Week 43

Mommy and All,

"To be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what you are...for what you will become!" -Unknown

Last week was good but pretty tiring. So we were waiting to get that call from Nahuel to tell us what his final decision was on baptism was for last weekend. We had a "barbecue" (Asado) Tuesday and so we decided to call him up and see how he was because if the baptism was gonna happen, we needed to know early because it was a lot of planning. Elder Soto called him and he said he had been thinking a lot more and that we should plan everything for Saturday! We were both so pumped because for us it was kind of a now or never situation with him. So after that we spent the rest of the week planning it out and it was a little hard. There isn't a baptismal font in Perito yet so we had to find a body of water. Luckily about 15 min outside Perito, there is a HUGE lake named Buenos Aires. The other problem was it was a really nice day Saturday so they were expecting a lot of people to be at the lake so we had to find a spot where people wouldn't stare haha. But it was amazing. The lake water comes from a glacier wayyyy down south so the water is really cold but the lake is beautiful with amazing blue water. Then you look across the lake and you see a little mountain range. That is Chile. We were about 31 miles from the Chilean border. Elder Soto got to baptize him and it was really cool to watch and looked really cold haha. But of course the best thing is seeing just the little changes he made one by one to get to that point. Also just seeing how happy his wife was. They are already counting down the days until they can go to the temple and be sealed as a family for Eternity. Presidente Salerno always tells us that is our true goal as missionaries. He tells us that we need to stand in the baptismal font (or the lake) looking towards the temple. Figuratively speaking of course. We don't literally position ourselves to face a temple haha. Nahuel is the first baptism in the history of Perito Moreno.

So transfers happend and of course Elder Soto is heading back to his house in Peru since he finished his mission. It was a little hard to see him go. In the 3 1/2 year history of this mission, I don't think there has been a better teacher than Elder Soto, and he is easily one of the most successful to come through in this time. He's one of the best to ever do it down here on the Patagonia. I also got called to train now. My new comp is Elder Vega from Buenos Aires. He is 20 years old and reallyyy cool. I'll talk more about him next week since we are still getting to know each other. Its already been a long week with all this traveling haha. 

Much Love,

Elder Christensen