Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 7:09 AM

Well I'm not really sure where the week went... I don't even remember hardly a single thing we did this week. Last P-Day we did make some pretty sweet hunting knives with Angus Wright out of some railroad spikes. That was a pretty great time. Oh and we taught FHE at President Bartlett's home and it was super fun and went really well. We taught about Prophets and played a little game with them and their 5 kids. 

 

This week we were able to contact a less-active Spanish guy in our ward. He just got back from his mission like 3 years ago. Now he is going to come with us to go teach one of our investigators (also a Spanish guy) this week so I am super excited for that. Hopefully our less-active ward member will feel the spirit so strong that he starts coming back to church. That would really be a huge miracle and I'm praying my heart out for it. 

 

We've been having a pretty tough time finding new investigators lately. We've been asking for referrals and street contacting and contacted less-active and part-member families and we just aren't getting anything. But sometime along the way all our hard work will pay off. We have quite a few potential investigators who just aren't quite to the point of being taught yet.

 

There is a family in Jamesport that came in contact with the missionaries in Gallatin. The family even went to church in Gallatin with those missionaries. The problem is that they live in our area so now we have to try to get them to develop friendships with the members over here and come to church here in Trenton which is almost 20 miles further away from them than the Gallatin building is. Sometimes ward boundaries are just really annoying. But anyways, we will be working with them starting this week so I am looking forward to that.

 

 While I've been out in the boondocks I've been able to see a lot of super pretty country. It's been making me think of a scripture in Alma 30:44 which says "...all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it..." I know that our Heavenly Father created this world for us as a place for us to grow and to learn and gain experience and as a place for us to develop eternal family relationships. Everything around us is truly a testament that our God loves us. He has blessed us with so many beautiful things in our lives all for the sole purpose of providing us with joy and happiness.

 

Well that's it for the week folks. Make it a great week! I love you!

 

       -Elder Nyholm

 

P.S. Transfers are on Thursday so next week you get some news :)

 

 

Sent: Monday, May 11, 2015 6:58 AM

 

Well there's not much to talk about today because I already talked to you yesterday. This week we just did lots of service and stuff so that was pretty fun. Today for P-Day we are going to the Wright's in Cainsville to make knives out of railroad spikes so we should have quite a bit of fun.

 

If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute. When I got on the phone with you yesterday it was pouring rain. It was raining so hard that I almost had to stop on the highway because I couldn't see in front of me even with the windshield wipers going as fast as they go. Not to mention the lightning that was hitting right close to us. Well, by the time I walked outside after talking to you, everything was dry, blue skies and white clouds, and probably about 70 degrees. Honestly, just wait a minute, the weather will change.

 

We found 2 solid new investigators this week. We were getting in the truck and we saw a guy across this big field. Usually if we walk up to someone and they see us coming then they just yell at us to go away. With that in mind...

"Hey Elder Wright, do you want to go talk to that guy?"

"Well not really, he'll see us coming"

"Yeah, then he'll yell at us and it will just be a waste of time"

"And it's getting dark so he won't want us to be walking up on him"

*Thinking for a minute*

"Well lets just go talk to him. Worst that can happen is he'll tell us to go away"

So we went and talked to him and he was actually super nice. Turns out that his Dad was a Branch President in a town about 40 miles away and this guy really likes the church even though he grew up Catholic. So now we are teaching him. The miracles that come from Talking to Everybody, even when you really don't want to.

 

During the week I read two scriptures that I really liked. The first, Hebrews 12:11 says "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." I was thinking about how the Lord often chastises us, either through trials that he allows to be placed in our path, or through the words of those around us such as our parents. Each one of us has times in our lives when we feel we have been chastised and I know that often times those are the times when we have made a decision to become better and improve our character. In addition, in D&C 95:1 the Lord says "whom I love I also chasten that their sins may be forgiven, for with the chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation, and I have loved you". I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and as a result is willing to chastise us to help us to change in order to keep us safe from temptation and trial.

