Quote of the week:

"The Lord doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called"


Monday, October 31, 2011

Week 13 Santa Fe, Argentina




FAMILY!

So probably the biggest thing that happened this week was a...FLOOD! Haha seriously! On Monday night we were walking and talking and after an appt we went outside and it was POURING SO HARD!! We hid under a little patio thing and talked to a lady for about 20 minutes hoping that it would calm down. Yup, it didnt. We tried calling a taxi but they were busy, so we ran back to the apartment in the rain/waterfall from heaven. We were pretty far from the apartment so we were SOAKED and the streets were already starting to flood! We got back to the apartment just in time to save the others elders stuff that was on the ground. We have a little patio in the back but the drain didn't work so a bunch of water was coming in! After all, about an inch of water was in on the ground. We quickly got their stuff upstairs and then... the power went out. ha it came back on about 20 min later and the rain stopped. Pretty crazy stuff! When I got here I hoped for a flood cuz I wanted to go swimming but after that I think I'm good without floods. Ha

This week my big AH-HA moment in the scriptures was about Jesus walking on water. I was reading in Jesus The Christ, and it said that the apostles had been at sea all night and the storm was so bad that they had barely moved anywhere when in the middle of the storm they saw somebody walking towards them and naturally got scared. Then Jesus said, "Peace be still." And Peter walked out on the water but then started to fall and Jesus saved him, pulling him back up. I never realized how much symbolism is involved in this! Life is full of difficulties, struggles, and challenges and usually when the first sign of help comes we get scared and turn them away. Then we realize that we need their help and boom...peace. But we have to go out on the water a little bit and show our faith. Obviously we dont have perfect faith so we will fall from time to time but I know that Christ will always save us from our struggles and usually lift us higher. We gain peace when we come unto Him because the closer we get to Him. the closer He gets to us. I know that whatever afliction that we go through in this life can be helped through the Atonement of Christ. In Moroni 7:41 It says that we should hope through the Atonement of Christ. But how do we hope through the Atonement? For me it's the knowledge that He has felt every single pain that we will ever feel. That no matter how hard it is, we share that pain with our Brother, Jesus Christ, and through that knowledge we can have hope that it will be ok. I love in Alma 7:11-12, it says that he succors the people according to their infirmities. I know that we can be comforted at any time if we just show our faith and pray for comfort. I know that Christ suffered for everybody personally. I don't know how, but He did, and He knows us personally and loves us personally.

So Diego is doin good! I feel like that he trusts us a little more and he has started reading the book of mormon! We're pretty excited for him! We're not finding much success lately so it's a little rough but it cant knock me down. I know that it's our time to learn and progress. My comp has been a little depressed lately though so I've been trying to be SUPER happy, which I like. I'm a firm believer in choosing to be happy, like I said before. It's so true! My comp gets discouraged easily and his family doesn't write him and that just makes me so sad. I always tell him that he's the beginning of the chain and to look forward. I think I can do a better job at helping him, but It's hard in spanish. haha



So speakin of spanish, It's pretty crazy how I speak it every day for pretty much the whole day. It's a complete miracle. Thank you everybody for praying for me and my ability to speak. I can't understand everything but I feel that I can always get the just of it. I'm improving little by little! It's weird too that I'm actually a missionary. Haha I think of that almost every day. Like, whoa! I'm a missionary! ha

So weird things this week that..were weird. haha
1. We saw 2 dogs that were joined at the hip. One was a big dog and one was smaller. My comp said one time he saw the big dog bookin it down the street and the little dog was just getting dragged on the ground. haha
2. Breastfeeding. Other elders had told me that it's not a big deal here to do it in public but I hadn't seen anybody do it until this week. We were contacting and a lady let us in and we were just talkin to her when her baby ran up crying to her and next thing you know I am looking at the ceiling. Luckily the baby wasn't hungry, cuz that was weird.

We got our hair cut this week too. That was sketchy. There's a lady in our ward that said she'd cut it for cheap so we went. She didn't do perfect but It's all good! No girls to impress so I don't really care. haha

My favorite songs this week are: I will not be still by Kenneth Cope and Every Word by Debra Fotheringham.

Thank you everybody for all your support and love. I love you all so much and count your blessings! We're so spoiled in the U.S.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Elder Hjelmstad

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