Fun, fun. 10/24/11

Dear family and friends,

Forgive the lack of proper puncuation, i´m working with a spanish keyboard. This week we moved the other elders in our ward to a different house. My companion and two other dominicans found a coconut tree and went wild. My companion found a machete from somewhere (which scared me a little) and then i got to try fresh coconut. I dont like it. And the picture is of me trying some next to a banana tree. I didn´t know they grew upside down.
Today we also played baseball against another zone. I caught a deep fly in left field and later caught a infield fly as the 3rd baseman. But i still can´t hit a thing so nothing has changed. Other than that nothing much has changed.

David has a baptismal date, and so do patricia and kayla but it´s tentative in november. Patricia doesn´t feel ready. My companion and i decided to kind of trick her a little bit. We are going to ask her baptismal questions incogneto and show her that she is ready. I think of 2nd nephi 32 verse 8 that says the evil spirit teacheth a man not to pray. I would bet that its probably the evil spirit telling her she isn´t ready for baptism. As i pondered this i realized this can be applied a lot in all aspects of our lives. Its the evil spirit that tells us we are no good, to give up, to give in, etc. I believe its chapter 7 of moroni that tells us how to judge good from evil, based on what we are encouraged to do . My friends, don´t give up. The lord does not give up on us. My return to the mission field is evidence of this. An angel appearing to alma and the sons of mosiah, who were described as the vilest of sinners, is further evidence of it. Later alma and the sons of mosiah gave up rights to be kings and served missions, baptizing thousands of lamanites and saving many more nephites from apostasy. The lord knows our potential and satan fears us. Satan knows he is going to lose this war and his only pleasure comes from making life difficult for us in the process. That is a pitiful existence. I invite all of you to choose the lords side, and remember how much he loves you. I am just starting to finally realize how important the missionary work is to the lord, and how many great lengths he goes to in order to save his precious children. He tells us that his sheep are numbered, meaning he knows every single one of us personally. Pray always to your father in heaven, and don´t give up.

Love
elder nichols

Just 2 more miles... 10/17/11

Dear family and friends,
Another fabulous pday! I love reading your emails, letters, etc. Remember dear elder is free for my mission. Congrats and good luck to Taylor Morgan, I’m pretty sure he reported last week or something. Could someone please forward his emails to me? And whatever happened to Elder Bredeson??? Specific shout out to jack, garret, and Simon, I miss you guys and think about you a lot. Stay strong.

Anyways today we took a bus to Duarte and found a pizza hut!!! I was so excited. We ate a whole large pizza to ourselves. I´ve been eating rice beans and fried chicken non stop. Except when I made some epic french toast the other day. The best ingredient is an ancient chinese secret so don´t ask. Speaking of chinese, Duarte has a chinatown something or other. I was really confused seeing asians speaking spanish. Some tourist asked me if I was lost because I’m obviously not Dominican. I told him I was a missionary for the next two years. He asked if I could throw some holy water on him, and I said no, but i can baptize you. Which led into a discussion of authority, apostasy, restoration, and repentance. The funny thing was that I was having an incredibly difficult time teaching him in english.

The theme of this week seems to be endurance. We have walked a lot and taught very little. It’s been frustrating for me, but caused me to come up with an idea. I suggested to my trainer that we split our area into smaller areas and keep our appointments and tracting closer together, so that we spend less time walking and more time teaching. However, Patricia, Kayla, David and Nilson all have baptism dates.

I had 2 specifically good experiences that i want to talk about. The first was with a lady named Soñí. She was really receptive the first time we met her, and we taught her the first half of the restoration. I was excited, but my trainer said that apparently she is cool with sharing ¨the word¨ with everyone, no matter what sect. Well we went back and finished the first lesson which went well, then she went off into some long story which I think was a medical miracle or something about her daughter named Milagro, but anyways i specifically heard ¨perdí tres hijos¨ which means ¨I lost 3 children¨. Then it clicked. Her mother is a strict evangelical but she talks with everyone. Losing 3 kids had to be extremely traumatic. What if she is searching other religions for an answer or comfort or something to her experience, and so far nobody has been able to. I´m sitting there just thinking ¨.... I thought this kind of teaching situation only happened with like a golden investigator, like in the movies or something.... But it’s happening right now!¨ so I whip out my plan of salvation pamphlet and wait for her to finish her story. My companion didn´t even skip a beat. He saw me take out the pamphlet, made a quick overview of its contents, and made a follow up appointment. Goooooooaaaaallllll!!!!!!

