Sent: Monday, March 17, 2014 8:41 AM
Subject: I Might Get Booted Out

 

So this week could be my last week here in Rio Kaw. I'll find out tomorrow whether I stay here or go somewhere else. I think I'll be fine with anything as long as I don't get sent to an English area (which happens to some Spanish Elders). I figure that wherever I go I will have the opportunity to grow and learn a ton since I'll be put in a new situation without a Native Speaking companion. It's possible that I'll have one more transfer with Elder Sanchez but I really doubt it. But we will see what happens and I'll let you know next week.

I read your story last week about how you went to the Mocho Branch for some meeting or another and a Spanish lady translated the whole time for you. You said it was probably pretty difficult and I would have to agree. In sacrament meeting we have translators for English to Spanish. When I first got here I listened in the headphones so that I would listen to Spanish instead of English but then I realized it would be even better practice if I just translated English to Spanish for myself. So now I spend the entire meeting translating in my head, and believe me, it is hard. Especially with my limited Spanish skills. But I'm always getting better so that good :D

We have a baptism this Saturday! A 9 year old boy named Jeremy Birdwell. His parents had been less-active so he just didn't have the chance to get baptized, but he will be baptized this saturday by his Dad :D It's awesome because his parents are super motivated to go to the temple to get sealed now so it's just an awesome situation all around. The only bummer is that I might leave here on Thursday so I won't be able to be there :/ We'll see what happens though and hope for the best :D

We had a super awesome lesson this week with a Spanish (Less-Active) lady named Delia Cervantes. We were teaching her about faith (from Ether 12:12,16... Read it!) and I asked her "Do you have faith Sister. If so, can you move a water bottle with your faith?". She responded "Yes, I have 100% faith and I can move the bottle with my faith". So I put my water bottle in the middle of a floor and said "OK. Move the water bottle with your faith in three seconds." She stared at the bottle super intense and then when it didn't move she started blowing at it to get it to move (but it still didn't move). She was really bummed because she didn't get it to move with her faith but then Elder Sanchez asked me if I could move it with my faith. I said yes then picked it up and moved it. It really hit home for Hermana Cervantes because it helped her to realize that faith really is a principle of action. If you only believe, that's not enough. You gotta act.

We did have an awesome week this week for teaching, which is great. 10 lessons with members present and another 12 lessons to less-actives, which is awesome here in this mission. So we are pretty stoked about that. We are on bikes this week, which is a bummer, but we are hoping we will be able to be just as effective. Other than having an awesome teaching week nothing much else interesting happened. But this week will be interesting (maybe) with transfers. I'm kinda looking forward to the day when I hear "You're not in Kansas anymore Elder". We'll see how soon that day comes ;) Anyways, I love you guys and hope all is going well for you at home. Have an awesome week and I'll do the same!

    Love

       -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 9:08 AM
Subject: Awesome week!

 

This this week went pretty stinking well. It started off pretty slow but started to pick up a lot towards the end. We got a lot of awesome lessons in with a lot of awesome people, and the majority of them were with members present in the lesson, which is a missionary's dream. We were on bikes though, which always slows down the week a bit. I don't know if I've told you before but Kansas City, Kansas consists of hills, steeper hills and more hills... So riding a bike here really kinda stinks haha. It's super annoying to get to the top of a giant hill and then to see that you have to go down again and then allllll the way back up. So really if there's anything you need to know about Kansas City, it's that the whole place is hills.

Nothing super interesting happened this week. But the week went really fast, which is always good. You know that you've been staying busy when you get to Sunday and can't remember working through the rest of the week. We did get word this week that in the next few transfers we will have 60% Elders and 40% Sisters in our mission, which is a little crazy if you ask me. I've also become really really really grateful for the opportunity to speak Spanish here because about 2 of the 15-20 new missionaries that come in every transfer are Spanish speaking. So yeah, I'm really lucky and blessed for the opportunity to speak Spanish here.

Quick Spiritual Thought: Ether 12:27And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. It's pretty funny but I've noticed lately that I really love finding the areas of my life that I'm weak in. It's awesome because once you find out about your weaknesses you have the opportunity to improve them until they become strengths in your life. But as this scripture says, God will only help us to make our weaknesses become strong if we humble ourselves before him in prayer and ask him for help, having faith that he will actually help us. As I've been reading and studying I've really come to realize that God won't help us with anything in our lives unless we have faith in him first. We don't see miracles in our lives unless we have faith. We don't receive answers to our prayers unless we have faith. We can not receive guidance or blessings from God, not matter how good our intentions are, unless we first have faith. So to me, it looks like it's pretty important to have faith in our lives. If we don't have faith, let's start to develop it. If we do have faith, let's start making it a little stronger. And the way we can begin to build or increase our faith is pretty simple. Pray, study the scriptures, attend church and follow the other commandments of God. We have a promise straight from the mouth of God that as we have faith in him he will make weak things become strong unto us. Let's make our best use of that promise.

Quick funny story. Elder Sanchez has been learning English for about 10 months now. He's basically fluent but every once in a while he can't understand completely. Well a few days ago we were getting ready to leave our apartment for the day and I asked him "You ready yet?". He thought about it for a while and then responded "You're an idiot!". I guess it was one of those instances where he didn't understand completely or heard wrong or whatever and thought that I called him an idiot hahaha. Made me laugh pretty hard. But it's always a good interesting funny time with someone that is learning the language I guess :D

I don't really have to much more to write about. Just that the week went good and went quick. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to write to me every once in a while. It's really awesome to be able to sit down and read what is happening in your lives. I love you guys!

    Love

       -Elder Nyholm

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

Subject: Awesome week!
Date: February 24, 2014 8:25:02 AM PST

This week was basically the best week of missionary work we've had since I got here. We had tons of awesome lessons and were able to find a few inactive families to teach and got them excited to come back to church again. So yeah, this week was awesome and just kind of flew by. Not sure where it went but I do know that it went great. Also the weather was really warm in the beginning of the week (although it's gotten cold again) so it was pretty awesome for bikes. No snow, to rain, no ice. I love it.

