Dear fam,
Well guys, this is it. Don´t really know what to say, but I guess I don`t need to say much, cause I will see you all in a few days! We were able to baptize Alex on Saturday which was great, despite of some difficulties with the water going out at the church with two inches of water in the baptismal faunt.... haha I had to have one last mess before I went home :) but it all worked out in the end. So President Maybes house at 630 huh? great. Speaking of Elder Marchant, I think I´m going to be working with him on Wednesday and Thursday in my first area por venir, sweet huh?! Im way excited. Well I have a bunch of mixed emotions here all of which seem pretty unreal, but most of all I just feel gratitude. I´m very grateful to have had the opportunity to be here and serve a mission, and feel like I have learned a lot, but also know I have a lot more to learn. Now comes the real test!!! Take care, I´ll see you all on Friday.
Love Nick
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
2 more weeks! Thursday, November 10, 2011
Dear fam,
Hey guys, just wrapping up a pretty darn good p-day. We went to the temple in the morning at about 9 O clock, for the first time in about two years! It was way nice. I almost forgot how great the temple is. It was cool to see and feel the difference between when I was there doing the open house and now that it is actually dedicated. It is a real, tangible difference. President was there with us, but unfortunately Sister Glazier was sick. It was also really cool to do it in Spanish! There were a lot of things that I didn´t really pick up on in English or I guess were just clearly or better worded in Spanish, I don´t know hard to explain but it was good. I´m going to be able to go back with all the Elders that are going home and president again on the 23rd so I´m looking forward to it and am glad I´ll be able to go one more time. Then afterwards we went to play soccer at a cool field with another zone that went to the temple with us, and Elder Marchant was there so that was fun.
Well sounds like everybody had a pretty eventful week! Sweet football game, and sweeter fight! haha nothing more pathetic than watching grown men fighting at little league sporting events... but nothing quite as funny either! haha. I can´t believe that it is snowing!! I´m gonna freeze! just looking at those pictures gave me the chills. Everything is going welll here. I´m trying to secure two baptisms for the last weekend of my mission! Alex and José.
Well pretty breaking news here in El Salvador this week. Ready for it....? El Salvador was officially rated the most violent country in the world. How about that? haha more than Iraq, Africa, Mexico, yup all the big ones. We´re number one. The numbers have been really high this last month for some reason, people say it´s normal for the month of November.. who knows why. Looks like I´m getting out of here just in time! haha. Well I think this Monday I´m going to go down town to get some shopping done. If you know me well you will know how much I LOVE shopping... ha so if I don´t come back with something you absolutely love please forgive me. I don´t have much patience in that category especially when people are trying to rip me off! But I´ll try my best :) Well I hope you all have a good week, sorry so short but....I´ll see ya in a couple weeks!
Love Nick
Hey guys, just wrapping up a pretty darn good p-day. We went to the temple in the morning at about 9 O clock, for the first time in about two years! It was way nice. I almost forgot how great the temple is. It was cool to see and feel the difference between when I was there doing the open house and now that it is actually dedicated. It is a real, tangible difference. President was there with us, but unfortunately Sister Glazier was sick. It was also really cool to do it in Spanish! There were a lot of things that I didn´t really pick up on in English or I guess were just clearly or better worded in Spanish, I don´t know hard to explain but it was good. I´m going to be able to go back with all the Elders that are going home and president again on the 23rd so I´m looking forward to it and am glad I´ll be able to go one more time. Then afterwards we went to play soccer at a cool field with another zone that went to the temple with us, and Elder Marchant was there so that was fun.
Well sounds like everybody had a pretty eventful week! Sweet football game, and sweeter fight! haha nothing more pathetic than watching grown men fighting at little league sporting events... but nothing quite as funny either! haha. I can´t believe that it is snowing!! I´m gonna freeze! just looking at those pictures gave me the chills. Everything is going welll here. I´m trying to secure two baptisms for the last weekend of my mission! Alex and José.
Well pretty breaking news here in El Salvador this week. Ready for it....? El Salvador was officially rated the most violent country in the world. How about that? haha more than Iraq, Africa, Mexico, yup all the big ones. We´re number one. The numbers have been really high this last month for some reason, people say it´s normal for the month of November.. who knows why. Looks like I´m getting out of here just in time! haha. Well I think this Monday I´m going to go down town to get some shopping done. If you know me well you will know how much I LOVE shopping... ha so if I don´t come back with something you absolutely love please forgive me. I don´t have much patience in that category especially when people are trying to rip me off! But I´ll try my best :) Well I hope you all have a good week, sorry so short but....I´ll see ya in a couple weeks!
Love Nick
Happy Halloween, Monday Oct 31st
Dear Fam,
Well during the week I always sort of forget that I'm going home soon, or it at least doesn't seem as real, and then Monday comes around and I read your guys' email and remember "wow....... I guess I am coming home soon.." haha. Don't build it up too big in your mind's guys, I'll get home and you will all realize hey... it's just the same old Nick... with a few changes I guess haha. It's all pretty weird that's all I can say!
Well Vilma got baptized on Saturday! We went over to her house the other day and she was way flustered so we asked her what was wrong and she told us that some robbers got on her bus and robbed a bunch of people. She said that had happened to her twice before and both times they had robbed her. They got on and one guy didn't want to give anything so they hit him pretty good. They went to the back of the bus where Vilma was seated, and passed right by her. She said she can feel such a difference now that she has been praying and reading the book of Mormon, and she's certain that God protected her that time because of it. Long story short.. DUNKED ON SATURDAY! :) Another cool thing with our investigator Alex Preza. We were in a lesson with him and the week before at church the principles of the gospel class was on fasting and fast offerings. Anyways at the end of the lesson later that week I asked him if he had any questions and he said "yeah can you help me on Sunday know how to do the whole fast offering thing? I fasted this week so I could get a lend for another bus for work, and it worked." First time I've had an investigator fast before being baptized, stud!
Well other than that everything is pretty normal. It has been burning hot these last couple of days... it went from nice and cool and raining to scorching. We played soccer this morning and I am so burned haha.
Sounds like everybody had a good time at the old family reunion. I'm excited to have another one and see how everybody has changed. From the picture you sent of the adults, looks like everybody has aged pretty well in the last couple of years! congrats! haha.
Yeah let me know when the Bishop tells you about the talk... that would be kind of nice to know. I remember one time a missionary came home and talked about food storage.. haha. Oh I forgot to say that I got the package! Man Reese is huuuuuge! I about died laughing on the video when she was saying "joooosh!" haha so cute. I liked all the things in the package and have already given a few of them away so thanks! Well I'll send some of those pics. Thanks for everything! Love you all have a great week.
Love Nick
Well during the week I always sort of forget that I'm going home soon, or it at least doesn't seem as real, and then Monday comes around and I read your guys' email and remember "wow....... I guess I am coming home soon.." haha. Don't build it up too big in your mind's guys, I'll get home and you will all realize hey... it's just the same old Nick... with a few changes I guess haha. It's all pretty weird that's all I can say!
Well Vilma got baptized on Saturday! We went over to her house the other day and she was way flustered so we asked her what was wrong and she told us that some robbers got on her bus and robbed a bunch of people. She said that had happened to her twice before and both times they had robbed her. They got on and one guy didn't want to give anything so they hit him pretty good. They went to the back of the bus where Vilma was seated, and passed right by her. She said she can feel such a difference now that she has been praying and reading the book of Mormon, and she's certain that God protected her that time because of it. Long story short.. DUNKED ON SATURDAY! :) Another cool thing with our investigator Alex Preza. We were in a lesson with him and the week before at church the principles of the gospel class was on fasting and fast offerings. Anyways at the end of the lesson later that week I asked him if he had any questions and he said "yeah can you help me on Sunday know how to do the whole fast offering thing? I fasted this week so I could get a lend for another bus for work, and it worked." First time I've had an investigator fast before being baptized, stud!