The other experience was with Rosanna. She doesn’t come to church. She never reads our pamphlets or book of mormon assignments. But she always lets us in and listens. She keeps saying she doesn´t have an answer yet. We brought 2 members with us named Karla and Julio. Julio served a mission in Guatemala and so he was just tearing it up in there with scriptures. It was great to have such a strong member to help us out. Then his wife Karla gave a nice experience which I didn´t understand a word of because she speaks in turbo mode. Then my companion said something. But to be honest i have no idea what was going on because i wasn´t listening. Before you give me the tsk tsk or whatever let me finish. I was listening to something else. The whole time Julio, Karla, and Elder Sena were speaking, I was thinking. I thought ¨heavenly father I need help. The salvation of one of your children is hanging in the balance and to be honest I have no idea what she needs to hear. I need to know what you would say if your son was here.¨ and I listened. And pondered. And experimented in my mind. Then it was my turn to talk. And I talked a lot in the most fluent spanish of my mission. I told her ¨ I don´t know exactly what you need to receive your answer, but I suggest that different people learn in different ways. Some feel the spirit most strong in reading the book of mormon, others when they hear it. Some people feel it most strongly when they attend church, and others when they pray. But a lot of the time the answer doesn’t come until we act first. The lord is waiting at your door, and has given you the book of mormon, the testimony of these members, and the help and love of his representatives. There is much more that you don´t have yet that the lord wants to bless you with. You like the way you feel when we meet with you, and this is because of the holy ghost. With baptism comes the constant companionship of the holy ghost, a feeling of love and support that I cannot accurately describe. Perhaps the time for waiting is over. Perhaps the lord will not show give you a witness until you act in faith.¨ Right there I thought I was done but the spirit was so strong. I knew I had to say one more thing, but as I tried I broke into tears, and to be truthful Karla had to repeat it so Rosanna could understand. But I said ¨Rosanna, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of god?¨ to which she said yes, but still hinged it on whether or not she received an answer. So my companion and I had a special fast for her and will go back soon.

That´s all for this week. Love you all
Elder Nichols

Two weeks in the Field... and Baptism! 10/11/11

Dear Family and Friends,
Just another week down in carribean. I wish I would have brought my journal with me, because now i will have to do this all from memory.Before I do that i would like to apologize. I think my last email sounded kind of negative. Despite the heat, walking, language, and other numerous trials in my life right now, I have never been more happy, and that is the truth. I love being on the Lord´s errand.

So i guess I will start with the big news first. Last week I forgot to mention that I commited one of our investigators to a baptismal date, which was last saturday. Her name is Eddileyka her boyfriend is a member. she talks so fast I never understand her. But nevertheless I bore my testimony about baptism and asked her to commit to a date and she accepted. I thought her boyfriend Javier or my companion were going to perform the ordinance, but when I asked I was told that I was going to do it! So yeah... 2 weeks in the field and I have already had the oppurtunity to baptize someone.

Everything else is a blur. Rosanna is an older lady that we´ve had for about a month, and says that she ¨hasn´t recieved an answer yet¨. So we (yes WE) reviewed the restauration and how to recognize the spirit. Turns out she has never prayed specifically about the book of mormon or the prophet... kind of important... but i´m glad that we reviewed that.

Simón is a cool young guy we just started teaching. The first time we were just walking down the street and my companion was talking to him about the millenium and stuff, but our fist officially lesson turned out to be on faith. He was really passionate about showing his faith, so I asked him to show his faith by following christ into the waters of baptism. Turns out he has already been baptized in another church. But this opened the door to the apostasy. We see him in the street all the time and he always greets us warmly and tells us to call him.

Daisy is an older lady with 3 kids and a soon to be husband. She has to get married in order to be baptized, and is waiting on her papers. Down here it´s really expensive to get your birth records and stuff from the government. So we visited her and talked about family home evening. 2 of her kids are already baptized, the other is underage. Her fiancee is Rafael, and he has met with us twice. It´s kind of hot and cold with him.

Ana and Alberto have 4 little kids and are waiting for their papers as well so they can get married. They are always at church though and their kids are adorable.

Patricia and Kayla are sisters. We taught them about our premortal life, creation, and the fall. Then later that week we came back and taught them about the purpose of life on earth, and for the first time we were able to teach their mother and father as well which was awesome.

Caridad is a new one. We taught her the restoration and it went really well.

A member named Cyntia had a reference for us, and accompanied us during our lesson with her. I don´t remember her name, but to be honest she didn´t seem that interested. We talked about faith and repentance, because my companion likes to save the big stuff like the restoration for when the whole family, or at least the ones that want to listen, are around. Her husband was sleeping i guess. The cool thing is ten seconds after we walked out the door we met Heidi and Herson, and taught them the whole restoration in Cyntia´s house. I even did an object lesson with Cyntia´s cousin that was there too.

There is a guy named Nilson, and his brother Carlos. Nilson has had 2 baptismal dates, and didn´t show up to either of them. He is never at church either, so my compaion said we might have to drop him.