 

Well that's it for the week. I Love You! Make it a great week!

 

    -Elder Nyholm

 

These are pictures of my $1.25 suit, a plant with purple flowers that is supposedly a weed (Prettiest weed I've ever seen), and my fried chicken that I didn't burn :)

 

 

 

Sent: Monday, May 4, 2015 6:38 AM

 

Well I'm not quite sure where the week went. It just kind of flew by and now I'm sitting at this computer again writing another e-mail. It kind of feels like I was just sitting here a day or two ago. But here goes :)

 

This week our District Leader (Elder Edginton) taught me how to make BBQ pork tenderloin and fried chicken. So now I can hard boil eggs, scramble eggs, make BBQ pork, baked chicken and fried chicken. I'm really moving up in the world of cooking huh? The only problem is that I "Know" how to do it but I'm not sure if I "Can" do it. Hopefully I'll have a few practice runs this week.

 

Our dinners with Part-member families and investigators went super great. It's not really super usual to have dinner with families that aren't members but I have no shame asking people to feed us so it's kind of normal for me haha. Yesterday we didn't have a dinner appointment so I called one of the families in the ward. The husband picked up and I asked him if we could eat dinner with them. He told his wife that "the missionaries want to eat with us". She picked up the phone and said "Elder Nyholm, you are the only missionary who would ever call for a meal if you didn't have an appointment". I just thought it was funny that she knew it was me rather than Elder Wright before she even picked up the phone hahaha. But man, Sister Bailey does a darn good job cooking :)

 

This week I went on exchanges in Gallatin again. This time I was with Elder McLaws. We had a good impromptu planning session and a few good visits. We had to go pick up our dinner from the family that lives by a huge lake up near Gallatin somewhere. It was a way pretty drive getting to their house. You can actually enjoy your surrounding in the boons I guess.

 

There is a thrift store here that has the cheapest prices I've ever seen in a thrift store. Elder Wright got a really nice suit for $1.25 but it didn't fit him so he gave it to me as an early Birthday present. So now I have a sweet khaki? colored suit. Sister Bailey is letting down the hem for me and then I'll be able to wear it. Not bad for $1.25 :)

 

The Branch put on a Spring Concert this Saturday. The highschool choir was there along with the "Merry Messengers" (a group of four 70+ year old people, they were my favorite by far) and also the Ritchie Family from my ward in Shoal Creek Valley. There was a super good turn out. The chapel was full (granted it is a small chapel because it's a branch building) and the majority of people there were not members of the church so it was a huge success. Next month we are putting on a Polynesian Luau. We're going to roast a pig in the ground and have dancers and all that good stuff so we are hoping to have even more people at the building next month.

 

We also had a pretty good chat with Tobie Ropp this week. He's an Amish guy who owns a store in Jamesport and I wanted to know more about the Amish. Well I've found that if you ask someone who isn't Amish about the Amish you just get a bunch of information that isn't true, so we went in and I picked Tobie's brain about what the Amish believe and why they live the way they do and stuff like that. So now I know quite a bit more about the Amish. I even got him to listen a little bit about the Mormons which I've heard is pretty much impossible with the Amish so it was a good little missionary experience also :)

 

Next week is Mother's Day. Yes I will be calling. I don't know what time yet though. If Elder Wright's parents have church at the same time as you then I will probably call about 1 but I'm really not sure. I will probably call in the morning just to give you a better estimate. But we'll see. It's all subject to change.

 

I've been reading lots conference talks lately (in Spanish to try and keep up on that) from Neil A Maxwell. There are two that I read  titled "Swallowed Up In The Will Of The Father" and "According To The Desire Of Our Hearts". One quote that really stuck out to me was that "To be a man is to desire...what we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity". We will eventually become that which we desire, so it so incredibly important to desire the will of our Heavenly Father just as Jesus Christ was "led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father" (Mosiah 15:7). If we seek to be like God and to accept and do his will, then in time we will learn and begin to do exactly what he requires of us in order to walk back into his presence. That doesn't mean the road will be easy. "Discipleship is a 'contact sport'". But as we go through the challenges that lay ahead of us with continued faith in Jesus Christ, God will shape us into what he wants us to become.