Well other than that everything is pretty normal. It has been burning hot these last couple of days... it went from nice and cool and raining to scorching. We played soccer this morning and I am so burned haha.
Sounds like everybody had a good time at the old family reunion. I'm excited to have another one and see how everybody has changed. From the picture you sent of the adults, looks like everybody has aged pretty well in the last couple of years! congrats! haha.
Yeah let me know when the Bishop tells you about the talk... that would be kind of nice to know. I remember one time a missionary came home and talked about food storage.. haha. Oh I forgot to say that I got the package! Man Reese is huuuuuge! I about died laughing on the video when she was saying "joooosh!" haha so cute. I liked all the things in the package and have already given a few of them away so thanks! Well I'll send some of those pics. Thanks for everything! Love you all have a great week.
Love Nick
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
October Emails
October 10th:
Well this week has flown by! This change just wrapped up and I`m heading into the last. Unreal. This has definitely been the fastest change of my whole mission.
Well this week was real busy, we had the wedding and baptism of Edgardo. It was tough to get it all put together in time, but as always was worth it in the end. They were a bit late for the wedding, but when they finally showed up, Edgardo walked up to the church in a nice new white shirt and tie that he had purchased. He would only just show up to church in jeans and a shirt, cause hardly has any money at all. So that was good to see! The lawyer who did the wedding took foreeeeever to finally get it over with. Seriously talked for about an hour... and there were quite a few of their relatives as well (so pretty crazy wild people), so they were are loud and irreverent.. but they finally got married and baptized him right after. I`ll send you some pictures! Vilma didn`t end up getting baptized this week because of some doubts with tithing. She lives with her mom and brother and supports all three of them teaching school for seven year olds..... if you don`t think teachers get payed well in the states... try coming to El Salvador. So anwyas it was just hard for her to commit to making that sacrifice. We watched with her the other day the story of John Tanner, I don´t know if you guys have seen it? It`s way sweet, and helped her I think. So anyways we`ll keep working with her and hope it all turns out.
Well the beauty of being in an area a long time and then getting sent back to that area is that everybody knows when your birthday is haha, I think I have cake coming out of my eyeballs. Pretty much everyday of the week we had somebody invite us to dinner for the big 21, so I`ll send you some pictures of that as well! I love this ward! haha.
Well that`s awesome that Adam is back, sounds like he did a great job in his talk. You`ll have to ask him for me if he`s still down for rooming! That`s hilarious what he said at the tennis match haha cause I can imagine exactly how that would feel. So what else is going on over there? Sounds like everybody is pretty busy, which is good.
I got the package! Thanks a lot, my companion and I have been feasting for the last few days now. I think I`m going to buy a new suit.... a nice grey one with subtle pin stripes, how do we feel about that?
Well President just sent a letter that said there are going to be quite a few changes on Wednesday and we need to be accepting to them and do the best we can.... That would really stink if I got changed for my last change in the mission... knock on wood.
Well I`ll get those pictures sent off, thanks for everything hope you all have a good week! love you !
Love Nick
October 17th:
Well this week has flown by! This change just wrapped up and I`m heading into the last. Unreal. This has definitely been the fastest change of my whole mission.
Well this week was real busy, we had the wedding and baptism of Edgardo. It was tough to get it all put together in time, but as always was worth it in the end. They were a bit late for the wedding, but when they finally showed up, Edgardo walked up to the church in a nice new white shirt and tie that he had purchased. He would only just show up to church in jeans and a shirt, cause hardly has any money at all. So that was good to see! The lawyer who did the wedding took foreeeeever to finally get it over with. Seriously talked for about an hour... and there were quite a few of their relatives as well (so pretty crazy wild people), so they were are loud and irreverent.. but they finally got married and baptized him right after. I`ll send you some pictures! Vilma didn`t end up getting baptized this week because of some doubts with tithing. She lives with her mom and brother and supports all three of them teaching school for seven year olds..... if you don`t think teachers get payed well in the states... try coming to El Salvador. So anwyas it was just hard for her to commit to making that sacrifice. We watched with her the other day the story of John Tanner, I don´t know if you guys have seen it? It`s way sweet, and helped her I think. So anyways we`ll keep working with her and hope it all turns out.
Well the beauty of being in an area a long time and then getting sent back to that area is that everybody knows when your birthday is haha, I think I have cake coming out of my eyeballs. Pretty much everyday of the week we had somebody invite us to dinner for the big 21, so I`ll send you some pictures of that as well! I love this ward! haha.
Well that`s awesome that Adam is back, sounds like he did a great job in his talk. You`ll have to ask him for me if he`s still down for rooming! That`s hilarious what he said at the tennis match haha cause I can imagine exactly how that would feel. So what else is going on over there? Sounds like everybody is pretty busy, which is good.
I got the package! Thanks a lot, my companion and I have been feasting for the last few days now. I think I`m going to buy a new suit.... a nice grey one with subtle pin stripes, how do we feel about that?
Well President just sent a letter that said there are going to be quite a few changes on Wednesday and we need to be accepting to them and do the best we can.... That would really stink if I got changed for my last change in the mission... knock on wood.
Well I`ll get those pictures sent off, thanks for everything hope you all have a good week! love you !
Love Nick
October 17th:
Dear Fam,
Hi guys, well this week has pretty eventful and crazy. To start off, my companion surprisingly had changes, so I am now with Elder Rivera from Guatemala, by the border of Mexico. He is a zone leader with me now so I`m not the only one haha finally. He`s 27! He tells everybody that he is 21, I`m only one of like three that know his real age. He`s a good guy though so it`ll be good to end with him. Well other than that, you guys heard a bit about the weather that has been happening down here.. it`s been pretty bad. It literally has not stopped raining for 8 days. The longest period of time that I can remember without rain has been an hour or so, it has seriously been crazy! In fact, I just got a call this morning from the assistants saying that we shouldn`t leave the house unless it`s really important for today and tomorrow. There have been some pretty big damages in the country especially towards the coast- flooding and landslides all over! Yesterday we only had sacrament meeting, and after a lot of us went over to Lyco to prepare packets of food and emergency kits to be sent out. In fact, Edgardo who just got baptized on Saturday was one of the few people who went to church, and then went with us after to help in Lyco. Stud! It was pretty cool though, A TON of rice. I`ll send you some pictures! It was pretty cool though to see the church in action in moments of disaster. When everybody else is asking, the church is giving. That`s tithing in action! There were actually a few Americans there helping out. Man it`s going to be weird being surrounded by white people haha, I saw them and just thought wow they are so out of place.. and then remembered.. oh yeah, I`m white too. haha not to mention hearing English from somebody else besides a missionary and not using spanglish. But yeah I think the rain is starting to calm down and it is supposed to be over with on Wednesday. It has all been caused by a hurricane in Mexico, and Central America has caught the tail of it. (I was surprised at the dead on information that Justin told me about it!)
Well the zone got quite a bit bigger as well this transfer. President opened up two more areas in the zone, including moving the sisters Mendoza and Ray from their area and putting them in the area of the assistants. Well that was sort of a last minute thing, so when they told me about it they said that they hadn`t actually found a house for the sisters to live in yet.. so I needed to find some sort of arrangement for a few days. So I spent pretty much all day Wednesday and Thursday moving their suit cases around and calling people and blah blah... all this in a tropical storm. FUN!!!!!!!! haha.
Well sounds like everybody is doing well and life is moving right along. I can`t help but feel like all of your lives have changed quite drastically from when I left, more than I thought they would! A lot can happen in two years huh? Well have a great week, love you all!
