Sent: Monday, March 03, 2014 9:07 AM
Subject: Cold Week Again :(

 

Soooooooo the weather was awesome. Until it got down to about 0 degrees over the past 3 days. Now it's horrible and cold and icy again. And your boogers freeze in about 15 seconds outside so that's no fun. We had the car last week so we still got to see a decent amount of people despite the cold. This week is bikes soooooooooooo hopefully it'll get warm and the snow and ice will go away pretty quick.

We didn't really get any amazing visits in over the last week. No new Baptismal dates or returning members or anything, which is a bit of a bummer. But we are working hard so the Lord will make it all worth it for us still. There is one girl that we are actually making a lot of progress with. She is 12 and has two older brothers that are members. She really wants to be baptized but her dad doesn't want her to because he doesn't think she is old enough to make the decision. Well we've been talking to the dad a lot lately and he is really starting to warm up to us now. He always gives us juice or something now when we come over and he even told us that he wants to feed us sometime soon. So it's a double win haha. He starts to like us more and we get food ;) So yeah, now that he likes us a bit more, we gave a paper to the girl to get him to sign so that she can get baptized. We will see what happens this week :o Wish her luck!

We also had a companion exchange this week. Those are the best, as long as you aren't the one who has to move all your bedding over to the other house for 24 hours. It's super nice being able to take a 24 hour break from your companion too haha. Also, I was the one leading in the area so I had the opportunity to really take the lead talking/teaching the people (in Spanish mostly) was really helped me out a lot I think. You don't really notice where you are lacking in your teaching/language skill until your companion is depending on you to know what the people are saying. So now I know better what things I need to work on, which is good.

Dad, I think you work more now than you did before you retired. All I hear about is you working on remodeling a bathroom, installing solar panels, improving the Rage'n. I always thought that people who retired just bought a dog, watched TV all day, and played with their grand kids. I guess I was sorely mistaken haha. And mom told me that you "Mr prepared for everything" didn't have a spare tire for the truck. I noticed that you left that out of the letter you wrote to me hahaha. Having a a tire blow out on the highway doesn't sound like too much fun. I'm glad that there was no one around though and that you guys are safe :D

 

Mom/Dad wanted to know how Spanish is coming. It's pretty much the same as before. I can say almost everything I want. Every once in a while I come across things that I want to say that I really just don't know the words for. And even when I talk, it's far from being good Spanish. The people are able to understand what I'm trying to say though so I figure it's good enough haha. Sometimes when I can't find the words I want I have to use a bit of Spanglish too but it's all good because half the Hispanics here speak decent English anyways so they understand. So really the big stumbling block for me is to understand the people still. We talked to a Spanish guy the other day that was drunk (I hope) because I swear he wasn't speaking English OR Spanish, in other words, I have no idea what he was saying hahaha. I can get the main subject or what people are saying but I still don't have enough comprehension to hold a good conversation yet. Poco a poco, that's what they tell me.

So I was studying the other day and I stumbled on a scripture that I had marked in Isaiah 41 that I thought was really cool and really gave me some confidence during the week. It's Isaiah 41:10. Le dice "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness". So it's really cool just to think that God really is with us all the time. If we are lacking the strength to do something that is in line with his Gospel, then all we need to do is put our trust in him and pray and he will strengthen, help, and uphold us. We really have no reason to fear in our lives because we know that we have a Heavenly Father who wants the best for us and really wants to help us in all our trials. So I guess this scripture is really just a comfort and a confidence booster than we can read if we are ever feeling down.

Well that's it for the week folks. Not really much else to talk about this week. I love you guys! Have a good week!

     Love

       -Elder Nyholm