Family,
Another week, another email...can you believe I hit 9 months this week? Wowzers, where´s the time go? Time is a confusing, confusing concept here on the mission. I say that all the time. Maybe one day I´ll understand time...maybe.
As you already found out, I´m still here in Parque San Martin with Elder Hutchings.
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| Taking care of "Nil" the kitten!! |
Melanie got baptized this week! Woo! It was probably the most tranquilo bautismo that I´ve had and all went very well except for the fact that hardly any members came to the service. In fact, not a single member of the bishopric was there! Ah! It was tough to announce the baptism without church on Sunday (conference) and so we had a nice little baptismal service with about 10 people there (6 of which were non-members). Our new goal is to start involving members more here in the work. We´ve been doing a good job with livening up the area and now we had investigators, so now we need to involve the members! I made an announcement in Elders Quorum about how we want to bring more members with us to lessons and then we passed around a sheet for them to write down when they´d be available so we´ll see if that works! Be good member missionaries back home please! The missionaries will appreciate it! I can´t wait to be that cool member that always goes out with the missionaries when I get back ;)
The Carrizo family are doing well. We´ve turned our attention to the parents for right now because the kids are never home when we go to visit. We figure that if we can get the parents going in the gospel, they´ll want their kids to follow them. Good news! Alejandra, the wife, finally went to church this Sunday! Yes! We talked to her on Saturday night and we were commiting her to go to church and she told us she wasn´t going because she doesn´t like to be with people. She has arthritis in her hands and she said that it hurts her in the mornings. Well, I got to do one of my favorite things as a missionary: promise blessings! I felt inspired to ask Fabian, her husband, how he´s felt as he´s gone to church. He´s gone 3 times now and he´s loved it each time and he told us that he feels tranquilo and good when he goes. He told us that before we started meeting with them he was just living on the edge. He said he was always nervous and anxious (the worried kind, Alyssa :) ) and that as he´s started to go to church and read the BOM he´s felt so much better. Well folks, the gospel works miracles (no matter how subtle they are) in our lives. I looked back at Alejandra and promised her that if she went to church that her wrists would feel better and that life in general would be better. She said ok and that she´d go to church for the sacrament meeting. Yes! I love promising blessings and then commiting people to live the gospel! So fun!
Our golden investigator Dario (the english speaking one) went to church this Sunday too. Well, he went to the first 2 hours at least. He had to leave before sacrament meeting to go to work ;( but he said next week he´ll be good to go to stay all 3. In Elders Quorum we had a Palabra de...Word of Wisdom lesson and that kind of scared him a little bit, but we´ll go talk to him and calm him down. During the lesson he leaned over and tapped my shoulder and whispered in my ear politely, ´if I can´t drink coffee or tea in the mornings, what am I supposed to drink?´Oh my friend, we will help you. That´s where good ´ol chocolate milk comes in :) |
| Future Missionary, Elder Paredes!!! |
The past few weeks I´ve been praying to be able to find out how the Atonement can more fully apply in my life. When I think of the Atonement, lots of times I just immediately think about vile sinners that need Christ more than anyone else. I´ve come to realize, however, that we ALL need Christ no matter how much we have sinned. As you may now, I´m somewhat of a perfectionist. I like to do things perfectly and have everything be nice and neat. I sort of ran in to a brickwall yesterday as I realized that, as a missionary, I represent the only perfect man that has ever lived. As a representative of Him, I should strive to be perfect. Well, I can´t be perfect no matter how hard I try. After having a sincere pray and letting out a few tears to my pillow last night, I came to realize how the Atonement can better apply to me. The Atonement is the great difference maker. It makes up the difference for what we can´t do. It makes up the difference for our imperfections. It, if we apply it daily, makes us perfect. What a great relief.
That´s just a little insight into what I learned, but it helped me out a lot. The simple things I learn day after day will make an eternal difference right?
I love you all so much :)
Applying the ´Difference Maker´,
Elder Nilsen
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