Week #71 - No Empty Chairs

Well hello there :)

How are you all doing? It`s so good to hear from you all in your emails. Thanks so much for your quality letters week after week. I think that it`s quite the blessing that my family and friends keep in such good touch with me. It really does mean a lot to me and so keep it up :)

I just want to thank Opa and Joann for the wonderfully warm sleeping bag that they had given to me for Christmas right before I left. It rocks. It`s been getting chilly and oh how I love curling up in my warm sleeping bag at night :) Thank you!

Bad news...after going almost a year without being robbed, lightning has struck again and I got robbed this past week :( Guess what they took? My helmet! Stinkers! We had left our bikes with our helmets on the corner while we went and visited someone and when we came back my helmet was gone! They left Elder Ticino`s, but decided to take mine! What bad luck! I`m thinking that it was a drunk girl with bright red hair that robbed me because when we had left our bikes on the corner the girl was there in the plaza with her friend and she offered me a drink. I said no and kept walking, and then...she robbed me. Bummer. What are you gonna do though? I`m not too upset though, so it`s all good :)
 I officially decided this past week that baseball is the best thing ever. One day this past week I swear EVERYTHING was making me think of baseball. The smell of fresh cut grass, nice soft breeze, everyone making comments about baseball, etc. I officially decided (once again) that I`m gonna do everything I can to make my dreams a reality with regards to baseball after the mission. Let`s go Angels! I`ll be playing for them one day....just you wait and see :)

I forgot to mention last week, but I finally got my sweet leather scripture cases! I love them so much :) That`s all...just wanted to tell you all :)

We had a sweet (literally) activity with the branch this past Friday. We had a noche de postres (dessert night) mixed with a presentation of the 8 LDS traditions (family, prayer, scripture study, etc.). It went really well! I love bonding with the members here and I feel really close to just about all of them. I hope they can feel my love for them :) I think I ate WAY too much postre because I felt so sick that night when I went to bed. It was so worth it though :) I made some chocolate chip cookies that everyone liked and my comp made a chocolate boat filled with chocolate cake. Pretty sweet! He`s more creative than me...darn.

This past week with the Relief Society we put together some homemade blankets for Maria Marta. It was super fun to be there with all the Hermanas serving others. I just love the Hermanas here in this little branch so much! They`re all so fun! I have the best Relief Society president ever. She rocks. Hermana Cobello. Love her! 

Man! So much happened this past week! I hope I can fit it all in here!

This past Saturday was May 25th! What`s the name of my area? May 25th! It`s a big national holiday here in Argentina (sort of like 4th of July) and here in 25 de Mayo they celebrated it real good! It`s not their indepence day, but it sort of is their independence day. Don`t ask me to explain it, because I`m still trying to figure it out but I think basically the 25th of May is when some paper was signed that started to get independence here.

The actual independence day is July 9th, and it`s looking like I`ll be here for that day too! Woo! Anyway...the point is is that I just love this country so much! From our apartment we saw them raise the huge Argentina flag in the plaza in the morning and then we went and watched the parade that they had. It was so fun! It was just a bunch of old fashioned gauchos (Argentine cowboys) riding on horses with Argentina flags. So awesome! It was a nice friendly reminder to me of just how much I love this country and her people. I love Argentina!  (And I`m super pumped to root for them in the world cup in a year :) )

Elder Ticino is still a good comp for me. We get along pretty well I just have to be careful in my way of keeping him focused. Sometimes he gets mad and tells me that I drop the cane on him for his lack of focus sometimes, so it`s just a reminder to me that we`re all different and we all are taught in different ways. The way to teach Elder Ticino is to just be really loving with him, but don`t show too much physical love. I`m more of a physical person when it comes to showing love (hugs, pats on the backs, high fives, etc.), but Elder Ticino hates that kind of stuff. Kind of weird, but what are you gonna do? I love the guy and I`ll just keep on enjoying the time that I have with him left whether that`s 3 weeks or 9 weeks or 15 weeks (probably 3).

We`re still in the process of finding investigators. Please pray for us. Not too much can happen in missionary work until we have people to teach. Makes for long days when you`re in the process of finding, but we`re gonna do it! Just gotta find those who will receive us!

Luciano is doing all right. Didn`t come to church yesterday :( He read, prayed, and went to church last week so we`re hoping to be able to get him to repeat that. We asked him to be baptized, but he said he didn`t know. We told him to pray and ask God specifically if he should get baptized, and we`re gonna see how that goes. Pray for him! Iris is doing well! She taught in Relief Society yesterday! I obviously wasn`t there, but the Relief Society president said she did awesome. Yes! :)

So I was studying about the Plan of Salvation a little bit more this past week and I was studying about the Celestial Kingdom. I was reminded that in the Celestial Kingdom we will live forever with God and Jesus Christ and also with our family members that also meet the standards of the Celestial Kingdom (accepting Christ and allowing Him and His perfect Atonement to cleanse, purify, and qualify us). I thought about how it would be if I got there and saw an empty seat at our family`s table and I could hardly stand the thought. It brought tears to my eyes thinking about it. Let`s do all we can NOW to be worthy to sit down with our Father in Heaven as an ETERNAL family. Let`s fill those seats! How do we fill them? Living worthy now. Keeping covenants. Keeping the commandments. Living the gospel day in and day out...EVERY day of our lives. I pray that when we get there that there will be ZERO empty seats. Let`s fill em all ok?

I love you so much family!

Filling the seats,

Elder Nilsen

P.S. Off to go hunt for armadillos right now! Woo! Pictures next week :)