On Feb 9, 2015,  8:56 AM

 

Yup we had some crazy weather this week. One day of below freezing with snow and freezing rain and then like 2 days after that it was in the 60's. Missouri has some nutty weather that's for sure. If you don't like the weather then just wait a minute. I'm just glad that we have the car for 2 out of 3 weeks so we will have it for the next two. I'm really praying that any bad weather is done by March. The only downside to the warmer weather is that the bugs don't all get killed so during the summer there will be lots of them. People here tend to exaggerate the seasons though so it probably won't even be that bad. We'll see.

We went to the Temple last Tuesday so that was pretty fun. We went with our Bishop's son Jeremy. It's funny because Jeremy is 33 but he still looks really young so when he brings us to the temple everyone calls him Elder. He hates it though so he takes off his suit coat before he even goes in and grows out some scruff so that he doesn't look like a missionary anymore haha. After the temple we went to the original Oklahoma Joe's, a super good BBQ place in downtown Kansas City.

On Friday we went with Pat and Warren Davies to the Visitor's Center in Independence to listen to Jeremy Guthrie (a pitcher for the KC Royals who is a member of the church) speak about how choices determine destiny. He is a pretty cool guy and passed up a $350 thousand contract in order to serve his mission in Spain. Now he makes a whole lot more than that though so I'm pretty sure he's been blessed for serving his mission. He is a super good speaker. Too bad we had some annoying teenage kids behind us that were talking the whole time. But such is life.

Pat told me that she called you. Yeah they do take good care of us. We visit them every Tuesday. Pat was just baptized about 4 months ago so she enjoys having the extra spiritual messages every week. And yes Pat always wants to know our first names. She is like a Grandma to me and she always feeds us chocolate whenever we go to their house haha. They are an awesome family.

I read Helaman 4:13 and really liked it. Here it is. "And because of this their great wickedness, and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven...". This scripture really made me realize that all of our strength and success come from God. We can really do very little on our own. So when we begin to act as if all our success comes from our own selves and we stop relying on God for strength and support then he does not give that strength and support to us and we begin to be "afflicted and smitten, and driven. Just something that made me realize how much strength we really receive from our Father in Heaven.

This week I got to go on an exchange with Elder Kaafi. He's from Tonga and learned English just in the last 10 months. He is doing super great and is an awesome missionary so I'm glad that I got serve with him, even if it was just for a day. And it just so happens that the day I was with him was the first time he had ever walked in the snow or shoveled a driveway. Fun times :)

Well that's about it for the week. I hope everything is going well for all of you. Thank you for all your prayers and support. I Love You!

        -Elder Nyholm

This is Elder Kaafi and I in the snow

And Jeremy Overson's 110 lb giant German Shepard