So we were talking to this guy this week (I think he's about 28) and had a great time talking to him, shared a message, etc. Well his Mom is a less-active that we have been teaching and she has told us that all this guy does is go to work and play video games and that he just doesn't have too many friends. Well, we found that out real quick because he never stops talking, which I guess is kinda good because we get to know him and what he needs but at the same time we don't really have an opportunity to teach him anything. But the point of telling you about him is that every once in a while he says some really funny stuff. Like this week he told us that "Heart disease is the number one killer. Retirement is number 2". It made me laugh super hard and made me think of you guys (sorry). So just make sure you stay alive so that I get to see you after my mission ;)

So like I said, this week went by super fast so once again I forgot to write down stuff to tell you about. But on the positive side I still have a little spiritual thought to leave you ;) So Here's Alma 29:9 "I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." This should really be the joy of us all, to help people to repent (or get rid of bad things from their lives) and to help them come unto Christ. We should desire for all people to become the best that they can be, and help them to get there. We can't help people to grow in their lives and to become more like their heavenly father unless we truly desire to help them and show that desire to them through our actions.

Oh. And here's a picture of Elder Sanchez and me at the Kansas City Temple. Thought you might enjoy it.

 

Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 10:13 AM
Subject: it's Warm (Finally!)

 

I love today already. It's a sunny 61 degrees outside and there's no humidity yet. Sooooo it's perfect. We are on bikes this week too so it's pretty nice because we don't have to ride through snow (because there is none). Sorry I didn't write yesterday. The library was closed because of President's Day or something. I don't really keep track of holidays out here so we never know when stuff is going to be closed haha.

This week was pretty stinking awesome. We had a zone conference so it was like 90 missionaries in a chapel and we had a member of the seventy (Elder Martino) speak to us. A lot. He told us a lot of awesome stuff but I'm just going to touch on the highlights. There's a few so here we go.

1) "If it is to be, it is up to me." 10 words 2 letters each with an awesome message. Elder Martino was talking about this in terms of marriages/companionships (because missionary companionships are basically unwanted marriages). Anyways, he was saying that basically if we want to improve relationships we need to initiate things to make them better. We can't expect our companion/spouse to just wake up one day and decide that they want to be best friends with us. We really need to work to provide service or other acts of love to make those changes. Really short message and really easy to remember. "If it is to be, it is up to me."

2) In terms of Jesus Christ and missionary work. Christ took upon him the sins/pains of the world in the Garden of Gethsemane (accomplished the Atonement). Christ was also the son of God and had the power/authority to make anything happen in his life. So what did he do after he suffered in the Garden? Did he go take a break on a nice tropical island? No, he voluntarily surrendered himself to the people of Jerusalem and suffered/died on the cross. He was all in (if you will). In the words of Elder Martino "The Atonement's through, I've got work to do". As member missionaries we really need to be "all in". We can't share the gospel with one friend and then say "I shared the Gospel with a friend, now I get to take a break for a month before I try again". We should always be trying our very hardest to share the gospel with everyone. Don't we want our friends to receive the same blessings that we have received from the Gospel? If you do then what are you waiting for? Get out there and share it.

3) Love people first, ask questions later. People don't care what you are doing for them unless you do it with love. Make sure that the people you are serving know that you are serving them because you love them, not out of a responsibility that you have. As a missionary it's a hard thing to do, to love people as soon as you meet them and to have them feel the love that you have for them. But that's really what we need to do. If we are going to help people to become better in their lives then we need to show them that we are teaching them about the gospel because we love them and want the best for them. So love the people you serve before you ask them to change their lives. Without feeling love, they aren't going to listen to you anyways.

Ok I'm going to tell you fun stuff for the week. We were talking to a less active on her doorstep while she was cooking dinner for her family. I didn't really understand why she was cooking outside on a 30 degree day. So she brought out some chilis and my companion told me "Elder, people have died from those". Well duh, they're chilis so they are probably really spicy right? So she started cooking them and then I realized that Elder Sanchez had backed up a bit, my throat kinda hurt a little, and then I realized I couldnt really breath very well haha. Sooooooo I guess the smoke from chilis de arbol kinda makes it so that you can't breath super well and that's why people have died from them. So definitely don't cook those inside and make sure that you aren't breathing in the smoke from them haha.

Yesterday a crazy thing happened. I didn't want to eat food. I guess that's what happens after you eat a big meal of Mole for lunch at 4:00pm and then a Sister in the ward feeds you a big dinner of chicken and rice at 6:00pm followed by a dessert from a family you are teaching at 7:00pm. I can't decide whether I want for experiences like that or not because on the one hand we get lots of delicious food, on the other hand you stomach hurts a bit from eating it all. That's another problem I've found with Hispanics too. They dish up your food for you and always dish a lot and then you MUST eat it. I do have to admit though, I pushed a little (about a quarter) of my food onto another Elder's plate (He had eaten just as much as me and was just as full) when he went into the kitchen to get water. So he had to eat even more food so I kinda feel bad for him. He's a good sport though and ate it all without saying a word. Good sport huh?

Congratulations Erin on you new baby :D I'm pretty bummed that I can't be there to see her but mom sent me some pictures and she looks pretty cute despite being a newborn haha. Anways, send me some more pictures of her over the next few weeks if you would :)

Hope you guys (and girls) are all doing well at home. Have an awesome week :D

    Love

      -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 9:01 AM
Subject: 1 Transfer Down

 

This week was the weirdest week I've had on my mission by far. Not because anything really strange happened, more because NOTHING happened. It snowed all day Tuesday so we couldn't go outside. Tuesday the temperature was below 0 so we couldn't walk. Wednesday was about the same but we left for about 30 mins to visit someone. Thursday, Same. Friday we actually got out and taught some lessons and found some new investigators. Good day. Saturday was too cold to leave again. Sunday it was too cold and snowed again so we could leave... So yeah, pretty much a super bummer week. I did have plenty of time to read, write, study, and most importantly, eat :D

So needless to say. I really don't like snow. I kind of despise it actually. Also because we were stuck inside most of the week I really have just about nothing to write about. Hopefully some thoughts will come to me in the next few minutes haha. I'll give you a spiritual thought while I think.