Love Nick
October 24th:
Hey guys,
Well, the rain has finally stopped and the sun is out! What a relief... got pretty depressing there for a while not seeing the sun for 8 days straight. The more orient part of the country got hammered by floods and pretty much all crops of any kind destroyed. Everything is really expensive right now because the same thing happened in Guatemala, where we get a lot of that kind of stuff shipped in. For example beans are usually at 80 cents a pound.. and they are at 2 dollars a pound right now. haha yeah in the states we complain about gas prices going up.. well here in El Salvador we complain about bean prices going up :)
Well this week went pretty well, just starting to realize how little time I have left... yikes.
The other day we went out with the stake president Mejivar do visit some less active families, he`s a stud. We visited 14 families in four hours, making sure everything was ok with the rains and everything. With that we were able to find some good investigators and help some people to go back to church so that was good. We had a good lesson with Alex Preza, an investigator who is way good but in the process of stopping smoking. Well somehow the subject of baptisms for the dead got brought up (which often people have a hard time understanding and accepting), and he understood perfectly and told us that when he gets baptized he wants to do the work for his Dad who dad a while back. Yup, already got one foot the in the water! Edgardo when to the temple with his wife on Saturday, so everything is going well and strong with him. The other day I did a baptismal interview for the area of Jardín for a family that I knew when I was there, just the son hadn`t been baptized. Anyways he asked me to baptize him so I baptized him yesterday which was good. I`ll send some pics.
Well sounds like everything is going well at home. New car huh? how on earth do you fit everything at the house.... sell the truck! haha sorry josh. That`s cool though it sounds pretty sweet I`m excited to see it. How has the weather been there lately? Man I`m going to freeze. Hopefully it will be decent weather in St. George the week I get back! Everybody is going to go right?
Well hope you all have a good week, love you thanks for everything!!! Cuìdense
Love Nick
WE GOT NICK'S FLIGHT INFO! He will be coming home on Friday November 25th at 4:45pm!
October 24th:
Hey guys,
Well, the rain has finally stopped and the sun is out! What a relief... got pretty depressing there for a while not seeing the sun for 8 days straight. The more orient part of the country got hammered by floods and pretty much all crops of any kind destroyed. Everything is really expensive right now because the same thing happened in Guatemala, where we get a lot of that kind of stuff shipped in. For example beans are usually at 80 cents a pound.. and they are at 2 dollars a pound right now. haha yeah in the states we complain about gas prices going up.. well here in El Salvador we complain about bean prices going up :)
Well this week went pretty well, just starting to realize how little time I have left... yikes.
The other day we went out with the stake president Mejivar do visit some less active families, he`s a stud. We visited 14 families in four hours, making sure everything was ok with the rains and everything. With that we were able to find some good investigators and help some people to go back to church so that was good. We had a good lesson with Alex Preza, an investigator who is way good but in the process of stopping smoking. Well somehow the subject of baptisms for the dead got brought up (which often people have a hard time understanding and accepting), and he understood perfectly and told us that when he gets baptized he wants to do the work for his Dad who dad a while back. Yup, already got one foot the in the water! Edgardo when to the temple with his wife on Saturday, so everything is going well and strong with him. The other day I did a baptismal interview for the area of Jardín for a family that I knew when I was there, just the son hadn`t been baptized. Anyways he asked me to baptize him so I baptized him yesterday which was good. I`ll send some pics.
Well sounds like everything is going well at home. New car huh? how on earth do you fit everything at the house.... sell the truck! haha sorry josh. That`s cool though it sounds pretty sweet I`m excited to see it. How has the weather been there lately? Man I`m going to freeze. Hopefully it will be decent weather in St. George the week I get back! Everybody is going to go right?
Well hope you all have a good week, love you thanks for everything!!! Cuìdense
Love Nick
WE GOT NICK'S FLIGHT INFO! He will be coming home on Friday November 25th at 4:45pm!
Sunday, October 9, 2011
October Conference, October 3, 2011
Hey fam,
Well another sweet October conference! I enjoyed it as it sounds like you guys did as well. I love conference. It was cool to here President Monson mention the dedication down here, even if he really didn't say much about it haha. I enjoyed his talk a lot on Saturday, as well and as the Elder from Japan and Callister who talked about the Book of Mormon. Really good talk! Elder Uchtdorfs talk was also really cool. I liked when he was explaining the creation and said "compared to God, man is nothing; but to God, man is everthing". All those guys are studs! I was able to watch all of the sessions except for one (the Sunday morning session) in English so that was way nice. We should all go to a live session in April!
Well this weekend we should have two baptisms. Edgar and Vilma. Edgar is going to get married on Saturday with his future wife (a member), and Vilma is a nice humble 27 year old women who has been coming for a couple of months now. So pray so that they both go through!
Everything is going well here. I've got pretty much this whole week lined up with birthday dinners, haha the members here are great. The package is actually in the office waiting for me! I have a zone leaders council tomorrow with President so hopefully he brings it. I'm sure he will. I can't believe it's already October.... time is flying. The fact that I'm coming home blows my mind. You guys will have to go to Adam Jones' farewell for me and tell me how it goes! Also Tyler Cheney comes home this next week and Travis Parrish is already home! It's going to be great to have all the boys back. How are my school papers coming? Good good? Sounds like the weather has been pretty cool there... speaking of which I was probably colder than I have been for two years today! We went to the volcanoe, it was awesome. I'll be sending some pictures. Right about as we were wrapping up being there, it starting POURING. haha so everybody was pretty freezing especially since the volcanoe is pretty cold in comparison to the rest of the country. We went to the crater and it was HUGE! Supposedly there was an eruption in 1917, and that was the last time. Now it's just all green. It was a good time though I think everbody was pretty happy.
How are the grandparents doing? Grandpa didn't come down to go to the priesthood session did he? Tell them I say hi. I shot them a quick email last week, but who knows how often they check that kind of thing. What about Grandma Kirkbride? Tell her I say hi as well, that house is still holding up isn't it? Well sorry a bit short this week but I don't have much time this week since we are getting back a bit late from the volcanoe. Love you all thanks for everything!! Have a great week.
Love Nick
Well another sweet October conference! I enjoyed it as it sounds like you guys did as well. I love conference. It was cool to here President Monson mention the dedication down here, even if he really didn't say much about it haha. I enjoyed his talk a lot on Saturday, as well and as the Elder from Japan and Callister who talked about the Book of Mormon. Really good talk! Elder Uchtdorfs talk was also really cool. I liked when he was explaining the creation and said "compared to God, man is nothing; but to God, man is everthing". All those guys are studs! I was able to watch all of the sessions except for one (the Sunday morning session) in English so that was way nice. We should all go to a live session in April!
Well this weekend we should have two baptisms. Edgar and Vilma. Edgar is going to get married on Saturday with his future wife (a member), and Vilma is a nice humble 27 year old women who has been coming for a couple of months now. So pray so that they both go through!
Everything is going well here. I've got pretty much this whole week lined up with birthday dinners, haha the members here are great. The package is actually in the office waiting for me! I have a zone leaders council tomorrow with President so hopefully he brings it. I'm sure he will. I can't believe it's already October.... time is flying. The fact that I'm coming home blows my mind. You guys will have to go to Adam Jones' farewell for me and tell me how it goes! Also Tyler Cheney comes home this next week and Travis Parrish is already home! It's going to be great to have all the boys back. How are my school papers coming? Good good? Sounds like the weather has been pretty cool there... speaking of which I was probably colder than I have been for two years today! We went to the volcanoe, it was awesome. I'll be sending some pictures. Right about as we were wrapping up being there, it starting POURING. haha so everybody was pretty freezing especially since the volcanoe is pretty cold in comparison to the rest of the country. We went to the crater and it was HUGE! Supposedly there was an eruption in 1917, and that was the last time. Now it's just all green. It was a good time though I think everbody was pretty happy.
