Week #59 - Go Get Em

Hello there :)

How are you all doing? I love you all so much! Holy cow do I miss you all! Time is going fast though, so let´s hope it keeps on rolling right along! I think of you all pretty often and I just love and appreciate you all so very much. I feel like I can never quite express my love and gratitude for you here over email, but I just hope and pray that you can feel just a little bit of the love I have for you all. You are all part of me and I love you all so much :) But seriously...SO much.

Can you believe we´re already in March? Where in the world did February go? It was just January 2 seconds ago I swear. I´ll be calling home for Mother´s Day here before I even know it. Time, time, time...so flippin´ complicated huh? Maybe one day we´ll understand it (woops! There I go mentioning time again, just like always!).

I´m sitting here trying to think of anything funny that happened this past week because I always like to start with at least 1 or 2 funny experiences to hook the reader (wow, doesn´t that sound straight out of an english textbook?) and grab the attention. It´s also fun to fill you all in on the humorous parts of missionary work. Let´s see...what happened this past week that is worthy of the weekly letter to the family? Hmmm...well yesterday we went and looked for a guy who´s name and address were in our area book. We clapped his door, a guy came out and we asked if he was the man we were looking for. He said he was and then he let us in! Woo! His wife (well, his juntada because they´re not married) was there too and we went to go shake her hand and say hello when all of a sudden we realized that she was just standing there in her panties. No biggy. Just some old, kinda crazy lady in her panties. The things I´ve seen here in Argentina. The part that gets me the most of the whole story is that I almost didn´t even think anything of it. I mean, I noticed she was just wearing the panties, but I didn´t even think twice about it. My mind is just becoming ´Argentized´ I guess. Also this week I was riding my bike when all of a sudden there was a motorcycle right next to me and some girl shouted in english with a terrible accent ´you speak english?´ I gave her the thumbs up and said, very slowly in english, ´yes. I. Do!´ She told me that I looked American and so that´s why she asked. So, apparently I look American even from behind while riding a bike. I´ll never be able to disguise myself as the American I am. I´m proud to be an American!

So President came out here this weekend to do a couple interviews with people in the branch. It was so great! Before he did the interviews with them he interviewed both me and Elder Aramburu separately. It was really nice to just sit down and have a good 30 minute chat with the best mission president in the world. He gave me some really great advice and counsel and really inspired me (like always). He told me that campo is really hard and that I need to take it easy with myself and just not let myself get discouraged. He said that campo will eat me alive if I let it. Well guess what? I´m not gonna let it eat me alive! No way! I just love President Carter so much! He took us out to dinner and ice cream after the interviews. It was super fun. Sometimes I forget that President isn´t just a church robot. He´s normal person! He´s really funny too. The place where we went to eat wasn´t super great and he wasn´t afraid to tell me either. He asked for ketchup at one point of dinner and the lady went to go get some and he said ´if she brings it in a bottle, I´ll give the place 3 stars out of 5, if it´s in packets (like it probably will), the place gets 2 starts.´ Well, the lady came back and had packets and he just looked at me and said, ´yup, 2 stars. You gotta scout out a better restaurant for next time I come.´ President is so great.

At church on Sunday a few people got up to share their testimonies, but then it was just awkward silence for a few minutes. President got up and asked if anyone else wanted to share their testimony and if not, he was gonna take the rest of the time. Well, that´s exactly what he did. He just speaks with such power! I love it so much! I´ve learned from watching him speak that I need to remember that it´s not all about speed and sounding fluent in spanish, rather it´s speaking slowly and letting the spirit work on the people´s hearts. While he spoke he bragged about me to the members for a few minutes...that made me feel pretty good inside. As a missionary, we don´t hardly any receive any recognition or anything like that, so it felt really nice in my heart :)

Church ended and President had to go right away but before he left he gave me a hug and simply said ´go get em´´. Those 3 little words have stuck with me for some reason. Go get em! Woo! That´s what I´ve gotta do. Stay happy and go get em!

I can´t wait for the day when I can express to you all in detail about my mission, but for now I guess short little emails will have to suffice :)

I love you all so much!

Goin´ and gettin´ em,

Elder Nilsen