So yesterday while I was stuck inside studying/reading I found a cool scripture in Jeremiah (where I think I've never read in my life before). So Jeremiah 29:12-12 Says "Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye search for me with all your heart". So the two points that I really thought were awesome. 1) If we pray to God, he will hear us and "Hearken" unto us, which in my mind means that he will work with us to bring about our desires, assuming that they are in line with his will. No strings attached. We pray and he answers us and helps us. Simple as that. 2) If we want to FIND God (Know his will, have a relationship with him, know what he wants of us, etc) then we need to search for him with "all our heart". We can't know God and his desires and plans for us unless we really give him our all, unless we study,ponder, and pray. If you want to know a person you cant just talk to them one time and automatically know them. You need to spend time with them, serve them, listen to them, and eventually you will become acquainted with them through hours of conversation throughout weeks, months, etc. And so it is with God. If we truly want to know him then we need to spend time on our knees praying to him. We need to serve him by serving our fellow men. We need to listen to the guidance that he gives us throughout our lives. So if you really want to know God and what he has planned for your life, give the time and effort needed to develop a relationship with him.

So I had written some stuff in my planner to talk to you about but I switched planners because its a new transfer so I don't have them :/ One of the things that I can remember though. Last Monday, before the weather went bad, Elder Sanchez and I rode our bikes to a house. There was still lots of ice on some of the roads so it was pretty fun and scary at them same time. It was fun because you could "drift" around corners kind of how you would in a car if you pulled the e-brake in the snow. So that part was just awesome. The scary part is that sometimes you would start to slide without meaning to so you would almost fall. My bike was sliding left and right over just about everything so I had to be pretty careful and ready to put a foot down. So yeah, pretty scary but at the same time pretty darn fun.

The Spanish. I don't think I've told you about it in a while so Ill take the time right now to talk about it. So right now is a pretty frustrating time with Spanish. I understand just about everything I read. I can say just about everything I want (although sometimes it includes some Spanglish, but the people still understand). The only problem is that I have the worst time understanding what other people are saying to me. I've started listening to Conference talks and watching movies in Spanish during my language study just so that I can practice listening so hopefully that will help a bit. Speaking of Spanglish, heres a good phrase that you can say with words that are not even close to Spanish but Spanish speakers still understand. Yo necesito a parkear mi troka en la yarda. You've probably figured our that it means "I need to park my truck in the yard". The problem is that the real way to say it is "Necesito a estacioner mi camineta en la cochera". But yeah, Spanglish is way better than Spanish ;)

So thats it for the week. I hope all is going well for you at home :D Love you all!

  Love

     -Elder Nyholm

Subject: Bummer Sunday

Date: February 3, 2014 9:31:08 AM PST

So all went well this week. We had the car so we didn't have to walk or ride bikes which just feels awesome after spending the last 5 weeks basically freezing. But now we are back to walking this week and it's a lot colder this week than last so... yeah it kinda stinks haha.

So the subject of this e-mail. Bummer Sunday. We were supposed to baptize Marcos this Sunday but then last minute on Sunday he went to work and told us that he just wants to stay with his old church. We were pretty bummed because we had been looking forward to his baptism for about a week now. I think we just need to spend some more time with him and teach him a bit more. He'll come around soon enough, especially because he lives with a returning member who has tons of support for him. So hopefully he will be on date again this week.

Food. The next time you go to a taqueria you need to try tacos de lengua. I would never have tried it before my mission (because lengua is cow tongue) but I've just been sorta trying everything I can since I've gotten here. Anyways, I think tacos de lengua are the best tacos you can get. I've basically tried every kind of meat in the taquerias now and I really think that lengua is my favorite. So give it a try. I think you'll like it ;) Just don't pay attention to the fact that your eating a tongue hahaha.

Spiritual thought time. Alma 48:11-13, 17. And Moroni was a strong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect understanding; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the freedom of his [family], and his brethren from bondage and slavery; a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God, for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his [family]; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his [family]. He was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ, and he had sworn with an oath to defend his [family], his rights, and his country, and his religion, even to the loss of his blood. (17) Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.

So I read this section the other day and just said "Wow". We have a list of exactly how we need to act in our lives to be good examples and to make sure that the devil never has power of the hearts of our families. It's awesome because this is basically a promise from God that If we act in the manner of Captain Moroni that we and our families will never be able to fall into the grasp of the devil. I guess what we need to do is check ourselves against the qualities that Moroni had and make sure that we are doing well in each of them and if we are not then we need to change our lives so that we ARE doing good in all of them. I'm not going to say more about it. Its pretty self-explanatory haha.

There was a chance that my training would get cut short (12 weeks down to 6 weeks) so that I would go train another missionary but I'm not so I'm pretty excited. I really love the area here so I would be really bummed if I had to move out already haha. The people in this area are really amazing and super nice to the missionaries, and I've been told that its the best area to serve as a Spanish speaking missionary so I'm pretty glad that I get to stay here a while longer. I think we only teach about 1-2 families a week that speak English so its a pretty good opportunity for me to learn too. Anyways, that's it for the week. Not much new :/ Talk to you next week :D

     Love

        -Elder Nyholm

Subject: Baptism This Week (We Hope!)

Date: January 27, 2014 8:54:14 AM PST

There wasn't toooooo much interesting stuff that happened this week so I don't have a ton to write about (Sorry). All is going well here although the temperature just dropped from 60 to 10 last night so its a little chilly now. We actually did have a decent amount of success in terms of missionary work which is super exciting. Ive come to learn that Sunday's are either the best of days or the worst of days for missionaries. Basically, its great when you have investigators and less-actives that you've been working with for the whole week come to church. This week we did pretty good in that department with 3 Investigators and about 7 Less-Actives. On the other hand, Sunday's can be pretty horrible when the none of the people you've been working with show up so you feel like your week was a little wasted. Hopefully I don't have too many of those haha.

So we did set another baptismal date for a guy named Manuel that we've been working with for a few weeks. He actually studied to be a preacher or something at a university for 4 years so he pretty much knows the Bible front to back. He loves reading and learning more and he's actually been reading the BoM, D&C, and Teachings of the Presidents. His big road block with us is that he feels that he needs to read and learn more (which is understandable) before he is baptized so the his baptismal date (15 Feb) is pretty generous I think. So hopefully we can get in some good teaching appointments with him and get him a little more committed.