How are the grandparents doing? Grandpa didn't come down to go to the priesthood session did he? Tell them I say hi. I shot them a quick email last week, but who knows how often they check that kind of thing. What about Grandma Kirkbride? Tell her I say hi as well, that house is still holding up isn't it? Well sorry a bit short this week but I don't have much time this week since we are getting back a bit late from the volcanoe. Love you all thanks for everything!! Have a great week.
Love Nick
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Getting ready for conference! September 26, 2011
Hey fam,
How`s everyone doing? Sounds like everything is normal in the Reid house (Well relatively.... when I left Josh definitely wasn`t going to homecoming dance`s, Adam wasn`t doing backflips on a wake-board, Justin wasn`t saying things like "kenady will look very nice, which is very nice for me", Brooke wasn`t taking casual weekend trips to park city and buying condos, oh yeah and Reese didn`t even exist!)
Everything is going well here, just getting geared up for General Conference! I`m excited to say the least. We already have two for sure baptismal dates for the 10th of October, Vilma and Edgardo. The zone is going to baptize a TON in October. Every area has people. Well I had a good experience the other day. When I was here before in Buena Vista, the whole six weeks we were visiting a family named Quinteros who were inactive for quite a while. The Dad served a mission here in El Salvador and the mom was even born into the church. For a lot of personal reasons, they had justified inactivating. Anyways, we went over there quite a bit and had some really good lessons with them and everytime thought that that week they would be going to church.. but never did. Very frustrating. Well when I came back, I found they there were active and going to church and activities and everything! We went over to their house and I said jokingly "How is it that I spend two months begging you guys to come to church, and then when I leave you start going?!" haha well the Dad explained that when I left ( I didn`t tell them that I was leaving) the family started saying hey why haven`t the missionaries been coming over? And I guess it started to bug them and really missed it. So he told me one day they were at home and the dad said "let`s go look for Elder Reid at the church". Well long story short they went to look for me to find out that I had left, but because they went to the church it ended up reactivating them. And now I`m back! So that was good to see and hear.
Well I now have a for sure date... November 25th.. the day after Thanksgiving. But at least we now know for sure! It`ll be good though, Thanksgiving day we will have interviews with president, we`ll go to the temple, and he`ll take us out to dinner. Well next Wednesday I`m turning 21! Pretty crazy. I`m starting to get a little stressed out about it all haha what am I gonna do?! Where do I work? What do I study? WHERE do I study? What do I do so I don`t freeze to death when I get home?
So how`s the ward doing? Justin says that the Besinger boy came home for New York, how did that all go for him? That is still pretty crazy to me. That`s sad about Kit`s friend... tell her I`m sorry. The other day our cook`s husband was watching footage and a little documentary about the war here... pretty brutal. Just a group of common men with machine guns fighting againts the military. The weirder part is that I recongnized a lot of the places and really nothing much has changed since then in terms of how the houses look and the streets and all that. I`ve never really known the story behind it all but I defintely want to read about it when I get home. It`s hard to gather information here from the people because half of them were on the side of the governement and the other half with the revolutionists.. so yeah they both have there side of the story haha.
Well other than that everything is good here. Still lots of rain! But still brutally hot. Love you all, thanks for everything, have a great week!
Nick
How`s everyone doing? Sounds like everything is normal in the Reid house (Well relatively.... when I left Josh definitely wasn`t going to homecoming dance`s, Adam wasn`t doing backflips on a wake-board, Justin wasn`t saying things like "kenady will look very nice, which is very nice for me", Brooke wasn`t taking casual weekend trips to park city and buying condos, oh yeah and Reese didn`t even exist!)
Everything is going well here, just getting geared up for General Conference! I`m excited to say the least. We already have two for sure baptismal dates for the 10th of October, Vilma and Edgardo. The zone is going to baptize a TON in October. Every area has people. Well I had a good experience the other day. When I was here before in Buena Vista, the whole six weeks we were visiting a family named Quinteros who were inactive for quite a while. The Dad served a mission here in El Salvador and the mom was even born into the church. For a lot of personal reasons, they had justified inactivating. Anyways, we went over there quite a bit and had some really good lessons with them and everytime thought that that week they would be going to church.. but never did. Very frustrating. Well when I came back, I found they there were active and going to church and activities and everything! We went over to their house and I said jokingly "How is it that I spend two months begging you guys to come to church, and then when I leave you start going?!" haha well the Dad explained that when I left ( I didn`t tell them that I was leaving) the family started saying hey why haven`t the missionaries been coming over? And I guess it started to bug them and really missed it. So he told me one day they were at home and the dad said "let`s go look for Elder Reid at the church". Well long story short they went to look for me to find out that I had left, but because they went to the church it ended up reactivating them. And now I`m back! So that was good to see and hear.
Well I now have a for sure date... November 25th.. the day after Thanksgiving. But at least we now know for sure! It`ll be good though, Thanksgiving day we will have interviews with president, we`ll go to the temple, and he`ll take us out to dinner. Well next Wednesday I`m turning 21! Pretty crazy. I`m starting to get a little stressed out about it all haha what am I gonna do?! Where do I work? What do I study? WHERE do I study? What do I do so I don`t freeze to death when I get home?
So how`s the ward doing? Justin says that the Besinger boy came home for New York, how did that all go for him? That is still pretty crazy to me. That`s sad about Kit`s friend... tell her I`m sorry. The other day our cook`s husband was watching footage and a little documentary about the war here... pretty brutal. Just a group of common men with machine guns fighting againts the military. The weirder part is that I recongnized a lot of the places and really nothing much has changed since then in terms of how the houses look and the streets and all that. I`ve never really known the story behind it all but I defintely want to read about it when I get home. It`s hard to gather information here from the people because half of them were on the side of the governement and the other half with the revolutionists.. so yeah they both have there side of the story haha.
Well other than that everything is good here. Still lots of rain! But still brutally hot. Love you all, thanks for everything, have a great week!
Nick
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Great Multi Zone- September 19, 2011
Sister Glazier making pupusas
President and Sister Glazier
Hey guys, Well this week has been pretty good. On Tuesday we had the multi zone meeting with elder Martino, and it was really good. That guy`s a stud. He was coming down on everyone a bit for the lack of priesthood baptisms and ordinations to the Melchizedek priesthood, but they added on at the end that Zone Cuscatlán was actually doing pretty well in that category, so that was nice and made all of us in the zone feel pretty good haha. And then on Thursday we had a Zone leader Counsel meeting with Elder Martino as well. It was really cool because it was a lot more personal. Only about 14 missionaries, President and his wife, Elder Martino and his wife. We set some good goals for the mission and received a lot of good instruction. It was pretty funny/impressive to see Elder Martino`s wife there with him. They live in Guatemala and have for quite a while now, even though his wife barely speaks any Spanish at all. I can`t imagine having to be the wife of an authority of the church, who is assigned to Central America, following him around hearing nothing but Spanish all day (including whatever type of meeting or church meeting), and not understanding hardly anything or being able to chime in or express yourself. Now that`s a supportive wife! haha. Well general conference is coming up here soon. I`m way excited. When I get back we have to go to a live session of general conference in April! I love hearing those guys talk, and we`ve got them 15 minutes away! It`s pretty funny, whenever I tell members that I live close to Salt Lake, the first thing that they ask me is "have you ever been to a general conference?!" For a lot of them it is a life goal to see the Salt Lake temple and go to a general conference. Then a couple days later I turn 21... I liked your comment dad, "maybe you can splurge and have a coke". haha that wouldn't be too bad of a birthday present actually! But I guess I can`t wait a couple more months and enjoy it more on the plane haha. Speaking of which, they have been some difficulties in finding flights for the 24th... which I knew there would be... so it`s probable that I`ll come home a couple days earlier. But we`ll see, maybe they`ll just send me home a week later? I`ll keep you posted. I sent that card of today Mom, so let me know if you get it. Well everything is going well here, we should have a few baptisms coming up here in the next couple of weeks. We should be baptizing a man named Edgardo who is the husband of a less active member who we have recently activated. And a women named Vilma who about 4 weeks ago just showed up to church all by herself, and has gone every week since. She`s great. We had a mission activity in my ward on Thursday (independence day for El Salvador), and my stake president invited President Glazier. He actually showed up! haha him and his wife. Sister Glazier learned how to make pupusas, it was hilarious. She`s probably the nicest lady I have ever met! So yeah I`ll have to send you a picture of that. Other than that all is well en la tierra de El Salvador. Hope you all have a good week!!! love you. Nick
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Stake Conference, September 12, 2011
So how has the weather been lately? I remember you guys telling me that it has been extremely hot.. has it calmed down at all? Starting to feel like fall at all? Fall and Spring are definitely the best times of the year. Hey so guess what I just found out? Dad operated on the Grandpa of a sister that is in my zone just a few weeks ago! Her last name is Jones. I don`t know if that is the last name of the man that dad operated on but I think so. She was the sister that went to buena vista when they took my out, and last transfer we had the same cook so we ate with them everyday. Small world huh?! I jokingly told her that she totally owes me because my dad saved her grandpas life haha.
