1 more year to go! Monday November 22nd

Nick and Elder Alviso before transfers

Dear Fam,

I HAVE A NEW SISTER?! haha call me an idiot but I kinda freaked out when I read that. Who knows you could have adopted somebody or something, I wouldn´t put it past you guys! Alright I´ll admit Sophie is pretty dang cute... but I'm getting pretty mad that I keep missing out on pretty major things AKA Reese... now a new puppy! So is she going to grow a lot more or is that pretty much it? she´s tiny!

Well this week has been pretty interesting with my companion. Last monday night I had a long chat with him about the mission and about his challenges and we finally came to the conclusion that he should just call president and talk to him. So he called and pretty much just told him that he simply does not want to be here and the mission is ruining his love for the church and if he stays here he is just going to go inactive when he goes back. So President called his stake president, who then called him. His stake president told him to wait it out a week, work as hard as he can, study, pray, and if he still feels the same way at the end of the week then he can go home. So I´ve been working like a donkey this week trying to animate him and we even found a sweet family that I'm almost possitive we will baptize the first week of December. But even with all of that, He started packing his stuff Friday night... there´s no stoppin him. So I guess it's just a matter of when he goes home now. I don´t want to push him to hard or try and convince him to stay more than I already have because you shouldn't force anybody to be on a mission, that's why it's called service. If you don't love the people and what you're doing you're not going to have baptisms, let alone converts. So yeah that´s all the drama that is going on right now, so I very well might have a new companion by next week.

But on a good note, that family that we found is waaay sweet and they went to an activity at the church on Saturday and then to church on Sunday. There are 6 of them. So we´ll be working with them real hard the next couple of weeks. So supposedly Elder Alviso is now in my old area in San Miguel! sweet huh? So I told him to take care of my converts.

Well sounds like Thanksgiving is going to be pretty sweet at Uncle Mark's house! I can´t believe that it snowed so much already that´s so sweet, when I heard that I about died ahhhh snowboarding!!!!! Haha send me some sweet video at least. Sounds like Harry Potter was pretty sweet, at what point did it stop? It willl be sweet to be able to watch the two movies at once when I get back, (I planned it that way).

Hey, Brother Cefalo sent me a letter saying that they will be sending the ward news letter to us by email now and that he wanted me to tell you if I got it or not...so.. I got it! Haha well guys have a good week love you all, I'm sad I can´t be there for thanksgiving but I'm greatful for you guys....a lot! Eat until you die!

Last Two emails- November 8th and 15th

November 8th-

Hey guys,

Well the change Is officially done, and it´ll be interesting to see what happens on Wednesday! To tell you the truth im pretty sure that my companion will leave, just because President Perez doesn´t want to do any changes right before Christmas, so if we don´t split up this change that would mean we are together for 3 changes! It´s unheard of to have two gringos together that long, so yeah im not counting on it. But it would be sweet! This change has been super fast it´s crazy. Next Thursday I complete a year!! unreal. Well this week has been pretty good for us. This sisters had a baptism so I had to do an interview for that which was a really good one, one of my favorites. He asked me to baptize him so I was able to do that which is always fun. This guy is crazy smart, supposedly after like the first lesson when the sisters went back he said, "so I´ve been doing some studying, and am I wrong in thinking that we can become Gods?" haha pretty sweet. Anyways I´ll try and send you a pic of that. Also we have a baptism date! This Saturday Bonny is going to get baptized. She has been wanting to do it for a while along with the guy she lives with but he just did not want to get married. We tried and tried forever but he just wouldn´t do it for some reason. Anyways last week we went over there and find out that he left her in the middle of the night. They have a 3 year old together and he just bounced! Way sad. Said he just doesn´t love her anymore blah blah blah. ANYWAYS she told us that she had a dream that her and her son were in a huge building walking up some stairs, and the whole building was completely white and they felt super calm and peaceful and happy. Temple anyone? haha and we had just had a little lesson on temples a little bit back and I told her that is exactly how a temple is. Anyways long story short she is getting baptized Saturday!

Other than that everythign is good here. It has been sooooo cold in the morning and at night lately it´s a joke. Supposedly it is just a weird cold front that has come through and should stop soon but in the mean time I am dying and have never wanted a warm shower more than I do now haha. I was actually very close to boiling some water the other day. Desperate times call for desperate measures! That´s sweet that you guys got a letter from Nate, he´s making me look bad! haha I´ll tell him I know he´s just sucking up to get a package. Speaking of packages Mom for the Christmas package the other day I had the biggest craving for trail mix... throw a bag of those in there for me!

That´s devistating that Utah got blown out like that.... I almost cried. Oh well as long as we beat BYU, it will ease my pain. Well love you guys thanks for all your support. Im gonna go get my soccer on now. Talk to ya next week!!

November 15th-

Hey guys,

Well this has been a pretty crazy week, the mission has changed a lot. Pretty much everybody in the whole mission had changes because the President doesn´t want to do any changes right before Christmas. Two zones in the mission got shut down, so along with four zone leaders. The zones are now a lot bigger and there are fewer district leaders and bigger districts. Alot of people got dropped from being district leader, but for some reason papí Perez saw it fit to keep me in there. I now have 6 other elders in my district. Also president started a new rule that the zone leaders have to have a district leader as well give their numbers to and all of that, and so I'm the zone leaders district leader.