We are having a baptismal service this Sunday for Marcos Evangelista :D He is a super awesome humble guy, probably about 65 years old, and he's super excited to be baptized. We need to teach him a little more this week but he is pretty much set to go. Elder Sanchez and I are super excited for him. He lives in a house with a Less-Active named Esteban (same age) who is super excited to be going to church again too. Its a win win because Marcos has an awesome fellowship and it looks like the two of them will be really active members :D

This week I studied a lot about prayer and got a pretty cool thought. I was reading Mosiah 24 which talks about the people of Alma getting enslaved by the Laminates. The Laminates wouldn't let them pray to God so the people of Alma "poured out their hearts in prayer". I've always been taught to always keep a prayer in my heart but I never really understood how until pretty recently. I've found that during teaching lessons I pray when I'm not talking that I will know what to say and what to teach. I pray while we are walking that we will be able to find someone who has been prepared to hear the Gospel. I pray while I'm studying that I can find a way to answer the questions of investigators. It's really amazing the blessings and guidance you can receive when you really do have a prayer in your heart. I've learned that as long as you keep that gate of communication open with Heavenly Father, he will continue to answer your prayers. He really is just standing up there, waiting to bless and guide you in all that you do. You just have to be willing to keep a prayer in your heart and strengthen your relationship with him. Again, if you want to see where I got the thought its in Mosiah 24:12-16.

So thats pretty much all for the week. Nothing really super exciting. I do get to start driving this week so we will only have to walk/bike every 2 weeks now which is good. Hope you all are doing great :D Happy Baptism to Jackson too. I'm proud of you bud ;) Anyways, Love you all.

 Love

    -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 2:46 PM 

This week went by quick just like the rest. Sorry I didn't e-mail yesterday. It was Martin Luther King Day so the library was closed :/ also I don't have much time today because we have an appointment to be to in 35 mins. So I'll try my best to be descriptive ;)

Sooooo. I bought a bike last week and I love it. We can get places soooooo much faster now which is awesome because it means more time in houses teaching. Also, the weather was suuper warm for a few days so we were actually able to ride them for basically the whole week. Once it gets below 30 degrees or so we don't ride them anymore because it's too cold to have the wind blowing in your face.

Mom asked me a few questions so I'll do my best to answer them. My companionship is going pretty well fortunately. My only complaint is that my Elder Sanchez doesn't speak as much Spanish to me as I would like (because he's learning English) and that he doesn't understand that other people don't always want to do everything he wants to do. It makes it pretty frustrating some times but it's not too bad compared to how he could be. The language is coming along decent. I can understand most of what people say now but not enough to get specifics. It's like I can understand the general idea but can't get enough to have a response to what they say. It's a bit frustrating but I know that I will understand with a little more time.

Exciting news for the week. Elder Sanchez and I set a baptismal date with a guy named Marcos. He lives with a less active so we are trying to get the less active to be active again so it'll be like a double whammy... baptism + reactivation. So that baptism is scheduled for February 1 which will come pretty quickly so we we'll see what happens :D

Spiritual Thought for the week. I read a scripture this week (Alma 57:19-22) and took some parts from it that I thought went together pretty awesome. Here's how it reads. "But behold, my little band of two thousand and sixty fought most desperately; yea, they were firm before the Lamanites. And as the remainder of our army was about to give way before the Lamanites, behold, those two thousand and sixty were firm and undaunted. Yea, they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them.  And now behold, it was these my sons to whom we owe this great victory; for it was they who did beat the Lamanites". So basically if we liken this set of scriptures to our lives we can see that we are like the 2000 warriors in our day. We, the people who strive to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ have the ability to overcome temptations (Lamanites) in our lives. We just need to obey every word of command of God with exactness and it shall be done according to our faith. As we read our scriptures and pray daily, attend church, keep the 10 commandments and other commandments of God, we will become the people that God wants us to become so that can help lead others to overcome temptations and trials in their lives. We are in a war today, a war to overcome the things of the world and to become more like other Father in Heaven and we can only do these things by listening to his commands and following the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Last thing before I wrap up. We had companion exchanges this week. It was awesome. I was really dreading it because I didnt want to have to work with someone new and have to put up with a new set a quirks that come with living with a new person. But, it actually went really well and I kind of almost wish that I could have my other companion instead haha. That might change if I had to spend more than 24 hours with him but who knows. I guess I just need to keep looking on the bright side and everything will turn out just perfect. Attitude really is the thing that makes things turn out good or bad I guess.

Well that's all guys. Sorry it's kind of a boring e-mail this week. Interesting stuff goes on but I don't write it down and then I forget and then my e-mails are boring. I'll try to do better though :D Anyways, I love you all and hope all is going well back at home :D

        Love

           -Elder Nyholm

 

Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 10:15 AM
Subject: What week is it now?

 

So I've started to lose track of the weeks here now. I can't keep it straight what week I'm in just because they are going by too dang quick haha. This week was especially fast for some reason, not really sure why. Anyways, its about 45 degrees out now so its pretty stinking warm. I'm loving it haha. I'm going to go get a bike today so that I can stop walking around everywhere.

There were two big highlights of this week. The first was meeting John Daylag. He was converted in May of last year but works Sundays so he can never attend church. He still reads the Book of Mormon every day during his lunch break and pays his tithing at every paycheck so he's really an awesome guy. I think its crazy that he has that much dedication when he can't even attend church on Sunday. Oh, and he's a cook so If we go to visit him we get food which is always a bonus haha. The other Highlight was the Diaz Family. We have been teaching them basically since we got here. They have been taught but lots of other missionaries too but the best part was that she told us "I know that the Book of Mormon is true". For a missionary that's just about the best thing you can hear from an investigator other than if they tell you they want to be baptized. So yeah, we are pretty excited about their family. I'll give you an update if anything else happens with them (cross your fingers).

