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