Well my companion ended up having changes unfortunately, but he actually got sent to my old area in Roosevelt San Miguel so that´s kinda cool! My new companion is Elder Rojas from Honduras. He´s 26 years old, absolutely hates El Salvador, the people, the food, their culture, and thinks that everything in honduras is so much better. And I'm for sure going to be with him for three months. Haha I knew that my last change was to good to last. But oh well we got along fine personally, it's just wearing to here him complain all the time and treat the people so rudely. Other than that everything is fine here, just working and trying to find people.

I got my humpday package and can´t wait to open it Thursday!!! I can´t believe that I have reached a year, I never thought that it would come. I feel like the exact same person I was when I first got here, so it´s weird to think that I am actually half way done! I used to look at the people with a year in the mission as so experienced and pretty much all the way done, haha now that I´m there it´s seems kind of silly. So are you guys all getting ready for Thanksgiving?! I can´t tell you how good mashed potatoes and gravy with some stuffing and turkey sounds. Im drooling Homer Simpson style right now. So I'm glad that everything went well your surgery Mom, that would have been torture to have to wait until the next month. Sounds like everybody else had a pretty busy week!

I heard a really funny spanish version of i saw mommy kissing santa claus the other day haha Im definitely buying it when i get back. Man I can´t believe that guys like Nate Naegle will be coming home soon.... time is such a blur. Well guys thanks for everything that you do, I think about and miss you all the time. Have a good week!

Two weeks of catch up! Oct 25th and Nov 1st

School Service Project with Elders and Sisters

Nick, pretending he's golfing!

Elisa's baptism, she's so tiny!

November 1st:

Hey fam,
Well happy halloween! Sounds like nothing too excited went on back home, just baseball and football... not that I would want to watch that or anything..haha :) but the two teams that I wanted to win won so that´s good. This week has been pretty good, we had the Multi Zone meeting on Tuesday and every elder that was with me in the MTC was at the meeting so that was way sweet to see all of them. Nobody has gone home so that's a good thing! haha. It was a good meeting though we learned a lot, I always love hearing from President Perez. We went and did service at that school again and finished up painting, which takes about two hours to paint one wall with all the kids swarming you the whole time! This change is almost done there is only one more week its crazy! I think this has definitely been the fastest change of my mission. Hopefully my comp and I will stay together, but we´ll see what happens. We got to baptize an 88 year old women on Saturday, I'll send you a pic you´ll love it. Her name is Elisa. 

I had to teach the combined priesthood/relief society meeting yesterday at church so that was a blast... haha it went well though. It´s been perfect weather here lately, I'm not sure the temperature but its not too hot and there's always a nice cool breeze. Almost feels like Hawaii!  So you guys are gonna put down Rosco huh... gosh that´s sad. I´ve had that dog since I was 5!! and the boys their whole lives. We´ve had him longer than Adam and Justin haha. But clearly he needs it, sounds like he has been doing pretty bad lately.
 

I had no idea that Kelly and Leesa went to Guatemala?! Freak they should have come visited me!! Did they say they liked it? It's a lot like here actually I hear, but cooler stuff to see. How do they get around when they are there? Do they have a translator or what? Was it just those two who went? Well guys love you hope you all have a good week. Mom, Dad, if the boys get out of line (or Brooke for that matter) just read them Proverbs 23 verse 13 and 14.  :)
love Nick

October 25th:

Hey guys, Well this change has gone by incredibly fast so far, there are only a couple more weeks until changes! This week has been pretty good, super super busy! Some of us from the zone went to a school by my house to do some service painting and teaching a few classes about the strength for youth pamphlet, mainly just about accountability and responsibility and agency... stuff like that. They loved it though, just the fact that there were like 6 Americans there made them go nuts. I can´t tell you how many times I heard the phrase "how do you say this in English?!" And "are you a gringo?" haha it was fun though. Also that one investigador of the sister that I have been helping did decide to get baptised but then satan just kicked him in the face and put doubts in his mind about tithing. So me and my zone leader went over there and had a sweet lesson with him and re-interviewed him, and he passed! Then Satan just didn´t want to give up so he called me Friday night (the night before his baptism) and said that he was super sick and didn´t think he was going to be able to make it. They have been working with this guy for like 6 months so it was like alright if we wait any longer something is going to happen and he is never going to get baptised. So then next morning I went over there and talked to him and gave him a blessing. After the blessing his attitude totally changed and he said that he would do whatever it takes to be there even though he felt so sick. So he got baptized! Really sweet. I´ll send you some pics from that as well. Let´s see what else is going on here.... nope still haven´t found a cook but oh well, I´ve pretty much just given up haha. The couple who needed to get married had a big fight Saturday, so yeah that has taken us back a bit... I seem to be able to convince everybody to get baptized besides my OWN investigadors haha.

Sorry that you have to get surgery mom that stinks, but hopefully that will help it and you can get back to normal fast. Gosh what´s up with all the sad stuff going on, haha poor Rosco that makes me sad to think about ... you guys will have to keep me filled in on what you decide.  Well guys everything is good here, I can´t believe I'll be coming up on my year mark soon... me and Alviso already have big plans to celebrate haha. Time flies it really does. I hope you all have a good week love you all.