The Living Water          

Elder Albrethsen

Colonia, Uruguay    

Comp: Elder Olsen

Monday, 2 January 2012

So, we had some great experiences this week although we had a rough time considering that it was Christmas and New Year’s this past week.  And we still have one festival to go, Dia de Reyes (Day of Kings) which is like Christmas and honors the wise men. I remember last year these two weeks were super rough going out to work and it was unbearably hot. But despite that, it’s great here—I’m stoked to be in Colonia for the summer. It’s the coldest place in the country haha! I love it!

We did have a cool experience yesterday. While finishing up work for the night, we were on the way home and realized we were a couple contacts short of a hundred, which is pretty hard to get in this country, haha.  We kept knocking and people just don’t give you the time of day, unfortunately.   We knocked a lady’s house and she came out all ready to say “no.” I just asked her, “Why does everyone hate us?” She kinda stuttered a response to my question. (I was frustrated.)  I went on to rant a bit, saying, “We have one of the world’s greatest messages and it’s all about happiness and Christ and here it is Christmas! And no one wants to talk.” She seemed stumped too!  She let us talk out front for ten minutes and she accepted a baptismal commitment to get baptized when she knows the message is true!  We were stunned! It was great!  A whole day of knocking doors and we finally got a break! It was great! 

I did divisions with Elder Wilson this week in Carmelo, which is like a one-and-a-half-hour bus ride away. We had quite the epic experience!  We got chewed out by an Argentinian, haha.  We decided to go to some of the most random ghetto and off-the- wall places to see what we could find and we ended up finding this run-down beach house with a bunch of guys just chillin there.  They weren’t that interested, but they had a well to get water from and my comp (Wilson) was like, “Dang! I want some well water! That stuff is like pure deliciousness!”  We both agreed on it and lamented the decision for not asking him for some.

An incredible coincidence!  Later we were out knocking at 2:30 in the afternoon and nobody was accepting us. We just got rejected from a house and turned around to see a car pull up and someone waving us down. So we went up to talk and turns out it was an American visiting his old mission (justo).  He served in the very area we were working! It was cool! He was here 11 years ago and the same things were happening then, haha. It was especially cool ‘cause he was from Utah! I can’t remember from where, but he was a civil engineer or something of the sorts and was currently working on a BIG project haha.  Mom, you´ll get a kick out of this one…

So who´d a thought that while out knocking doors in South America I would run into the very man who was in charge of one of the bigger projects that’s happening in my city back home, haha.  My mom has sent me emails about our canal trail that has a pretty awesome river (canal) of water flowing next to it. They are piping it and I ran into the project manager, hahahaha.  We had a good laugh about it.  He explained that the canal was starting to leak in lots of places so it was time to pipe it for the better.  But . . .  on other side of the world!!!!

That’s the second time!!  When I was in Montevideo, I talked with a millionaire who worked for a call center company in Utah that was setting up a new branch in Montevideo. I worked for his rival company, haha.  We had a good laugh about it before Sacrament meeting started.  Some of the craziest things happen on the mish, haha. I love it.

Answer to a small prayer:  After talking with our friend who is over the canal project (I don’t remember his name . . . sorry) we kept knocking and getting rejected all day!  As we worked, we kept talking about the well water!  We were super thirsty and took a moment to sit and rest and take our shoes off and admire our blisters on our feet.  After talking about how discouraging our day had been, we just sat and wondered if we´d ever have some success.  We got up and knocked the corner house and (justo) a guy answered the door and let us into his backyard and gave us some fresh water . . . from his well!  It was a small prayer answered hahaha. We had a good lesson and we had the opportunity to teach him about Living Water and he well might get baptized.

                                                                                                                                    

All in all, a great week!  Can’t wait to see what happens next week!

The church is true!  Prayers do get answered!

Elder Albrethsen

                        Living Water                     

                  to Quench Spiritual Thirst

                                     Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

These latter days are a time of great spiritual thirst. Many in the world are searching, often intensely, for a source of refreshment that will quench their yearning for meaning and direction in their lives. They crave a cool, satisfying drink of insight and knowledge that will soothe their parched souls. Their spirits cry out for life-sustaining experiences of peace and calm to nourish and enliven their withering hearts.  The Lord provides the living water that can quench the burning thirst of those whose lives are parched by a drought of truth.

  (To read his talk, go to http://lds.org/ensign/1995/05/living-water-to-quench-spiritual-thirst?lang=eng)