Dear Family and Friends,
Another week come and gone. My companion celebrated his one year anniversary, and I made him guacomole again. Today we played basketball of course but also we played bitilla which is like baseball with a stick and a giant bottle cap. It was ridiculous. This week we also had a cat burglar break in to the house. No literally.... a cat climbed up to our porch and then jumped in through an open window. I´ve got pics of its paw prints to prove it, but I forgot my camera at home this week.
Another Elder in my Ward, our ward has 2 areas, always says the funniest stuff. His name is Elder Allen. This week he said ¨Sometimes I wish Satan had a body so I could punch him in the face as hard as I could¨ and ¨I´m sure there are worse countries in the world, they just don´t send missionaries there¨.
The highlight of my week was that we finally got the conference issue of the liahona, and I was super excited to have my very own english copy. I am very confident in my priest leaders, and they speak the words of Christ. So when I read the liahona I feel like God himself is telling me about all the things I need to hear, including the answers to my prayers. It´s a great feeling.
In our district meeting I was asked a little before hand to speak for 5 or 10 minutes on the Restoration. Normally this should be in spanish, and we all just rely heavily on Preach my Gospel since four of the six of us are still training or just barely finished training last transfer. Anyways, as I was thinking about my tema, or theme, I didn´t feel like speaking spanish. Before you think I´m apostatizing, remember that my companion is the only native in our district, and is only one of two fluent spanish speakers. I didn´t feel like spitting out the same comfortable key phrases that I say to my investigators, because I knew my fellow missionaries wouldn´t get anything out of it. So I thought for a few minutes on how the restoration effects me as a missionary, and what I could say to help my fellow laborers.
I remembered a talk from conference that I had studied that morning by Elder Jeffrey R Holland, and just kind of went by the spirit I guess. I testified that one of the tactics of Satan is to bind our tongues. If we don´t speak up we can´t testify, or teach. We can´t perform miracles. We can´t invite people to come unto Christ, and without these invitations they can´t repent. The importance of our ability to speak up has been paramount ever since the Pre Existence. We have all heard about the War in Heaven, but have any of us stopped to think what that means? I don´t imagine a war of swords or hand grenades. I imagine a war of words. Those of us who chose to follow the Savior testified of his divinity and the perfect plan of our Father. I imagine a great debate in which we fought to maintain our agency and save our brothers and sisters who were enticed by the allure of Satan´s proposal. In fact, this was the war that STARTED in Heaven, but is being fought every day here on Earth.
Satan would have me think that I don´t know enough spanish to testify clearly. He wants me to feel embarassed or too ashamed to speak up. But this week I have learned that it is wisdom in my Heavenly Father that I have to preach in Spanish. Let´s be honest, I like English. It´s comfortable, and I can be fairly persuasive. But in Spanish I can´t worry about the connotation of my words or illustrating an elaborate speech. All I can do is testify of the plain and precious truths that have been so distorted and corrupted by philosophies of uninspired men. I know that God is my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ is his Son, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The more I think about this simple testimony, the more I realize how complex and vibrant it really is. This clearly defines the nature of God as our father, and not some mysterious everywhere but nowhere being that only wants us to worship him. If he is our Father we can become like him. This testimony also destroys the theories of the trinity, or that revelation has ceased. It tells us that God has reached out in love once again to provide us with all that we need to return to him and find strength in a decaying world.
Open up your mouths. Stand up and stand out. Declare with vigor what you believe in. Remember that the God of Israel himself is directing this Church. Billions of Angels are watching intently, taking notes, and aiding us in our endeavors.
Love
Elder Nichols