This thursday we have a zone leaders meeting with Elder Martino.... and now that a lot of the zones only have one zone leader that means it`s going to be like 12 of us missionaries with president and Elder Martino... yikes. haha, no I'm excited though it`ll be awesome I`m sure. Well I have some cool pictures Im going to send to you guys so I better go. Love you all, thanks for all your support! Have a great week! Nick
This thursday we have a zone leaders meeting with Elder Martino.... and now that a lot of the zones only have one zone leader that means it`s going to be like 12 of us missionaries with president and Elder Martino... yikes. haha, no I'm excited though it`ll be awesome I`m sure. Well I have some cool pictures Im going to send to you guys so I better go. Love you all, thanks for all your support! Have a great week! Nick
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
September 5, last transfer!
How`s it going guys? Well another week flown by. As you know, we had changes on Wednesday, aaaaand once again President decided to throw me a curve ball. I got the call Tuesday night that my companion would be staying in the area to receive his new companion and that I was going to be moved back to Buena Vista. Can you believe it? One change and I`m back haha. I was excited though because I really like this ward and it will be good to end the mission here. Well they also told me that I would now be the only Zone Leader for the zone. They changed it so that now some of the zones only have one zone leader with a normal companion instead of a companionship of zone leaders. So I am now alone with 18 missionaries... fun huh! This has probably been one of the weirdest and busiest weeks of the mission having to do everything by myself and get into a new area and all of that. My companion is named Elder Orellana from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He only has three months in mission. I think that is kind of the whole point of the whole one zone leader thing, helping train missionaries who President sees as future leaders. He`s a good kid and we get along pretty well. The reason that they changed me back to Buena Vista is that a hand full of members called President complaining to him saying the area is too dangerous to have sister missionaries and that they shouldn't be there. But it`s fine though I`m up for ending here with Elder Orellana, it`ll be good! We had a zone meeting on Friday which was good. There are two brand new missionaries in the zone now, including a sister from Hurricane Utah. Amy`s land! Well after the meeting she said she had a few questions for me so I was talking to her about some stuff and all of the sudden she started crying. She truly thinks she is never going to learn the language. She was saying "Elder I don`t understand a single word anybody is saying" (on top of that her trainer is from Guatemala and doesn`t speak a word of English). On top of that she is just absolutely in culture shock here. She was telling about how she thought some things were so weird or dangerous or dirty here (things that I felt were totally normal) ha but thinking about it I decided, hmmm... I guess that isn`t like that in the States is it? So just all in all she wants to go home.She said "I just don`t feel good, I just can`t stop dwelling on the fact that I have 16 more months of this." I thought about something Dad said in a tape in the first package that you guys sent me here in the country. He said things are probably pretty tough right now, but you just have to realize and remember that you are not going to feel like this the whole mission. This isn`t how the who mission is going to be. That is very true, so I told her that as well. So everybody is kinda looking after her right now and trying to help. We are all going to go to a pizza hut today to try and cheer her up. haha Believe me... it works.
Well this week one of the girls in my ward got married, and had the reception in the church. Guess who I saw? My cook from Soyapango! It was way good to see them, I took a picture so I`ll have to send it to you. When I was just about to leave from there she told me that she was pregnant, and now she is huuuuge and about to have the baby! So weird. Time flies. Well in about a week and a half we are going to have a multi zone meeting with Elder Martino, one of the area seventies. The assistants called me last night saying that President wanted me to pick 8 people in the zone to sing a special hymn in the meeting. So this week I have to pick 8, pick a hymn, practice it will everybody, and have it ready to sing for five zones and Elder Martino next week... freeeak.
Well other than that everything is going well, we have quite a few investigators here in the area, including quite a few people that I had left for the sisters that still haven`t been baptized, so I`m hoping to get a few of them dipped here pretty soon. Love you all hope you have a great week!!!!!!
Nick
Well this week one of the girls in my ward got married, and had the reception in the church. Guess who I saw? My cook from Soyapango! It was way good to see them, I took a picture so I`ll have to send it to you. When I was just about to leave from there she told me that she was pregnant, and now she is huuuuge and about to have the baby! So weird. Time flies. Well in about a week and a half we are going to have a multi zone meeting with Elder Martino, one of the area seventies. The assistants called me last night saying that President wanted me to pick 8 people in the zone to sing a special hymn in the meeting. So this week I have to pick 8, pick a hymn, practice it will everybody, and have it ready to sing for five zones and Elder Martino next week... freeeak.
Well other than that everything is going well, we have quite a few investigators here in the area, including quite a few people that I had left for the sisters that still haven`t been baptized, so I`m hoping to get a few of them dipped here pretty soon. Love you all hope you have a great week!!!!!!
Nick
August 29th, back to the grind
Hey fam,
Well another week flown by. Without a doubt this has been the fastest transfer of my whole mission. We have transfers on Wednesday. I already know that my companion is going to be leaving, which means I will very likely be staying in my area and probably finish my mission here. There are a lot of good people and we are having success so I would be fine with that it ends up happening. So it´s very probable that the companion that I receive on Wednesday will be the companion that I end the mission with... WEIRD. I´m still convinced that it isn´t going to end.
Well this weekend we baptized two future missionaries! On Saturday we baptized a kid named César, whose family is a recent convert of about a month and a half. They are all great and have progressed a ton in the church in the short time that they have been in the church. Anyways, it was cool because his dad was able to baptize him (although he had to do it three times) haha. The mom spoke at the baptism and said crying that if you would have told her a year ago that her whole family would be in the church doing what they are now doing and the changes they have made, she wouldn´t have believed it for a second. Pretty cool. And then the next day, Sunday, we baptized another young man named Mario Alexander, whose cousin is also a recent convert. He´s hilarious and a stud. He kinda pulled a fast one on us though.. he lives with his aunt and uncle and his mom is always working so I had actually never met her, just the aunt and uncle. Anyways we went to do the baptismal interview and to fill out his baptismal record; he passed and everything was good. He said that in that moment his mom wasn´t there to sign the record because is in under 18 years old. So I just left it with him and told him to give it to his mom when she had some free time. I came back and he had it signed and said that his mom is excited for him and totally fine. Well the morning of the baptism I called him to remind him we were going to come by to pick him up, and his cousin the recent convert answered and said "um Mario´s mom wants to talk to you guys, I don't think she wants him to get baptized." This was about two hours before his baptism. Supposedly Mario just had his uncle sign it and really hadn´t told his much about it at all... and when she found out she was not happy to say the least. So we went over to do some damage control and try and convince his mom to let him get baptized that day. When I walked in Mario´s cousin Rita just said "good luck", and I was like you just watch I promise you she is going to let us.... and Rita just laughed and said "you don´t know her like I do... I highly doubt it she lets it happen". Well we went in, worked some charm, through out a few scriptures, made her see the future of her son, told Mario in front of her that he needs to have better communication with his mom, and 25 minutes later we had the paper sign and the mom excited and willing to support him. I wish I could have taken a picture a picture of Rita´s face when I told her the baptism was still on, haha oh ye of little faith!!!!!! So I will send you a picture of the baptisms.
