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
