Week # 26 - The Worth of a Soul

Well hello there my wonderful family ;)

First off, happy independence day! Both belated AND right on time. Happy belated American Indepence Day and happy on time Argentine Indepence Day! Celebrating 202 years of independence today :) Woo hoo! Argentina!

This week...was special. Very special. Before I explain all the details though, I`d like to share some other stories first. 

First off, Conor McCann! I saw a guy walking down the street the other day and he was wearing a Irish Rugby jersey! I immediately thought of you and how much I love you buddy! You might be happy to hear that after I saw him I quietly hummed a few lines of `Oh you`ll never beat the Irish!` and had a few nice memories of playing wiffle ball in your front yard :) I love you man!

Next, some funny things that I saw in Argentina this week! Let`s think...I should explain real quickly that to clean here, people just get their floor wet and then they just squeegee all the water off into the sidewalk or onto the street. I see that all the time, but something that I saw this week was someone squeegeeing the top of their house on their roof! Only in Argentina do people stand on their roof and squeegee the water off. Gotta love it! The other hilarious thing I saw was yesterday when we were doing contacts in the busier part of our area. We were talking to some people when all of a sudden this trolley thing drove by with a bunch of kids and parents in it and on top of it was a man dressed up as spider-man doing pelvic thrusts and shaking his butt to some Argentina `Reggae-tone` (popular kind of music here). Yup! Argentina for you right there! I love it! THe more time I spend here the more I realize how incredibly unique it is and how much I love it! (look up the song `Nene malo` if you want to hear a song that I hear at least 50 times a day). I love Argentina so much ;)

Fernando didn`t come to church again ;( but it`s ok! We`ve decided as a companionship that we`ve just got to be more bold in our invitations. Invitations to come to church, invitations to read the BOM, invitations to pray, invitations to everything. More bold! Remember what a wise missionary said a few weeks ago (or a few months, I can`t remember)? Boldness brings blessings! :) But yes, we must be more bold! We`re going to really focus in on a few of our prime investigators so that we can get them progressing towards baptism, towards the temple, and towards eternal life! It`s pretty crazy to think about what I`m actually doing.

We`ve started teaching/about to start teaching a couple of awesome families! Families are the way to go when it comes to missionary work. They`re the best to find. We went Fernando`s house one day and his brother-in-law, Felipe, was visiting and we taught him while he was there and then he said he`d like for us to go visit his house one day. This last week we made our way over there and found him and his family there. We got in the house and his one son was playing some zombie video game on their PS3 (this house felt super American to me) and the other son was watching. We chit chatted for a bit and we sat down at the table and, without asking, Felipe brought his BOM over and put it on the table. Golden situation! But wait, it gets better! We were about to start and then Elder Whitlock asked the two sons if they wanted to come over and listen too. Without argument or complaining the son turned off the PS3 and came over! Holy cow! Yes! We asked about Felipe`s wife, but he said she was sick and was asleep. Next time! But still! We had a good Restoration lesson and they all seemed super receptive and accepting. It was a good lesson, but we as the missionaries didn`t do the most effective job of giving them a compromiso or anything, and that`s our bad. We`re going to have them be one of our focus families this week and get them progressing and hopefully we`ll sacar una fecha con ellos (set a baptismal date with them). Spanglish, it`s overtaking me.

So...Nestor :) We had a baptism. We had a baptism. We had a baptism! Yes! It was the best day of my mission so far by far! It was kind of a crazy week with getting him ready and everything, but the man is a capo (stud) and it went through without too many major problems. The biggest obstacle we had was making sure that Nestor had true desires to get baptized. We were hoping that he wasn`t getting baptized just for his GF, we wanted to make sure he really wanted to do this for himself. Well last Sunday the bishop of our ward kind of gave him an interview (which normally, he probably shouldn`t do) and I think it scared/offended Nestor a little bit. The bishop just asked him the baptismal interview questions and stuff like that, and I think it just offended Nestor more than anything. Well, we met with him again on Tuesday to teach him a few more little things and to give him his pre-interview to make sure he was ready. While we were teaching him, we found that he had been fighting internally with himself the last couple days. He didn`t really want to be baptized because he felt a little bombarded I think. He didn`t exactly like that the bishop had bombarded him with questions and he felt offended by that. He told us though that through all his thoughts he talked to a guy at work that was going through rough times too. He said that his friend said as though he felt like he had a `monkey on his back` and he just needed to get it off. Nestor then told us that he recognized that he had a monkey on his back and that he had to get it off. I know exactly who that `monkey` was. The adversary trying to get him to back out of being baptized. Well, Nestor told us that he recognized this `monkey` and that he wasn`t going to let it keep him from being baptized. Nestor made his decision to go forward with faith. I think through his experience with the bishop he grew and discovered for himself that this is the truth and that he needed to go forward. The adversary wasn`t going to stop him!

We had his interview on Wednesday, and all went smooth with that. We talked to him on Friday night and had him try on some pants (he wore mine!). We shared a scripture with him and confirmed the time of the baptism and everything. Well Saturday came and we went to the church to make sure our ward mission leader was filling up the font. He hadn`t yet, and I tried not to get stressed when the door to the font wouldn`t open. I got down on my knees and said a quick, humble prayer, and next thing you know, the door was opened! Prayers are answered :) We started filling the font and then left to go see some people. We came back a couple hours later and found that the font had only filled up about a foot. Shoot. The baptism was supposed to start in about a half hour and we only had a foot of water. The way the water works here at the churches is that there is a tank out back that has to be filled with water and then that tank provides the water for the whole church (sinks, bathrooms, etc.) Well, the tank had run out of water and the door to get to the tank to turn on the switch was locked. We frantically called everyone we knew with a key until someone answered and said we could come get it. At this time it was about 4:50 and the baptism was scheduled to start at 5. Nestor finally showed up at 4:50 and we told him to get changed and we`d be right back. We booked it over the house, got the key, and booked it back. We started filling up the tank, got changed, took some pics, and started the service. We had a good turnout of members!

I was assigned to conduct the service (which was cool) so I got it going. It was crazy to get the service going, but once it started I felt peace and comfort. The service went very well. Elder Whitlock performed the baptism, and as I watched the ordinance I just felt the Spirit consume me. I got the chills and teared up a bit as Nestor went under the water. At that moment, I just felt such peace, happiness, and gratitude. I said a silent prayer thanking God for the role I was able to play in this precious man`s conversion. I couldn`t help but think about the worth of Nestor`s soul. 

I know without a doubt that God is looking down on me right now and is pleased with me for the work that I did with Nestor. I don`t take any credit for what I did at all. I know that it was all God, and I was just doing His work. I was His hands. I brought a soul to the truth.

I was able to confirm Nestor a member of the church the next day in church. I just felt such peace and happiness through everything. I am so happy that I was able to play the role of an instrument in God`s hands in bringing this man to the truth :)

I know this church is true. I know it with all my heart. I can`t wait to work diligently to bring more souls to Christ.

I love you all so much!

The worth of souls is great,

Elder Nilsen