We had a scary moment this week too. We were standing on a corner this weekend waiting for the other elders to pick us up with the car to bring us for dinner. Some super drunk dude came over and asked us what we were doing on the corner. I was a little nervous because he had his hand in his coat like he had a gun (which I'm almost positive he did) and we told him that we were missionaries and that we had a message about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Well after we said that he looks down the street and gives someone a thumbs up. Then he asks us "You guys wanna get killed?" We were like, "noooooo... but thank for asking?" Then a dude in a Cadillac drives up behind us and just chills there in his car and the drunk dude tells us "You can't stand on corners here or you're going to get killed". Soooooooo... we walked away really fast and luckily were OK. Anyways, we won't be waiting on any more corners in Kansas City I guess :o

So the thing that has really hit me this week spiritual wise is that faith requires action. Everyone we teach we ask them "do you have faith? Enough to move that picture in 3 seconds?" They always say that they can't move the picture with their faith. So we say that we have faith to move the picture, Elder Sanchez counts to 3, and I pick up the picture and move it. The thing is, faith without works is dead. People always say that they have faith in Jesus or God or whatever but then they don't attend church, pray, read scriptures, etc. We can have faith in miracles but we will never receive miracles until we show our faith by working our hardest to bring about that miracle first. We just need to remember, God will always bless us AFTER all that we can do.

Dad asked me if I thought that service was a price we pay to receive a testimony/conversion. I don't know that exact way to answer that but I guess it goes along with my little spiritual thought. People can't become converted/gain a testimony unless they work to gain that conversion/testimony. However, I wouldn't really call it a PRICE we pay since we are really just getting more blessing because of it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that yes, service is something we must do to receive a testimony/conversion but it should be something that we enjoy, not a price we must pay.

There's not really much else that I have to talk about. I got a cold last night so its really a bummer but hopefully it will go away quick. Other than that, all is well here. It's warm. The work is going good. We are meeting people. What could be better? I hope that all is going well for all of you at home :D Love you all :D

Love

   -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, January 06, 2014 10:02 AM
Subject: Yeah It's Cold

 

Soooooo the big thing this week is really just the weather. Today it's about -3 degrees outside and we are expected to have about 20 degrees of windchill which brings the total to a whopping -23 degrees. It's great fun. Except not because church got cancelled again and we can't go out and tract because the mission president doesn't want us to get frostbite. I guess it only takes about 8-10 minutes to get frostbite in this weather. So yeah. It's really really really cold here. We should get a heat wave tomorrow though I think which will bring us up to about 25 degrees. A great heat wave huh?

New Years was suuuuuper fun. We got to plan from 9:00-->10:00 and then go to bed at 10:30. Awesome New Year's celebration ;)

Elder Sanchez shared a thought with me this weak about a "Harder Cacoon". Basically, the caterpillar's purpose is to become a butterfly. So it makes a cacoon, turns into a butterfly, breaks out of it's cacoon, and it's good to go. But if someone takes apart the cacoon for the butterfly then the butterfly doesn't build the strength needed to survive because it didn't have the chance to break open it's own cacoon. So it's the same with us. In relation to a mission, the harder your mission is the stronger you get spiritually and the easier life will be after your mission. If your mission is easy then your life will be hard after. It works the same way for everyone no matter where they are in life though right? Anyways, the point of the story is that we all need to make goals that will make our cacoon a little bit harder and therefore strengthen us spiritually. One of our goals here is to write in our journals EVERY night. It's going to kinda hard because I get really bored of writing to myself but at the same time I will be able to look back at it when I get home which will be really awesome. It's kind of hard to explain this concept through a computer so sorry if it doesn't make much sense ;/

Investigator of the week. We met this couple here that have 3 kids but aren't married. The girl (Myra) is a non-active member and the boy (David) isn't a member. Anyways, they were hoping to make enough money this week to be able to get married in 2 weeks so that David could get baptized. It's all bad though because their car just got towed and their house is getting evicted to they are going to have to move (don't know where). It's really a pretty bad situation so we are just hoping that some good luck will come their way. Anyways, they are a super awesome family, super nice, willing to learn, want to follow the Gospel, but just can't right now because of all the other stuff going on in their lives :/

OHHHHHHHH! I forgot!!! We moved this week! We are out of our smoky apartment and into a new much larger apartment that smells good and is just completely awesome. We had to spend like a day and a half moving all our stuff (personal, furniture, kitchen stuff) so we really lost a lot of time that could have been spent contacting people. But at least we are in a place where our clothes don't start to smell like smoke and we don't get headaches every night from the smell :D

I also wanted to say thank you to everyone that has sent me letters of the past few weeks. It's really great to look in the mailbox and actually have something waiting for you. So thank you all for taking the time to write to me :)

There's not much else that has happened here this week. Like I said, it's been cold and church got cancelled so we haven't been able to do a whole lot. Hopefully this week will be more productive. Anyways, Love you all and I hope that all is going well.

      Love,

          -Elder Nyholm

 

Here are some pictures from the CCM that I havent been able to send the last few weeks. Our district with Hermanos Leon/Medina, my favorite food crew, and our friend Pablo that worked in the Comedor.

 

 

 

Sent: Monday, December 30, 2013 9:39 AM
Subject: Into Week 2

 

So this week went by really really really fast... Just like all the other ones ;) Its kind of hard to believe that I've almost been out for 2 months already because time is just going by so fast. Anyways, this week went really good. We had a fair amount of success teaching people although its been pretty hard with the holidays and such. We have a few new investigator families and A guy named Braulio who is investigating the church. He's 17 and he's really a pretty awesome kid. I can't imagine myself taking lessons from missionaries when I was 17 so props to him :D.

This week was also pretty nice because we actually had warm weather. We had a few days that were up in the 50's. It took away all the snow so now we can actually get places without slipping all over the place. Now it's cold again though so that's kinda a bummer. I think it gets up to about 25 degrees or so which is nice but then it drops pretty low at night so its kind of a bummer.

Not many interesting things happened this week but I'll hit some of the highlights. First off, I got to call home and face-time with you guys so that was awesome. It was great getting to see that you were all doing well. Now I just have to wait 5 more months till we get to do it again haha. We also had Christmas Eve dinner with the Bishop. They had tons of food which was great because they had left overs which meant that we got to bring some home. It was good food too so I was pretty excited. We also had a ward Christmas party. It got cancelled last week due to the snow so we had it on Saturday night. It was pretty fun and we got to meet a lot of new people and a few nonmembers which is good because now we have some more people to go see. Then at church yesterday I squatted down to give a little kid a handshake (probably about 2 years old) and he ran up to me and gave me a hug. Super unexpected and I didn't know what to do because as missionaries we are not really supposed to touch kids at all other than for handshakes or high fives or whatever. Anyways, I just thought it was funny because it was the first time this kid has every seen me, and his parents are both Hispanic so I look nothing like them, and he still came up and gave me a hug. Pretty weird right?

