Family,
Well hello! I'm so glad that the weeks go by fast here, because here I am again getting to email you guys! I hope you all know just how much I love you and care about you. Never forget.
I'll start off by saying that this week was a lot better than last week. Last week was just tough. The 3 week brick wall I guess. I'm not sure, but I broke through the first brick wall of many here on my mission. Thank you all so much for the supporting and encouraging letters to help me get through the rough time, I really do appreciate it. Letters cheer me up, that's for sure. I'm not going to be the kind of missionary that begs all his friends to write him, but I definitely wouldn't mind getting a letter from a friend every now and then :) Family letters are wonderful, but I'd love to hear from my friends too! Ok, moving on now...
I should quickly mention before I forget that me and Elder Hansen have been called as the new Zone Leaders! It's pretty exciting and I'm actually not too overwhelmed with this assignment. We've been following the current Zone Leaders around this week so that we can know what to do next week when we take over. Should be a pretty fun calling, and it doesn't seem like it'll be too tough. I'll let you know more about it next week when I've actually been serving as the Zone Leader. We take over on Sunday, so it should be pretty fun! It'll keep me even busier which is a good thing because then time will go by even faster! I'm almost halfway done here at the MTC! Yes!
Ok, so this week we had our first chance to really teach a "non-member." We began teaching a man named Gabriel and he's from Chile. In all the lessons I've taught so far, I've felt pretty comfortable about my spanish and teaching in spanish because the people we've been teaching have been our teachers. When we don't know what to say in spanish we can kind of whisper in english what we're trying to say and our teachers will whisper back in spanish how to say it. Well, teaching Gabriel was quite the different experience. When we didn't know how to say something, we would just sort of stammer and stutter and it was just really awkward. We were teaching him about the Restoration of the gospel and Joseph Smith and it was just so hard. I could understand basically every word that Gabriel was saying to me, but I couldn't talk back to him very well. And this is where the title of this email comes in. I've determined that teaching non-member investigators about the gospel is like watching a person drown. I'm standing on the edge of the pool just watching them drown. Now let me explain why it's like this.
When we're teaching Gabriel, I can understand everything he's saying. I know what he's talking about and I am understanding him pretty dog-gone clearly. I know EXACTLY what I need to say back to him in order for him to understand them gospel and feel loved by Heavenly Father. I know EXACTLY what I should ask him in order to make him think and ponder about his life. I know EXACTLY what to say in order to make him just...get it. The problem is that I just can't say it. I don't know how to say what I want to say in spanish. Thus, it's like watching a person drown. I see Gabriel there in the water, trying to stay afloat (trying to understand the gospel), and I'm standing there at the edge of the pool. I know exactly what I would do to save him and to get him to stay afloat. I know that I should jump in, grab him, and pull him to the shallow end. The problem is is that I don't know how to swim. I can't jump in because I don't know how to swim. If I COULD swim, I know exactly what I'd do. Man, it's just so frustrating. I hope that through this silly analogy you can understand a little bit of my frustration with the language. I was just starting to feel so confident too! Dang it. I'm praying sincerely to be able to have the gift of tongues to help me through, and I'm just waiting for that gift to kick in! I know you pray for me, and you pray that I can have the gift of tongues, so if you don't mind I'd love it and appreciate it so much if you'd continue to do that.
My whole time I've been here at the MTC I've been praying that I can have faith. I've been praying that I can just have an increase in faith so that I can have confidence in the future and in what lies ahead. My mission thus far has been a major test of faith. It's hard. It's frustrating. It's sad. I've come to realize that I have more faith than I realize. I've had faith my whole life and it's been continually growing my whole life. My faith has been nurtured my whole life, and now it's time to have it be tested. Well, it's definitely being tested. It's scary what I'm doing. It's a challenge. It's unique and I'll never do something quite like it again in my life. I just have to find the faith that I KNOW is inside me somewhere. In my patriarchal blessing it says that I will be known as a "man of faith," and I'm just trying to live up to that blessing. It's hard. It's really hard. I know I have faith inside me though, and I'm exercising it as best as I know how. Just like in Ether 12:6, "ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." I can't wait for that witness to come!
Real quick, I was reading in D&C this week and I read section 31. Most amazing section ever! It's written for me! It has my name in there and everything! (Yes, it's talking to a different Thomas, but still) I just really liked the part where it says that "the laborer" (me in this case working in the Lord's field) "is worthy of his hire." I'm worthy of my hire. I'm worthy as a missionary. I am clean and worthy and guess what? I couldn't be happier :)
I love you all so very much and I look forward to receiving letters from you throughout this week. Keep me in your prayers always, I need the Lord's help. I love you all so much.
Working hard,
Elder Nilsen
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