On a little bit of sadder note, my first Bishop in Porvenir was shot the other day. He was on his motorcycle with his son collecting money for the business he works for when I guy came out of nowhere and asked for all the money he had on him. He gave it to him without question (all the money of his work, have in mind), and then the guy asked for his cell phone. He said that he didn´t have it on him, and without thinking twice the guy pulled out his gun and shot him in the stomach. The bullet entered his stomach, came out the back of his leg, and grazed the leg of his son on the back. They just operated on him yesterday and looks like he´s gonna be alright. There are some evil people in this country. I don´t know if you guys had heard or if I had told you about it before, but here in my area they was a huge tragedy about a year ago. Look it up on the internet. Just try putting "Bus burned in Mejicanos El Salvador" and see if it comes up. If you can´t find it let me know and I´ll tell you about it. The worst thing that has happen while I've been here. Those people are just sick in head, they have to be. Satan has them completely dominated.
Well everything else is going well, just enjoy the time here. I had my buddy in the office confirm for me that President is going to send us home on Thanksgiving day, so that´s still on. Oh yeah I almost forgot! The other day I ran into Sister Zelada, remember her? My first cook in porvenir? Well she invited us to have lunch on Saturday cause my house is like five minutes away from hers. So we went! It was way cool to go back there and see a little bit of my first area and where I used to live and eat and all that. Her son has grown a ton!!!!!! Anyways so that was way fun, love that women.
Well that´s about it, I have quite a few pictures to send so I better go. Love you all thanks for everything! hope you have a great week!
August 22nd, Temple Dedication
August 22nd:
Well, I´ve got a whole lot that I could say this week so we´ll see if I can even scratch the surface of the experiences of this past weekend. On Friday, my mission along with the Santa Ana/Belize mission had a special meeting with President Eyring, and Elder Christofferson. There present as well were Elder Martino, Elder Amado, and Elder Falabella from the quorum of the seventy. I can´t even begin to describe how it felt to be in the same room as all of those men and see them interact. When we first got there, we had to wait a bit for the members of the seventy to arrive, and a bit longer for President Eyring and Elder Christofferson. While we were waiting for the latter two, Elder Martino and Elder Amado spoke to us. Elder Martino talked about how we always need to ask first to be able to receive. He made the example of the first vision, later with the revelation concerning baptism, and later the revelation concerning the kingdoms of glory. All cases in which they asked God before recieving. He applied that to us missionaries and our investigators. He then spoke of how can we expect our investigators to stop doing things so difficult like drinking, smoking, law of chastity ect. if we don´t complete with our responsibilities or if we aren't obedient ourselves. Elder Amado then spoke for a bit and said something I liked. He said "what is seen, touched, and heard doesn't count and doesn't matter. What matters is what is felt." He then spoke a bit about the organization and responsibilities that members of the 70, quorum of the 12, and first presidency hold. He spoke about how great a privilege it was that we were going to have the privilege of hearing from President Eyring. Well the moment arrived and President Eyring and Elder Christofferson arrived with their wives. Even their presence was very powerful, everyone was just watching them! A choir from the other mission sang "divina luz" or "lead kindly light". It was actually really good! Then Elder Eyring got up and spoke with the help of a translator. He started off commented that his ride on the way here was quite interesting, that "The people here are great, quite aggressive on the streets!" He said he had a police escort in front of them and that a few people decided to get out of the way, and others decided to get behind them and just join the parade haha. He then began saying he was with President Monson just a few hours earlier, and that he sends his love. he said "he really wanted to be here, and this weekend is his Birthday! That only comes around once a year and of all places he wanted to be here was with you. He sends his love." He said they were having to deal with some difficult things. That often members of the 12 will come to him in the weekly meetings that they hold with big problems, often very sad and complicated. He said President Monson will often listen respectfully, wait for them to finish and finally just say "things will work out" with a smile. He said that is the exact same attitude that President Hinckley had, and the same attitude we can have; we just need to have faith. And that for us as missionaries the faith that God truly called us. He went on to explain the process of assigning a missionary a mission call, and how it was different for every apostle. He explained how he receives revelation through a map, that´s what helps him. At the end of the process it is very clear where the missionary needs to go. He said through this process, he has been able to feel and understand how perfectly and personally god knows each and every one of us. He knows our fears, our weakness, our strengths, and most of all our potential. He said through this process he must not look at the picture of the missionary as how he seems or appears, but (choking back tears) how god sees him. He said, "he knows our name. He knows us perfectly. And that is manifest in your mission calling." He then asked Elder Walker (70 in charge of temples) and Elder Christofferson to bear their testimonies. Elder Walker made the comment that there could not be a better time to be a missionary in El Salvador than right now. That´s the truth!
Elder Christofferson then spoke (in really good Spanish) and said we often forget to express our thanks to those who serve us and to those whom we serve with, " So thank you". He said that sometimes he thinks of Peter and what he would say looking at our times. He said he would say something like, "man, if I had planes, cars, telephones, internet and TV I would have converted the whole world in 10 months!" haha. He said he feels good working with us missionaries side by side, and that he hopes with feel the same. He also aid,"It doesn´t matter what anybody else thinks or says... this is the truth."
President Eyring got up and spoke again. He said our greatest testimony must be that Jesus is the Christ, and that we should testify of that most often. He counseled us to go to the Book of Mormon often in profound and sincere prayer, and promised if we do that our testimonies of Christ will increase deeply and profoundly. He said "Be true witlessness of Jesus Christ. It is more than just saying it; it is feeling that as your are obedient, dedicate yourselves, and live the Gospel, you will notice you will begin to change. You will be a living witness that the atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to change even our very nature. That we will no longer desire to do evil, but to do good continually, and begin to reach our potential." What a humble man. I don´t know anyone like him. I wanted to write everything down that he was saying but I eventually just had to stop and listen to what he was saying and enjoy the spirit that was there. It was an experience I´ll never forget!
Then Saturday was the cultural event and we watched it at the stake center. Sitting next to me was a Sister missionary from my zone that is from here El Salvador. It was cool to see her get emotional and cry druing much of the presentation. All the young men and women participated in the culurtal even and every stake and a special segment where they danced a national dance. It was pretty sweet and everybody loved it.
Then finally yesterday was the temple dedication! There were 3 sessions, and we saw all 3 in the stake center. In each session there was a choir, 3 or 4 speakers, and the dedicatory prayer given by President Eyring. He spoke in the first and last sessions. He did great in both occasions despite the inconvenience of having a translator having to interrupt every sentence. I especially enjoyed his talk in the last session. He spoke of the blessing of the temple and a few personal experiences of grandchildren that had passed away as little children and the blessing they have in greeting the celestial kingdom thanks to the atonement. Many spoke of of how the members of the church used to have to travel to Arizona to go to the temple, then Mexico, then Guatemala, and now the long awaited day of having one in El Salvador.
