From: kimberlylseaman
Date: October 26, 2015 at 1:16:15 PM PDT
To: nyholms@gmail.com

Taken on your son's last p-day. He has been such a bright spit for us when he comes in the office. We will both miss seeing him. You did a wonderful job raising him!

 

Elder and Sister Seaman 

From: Luis Tenorio
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2015 3:24 PM
Subject: Returning with honor

 

Dear sister Nyholm,

My name is Luis Tenorio. I had the enormous privilege of being your son's branch president while in the México MTC.
Today I was visiting Minnesota on a business trip when a missionary called my attention  (see the photo attached)
Thank you for having an amazing son who served his Lord well. Great blessings are in store for him and for your entire family.

Sincerely,
Brother Tenorio

Ocotober 30, 2015
Text read:
"I don't know who you are or who they are but was ordered to send this to you.  They're excited."

Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 12:49 PM
Subject: See you Friday!!!

 

This week went pretty dang quick for reasons that are probably pretty obvious :) I really don't even remember what happened this week for the most part but I guess I can give you some highlights that I do remember, but it will probably be pretty short. Sorry. 

 

On Monday last week we were able to teach Dominic again and it went super well. We just talked about the BoM with him and committed him to read it every day so we are praying that he is following up with that. He's an awesome kid and I love teaching him and I'm really going to miss him when I leave. 

 

On Friday we were able to meet with Roy again and it went really well. We mostly just talked about faith and its purpose in our lives and how it can help us to receive answers to our prayers. But the super extra great part is that agreed to let us "practice" the lessons with him so we will have to see how that goes. I don't know if I've told you about Roy before but he is a New Testament mastermind so it super fun to meet with him and learn from him as he strives to learn from us as well.

 

On Sunday we went all over the place and said goodbye to a lot of people and the biggest problem was that I told all of them that I was coming and so all of the them made dessert.... So we had apple crisp, chocolate chip cookies, mint ice cream, chocolate cake, and brownies all after dinner. I was stuffed, but it felt pretty good still haha. I love dessert. 

 

Alma 37: 37 says "Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day." I love the the fact that if we follow Gods counsel in all the we do then we can never go wrong. He will never lead us astray. I know that as we pray to Him for guidance and counsel that He will give us the strength and direction that we need in life to be able to return to Him one day. 

 

This Tuesday we get to go to our wards Fall Festival Chili Cookoff so I will get to see everyone again before I go. So I'm pretty dang excited for Tuesday haha. 

 

As you probably noticed, I'm trying to flood you with pictures before I get home. I hope it's working real good :) I can't think of anything else to write right now so I'll leave you with this for now and add whatever comes to mind during the rest of the day. I love you! Can't wait to see you on Friday! Make it a great week and Keep Smiling :)

 

       - Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 2:02 PM
 

On Wednesday we ran a family history booth at the community college in town. We were able to talk to a lot of young people which was good but not many of them were very interested in family history. I just walked around with a bowl of candy and pass along cards and invited everyone to come over to the booth and learn more. It was fun just going round and giving people candy haha. 

 

Thursday night was Witches Night downtown. We had planned to go street contacting downtown that day without knowing that is was Witches Night so we still went and street contacted. To answer your questions, Witches Night is a night when all the old ladies go downtown dressed up as witches and drink a lot of alcohol. There are some people that go and don't drink though so those are the ones we talked to :) We were able to talk to quite a few people so it was a pretty good night for us. 

 

Saturday we went to a family history discovery day that was really boring. They taught all of us missionaries how to do family history even though we aren't allowed to use family history software. So it was pretty much just a useless time spent in the church building. But after that we went to the Ferrys and helped them chop up wood so that was pretty fun. 

 

In Alma 31:38 it says in respect to some missionaries in the Book of Mormon that "[The Lord] also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ." I love that this scripture doesn't say that our afflictions go away, but that our afflictions will be swallowed up with the joy of Christ. I know that as we rejoice in Christ and his Atonement and do our best to draw close to him that we will have no trial that will overcome us and that cannot be overcome in the joy of Christ. 

 

Well I think that's about it. I love you!