I think that´s the majority of our progressing investigators and new ones. We meet so many people and are constantly on the move. I rarely have any idea where we are because my companion likes to take different routes a lot. In fact he even got us lost a few nights ago. We went in a giant circle. fun fun.

Next time week I´ll bring my journal with me so I can write in more detail.

Love
Elder Nichols

First Week in the Field. 10/3/11

Dear Family and Friends

Thanks to everyone that wrote to me this week. I´m sorry for the delay, my pday got switched now that i´m in the field. Your emails mean a lot to me, and I love the advice and love I recieve from all of you.

So... my first week in the field.... well, there aren´t really words to express it. I´m kind of in shock. The CCM was definitley it´s own little bubble. I´ve seen some pretty intense stuff. Half of my area is kinda like the city (and by city i mean the Bronx) and the other half is like the jungle. Dirt roads with potholes, naked kids running in the streets playing with sticks and dead animals, wild horses, giant angry roosters, houses made from tin shingles, trash everywhere, and many other eye opening things which I´m sure some RM´s could expound upon. I´m not sure what qualifies a place for ¨third world¨ status, but this probably would. It´s awesome.

So funny story. My district in the CCM (MTC) didnt like to speak spanish. So naturally I prayed that they might want to, so I could get more practice. Well Heavenly Father obviously can´t force them to do anything, so instead he inspires a wise Mission President to give me a native Dominican companion. His name is Elder Sena. He loves our investigators, he´s really funny, oh... and he doesn´t speak english. Our communication is an interesting hybrid of Domincan spanish, english, and illigitimate sign language. It might be more effective for us to just point and grunt. Ok that´s just for laughs, but I´m seriously teaching him just as much english as he is teaching me spanish.

Today my difficulty with spanish hit me pretty hard during companion study. I mean I´m already hot, sweaty, covered in bug bites, scrapes, blisters, and rashes, and tired from walking about 6 to 8 miles a day, which is physically exhausting. Then I also have to focus so hard to listen and speak, which is mentally exhausting as well. In companion study today it was my turn to share what I learned, and I shared alma 7, verses 11 to 13 (i think) about the suffering of Christ. He suffered for more than just our sins. He suffered our infirmities and sickness as well, in order that he can succor us. As I was telling my companion this I just broke down in tears. This doctrine is extremely important, and is lost to these people. I want so badly to help them. I´ve had so many struggles and trials in my life and I want to tell them that they are never alone, and the Christ is waiting to help them, but I can barely put a sentence together, let alone understand their questions and struggles. I have followed the counsel of leaving everything behind in order to get to work, but how can I get to work if I can´t even understand these people. I´m tired of just smiling and nodding and pretending like I know what´s going on. But when I thought of all of this, I also thought of another scripture that I don´t remember the reference for. Possibly alma 36 or nearby, but it says that through small means, the lord brings great things to pass, in order to confound the wise, and the scripture in timothy about ¨let no man despise thy youth¨, and that gave me a lot of comfort.

Ok fun stories... hmmm...

The bus that took us to our area dropped us off in the middle of the freeway. I got to carry my 60 lb suitcase across 8 lanes of high speed traffic. It was like Frogger on steroids with consequences. I´ve since come to realize that is completely normal. We do it nearly every day.

We were contacting new investigators (proselyting) and my companion says ¨Ok this one is all yours.¨ So I say ¨saludo!¨ and tell the young lady we are representatives of our church and want to invite her to conference where the leaders are going to speak. I might have said something a little different. Eventually she looks at Elder Sena and says something, and then Elder Sena looks at me and says IN ENGLISH ¨What did she say me?¨ (yes he forgot the ¨to¨) and smiled at me. Like I said, he is really funny.

We visited a less active member named Marcia and my companion shared a scripture. I didn´t understand a single word, but I still felt prompted to share D y C 1:38, and invite her to conference. My companion told me later that he had shared a scripture about our trials, and had told her that the apostales speak to us in order to guide us and help us. So my scripture, about the Lord speaking through the mouth of his servants, fit in PERFECTLY with the lesson. How cool is that?

Elder Cornish, who spoke in conference about praying for a quarter, spoke to us in the CCM, and I got to shake his hand and talk to him a little bit. So when I saw him on TV I thought that was pretty cool.

Well I´m out of time for now, and I wish I could tell you about the other small but powerful experiences I´ve had out here. It´s going to be a great 2 years.

Love, Elder Nichols

10/2/11

From Elder Eickbush, Mission Office Secretary:

Attached are a couple of pictures of Elder Nichols with his companion and trainer in the field, Elder Sena. Your son is doing well and we are pleased to have him serving in this mission.

Thank you for your support and prayers.

Elder Eickbush