Sylvia Allred who is from here spoke in the second session. She moved to the states when she was like 9, which is quite clear because she doesn´t have a accent from El Salvador at all haha. I can´t remember all that was said by President Eyring, but I do know that the spirit was strong and it was clear that he is a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. In the dedicatory prayer, he specifically prayed for the missionaries and the work here. Hearing that and knowing it was specifically directed towards me was something very special and touching. I guarantee there will be a noticeable increase in success in the mission because of that prayer. He blessed the temple especially with protection from those who desire to do it harm, or evil ones you attempt to enter.. Much needed for this country! He prayed for peace and opportunity of the country. The whole country is going to be blessed because of the temple, no doubt about that. All in all it was a great end to a weekend that I´ll never forget!
My ears have gotten quite a bit better. It was funny I talked to the area doctor and was telling me how they wanted to give me IV´s and he was like. "Giving IV´s for an ear infection is like tossing an atomic bomb to kill ants. I don´t know what it is about Latin doctors, but they love to overdo everything. It´s how they sell themselves to the people." haha kind of a funny guy. Well I better go but love you all thanks for everything I hope you have a great week!
Love Nick
Well, I´ve got a whole lot that I could say this week so we´ll see if I can even scratch the surface of the experiences of this past weekend. On Friday, my mission along with the Santa Ana/Belize mission had a special meeting with President Eyring, and Elder Christofferson. There present as well were Elder Martino, Elder Amado, and Elder Falabella from the quorum of the seventy. I can´t even begin to describe how it felt to be in the same room as all of those men and see them interact. When we first got there, we had to wait a bit for the members of the seventy to arrive, and a bit longer for President Eyring and Elder Christofferson. While we were waiting for the latter two, Elder Martino and Elder Amado spoke to us. Elder Martino talked about how we always need to ask first to be able to receive. He made the example of the first vision, later with the revelation concerning baptism, and later the revelation concerning the kingdoms of glory. All cases in which they asked God before recieving. He applied that to us missionaries and our investigators. He then spoke of how can we expect our investigators to stop doing things so difficult like drinking, smoking, law of chastity ect. if we don´t complete with our responsibilities or if we aren't obedient ourselves. Elder Amado then spoke for a bit and said something I liked. He said "what is seen, touched, and heard doesn't count and doesn't matter. What matters is what is felt." He then spoke a bit about the organization and responsibilities that members of the 70, quorum of the 12, and first presidency hold. He spoke about how great a privilege it was that we were going to have the privilege of hearing from President Eyring. Well the moment arrived and President Eyring and Elder Christofferson arrived with their wives. Even their presence was very powerful, everyone was just watching them! A choir from the other mission sang "divina luz" or "lead kindly light". It was actually really good! Then Elder Eyring got up and spoke with the help of a translator. He started off commented that his ride on the way here was quite interesting, that "The people here are great, quite aggressive on the streets!" He said he had a police escort in front of them and that a few people decided to get out of the way, and others decided to get behind them and just join the parade haha. He then began saying he was with President Monson just a few hours earlier, and that he sends his love. he said "he really wanted to be here, and this weekend is his Birthday! That only comes around once a year and of all places he wanted to be here was with you. He sends his love." He said they were having to deal with some difficult things. That often members of the 12 will come to him in the weekly meetings that they hold with big problems, often very sad and complicated. He said President Monson will often listen respectfully, wait for them to finish and finally just say "things will work out" with a smile. He said that is the exact same attitude that President Hinckley had, and the same attitude we can have; we just need to have faith. And that for us as missionaries the faith that God truly called us. He went on to explain the process of assigning a missionary a mission call, and how it was different for every apostle. He explained how he receives revelation through a map, that´s what helps him. At the end of the process it is very clear where the missionary needs to go. He said through this process, he has been able to feel and understand how perfectly and personally god knows each and every one of us. He knows our fears, our weakness, our strengths, and most of all our potential. He said through this process he must not look at the picture of the missionary as how he seems or appears, but (choking back tears) how god sees him. He said, "he knows our name. He knows us perfectly. And that is manifest in your mission calling." He then asked Elder Walker (70 in charge of temples) and Elder Christofferson to bear their testimonies. Elder Walker made the comment that there could not be a better time to be a missionary in El Salvador than right now. That´s the truth!
Elder Christofferson then spoke (in really good Spanish) and said we often forget to express our thanks to those who serve us and to those whom we serve with, " So thank you". He said that sometimes he thinks of Peter and what he would say looking at our times. He said he would say something like, "man, if I had planes, cars, telephones, internet and TV I would have converted the whole world in 10 months!" haha. He said he feels good working with us missionaries side by side, and that he hopes with feel the same. He also aid,"It doesn´t matter what anybody else thinks or says... this is the truth."
President Eyring got up and spoke again. He said our greatest testimony must be that Jesus is the Christ, and that we should testify of that most often. He counseled us to go to the Book of Mormon often in profound and sincere prayer, and promised if we do that our testimonies of Christ will increase deeply and profoundly. He said "Be true witlessness of Jesus Christ. It is more than just saying it; it is feeling that as your are obedient, dedicate yourselves, and live the Gospel, you will notice you will begin to change. You will be a living witness that the atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to change even our very nature. That we will no longer desire to do evil, but to do good continually, and begin to reach our potential." What a humble man. I don´t know anyone like him. I wanted to write everything down that he was saying but I eventually just had to stop and listen to what he was saying and enjoy the spirit that was there. It was an experience I´ll never forget!
Then Saturday was the cultural event and we watched it at the stake center. Sitting next to me was a Sister missionary from my zone that is from here El Salvador. It was cool to see her get emotional and cry druing much of the presentation. All the young men and women participated in the culurtal even and every stake and a special segment where they danced a national dance. It was pretty sweet and everybody loved it.
Then finally yesterday was the temple dedication! There were 3 sessions, and we saw all 3 in the stake center. In each session there was a choir, 3 or 4 speakers, and the dedicatory prayer given by President Eyring. He spoke in the first and last sessions. He did great in both occasions despite the inconvenience of having a translator having to interrupt every sentence. I especially enjoyed his talk in the last session. He spoke of the blessing of the temple and a few personal experiences of grandchildren that had passed away as little children and the blessing they have in greeting the celestial kingdom thanks to the atonement. Many spoke of of how the members of the church used to have to travel to Arizona to go to the temple, then Mexico, then Guatemala, and now the long awaited day of having one in El Salvador.
Sylvia Allred who is from here spoke in the second session. She moved to the states when she was like 9, which is quite clear because she doesn´t have a accent from El Salvador at all haha. I can´t remember all that was said by President Eyring, but I do know that the spirit was strong and it was clear that he is a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator. In the dedicatory prayer, he specifically prayed for the missionaries and the work here. Hearing that and knowing it was specifically directed towards me was something very special and touching. I guarantee there will be a noticeable increase in success in the mission because of that prayer. He blessed the temple especially with protection from those who desire to do it harm, or evil ones you attempt to enter.. Much needed for this country! He prayed for peace and opportunity of the country. The whole country is going to be blessed because of the temple, no doubt about that. All in all it was a great end to a weekend that I´ll never forget!
My ears have gotten quite a bit better. It was funny I talked to the area doctor and was telling me how they wanted to give me IV´s and he was like. "Giving IV´s for an ear infection is like tossing an atomic bomb to kill ants. I don´t know what it is about Latin doctors, but they love to overdo everything. It´s how they sell themselves to the people." haha kind of a funny guy. Well I better go but love you all thanks for everything I hope you have a great week!