 

     -Elder Nyholm

Date: October 25, 2015 at 5:16:44 PM PDT
Enjoyed a lovely visit from these two Elders this evening! Thanks for sending us your amazing sons!
Best, Carie Skinner and family.

Date: October 25, 2015 at 1:37:00 PM PDT
I'll have to blame Elder Shawgo for the quality. :)  I'm so impressed with your son; they had given me a blessing before my surgery, but as he was saying goodbyes today, I felt there was something else missing. Sure enough, he tuned into the Spirit for what I needed.  -Jim Calkins

 


Date: October 25, 2015 at 12:39:09 PM PDT
Here ya go!:)

Date: October 24, 2015 at 3:26:05 PM PDT
Meant to do this earlier. I did a 5k walk with some of my cousins this morning. Taking Strides against Breast Cancer. One of my Cousins is a 18 year survivor. So I have just gotten a chance to sit down.   -Sister Diana Ferry

 

Date: October 25, 2015 at 6:45:41 PM PDT
I added a few more that my younger brother took when he was playing with my phone.
-Camille

Sent: Monday, October 12, 2015 12:24 PM
Subject: It's been a week

 

So this week was super good and then all of a sudden was super crazy. Tuesday we had exchanges, yes, more exchanges. Elder Leary came here from KC3 and spent the day doing work with me here in LS2. It was a pretty fun exchange and we got quite a bit done. Elder Leary is an awesome guy too so I really enjoyed being able to work around him and learn from his example. I'm also excited to see all the success that he has as he continues his mission. I think he will find that his diligence helps him a whole lot while he is out here. 

 

Wednesday was pretty much just a day full of trying Less-Actives and trying to find new people to teach. A pretty generic day with not much interesting stuff happening and not much teaching happening either because we couldn't find anyone to teach. Bummer.

 

Thursday we had an awesome meeting with a part-member family in our Ward. The non-member, Roy, is an awesome guy that just has a huge collection of knowledge about the Bible. Originally we just started a bible study with him but now every time we go we are able to help him resolve some of his concerns with the Mormon church. Now he is even willing to just study chapters of the Book of Mormon with us. It is definitely a blessing to be involved in helping him to develop his faith. I'm super excited for next week when we meet with him again because we will be eating dinner with him and his wife will be making us (hopefully) Brazilian food because she is originally from Brazil. 

 

On Friday we had Zone Training. Afterwards we went as a district to Ted's, a new Mexican restaurant in town. It was super good, definitely worth going to again. After that went to an appointment that fell through which was kind of a bummer. Our Ward started their Ward camp out that night so we went over there and shared foil dinners with them. Then we left there to go to another appointment. And this is where the week kind of took a big turn. 

 

So we were sitting at this stoplight in the car, waiting to turn left. It was about 7:20pm, so it was dark. Then all of the sudden... WHAM!!! Some Jeep ran straight into the back of our car at the intersection. Lucky for us no one got hurt and it was not our fault at all which took some stress out of the situation. We think the driver in the other car must have been looking at a phone or GPS because she was going fast enough (probably about 35 mph) to total our car and there was no indication that she used her brakes at all. So long story short, no one got hurt, we are riding bikes now, and the work keeps on going :) don't worry Mom, I didn't even get whiplash and my head doesn't hurt :) 

 

So then Saturday was spent filling out paperwork and pretty much nothing got done which really put a bit of a damper on the whole week. And the car is gone so missionary work is just going to be a lot slower in general which is really annoying. On the plus side we still have bikes and those help us get exercise so that's good :)

 

I really like Mosiah 3:19 which says "For the natural man is an enemy to God...and will be...unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child..."  Each one of us has tendencies to disobey God's commandments and to just follow out own will. But as we apply the atonement of Jesus Christ to our lives we can put off those natural tendencies and become exactly what our Heavenly Father needs us to be. We can follow the will of God with exactness, putting aside our own will and instead  following the will of our Father, which will always result in more joy and happiness. 

 

On Sunday we had a good day riding our bikes from house to house and trying people along the way. The Whitney's had us over for dinner and made us some dang good enchiladas. I'm a huge fan of enchiladas, but I still think that Paul and Danielle make the best ones :o 

 

Well that's it for the week. I hope everything goes super well for you all. I love you!

 

    -Elder Nyholm