The Right Place. 10/15/12

Dear Friends and Family, So in first place thanks to Ryan, Sandy, Briana, Sheldon, Janine, Annaliese, and Natalie for the letters. I was shocked to receive so many. It was well worth the 3 hour bus ride to the capital. My companion is now a district leader and had to go for a training meeting. The assistants told me to go with him because it was too far to go alone. Your letters mean the world to me. Think of this, letters are so important that Moroni included letters from his father in the Book of Mormon. Most of the new testament is letters from Paul. My favorite letter was from Natalie. She reminded me that our Patriarchal Blessing is the best protection we have against Satan. So I went back to my own blessing and decided to really study and mark it up like my scriptures. I learned a ton. I see my blessing in an entirely different light now. I have been reminded of who I am, why I am here, advice for trials, my future blessings and how to obtain them. Thank you Natalie. I needed that reminder. Never underestimate the power of your own testimony. The photos are of district meeting last transfer where Elder Baker snuck in some water guns and hosed us. Then afterwards we did a human pyramid. There is also a cool sunrise and my ugly mug to prove it was real and that I was there. Then a motivational yet confusing poster in our house, and finally some pictures of the Catholic Basilica. In other news, the Lord led me to some pretty cool people this week. On our way back from a zone meeting in La Romana we sat next to this kid named Alex. He tried talking to us in english but we were pretty tired so we kinda blew him off. I felt a little bad about it. A few minutes later he asked a simple question and the spirit told me to talk to him, so I did. Naturally I eventually turned the conversation to the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. We exchanged phone numbers and he called us two days later. Come to find out he has had a lot of similar trials that I have had and we talked a lot about family and finding a relationship with our Heavenly Father. We have a return appointment. Lesson learned, its good to listen to promptings of the spirit. We were also visiting a recent convert this week, and I heard someone playing an electric guitar. Anyone who knows me can rightly assume that we contacted the man. We found out that he is Hindu. Not sure if I said that right. But its a religion from India. He was born Catholic and converted. I played a little guitar for him, we talked a bit and put a return appointment. He was there again and we talked for about an hour and a half about the similarities in our religions. He is a very humble guy and wants to learn more. Who knew that all those years of loud rock music would pay off? Final thoughts. I have learned that the Bible is not common ground, it´s a battle ground. I have had very little success trying to prove that we are right with the Bible. As Joseph Smith once said, paraphrasing, that every pastor interpereted the same passage of scripture so differently that finding the truth with an appeal to the Bible was impossible. I have seen this problem first hand. Instead of trying to prove that we are right, I have left my Bible at home and have been fearlessly testifying of the truth with Book of Mormon in hand. The mission manual Preach My Gospel says that Every man is eventually backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand. I believe John Taylor once said that when people come up to us and say that we are not like them, we should say ¨We know it. We don´t want to be. We want to be like Jesus¨ So my friends, don´t be afraid to stand up and stand out. Nobody can disprove your testimony. No earthly knowledge can fight against a spiritual confirmation from the Lord as to the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel. Love, Elder Nichols