 

That's all I've got for the week. Talk to you soon. Love You! Make it a great week!

 

    -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 7:35 AM

 

This week we had quite a few cool experiences happen. Nothing huge investigator-wise, just a lot of cool stuff. I actually wrote the cool things we did each day in my planner so now I remember them all :) I'm getting wiser I guess. Ok you're right, probably not.

 

So Monday. We went to a member's home in Gallatin (Adam-ondi-ahman is in that ward). They had a giant adult size spinning see-saw, a trampoline, some disc golf baskets and some trees we used to slackline across. I fell off the top of the see-saw about 3 times which was kinda scary but I didn't get hurt at all so it's all good :) I actually probably got about a foot off the seat without falling off a few times. I guess I'm even luckier that I didn't fall off more than 3 times. I also taught myself how to do backflips finally. I've always been able to do front flips but I've always been scared of breaking my neck doing backflips. Well I guess missionaries are protected (to some extent, if we aren't doing anything stupid) so I didn't break my neck and now I can do backflips. That was my big accomplishment for Monday haha.

 

Tuesday we got to go to the Country Cupboard again. Their food gets better every time we go there. We also got taken out to China 1 buffet again and then we were given a gift card to go there again by a member about 5 minutes after we left the buffet. I love chinese buffet and really can't wait to go back again :)

 

Wednesday. I finally got my new bed!!!!! I don't know if I told you, but for 3 weeks I was sleeping on this terrible mattress that felt like I was sleeping on rocks. But now I have a nice soft brand spanking new mattress so I can finally sleep again. Wednesday we also visited a family that lives on a sweet farm right outside of Trenton. It's way pretty out there. Super green, lots of wildlife, deer come eat the food off their picnic table if they aren't watching it close. They have a pond on the property (like everyone else in MO) that have some good size fish in it. It's a sweet place to live.

 

Friday we had a zone service project at the Far West Historical site. We just moved a bunch of telephone poles and wooden platforms, picnic tables and benches, and made a little walkway. It was super fun though and they fed us lunch so that was nice. We were lucky with the weather too because it started pouring a few hours after we left. I guess when it rains that whole place just gets way flooded.

 

On Saturday we had a baptism for Pat Hendrix, a 80-something year old lady that the senior missionaries in our branch were teaching. She was way excited to get baptized and had an awesome experience. The Seniors found her in Brimson (that little town of 63 people) by seeing her ruined porch steps. They asked some people to come out and fix the steps and some priesthood men from the branch went out and took care of it and Pat was super excited and loved the service aspect of the church and wanted to be a part of the branch family. The Seniors asked her to pray about whether the church was true or not and she pointed to her heart and said "I don't have to pray about it. I already know that it's true. I can feel it right here". SO that was the super extra special event this week.

 

Our stake has 15 units in it. Yesterday we had an OUTDOOR stake conference so that the whole stake could be together in one place. It was super cold until about and hour afterwards. I got a good video of the stake president making everyone do jumping jacks during the conference to warm up and stay awake. You don't see that every day haha. But it was a way cool conference and I got to see all the members I worked with while I was in the Shoal Creek Valley Ward :)

 

This week we have 3 dinner appointments set up for non-member or part-member families. We are way excited for those. Everyone is always a little more open to the spirit after a good meal :) It's kind of the same as "The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach".

 

I read a talk from Jeffrey R Holland this last week titled "Cast Not Away Therefore your Confidence" (It's an awesome talk. Read it). He quotes parts of Hebrews 10, which says "After ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions... Cast not away therefore your confidence... For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise... If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him... We are not of them who draw back unto Perdition". We each have challenges that we have overcome and challenges that we have yet to overcome in our lives. But we also have a promise, a promise that if we follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ that God will "make weak things become strong unto [us]". As Jeffrey R Holland says "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until Heaven; but for those who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they come". It is so important that each one of us continues in the path that we have entered, that we do not "draw back unto Perdition". I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and that as we obey his commandments and follow his Gospel that we will obtain the blessings that he has promised us, even unto eternal life.