So I have two quotes that I really liked this week. One of them is actually from when I was in the CCM but I just remembered it so here goes. Our teacher told us that while we are in the mission field (and throughout our lives) we need to follow the saying "Work like everything depends on You, Pray like everything depends on God". I figure if we follow this advice then everything will always work out pretty good for us. We will never have an idle moment and we will always have the companionship of the spirit. I've found that you can never go wrong with hard work and prayer. The other good quote I found (yesterday?) was "Replace Fear with Faith". We've had a few investigators that have said that they are afraid to join our church because maybe its not the true church or whatever. But this quote can really help them and everyone else. If we have fears of sharing the Gospel with others, all we need to do is replace our fear with faith and everything will work our exactly how it should. There really is nothing to fear as long as we have faith that God is on our side.

So yeah, that's my week in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting going on here but all is going well. My Spanish is coming along pretty well, at least to the point where I can understand a fair amount of what people are talking about. I've found that my biggest weakness in the language really is being able to understand the natives. They speak suuuuuper fast so I'll understand one sentence and completely miss the next one. It will come with time though I guess. Oh, and thank you again for the Christmas gifts you sent. They were much appreciated :D Hope all is going well with you all at home :)

      Love

         -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Monday, December 23, 2013 10:24 AM
Subject: Finally in MO

 

Soooooo I didn't actually end up calling at the airport because I didn't have enough time. Sorry :( Yes I did receive packages, packages which I am very grateful for because it is stinking cold here in MO and I think I would freeze if I didn't have the nice big blanket and gloves that you sent. If I understood right, the standard shipped packages are meant for Christmas so I haven't opened those yet. We do have a good heater in our apartment though so maybe not. As for a Christmas call/skype, we might get to skype, might not. Really it just depends on if we can find a member with internet, which we have not been able to do yet. It snowed a few days ago so the the ward's christmas party and sacrament meeting got shut down so we still don't really know anyone in the ward. I think I will just call on Christmas Day but I'm not sure what time.

My companion... His name is Elder Sanchez and he is from Mexico. It actually makes it a little hard because he wants to learn English so he wants to speak English all the time which is pretty terrible for me. But he is trying to start speaking only Spanish with me so hopefully that will change. He has been out for about 14 months I think and I will be the third missionary he has trained. He's a really great guy and is an awesome trainer. In terms of the area, we are in Kansas City, Kansas. And it is cold. And we are the first people in our apartment for like a month so there was absolutely no food waiting for us so I've been really hungry for the last few days haha. But that's all good because now I will appreciate food even more :D. We went food shopping right before we came here and I think I bought about 2 weeks worth of food just because I was so excited to have stuff to eat haha.

Yesterday we decided to go visit a less active family that we thought was pretty close to our apartment. It turned out that they actually lived about 2 miles away and we had to walk the whole way in the snow. It was cold. I think my nose was frozen. They didn't let us in the door so we didn't get to get warm either. It was rough. But oh well. It was actually a pretty good time because there are a fair amount of hills here and I can just slide down them in my church shoes since they don't have much grip on them. Great times :) I've learned that as long as I say "that's great" after everything I do, I will have an awesome time while I'm here :D

This week we did get a new investigator despite all the other junk. His name is Braulio and he's a super cool kid. He's a senior in high school and has a ton of faith in Christ and really liked everything we had to tell him. So Elder Sanchez and I have a lot of hope for him. We have a return appt with him this week so hopefully that will go well.

The area here is pretty awesome. Lots of hills and stuff which is good for exercise I guess. Also with the snow it makes it fun to slide around. It's cold though. I plan to get some long johns later today. The members that we've met so far have been awesome. They are all super nice and really love the missionaries. They are also really willing to help us out and give us references and stuff. Oh, and I can't forget. They make really good food, and lots of it. Oh, and almost all the members that we've met so far have been hispanic. I think about 60%+ of the ward is hispanic which is awesome because it means I get to practice my Spanish way more. I guess they actually have a bilingual meeting so every Sunday they have a translator. Like I said, church got cancelled so I'm not really positive what it's like yet.

 

Dad wanted me to share a quick spiritual thought so here goes. This one is actually inspired by my companion but whatever. Basically, he was eating M&Ms one day and decided that the two M's stood for Mas y Mejores (more and better). So... He glued the m&m wrapper below a picture of Christ and laminated it. The idea is that we need mas y mejores members in our wards, mas y mejores missionaries in the field, we need to practice mas y mejor obedience. Basically, we need mas y mejores of everything in our spiritual lives and with the mas y mejores things we will be able to bring ourselves and others closer to Christ.

I really don't have too much more to talk about. Sorry I don't have any pictures this week. I will try to get some for next week. This week has been pretty slow because of the weather. Hope you guys are all doing well and that you have a great Christmas :D Can't wait to talk to you guys on Christmas. I have an hour MAX to talk to you guys so your right ma, think of what you want to talk to me about so that we can make the most of the time. Love you guys :D

     Love,

          -Elder Nyholm

Sooooo this week was pretty dificult but was really good overall. Here are
the hard parts. 1) There was a whole district being pretty disobedient
during study time so I as a zone leader had to go tell them to stop what
they were doing and to start being obedient. They didn't really like it all
that much and I don't really blame them, but it needed to be done. I never
saw them doing anything wrong again so that was a pretty good thing. I just
felt bad because I don't like telling people when they are doing bad stuff
even if it's necessary. 2) There are 3 of us remaining of the original 10
people in our district. People started leaving Monday morning. It's sad
because I´ve really come to love the people in my district and my teachers
and now I won't see most of them anymore, probably ever. So yeah, that's why
this week was a little difficult. Other than that I am amazed at how fast
the week flew by. I feel like I was writing my last email to you yesterday.

