Shaylee and her cousin Crew the Sunday before she left.
Shaylee and Tucker
 
Shay saying goodbye to Tucker
 
Saying goodbye to Tuff

 

 I’m going to send you a couple pics. Both from this morning one is a mug shot because I feel like I am in prison, haha, what with the barbed wire and all, and the other is a family¨ pictures with papí he acts like a grandpa so we made him grandpa papí haha. I hope you like my posing job!
Love Shaylee! 
I never did get these pictures she is talking about, but I liked her little note of how she feels in the MTC. hopefully next week I can get the pictures from her and post them,
 
 
  Wednesdays are my favorite days too! You have no idea how much I need Wednesdays!
 Guess what! Spanish is coming ok, I was able to talk to two Latina sisters pretty good at the devotional yesterday.  Elder Neilson from the first quorum of the seventy came, his wife gave me a hug, and I shook his hand. Hugs are like gold here since everyone is missing home so much! It was fun!
Love Shaylee
  I was so sick I eventually asked for Elder Putnam to give me a blessing. In it I was told you all loved me. Heavenly father loved me and my friends loved me. Also that my call to Chile really was from the lord, that I would bless many lives on my mission, and (this is interesting) that I was called to Chile for one specific person. How weird is that! I think maybe I will mostly bless people at home? Putnam was in tears after it was really neat, he had never given a blessing before.
 
Love Shaylee
 
 
 
 


Looks like she LOVES the letters she is getting from all of you.
Thank you so much for loving and supporting her.
I could not get the picture to load the right way. grr!

Wednesday 21 October 2015

No More Spanglish!


 I have a new investigator he is my morning teacher, Sylva pretending to be Cristian. Think of Cooper from modest proposal as a Mexican and you got Hermano Sylva. He discovered how much Spanish I actually know yesterday and has now decided to ignore me unless I am using my Spanish! Haha at least he is actually pushing me. Everyone else is just, "when you’re comfortable." Sylva is all "everyone use Spanglish except Hermana Nelson! Hermana you know Spanish. Use it!" haha! He is crazy. My Spanish is actually excellent. 
 There is only one elder I actually like. His name is Tanner Lynn Putnam and he reminds me of Van from Reba. Haha he is really nice. And weird. Really weird. He is the younger one with dark hair. His companion drives me nuts. But I will survive!  Your first letter honestly probably saved me from depression, it was getting to that point. That reminder snapped me out of.... depression?  I am NOT coming home to you guys like that.
 I sang in the choir yesterday and it was fun. It is weird singing in Spanish! But I got to be away from Bentley for a few hours which was heavenly! I may or may not have kind of lost it over her smothering this morning..... Yeah. I wrote you a detailed letter about that... I apologized profusely though. And she is right back to her usual self. Sigh. Better than her angry though.  
 I really like the other girls in my casa though. They are great I especially love Hermana Williams, Stone, krumholtz and Tobler. They are keeping me sane. Hermana k turned to me during choir last night and mentioned how weird it felt not to be with Tobler and I grinned and said, ´.yeah isn’t it great´, without even thinking about it. I was like um, uh. Katie k just laughed and was like don’t worry I get it.
Hermano Sylva was on his phone while we were doing a role play with our district practicing on Hermana Gutierrez and he turned to me and whispered this is you in Spanish and showed me a picture of a girl baptizing the boy. Haha. He is goofy.
 I keep nodding off during the morning classes, I miscounted our schedule it is actually 16 hours of forced being awake and seven for sleep, but its ok because Sylva goes Hermana Nelson! Every time I start to droop. I wish I could figure out a way to record it, he sounds like a drill sergeant whenever he says it, and his accent just makes me giggle every time. It sounds so bizarre. 
. I have gotten more letter than anyone else in my district and I carry them with me and read them every time I need to remember who amazing Shaylee is.
 Last night I had an interesting experience, the elders are so very very judgmental.  We were having a discussion about Elder Alfredo Mirón of the seventies address, and it turned into a bash session about a select number of elders in the choir singing abilities. It just made me sick. And for some reason I opened my mouth and quietly said, guys, then again just as quietly, guys. then when they all looked at me irritably, I softly said, I just think we should have evening prayer while the spirit can still be here before we start criticizing people for doing the best they can. It got reeeeeaaaaaaalllllly really quite. Scarily quite for no joke 2 full minutes they stared at me, before Putnam said she is right. Then the dl snapped his jaw shut, and said ok. Let’s clean up a little then pray. Elder King didn’t speak to me at all the rest of the night. But during the silence, I could feel the Holy Ghost swirling around me straightening my spine as I stood over by the windows waiting for a response. I had never interrupted there bash sessions before because I thought heavenly father would rather I just not get involved, but I know that was wrong now. It is always important for me to be myself and stand tall, and like 98 percent of the time around here alone. My companion looked so traumatized. She told me later though that she wished she were as brave as me. That was nice haha. I am doing so well on my Spanish, and I am 99.9 percent myself. I think the last . will come when I get home!
Keep the letters coming ;)
I sing all the time now, which is how I ended up with a solo on Sunday in sacrament! It is so hard to sing English songs in Spanish!!!!! I end up with some serious Spanglish, one word in I know that my redeemer lives is prepararse!!!! How am I supposed to sing that smoothly, I ask you! 

