Week #103 - It's Sacred

Nilsen clan!

Guess what??

DARIO`S GOING TO BRAZIL ON HIS MISSION!!! AHHHHHH!!!!

I`m a little bit excited...can you tell? ;)

Holy cow though, I`m so stoked for this young man! He`s an incredible example to me. His faith and patience are VERY admirable and I can`t believe this day has finally come. WOW! I may have cried a LITTLE bit when he opened his call and found out where he was going. I just had flashbacks of when we first found him, when we were first teaching him, and just all the `firsts` with him. NEVER did I think that a simple little contact on the street would lead to this. Ha...that simple little street contact wasn`t even Dario either! It was his brother! The Lord sure needed us to find Dario. He`s gonna do great things in Brasil ;) Now...just a matter of getting him to the temple before I fly out of here in less than 2 weeks. We`ll see what we can do ;)

Oh hey! Can ya`ll believe that we`re in 2014? Wow! We had a great time on New Years Eve eating a good ol Argentine asado (man I`m gonna miss though!) with a few of the families from the ward here. I may have said it before (or may have said it MANY times ;) ), but I LOVE these members SO much. They`re my family and I`m not really looking forward to leaving them here in a couple weeks. Man. I`m so torn. You have no idea. Argh...so ready to be home, yet so ready to stay. I love Argentina and it`s wonderful people.

 

In other news (not so happy news actually...), Marcelo isn`t going to be ready for the 11th ;( He gave in to old habits and drank a little bit for New Years so we had to postpone the date until the 18th. The good thing in all of this is that he said he felt really bad for drinking. I LOVE to hear that. He`s making changes in his life, replacing old habits with good ones, and learning to recognize the good from the bad. He`s repenting. I LOVE to see people repenting. It`s such a wonderful blessing to see the change in people. Marcelo is a great guy, making some tough changes in his life. He`s doing it with faith though, and he`ll be a worthy convert here in a few weeks ;)

 We had a zone meeting this past Tuesday (my last one...) and at the end me and Elder Palmer, the ZL, bore our testimonies because we`re both pastores (in our last transfer). Actually, Elder Palmer went home early already for school (weird to think that I was ALMOST gonna be there with him), so now I`m the only pastor in the zone here in Merlo. Anyway, he bore his testimony first and then I was up. I knew it was gonna be a tough testimony to share because before I even started I was crying. Wuh oh. Through the tears that I was crying, I just shared a simple, pure testimony of what I know. The mission is such a gift. It`s such a beautiful gift that we`ve got to take full advantage of. It`s the short time the Lord gives us to serve Him and, in the process, become refined and

perfected. Now, I`m not saying I`ve become perfect over the last 2 years, but I sure have come a long way.
I`m a far way off from perfection still, but I humbly feel as if these 2 years have brought me a lot closer to it. This time...wow. It`s just so sacred. It`s so sacred and I can`t believe that it`s ending. Where did time go? Man. Just gotta take full advantage of it this last work week. Let`s go man.

I love you all and I`m so excited to see you soon!

Making it sacred,

Elder Nilsen