Dear Familia,
That´s a little bit
smaller now, but I know that however spread all over the globe we are, we are
still united, and we are all still striving to do our best to live the perfect
life plan, the gospel. Don´t worry about thinking about when I come home, just
try not to mention it too much to me ;) Share with me how your lives are, what
your doing, whenever my friends start coming home tell me about that. My group
is very small, but the zone leader that is over the stake that houses the
offices is from my group, Elder Bullock. He tried to tell his zone at the
welcome meeting at the beginning of the transfer that he had 17 months in the
mission (this was last month) had to correct him, feeling old, and trying not
to rush the time by.
Well, my companion has
14 months in the mission, but had been a zone leader from a couple of transfers
before me. He wants really badly to learn to speak English sufficient to go to
the US and to BYU and so he initiates conversations in English all the time. We
probably talk 60-70% Spanish and 30-40% English daily. He speaks very well and
understands a lot more. Together, we are the assistants, which means we do what
the presidente wants, when he wants it done, and in the way he would want it
done. More specifically, we analyze the 12 zones of the mission to see that
what presidente has put forward as principles key to our success are being put
into action. We do that through work visits, through morning visits called
ammonitas, studies visits, and the mission schedule of events like interviews
with presidente and multi-zone conferences.
This month we are
doing the interviews with president, that means that Elder Barrientos stays
with president in the stake building, giving a training on a topic assigned by
presidente, while I go with Hermana Erickson and Hermano Ortega to do room
revisions. The zone leaders for the zone that we visit during the day do
divisions with us and we go see how clean the elders and hermanas have their
rooms. It’s also a chance to see if the living situation fits the standard that
Hermana Erickson has set, revise their suitcases for contraband things, and
verify their language studies.
The first zone we
visited was Magnolias, where I was "born". We visited a lot of the
rooms that I already was familiar with and mid morning we visited the elders in
Buenos Aires. They still have Hermana Francisca as their pensionista and they
live closer now, in a building owned by her daughter and son-in-law. I asked Sister
Erickson for an opportunity to knock on my pensionistas door and she said yes!
I was nervous as all get out but I knocked on the door and she came out with
this giant smile on her face. She remembered my name right away and started
calling her family together to see me. It was a crazy get together and only
lasted a few minutes, but seeing the progress in the family -- their oldest
grandson is ready to leave on the mission and sent in his papers last
week, the baby grandsons are talking and walking respectively and she (the
pensionista) still is working her 15 hour days (we tried to get her to repent of
that, but she enjoys the work and feels the need to be doing something) -- surprised
me.
Apart from that we
gave a training to the ward council members this week on the conversion and
truly being a disciple of Christ, being a shepherd of lost sheep, and receiving
revelation to find out where they have descarried themselves to. The ward is
very very mature, and sometimes it makes it seem a little like a piece of the
US, in that the members are second generation and have a ton of knowledge of
the gospel but aren´t applying it fully. That´s something that´s been a big
theme as of late. We need to move past just having a testimony and try to be
fully converted, members who will sacrifice what is necessary to achieve
eternal life.
Yep, I received the
grad announcement and now as I read about Kolby going into the field I know
I´ve missed a huge phase of maturing in his life. I remember that time, and I
know Braden missed it for me, but I know that the changes I went through had to
happen when I was ready to make them. Kolby will be an incredible missionary,
he has the tools, he has a testimony, and he´s about to gain the knowledge.
I love you all and
hope that this week we can focus on being just that little bit more converted
that is missing to being true disciples of Christ!
Love, Elder Nelson
No comments:
Post a Comment