I made two new discoveries this week. 1) Drinkable yogurt is AWESOME. They
fill up a refrigerator with the stuff and I usually take like 3 of them to
drink in the morning along with my cereal and eggs or whatever else is for
breakfast. Basically the best ¿Food? I´ve had the entire time that I´ve been
in the CCM. 2) The twistable colored pencils make for some pretty awesome
scripture markers. I bought some in the store here this week and I really
love them. I do feel like a little kid when I use them though :)

This week one of our teachers had his birthday. Our district chipped in to
get him a tie and then we all wrote our names and where are missions are and
stuff like that on the back. We also got him a bunch of cookies and stuff
from the little store here on campus. Anyways, after he opened all that
stuff, his wife came in with a cake. Now that I think of it, the cake was
even better than the drinkable yogurts. It was a vanilla cake with
strawberries and it was soaked with condensed milk or something. I don't
know what they call that kind of cake but it is suuuuuuper delicious.
Anyways, he wore the tie the next day when we took a district picture. I'll
send you a picture of it in a seperate email.

Friday was a pretty long but awesome day. It was our day for in-field
orientation so we were basically in class from 8 in the morning till 9:30 at
night with breaks for lunch and dinner. I learned a lot during it and was
pretty proud of myself for not falling asleep at all. I guess that's why we
had 6 different teachers throughout the day though. Anyways, that training
really made me feel quite a bit more prepared for the mission field.

So every Sunday we watch church movies from 8-9:30pm in the big auditorium.
This week they showed us a story that was on PBS about missionaries. It was
awesome because about half of it was in the Mexico MTC and it had a bunch of
people in it that I know. I think you can find it on the PBS website.
Anyways, Carl Pratt is our MTC President and he's on it a lot and you will
see a close up or Elder Barton who was one of my zone leaders before me and
Elder Grzan. It shows Elder Bartons whole district and I knew basically all
of them so it was really cool to see them on what is basically national
television.

Someone told me a really good definition for a missionary this week. You've
probably all heard it already, but here goes anyways. "A missionary is
someone who leaves their family for two years so that other families can be
together for eternity." I really liked that definition and it's really
inspired me to work a little harder than I normally would.

Yesterday our teacher had us go out in the CCM and share a christmas message
with some workers. We basically just walked around and talked to whoever we
could and reminded them about the true meaning of Christmas and asked for
refferals for the missionaries in Mexico City who are outside of the MTC.
Elder Grzan and I talked to 4 people in the 15-20 mins that we had and got
one refferal. The last guy that we talked to just kept talking and talking
and it really hit me how little Spanish I actually understand. I can usually
get my point across and I can always understand my teachers in class
(because they talk a little more slowly and use simpler words for us) but
when listening to a native talking at normal speed I think I only got about
25% of what they said. Which I guess is still fine because for the most part
I knew what they were talking about in general. But yeah, it was fun and was
kind of an eye opening experience.

Today is our P-day but we aren't allowed to play sports and our whole
ditrict is gone so we basically have nothing to do. So, this morning I asked
the Comedor (lunch room) employess if we could help clean up tables and
stack chairs and stuff so that we could do something useful. They gladly
accepted and we started wiping down tables and stacking chairs. About half
way through I start hearing Elvis Presly singing from the food prep area,
really loudly. So, it turned out that we got to serve a bit and listen to a
tiny bit of American music at the same time which made it suuuuuper fun
haha. Now that I think about it, I guess we aren't really supposed to listen
to anything but church music but oh well, it's good to have a little
harmless fun once in a while.

Just because I´ve been wondering... Did Erik build his flying wing yet? Have
him send me a picture when he finishes it if he hasn't already.

I don't really have much else to talk about. This week just flew by and I
don't really remember many highlights other than what I´ve talked about
already. This time tomorrow I will be in Dallas Texas waiting for the plane
to bring me to Missouri. I might get to call you in the Airport, not sure
yet though. Anyways, all is well and I'm excited to finally get out and give
some real service. I Hope all is going well back home and I continue to keep
you all in my prayers.

                Love
                   -Elder Nyholm

Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 12:55 PM
Subject: One week Till the field

 

This week literally FLEW by. It's a good thing I write down important stuff during the week because if I didn't I don't think I would have anything to talk about. I still don't have much but I will give it my best shot. So, this week we learned how to play handball. It's basically soccer but with hands instead of feet and you can only run 3 steps with the ball. We play in the caged basketball court on campus which makes it a little more fun. I´ve found that I have a pretty nasty shot because I can jump above everyone, float for a minute to decide where to shoot, and then shoot opposite of where I think the goalie is expecting me to shoot. It's pretty great haha. The goalies get irritated sometimes because they block everyone else´s shots and then I make like 5 in a row. So a new sport I'm good at I guess.

 

We had a sad week this week because one of our Hermanas got sent home because she is sick. She hopes to get sent to her mission in a few weeks but theres no guarantee. She spent all last week in her house being sick and stuff and I guess she has got a few diseases which is no good. She was awesome though. I never saw her with a sad look on her face even when she came to class on rare occasion. She was always smiling pretty much no matter how bad things were going for her. She inspired all of us with her good spirit.

 

I got Mail this Week :) Your thanksgiving day card and a letter from the priests quorum at home. Thanks for taking time to write to me. And thanks to the priests quorum for taking the time. I always hated writing to missionaries because I never knew what to say to them. Now that I´ve gotten a letter from the quorum I realize it doesn't matter what you say because as a missionary your just glad to get mail in general and anything that is written to you can be something that lifts you up that day. So thanks a lot guys :)

 

I´ve started memorizing important scriptures in Spanish this past week. Right now I´ve got Joseph Smith's first vision, Alma 38:9,15, and a few other short scriptures. It's pretty nice having them on hand for when youre teaching lessons. It's a really nice source of knowledge to be able to draw from right on the spot. And it helps you learn the language at the the same time so that pretty great.

 

This week we got moved from the dorms into a casa because supposedly the ceilings in the dorm are failing and aren't safe anymore. Nice to know that I slept under a broken ceiling for 4 weeks huh? But it's kind of great because now we are in a casa with all the Elders in our district so we at least have people that we like that we are living with. On the downside, there are kids in our casa that are pretty disobedient and come home at like 10:30 (lights out time) at night and then stay up another 30 minutes till they go to bed. Then they wake up late and start getting ready for the day at 7 (when we are supposed to be in class). So basically they keep the other 12 elders in the casa up because they are loud when they get home and it's really annoying. I had a talk with them so hopefully they won't be doing that anymore. It's amazing how people can dedicate 2 years of their life to something and then just completely disregard the rules. It's pretty sad if you think about it.

