week 32

"I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." -Lily Tomlin

I wanna start by sending my condolences to the Heaton Family. One of my Best Friends Hal Heaton, passed away this week. He was just like another grandpa to me. Anyone who ever had the chance to sit and talk with that man was blessed. I now carry him here in my heart as well. We were supposed to hit the golf course when I got back. So we will golf in the next life, I have no doubt.

On Wednesday, we got the chance again to sit down and talk with Javier. We really just sat and talked about our lives, our purpose as missionaries, and just how our message can really just affect and change his life. We have really gotten to know him, and he is one of the greatest people I've met during the mission easily. He really likes to hear my adoption story and asks me about that often. How he will invite us into his home and sit down and talk with us for hours about everything is really amazing. He has been one person who is really grown my testimony that this is the true work of Christ. How can a 19 yr old black kid from the U.S. who has only lived in Argentina for 5 1/2 months, and a 45 yr old Argentine man who has never been to the U.S. outside of what he has seen on T.V., sit down and have a real conversation about life, sharing life experiences with genuine thoughts and feelings? In my mind, a divine power from somewhere HAS to be involved to make that happen haha. He has also almost read all of the Book of Mormon. Another good thing we found out about him from the other missionaries is that he actually doesn't need to get divorced to get baptized. Him and his girlfriend (the lady in our ward) don't live together. So really he only needs to get divorced to be legally married which from what it sounds like is coming soon. So we will be talking with him a lot about a testimony and baptism before he leaves on vacation for a few weeks. 

On Thursday, we had a great ward activity up at a camp site. Javier came, and he ran around and played soccer and just did everything with the ward which was great to see. He is honestly just another part of the ward, just without baptism. Most everyone just calls him "Hermano" already haha because he literally comes to church every week, has members over at his house ever week for Family Home Evenings, and is honestly more involved in things than some members haha. He is great with everything, but just really hesitates when we talk about baptism and we are honestly not sure why yet. I also made a new friend on Thursday. His name is Ezequiel and he works at a kiosco on that camp ground. A member introduced me, saying that we would get along well and they had been talking religion. Well we did end up getting along pretty good haha. He is 18 almost 19, likes to play basketball when he can, and plays rugby. He has seen a little bit of Football and had a ton of questions for me haha. He was shorter than i was but super ripped and he asked me what position he would play in Football. I told him he would make a great 4-3 middle Line Backer haha and my Comp agreed. He even threw the football around with us. He had also never heard of Joseph Smith or The Book o Mormon, so of course he asked me to preach to him. He was baptized Catholic and attends his church when he can, but he has a lot of stuff going on. He even shared an experience with us that he had only talked about with his girlfriend. His parents don't even know. Again, how we are able to gain peoples trust in so little time is another small miracle of doing Christs work. We talked for about 3 1/2 hrs and by the end he asked for a Book of Mormon and even started reading it! He lives in Rada Tilly which is far from my area so I may never see him again, but I told him to call if he had any more questions.

Much Love,

Elder Christensen