Max and Nicolas
Mommy & All,
"Success isn't owned, its leased. And rent is due every day." -JJ Watt
This week was really good. Last Monday we gotta ride in the back of a cop car as the police picked us up off the street to be witnesses and sign papers for them as they raided a house. Funny part was the police station gave them the wrong address haha! So they didn't end up taking anything out and they let us go and we didn't do anything. But everyone gotta drive by and see my comp and I in the back of the cop car like we just got arrested so it was an experience haha.
I made a new friend this week named Nicolas Bran. He is from Colombia, but his half Israeli from his dad. He also speaks 5 different languages, one of them being English which of course is cool haha. He also thought I was from Brazil, like everyone else here, so it was a normal day for me. He showed up at the church last Monday while we were ballin up, and I happened to meet him at the door because of the way the ball bounced. We talked for about 4 minutes and he told me he'd been here in Ushuaia for about 3 days and that he was a member. But then he started trying to tell me where he was staying with addresses and stuff and I still don't know all the street names here, so my comp came and took over and they went off and talked and I didn't see him again for the rest of the day. Tuesday afternoon, we had district meeting. Somehow, Nicolas showed up just a few minutes after us which was really good timing for him. There was 8 of us walking around and getting ready, and right before I started the meeting, Nicolas stopped me in the hall asking if he could talk to me for a few minutes. So we went to another room and sat down. He asked if we could start with a prayer, so I knew it was something serious. After he finished, he looked up at me and the first thing he said was that he just felt like he really needed to tell somebody, and that he had the most trust in the leaders of the church. For a second I thought he was going to start confessing sins to me haha. But he just started to tell me more about him and why he was here. Him and his family are converts and he also served a mission in Colombia. He hadn't been to church in a couple months and that he just felt God was far away. For a long time he'd had doubts about the Book of Mormon and the church that he couldn't find answers to. He told me that's why he was here. That he had seen Ushuaia in a dream and that maybe that's where something was for him. The person he was staying with was an inactive member. Monday night, he told the member he'd been to the church and visited with us. Apparently that wasn't a good thing and this member kicked him out of the house. So he was at the church on Tuesday with all his stuff, ready to go home, but decided to go to the church first and ended up finding us there. After he told me all this, he looked up and asked me if he should stay or go. Nicolas had quit his job, saved money, got his cell phone and money stolen from him but still came. And then he didn't find anything for him and he didn't know why. I didn't know what to say at first. He had a lot of regret about coming. But I thought about his journey, and I asked him if he'd learned anything on his trip. He said he'd learned a lot and also grown as a person. I told him maybe that was it. That there's a lot of things in life that we don't know why we start it, and we don't know the significance of the ending, yet the journey from start to finish is the most important part. And that God knows the reason why. I was able to testify as a representative of Jesus Christ, that God truly loved him as an individual and that God and Christ are with us waiting to give us blessings and rewards. Its just our job to look for them and utilize the things they give us. That all of us live within the light of Christ. Elder Holland once said there is nothing we can do as Children of God to sink out of reach of the Atonement or the love of God. Sometimes it just takes time for us to understand what God wants. I told him to maybe stay a few more days, and maybe even come to church with us. He told me he would stay at least one more day, and also talked to the Branch President for advice as well. I didn't hear from him the rest of the week. Then near the end of sacrament meeting yesterday, he walked in and my heart about left my chest haha because we all thought he'd headed back to Colombia. But after the talks he had, he decided to stay and see what happens. He found a place to stay and got a job as a chef at a brand new restaurant that opens next week. I owe a lot to Nicolas for this talk because he helped me realize really why I'm here through the testimony I was able to give him. I felt like I wasn't only telling him those things, but that I was saying it to my own self and it honestly helped me a ton the talk that we had.
We also had a really really good lesson with Raul and Matilde yesterday. Raul's brother, Hermano Ibausa came with us along with is wife. We sat down and read The Family: A Proclamation to the World. We were able to read it and then explain each part thoroughly. We also congratulated them on choosing to get married which will be really cool. The only thing now that will keep Raul from getting baptized is his smoking problem. So we are doing everything we can to help him with that.
Much Love,
Elder Christensen
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