Love love love love you!!! 

Shaylee
 

Thank you every one for all your prayers for Shaylee. I didn't realize how stressed out I was after reading her first letter, as I read this one I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry because of the relief and joy I felt over hearing her sound like herself again.
I believe the letters that were sent to her this week really helped pull her through. Relationships with her family and friends are everything to her. Please keep writing and praying.
Love you all!
Andrea
PS If you would like to write her a letter and have it delivered to her room that same day. Write an email to this address: letter@mtcmexicocarepackage.com
The subject of the email needs to be Sister Shaylee Nelson




 
Shaylee loves flowers!


The bottles are the surprise we left the elders in my district when they did not show up for yoga class this morning! haha we win :)

imagine only having this many outfits




Wednesday 14 October 2015

It is Finally P-day!


 
Shaylee is having a hard time adjusting and could use all the prayers she can get :) She said if she wasn't so stubborn she would have been on a flight home already. Here is some of her letter from this week:
sister  stone was only  my companion until we got to the casa then i was teamed up with sister tina bentley. then the next morning they surprised us with turning us into  a trio. jessica godfrey. she went home yesterday since she couldnt hack it. life is super brutal here i miss you all so  much. i started dreaming in spanish on the second night. it was super messed up! my schedule is hectic i will send you a picture of it its aweful. i wake up before the sun, and go to bed waaay after. on the plus side we asked our fake investigator (we arent supposed to know) but it is super obvious since he is wearing garments haha! to be baptised and he said yes.
 
we got to go the temple this morning that was awesome i loved it! i most definetly prefer our temple but this was nice to go to. the little spanish lady at the veil was looking at me with a bemusedly amused expression as i attempted to imitate her spanish. i got earphones for the rest of the session though! i even had a few minutes alone in the celestial room. My comp talks and talks, she even talks to me while i am in the bathroom!!!!! the walls around here are topped with barbed wire so i cannot escape. :( that was a dissapointment ;) sorry for my spelling spanish keyboards are messed up! 
 
 the food is awful!!!!! we did get undercooked costco pizza last night and it tasted like heaven :) the beds are like rocks, but the water is all drinkable since the church has its own well here. our pday is wednesday which was a brutally long time to  wait to email you.
 
