Sent: Monday, September 7, 2015 8:05 AM

 

Hey Everyone!

 

This week has been awesome. We've had a few miracles and some really fun times. The week, yes again, just flew by. I don't really remember anything that happened because time just gets all mashed together now haha. So it's a dang good thing that I wrote down some of the important stuff that happened this week. Hopefully I'll get it all :)

 

Number 1. The police here are horrible. We were sitting outside in the car trying to figure out where we needed to go and a policeman came up to us. Here's how the conversation went...

   "Can I ask what you are doing here?"

   "We are missionaries for our church and we are just figuring out where we need to go next"

   "You know you only have 15 minutes left right?" 

   "15 minutes until what?"

   "15 minutes until you have to stop knocking on doors. Do you have a permit to do this?"

   "We aren't solicitors... We don't need a permit..."

   "If you are going door to door then you are solicitors and need a permit. Next time I see you doing it I will give you a fine if you don't have a permit. You can go to City Hall to get a permit"

   So then he left. I was pretty positive that we didn't need a permit but we figured we'd check it out anyways. So the next morning we went to city hall to explain the situation and find out what we needed to do. The people there said that the policeman didn't know what he was talking about and that we needed to go to the police station for permits. So we went to the police station and they told us that the policeman didn't know what he was talking about and that we didn't need a permit to proselyte. Haha the Lord wins again. And now we have a paper from Police Station so that we can prove that we don't need a permit in case he decides to be a jerk again :)

 

On Tuesday I went on exchanges to Harrisonville. Not too much interesting stuff happened there. We did find a super cool single mom named Christie who really wants to learn more. So hopefully those missionaries will follow up on that and be able to help her progress. I also got to see the Kelleys again while I was in Harrisonville. Brother Kelley is a Gospel genius and has an entire library of church books. It's pretty sweet. And any question you have about the Gospel he can just pick out one of his books, open to the page where your question can be answered, and boom... You read it. We used to go there quite a bit when I was in KC3 so that Brother Kelley could help us answer questions from our investigators that we didn't know how to explain.

 

On Wednesday we got to teach Erica at the Laudies home. Erica is an investigator that we found about a week ago, the one who we found when we went to the house for second lunch/dessert ;) the lesson went super well and she committed to be baptized on October 10th! To make it even better, she came to the baptism of one of the Laudies kids on Saturday and LOVED it. She wasn't able to come to church this last Sunday but is planning on being there for sure this week. We are super excited for Erica. She is an awesome lady :)

 

We've been able to meet a few times with Kaila and Bruce. I met them when I was on exchanges here in Lees Summit 2nd Ward about 8 months ago. Kaila is Filipino and makes SUPER good food. I guess back in the day she used to feed the missionaries the leftovers almost every day but then a missionary said something really dumb to her and she never let the missionaries back in again. But yeah, we re super stoked to be a let o get back into their home and talk with them some more. They are an awesome couple. And I'm really hoping that Bruce gets a deer during the bow season because he said that he'll let us come over and butcher it with him :) 

 

On Friday Elder Parris came here on exchanges. He is such a solid missionary. It was super fun to be on exchanges with him. I think he's been out for about 11 months right now and he's just killing it. Super dedicated and diligent and an awesome example to me. The bummer is that most of our appointments fell through and there weren't many people home while he was with me so it didn't feel like a super productive/successful day. But it was still a great day and we did all we could so it was OK. 

 

On Saturday we set up a lemonade stand here in Lees Summit. We were giving out free lemonade and Books of Mormon in an effort to get some more new investigators. I think the street we were on was just too busy for people to stop though so only about 5 people actually talked to us and we only got one new investigator. On the plus side, we didn't get and doors slammed in our faces and everyone we talked to was super nice :) I think any day without rejection is a pretty good day haha.

 

Oh and Saturday was that baptism for the Laudies daughter. The older Bro Laudie told everyone a story about how when he was a missionary 55 years ago he baptized a 19 year old girl and her family and then got transferred the next week. Two weeks ago, Bro Laudies grandson was doing proxy baptisms at the Nauvoo temple and one of the temple workers heard the last name "Laudie" and asked the grandson if he knew Bob. He said "Yes, that's my grandpa". It turns out that this temple worker was the 19 year old girl that Bro Laudie baptized 55 years ago! She had been looking for him the whole time so that she could thank him for baptizing her and her family. So when they say that your service as a missionary will change others for a lifetime they are serious :) 

 

A quote that stuck out to me this week was this "Temptations are necessary for our advancement and our development. 'When temptations come to you, be humble and prayerful, and determined that you will overcome, and you will receive a deliverance and continue faithful, having the promise of receiving blessings'." As a missionary I get asked pretty often why God gives us temptations if He loves us so much. The truth of it is that we become more like God as we face and overcome temptation and trial. We develop more faith, more hope,more obedience, etc,man we face and overcome those temptations. Christ did the same thing when It was said of him that he would "take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12). I know that as we face temptations with faith that we will be given strength to overcome them and will become what our Heavenly Father needs us to be. 

 

I think that's about it for the week. I love you. Make it a great week!

 

   - Elder Nyholm