 

Well that's about it for the week. I hope you all make it a great week. I love you!

 

    -Elder Nyholm

 

 

Sent: Monday, April 20, 2015 8:03 AM

 

This week didn't go quite as well as last week but it still went pretty darn good. We are working really hard on finding new investigators as our teaching pool is quite small. It's hard because we are in such a small town and every other town is 15+ miles away. It's 47.7 miles to one of the towns in the area and we only have 50ish miles to use each day. It makes it pretty rough to work with the members of the ward as well because less than half of them live within a distance that we can actually drive and still stay within our mileage limitations. But it's all good. We make the best of it.

 

Adam-Ondi-Ahman was pretty dang awesome. Super spiritual experience to go there. We had a guy from our ward go with us that knows a lot about the place. We saw the valley overlook, a old burial plot from the native americans, preachers rock, Lyman Wight's cabin foundation, etc. Preachers rock is sweet because someone can talk in a normal voice from there and you can hear them from a 100+ yards away just fine. We are planning on going there again sometime to eat dinner/lunch there are have him show us around some more. We didn't have a lot of time to look around because we were with 16 other missionaries haha.

 

We had a super fun service project this week. There is a family in our ward that needed a transmission replaced on their car. We were able to remove the transmission from the parts car and from the car that needed the replacement and we were about halfway to replacing the transmission when we found out that the motor mount was broken. It's a dang good thing we put a chain on the motor or we would've been squashed haha. But yeah, it was a fun project and we learned a lot about working on cars and stuff and were also able to meet a few people that we are going to try to teach in the future.

 

We had the most spiritual lesson I've ever had this week with Jon Siebenborne (Or Slobbinbean as he calls himself). We watched the ancient 2002 movie "Between Heaven and Earth" with him that talks about the purpose of temples and then just had a super great discussion with him and Bro Jacobsen. You could've cut the spirit with a knife because it was so thick in the room. Awesome experience.

 

We also had  Zone Training this week. I like those because we get to see a lot of other missionaries. I'm not a big fan of all the trainings because it takes so much time out of visiting the people in our area, especially when we have to drive an hour to get to the training. It wasn't so bad in Independence when it only took 3 hours because all we had to do was walk across the street to the church building. When we are in Trenton those Trainings take a good 6 hours out of our day. It's a huge bummer.

 

We ate breakfast at this little restaurant in Trenton called " The Country Cupboard". It's way cheap and delicious food. It's packed for breakfast. We couldn't even find a place to park to get into the place. Luckily we had a member feeding us and she got there early so we didn't have to wait 30 mins to sit down and eat. But dang, that food was good. Definitely a place to stop and eat if you ever drive through.

 

At church this week our Branch President told us a story about a town that had a giant statue of Christ that was partially destroyed in a war. Although the majority of the town was destroyed and many people had no homes to sleep in, the statue of Christ was the first thing that they repaired. The only part of the statue they were not able to find were the hands. In current day, there is a plaque below the statue that says "Christ has no hands but ours". I thought that was super inspiring because Christ truly reaches out to people through us. As D&C says “remember in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple”. When we reach out to those in need we act in place of our Savior and help his work to progress. I know that to be true because I have seen in so many times during the course of my life.

 

Cooking lunch this week. Hahaha... we were fed 6 of our 7 lunches. I only had to cook once woohoo. And when I did, I definitely overcooked the chicken. I made some good BBQ sauce though so I just covered the chicken with that and it tasted great. I don't think I will be so lucky this week :/

 

Well here are some pictures. Make it a great week. Love You!

 

     -Elder Nyholm

 

Picures. Savage Grandma mowing her lawn. Working on the transmission. Elder Monroe (my old companion) and I close to preachers rock in AOA