there are six sisters including me in my casa, and each companionship gets their own room. we might end up with more sisters tonight since there is a new batch of sisters coming into my zone. i didnt get here last wednesday until 9:30. it was quite literally the worst day of my life. also i have a tendency to randomly start crying i miss you guys so much. i just read your letter, read my pillowcase, and look at my pictures. im thinking my blog post should be titled gunshots and the gospel because we can here shootouts with automatic guns pretty much all the time. the teachers claim they are fireworks. i asked the mtc or ccm as the case may be, what they are and he said one or two a day might be fireworks, but yeah they are gunshots. safe place for sure! Daddy would love it :) the missionaries call me canada most of the time because i am honestly the only canadian sister here. believe me i know, i checked. there is only one other canadian and he is elder something or other from vancouver island, but he does know emma beazer so thats a plus! he leaves in two weeks and then i really will be the only canadian! that should be fun. my accent is mocked constantly. also they keep telling me im pronouncing words with the wrong accent, but the teachers say i am saying words perfectly so i think they are just crazy. its like high school 2.0 here.
 i never want to stop typing!!!!!!!!!! i only take my new necklace off when i sleep, that and my rings are like my lifeline to you all. i miss you sooo much, i am going to try to send some pictures! 
i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you. i love you , i love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
love shay

 

 

Thursday 8 October 2015

Just Walk Away


 
 
 
 
4 am is way too early to wake up, but we had to get Shaylee to the airport for 4:45. It was a good thing we got to the airport early because there was a few issues with her plane tickets. In case any of you have kids that go on multiple flights to the M.T.C. the church travel department makes it so that the kids have to pick up each ticket at each different airport, a measure they take so they keep track of the missionaries and where they did or did not pick up their tickets. It took about half hour for us and the airport lady and the helper on the phone to figure it that out.
Goodbye wasn’t as bad as I had pictured it in my mind. We hugged, took a few pictures, shed very few tears (I thought Shaylee would be flooding the airport) we told her it was time to go or she would miss her flight, she turned and walked through the doors without looking backL I turned to Rod and said “she didn’t even look back!” I was in shock, but couldn’t walk away. A few minutes later she walked back into sight and gave us a thumbs up, then walked away. Nothing can prepare a mother for that moment, but I held it together as long as nobody gave me any sympathy.
When we got in the car Mataya started singing “Just walk away” By Celine Dion, she is always good to break the tensionJ
Shaylee first flew to Salt Lake, then Atlanta Georgia, and finally arrived in Mexico City.
A few of the tender mercies along the trip were, the kid behind us in the Calgary airport was also leaving on his mission, and taking the same flight to Salt Lake. Since it took us so long at the ticket counter I was able to observe his family saying goodbye, which helped me a lot.  When she got to Salt Lake she met up with Sister Hailee Stone and an Elder Willy, who were also flying to the Mexico M.T.C. She had travel buddies! I was so happy she didn’t have to face the Mexican airport by herself. I guess the Atlanta is one with the trains between terminals, they must have all looked lost, because one of Sister Stone’s friends dads just happened to be in the airport, noticed them and showed them how to get to their terminal. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
She shocked us all by calling us when she was in Atlanta. Get this, the elders mom sent him with an “emergency” cell phone, and I thought I was protectiveJ (Mataya is insisting on all the smiley faces) I’m glad the mom did send it because being able to hear her happy and okay with life made me feel so much better, even though it was only a minute conversation. Then Mataya started singing “I will survive!”  She has a song for everything!
She was able to send us a quick email last night, letting us know that she had made it safely. This is what she wrote:
“Pray for me ok, this is hard! I love you all soooo much.”
Love Shay
This beautiful daughter of mine never ceases to amaze me with her faith, trust, and determination. What an example she has been and always will be to me.
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
Her pretty Canadian mission necklace. It has been a tradition for Shaylee to get a necklace for all the special events in her life.
 
 
Walking away, with Mataya's old school bag on her back, we should have thought that through a little more.
 
Here is her MTC address, letters only!
She will be in the MTC for 6 wks

Friday 2 October 2015

Packing Up

Mexico is coming up quickly! I started my packing today, it feels so weird! It would feel much more natural if the rest of my family were packing too, haha.  :)