Week #92 - Soak Zone

Hey family!

Umm...this is gonna have to be a super quick `I love you and I`m alive, doing well` kind of email. It`s just been sort of an interesting email session today...but, as a good friend of mine just shared with me in an email:

`I realized that so many times through trials, no matter how bad we want to help and make the situation better, or even change the situation, the absolute only thing we can do is trust. We may not understand the reasoning behind things, or why we have to experience particular trials, but we don't have to understand. I was watching some Mormon messages earlier and I loved a quote from one of them. It said, "If I trust Heavenly Father, it really doesn't matter what I don't understand...trusting in the Lord...it's not always easier, but it's always better." No matter how frustrating, sometimes all we can do is trust, and that alone is one of the greatest things we can do...`

Thanks good friend of mine for that VERY timely email :)

Things went fairly well this past week. We didn`t have any investigators in church yesterday :( It hurt really bad to not see anybody show up, but...we worked our hardest, made good plans, and then just left the rest up to the agency of people. I think the fact that it was a rainy Sunday morning PLUS Mother`s Day (here in Argentina) sort of affected how some people were gonna use their agency. 

Marcelo and Betiana are doing real well still. Nothing too new with them except that Marcelo is a super capo and hasn`t smoked or drank at all this past week :) :) He`s been resisting like crazy all the invites from his buddies and what not and he`s doing really well. They`ll be getting married and baptized here in just a few short weeks :)

Andres, Veronica, and Alexis are doing fairly well. We were working like crazy with them to have them ready for the end of this month, but it just wasn`t working out. There`s still some small doubts to resolve with Veronica, but we`ll keep working with her and her son and uncle and they`ll all be ready to get baptized together on the 9th of November :)

Well, today officially marks the start of my second to last transfer. Kinda weird to think about, but it`s time to accept reality. There`s really little time. I was working last week and I started to think about how I`ve entered into the `soak zone` of my mission where I know how to do the things in the most effective way and it`s just a matter of doing it. I`m just soaking up every minute of all of this because I know that shortly it`s all gonna come to a close. Let the soaking begin :)

I love you all so much. You will all be very present in my prayers this next week especially a very special sister of mine. Love you so much sis!

Soaking it up,

Elder Nilsen