Week #52 - The Purifying Mission Fire

Hello my wonderful, amazing, supportive, incredible, whatever-other-positive-verb-you-can-think-of family :)

Hey guess what?

I have a year in the mission :)

Guess what else?

I burned a shirt.

 Guess what else?I love you all so much.

So yes, this Elder, Elder Thomas Lyman Nilsen, has officially completed the first year of his mission! Ah! Time is so crazy! Today is my offical `hump day` too because starting today I have less days in the mission than I`ve already served. Can you say `weird`? I can! WEIRD! I spent all day on Friday (the 11th) thinking about what I was doing exactly a year ago. I can`t believe that a year has already passed! What in the world? AH! Anyway, I baked me some snickerdoodles (thank you Alyssa :) ) to celebrate the one year. (BTW, Lyss I hear you got a job at Zuppa`s...ummmm can you say `cheap dates` in a year from now? ;) Just kidding....but seriously don`t lose that job) Oh ya, and I burned a shirt :) I wore that same shirt for a few days in a row to ensuciar (dirty) it up nice and good. I was wiping my sweat (which is A LOT of sweat with this killer humidity), leaning up against dirty walls, spilling watermelon juice on it, and whatever other fun way to dirty a shirt you can think of :) Every time I`d get it even more dirty my companion would just shake his head and say `no! Elder!` :) 

I love Elder Viana so much! He`s a goofball with a ton of energy and the same night that I burned my shirt he burned his time to celebrate 6 months in the mission (he completed 6 months on December 28th). Good times on the mission ;)

I realized this week just how important it is to have confidence in everything that I do. I`m realizing that confidence is the way we show to the Lord that we are willing and able and capable to do what He expects of us. I`m also realizing that He doesn`t expect us to do things perfect. If He expected perfection He wouldn`t have sent Jesucristo to atone for us and to make up for all of our imperfections. Our imperfections are a part of His divine plan! Strange, but so very true. So ya, I am learning to give myself a little more credit for the missionary I am and also to have patience as I strive continually to do what`s right. Hey! I just came up with all of that right now on the spot! Pretty good huh?

Update for you on Luis and Ramona (Derek`s parents)...

They both came to church yesterday and they`re still loving it. Ramona is 100% going to get baptized and I`d put Luis at a solid 90%. We`re gonna be working with Luis to resolve any little doubts that he may have so that he can take this most important step in his life. Cool experience teaching them this week was when Luis was talking to us about some of the doubts that he had and his concerns. We (well, mostly my stud companion) bore powerful testimony about the restoration of Christ`s pure gospel and about the restoration of His priesthood authority on the Earth. We promised him blessings that were specific to him by saying that after being baptized he could receive the priesthood to be able to bless and strengthen his family. We dropped a spiritual bomb on them and then he sat there, thinking, then said `Bueno, ahì està...me quiero bautizar.` (Well, there it is...I want to be baptized!) SO COOL! I learn something new from every lesson I teach and from that lesson it was reiterated to me just how important it is to bear pure testimony. Never, ever underestimate the power of a testimony of the truth. It can make an eternal difference.

As I gazed into the flame of my burning shirt I had memories of my first year of my mission flash before me. I thought of my ups, my downs, the fun times, the sad times...staring into that flame made me reflect a lot and made me think about where I want to head with my mission. I want this mission to BE something for me. I want this mission to make an ETERNAL impact for good. I want this mission to CHANGE me. Looking at the flame I thought about how fire changes things. Fire takes a certain element and changes it to appear and BE something else. Well, the mission is the fire. It`s changing me. It burns sometimes and hurts, but it`s purifying me and making me who my Heavenly Father needs me to be. The rewarding and joyous times of the mission far outweigh the times when it scalds and hurts me. Really though, it`s not hurting me or burning me at all. It`s strengthening me and turning me into something else. A more capable son of God. A more capable son of God that will be able to acheive his divine potential. The mission is where I become purified.

Oooo...check out that insight! It appears as though this little boy is becoming quite the thinker :)

Have a great week. I love you all so much.

Letting the mission fire do it`s job,

Elder Nilsen