Elder Thomas James Nielsen: The Natural Man

Dear friends and family,

This week has been pretty stressful. I lost three Elders out of the District in 24 hours. Tuesday I got a call from one of the team and he said that he is getting transferred to Wales and that his companion is going home because of a medical issue. So there went two people. On Wednesday we had District meeting with Elder Fonseca, myself and the other team and after that we all went on exchange. So we are biking to a dinner appointment and the phone starts to ring. I thought I am at a red light I will see who it is and then call them back. I look at the phone and it was the Mission President, President Rasmussen, so I answered while I was stopped at the red light. And Before I said HI this is Elder Nielsen, I just said President I am really busy right now can I call you back? He said sure and shortly I called him back and explained that I was on my bike at a red light and he just laughed. But then he told me that my companion, Elder Fonseca, is getting emergency transferred tonight. I didn't know what to say. I was shocked and I asked when does he need to be ready and that could be a problem since we are on exchange. But we worked it out. I now have a new companion, Elder Paton from Australia. It was just a crazy day. I went and picked up Elder Paton and we got back to the flat at about ten at night. So while he unpacked I cleaned the place a bit. Elder Fonseca had been in Solihull for six months so his stuff was everywhere. We torn the flat apart making sure we got everything he needed because we only had an hour to pack. Everything worked out. But other than that it has just been a massive learning curve for me since I have only been in the Solihull area for three weeks and now it is the two of us that are new to the Area. It will work out though.

Below is a picture of a statue that I took this past week and I want to explain why I took the picture. The statue is of a man working with a horse. The man represents the human man and the horse is our passions and natural man. I just looked at the statue and it hit home to me how hard it is to put off the natural man. I have been thinking about this and how we can tame the natural man. And it is through charity. The natural man thinks only about himself and no one else. A charitable man thinks about everyone but himself. It is the only way that we can truly change the natural man and tame our passions to become the instruments that God needs us to be.

I hope that we can all become charitable men and women and be the instruments that God needs us to be to hasten His work.

Love, Elder Nielsen

Pictures below.