 

On a spiritual note, we had a really good lesson yesterday in class (Us getting taught about teaching). Basically one of our teachers acted as an investigator and each person had one principle from the first lesson to teach him about for 2 minutes and we really just needed to apply our little section to his needs. I think we did a pretty good job and it really helped us to understand how to try and form our lesson to the needs of the investigators. Oh and we had 2 minutes to prepare what to teach him.... so really no time at all haha. I think it's the best lesson I´ve had here in the CCM.

 

That's pretty much all I´ve got for the week. Not much stuff happened but I did learn a lot. Thanks for all your support :) Love you all.

 

     Love

        -Elder Nyholm

Date: December 3, 2013 at 6:55:40 AM PSTSubject: 2 Weeks Left

Sooooo this week went really really really fast but we also had some bummer moments. We were slacklining right after I emailed you last week and the Mexican doctor runs out and asks us to take the slackline down because it's dangerous (more dangerous than soccer, volleyball, and basketball right?) Anyways, right as I'm about to take it down the white doctor runs out and says "wait wait. I want to take some pictures". The white doctor loved it. He had seen us slacklining like 3 times that week during gym time or whatever and we actually had almost got him to try it. The next day we needed something fun and new to do so we started playing volleyball with the giant exercise ball from the weights room. It was super fun because people could actually get the ball over the net but then mr mexican doctor told us we couldn't do that either. Huge bummer.

 

I actually got the dearelder letters like an hour after I emailed you last week. It was pretty fun to get mail since I really didn't expect it. I left them in my room though so I don't remember if there are any questions you wanted me to answer.

 

This week we found out that our teacher can do a Flag on a pole. Basically he can hold on to the pole and hold his body straight out like a flag. Well we told him he needed to show us if he wanted to gain a little extra respect. So he walks up to this pole, grabs it, jumps up to flag position, and all we hear is a super loud embarrassing noise. I thought he pooped his pants or something from too much strain. Well he drops down immediately and yells "Mis pantalones! Mis pantalones". He had ripped the crotch of his pants wide open haha. It was probably the funniest thing I've seen/heard the entire time I've been at the MTC. He went home and told his wife that we provoked him to rip his pants hahaha. Anyways, good times.

 

So for thanksgiving we just had a special thanksgiving lunch and a devotional. The lunch was probably the best food we´ve had here except for the Tyson Chicken I think it's called. It's the breaded chicken Amanda´s mom would always make. I usually eat about 3-5 pieces of it here, which is why I'm amazed I don't feel fat. Anyways, thanksgiving lunch was good. Then we had a devotional that our whole zone was singing a special number in. The lights died during the 3rd verse so no one could read the words of their music and the song just sorta died. It was pretty hilarious. We also sang a special number this Sunday, a Hombres only song. We practiced with about 8 guys during the week and then we somehow magically had about 25 when we actually sang it. The new guys didn't realize that we were singing the Spanish words to the ENGLISH notes so basically our musical number sounded like junk because we had a 17 guys singing the wrong thing. It was a huge bummer.

 

This week our teacher chose me and Elder Grzan (my companion) to be the first in our district to teach a REAL less active member and her non member sister. He said it was because he trusted us and because he thinks that together we are the best Spanish speaking companionship in our district. It made us really nervous because right before we went in he said something about having a lot of trust in us so we didn't want to mess up in any way haha. Anyways, It went really well and the less active member was crying when we left because she felt the spirit so strongly. It was a pretty good experience altogether.

 

Having the trust of Hermano Leon (our teacher) leads into something else to. Me and Elder Grzan were called to be Zone Leaders on Sunday so we have a pretty big responsibility now. We pretty much overlook the 3 districts in our zone which is about 30 missionaries total. We´ve been trying to come up with some good zone goals and we´ve got a few now. Anyways, it's a little stressful now because we have to try to be even better examples than before. But it's good. Also, one of the Zone leaders that just left to his mission told me that he had a huge feeling that we were going to be called as zone leaders. He also said something kind of funny. He said that I have a "commanding presence" which I thought was just a joke, but he was completely serious about it. You learn something new about yourself every day I guess.

 

So my language story this week. Our teacher (we have two), Hermano Medina (the one who ripped his pants) was telling Elder Grzan and I about his mission experiences. He has only been back for about 6 months I think. Anyways, he's telling us this story in ALL Spanish and i realized that I actually knew what he was talking about. I know exactly what his story was about, order of events, all that jazz. So what I'm trying to say is that I can actually understand most Spanish now, as long as it's being spoken relatively slow. Also, when we teach I can say basically everything I want and have our investigator know what I'm talking about. I know I don't have all the grammar right but the point is that I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish and have them understand me. It's pretty great ;)

 

Dad wants my Favorite scripture for my plaque. Here's my story. During class our teacher told us to find a scripture in the Book of Mormon that would address a specific need of our investigator. I don't know the BoM as well as I should so I prayed and opened up to a random page and read the chapter that I opened up to. I guess God knows that I'm still an investigator because the chapter was basically written to me. It's Alma chapter 38 that I opened too. I read it and found some choice verses that I really like a lot. On my plaque Id like it to read "there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness. Now go, my son, and teach the word unto this people." That's a mix from Alma 38: 9,15. I memorized that in Spanish right after I found it. In Spanish it is "No hay otro modo or medio por el cual el hombre pueda ser salvo, sino en Cristo y por medio de Él. He aquí, Él es la vida y la luz del mundo. He aquí, Él es la palabra de verdad y de rectitud. Ahora ve, hijo mio, y enseña la palabra a este pueblo". The whole chapter is really good. It's about Alma the younger teaching his son Shiblon. I'd recommend reading it just because it's so good.

 

Mom asked me how I sleep with the cannons going off all night. Since I have 16 hour days I pretty much sleep like a baby unless there is a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I go on a mosquito hunt every night before bed though so that's really rare. You also wanted to know about changing the fish water. Now is probably the right time to do it or else the filter will start to sound like it's going to explode. Just make sure you put the drops of stuff in to make the water safe for the fish. 

 

One last thing before I close up. I heard a quote that I guess Sister Hinckley said back in the day. She said "today I obey, tomorrow I understand". I just thought it was a super good quote, especially as a missionary since we have a lot of rules that we don't necessarily understand. All is well, I look forward to hearing from you next week. Thank you for all your love and support :)

 

       Love,

             -Elder Nyholm