Love Nick
Monday, August 15, 2011
Feeling better - August 15, 2011
Hey guys,
Well my ears are quite a bit better so that´s good, I guess the area doctor knew what he was talking about after all! My hearing is gradually getting better I think, although it´s hard to note the difference. But the most relieving thing is that there isn´t much pain anymore, soI'm happy haha. It was nice to be able to get out and work again this week, although we seemed to have kinda of bad luck for some reason! There was a city party the other night and all the streets of the city were shut down and everything pretty much turned into a big club/concert haha. Everybody was wasted and there were trashy people all over the place. I woke up at three in the morning and could still hear all the music! soooo loud. We´ve had a few problems with some of the Elders in the zone unfortunately. One of my old comps is getting frustrating with his companion that he is training because he doesn´t know any Spanish. The thing is, the elder speaks English and I told him, hey man don´t speak English to your companion, if you do he won´t learn. Well he didn´t really listen and from day one spoke to him in English always... and now it´s kinda coming back to get him. So anyways his district leader Elder Coy is also training, and supposedly they have been doing a lot of divisions on days that aren't authorized just to get away from there companions and be together. I feel bad for the guy, learning a new language is tough, and if your companion doesn´t have patience it can be super discouraging! But other than that everything is fine. This next weekend my companion and I should be baptizing four people so that´ll be good!
Well this week is going to be pretty sweet, a lot of things to look forward to! On Friday at 6pm we are going to have a special meeting with Elder Eyering and Christofferson with both missions. It´s going to be awesome I´m sure. And it´ll be good to have a fellow Bountiful-ite in El Salvador. haha when I tell people that he lives like two minutes from my house their jaw drops to the floor. So I´ll have to give you guys some good details about that next week. Then on Saturday there is the cultural event for the temple that we will be watching from the stake center, and Sunday the dedication!!!! I´ve got my pass and everything ready to go. There are a couple recent converts of only a couple weeks that are going to be going as well so I'm excited for them. I'm not even really sure what to expect because I've never been to an open house as sad as that is.
Well sounds like Biss did a good job, that´s good. It´s gotta be weird being home.. is he still going to play baseball for the U? I´m sure he feels pretty accomplished making the decision to go on a mission, I can imagine what I'd be doing right now if I didn´t go. I'm pretty proud of all my friends, I really can think of only one that didn´t end up going. Pretty sweet! Well this week has been rain, rain, and more rain! I don't know why, but it seems to always rain at night and never during the day. It´s just super hot and humid during the day from the rain the night before.
Hey before I forget, tell Kim thanks for the tie she sent me I like it a lot!! I´ve gotten quite a few complements on it haha. How are Grandma and Grandpa Reid doing, and Grandma Kirkbride? Tell them all hi for me. Well have a great week love you all thanks for all of your prayers and support, it means a lot!
Que se diviertan en yellowstone!
Love Nick
Well my ears are quite a bit better so that´s good, I guess the area doctor knew what he was talking about after all! My hearing is gradually getting better I think, although it´s hard to note the difference. But the most relieving thing is that there isn´t much pain anymore, soI'm happy haha. It was nice to be able to get out and work again this week, although we seemed to have kinda of bad luck for some reason! There was a city party the other night and all the streets of the city were shut down and everything pretty much turned into a big club/concert haha. Everybody was wasted and there were trashy people all over the place. I woke up at three in the morning and could still hear all the music! soooo loud. We´ve had a few problems with some of the Elders in the zone unfortunately. One of my old comps is getting frustrating with his companion that he is training because he doesn´t know any Spanish. The thing is, the elder speaks English and I told him, hey man don´t speak English to your companion, if you do he won´t learn. Well he didn´t really listen and from day one spoke to him in English always... and now it´s kinda coming back to get him. So anyways his district leader Elder Coy is also training, and supposedly they have been doing a lot of divisions on days that aren't authorized just to get away from there companions and be together. I feel bad for the guy, learning a new language is tough, and if your companion doesn´t have patience it can be super discouraging! But other than that everything is fine. This next weekend my companion and I should be baptizing four people so that´ll be good!
Well this week is going to be pretty sweet, a lot of things to look forward to! On Friday at 6pm we are going to have a special meeting with Elder Eyering and Christofferson with both missions. It´s going to be awesome I´m sure. And it´ll be good to have a fellow Bountiful-ite in El Salvador. haha when I tell people that he lives like two minutes from my house their jaw drops to the floor. So I´ll have to give you guys some good details about that next week. Then on Saturday there is the cultural event for the temple that we will be watching from the stake center, and Sunday the dedication!!!! I´ve got my pass and everything ready to go. There are a couple recent converts of only a couple weeks that are going to be going as well so I'm excited for them. I'm not even really sure what to expect because I've never been to an open house as sad as that is.
Well sounds like Biss did a good job, that´s good. It´s gotta be weird being home.. is he still going to play baseball for the U? I´m sure he feels pretty accomplished making the decision to go on a mission, I can imagine what I'd be doing right now if I didn´t go. I'm pretty proud of all my friends, I really can think of only one that didn´t end up going. Pretty sweet! Well this week has been rain, rain, and more rain! I don't know why, but it seems to always rain at night and never during the day. It´s just super hot and humid during the day from the rain the night before.
Hey before I forget, tell Kim thanks for the tie she sent me I like it a lot!! I´ve gotten quite a few complements on it haha. How are Grandma and Grandpa Reid doing, and Grandma Kirkbride? Tell them all hi for me. Well have a great week love you all thanks for all of your prayers and support, it means a lot!
Que se diviertan en yellowstone!
Love Nick
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Ear Infection- August 8th, 2011
Hey fam,
Well, how is everyone? All I can say is.. I´m glad this week is over. ha I had a bit of a health problem this week. On Wednesday I woke up at about 1:30 in the morning with an unbelievable pain in both my ears, and pretty much couldn't hear a thing. So I got up and tried to look for some medicine, but then realized that I left all my medicine in my last house, I didn't even have Ibprofine! So I spent probably one of the most painful nights of my life pacing my 12 by 12 foot room wanting to bang my head against the wall. Well the next morning I went to my cooks house and asked her to buy me some Ibprofin and I called the mission nurse. She gave me the name of some ear drops to buy and some other little things to try. So I did all that and it wasn't getting better, and the pain was straight up unbearable!!! I would take 900 MG of Ibprofen and that would calm it for about 4 hours on the dot and the pain would start up again, and on top of all of that I felt like I was constantly under watering my hearing was so bad. Well it just so happens that in this great country of El Salvador this week is break week, and not just for students.. but eeeeeeeeveryone. Including hospitals. So the nurse said that she couldn't get me to the doctor until Monday (this was Friday.. I had already past three days of torture). I called her back like five hours later and said hey listen I need to see somebody tomorrow. I don´t know what you have to do or what I will have to pay but just get me to somebody. So I went the next day to the emergency room place in Lyco to a specialist in nose, ears and throat. He examined me and said that I had a severe infection in both ears. He couldn't even see through my ear holes because they were both so swollen, so he had to pretty much pry them open. I about hit him. haha So he wrote up a list of medicines that he was going to give me and said that he wanted to give me three IV´s right then and there.. and that I would be better in three days. Well I called the nurse to check and see if that was ok and she said that she needed to call the area doctor to get authorization. She called back and said that the doctor only authorized the first IV and NONE of the medication that the doctor wanted to give me... so I had to explain to the doctor thanks for seeing me but that I couldn't follow any of his advice because the guy in charge of me wouldn't allow it... yeah embarrassing. So they gave me the IV, that was great (remind me to tell you some details about that some day), and I left.
The area doctor just told the mission nurse to buy a antibiotic (I had already tried 2 that didn't work) and just keep taking Ibprofen.. I was sooooo ticked haha. Well that was Saturday. I have been taking the medicine for two days, and the pain is a little better, but I still pretty much don´t hear a thing. So yeah, I'm gonna need some advice from Doctor Bruce Reid... I'm going to send the names of the medication that doctor wanted me to take and the names that I am taking right now and tell me what you think.
Well other than that everything is good. haha I pretty much was just in the house all week long so there is not much to tell you, but we actually have quite a few people in our teaching pool and the zone is doing really well for the most part. Tomorrow we have a muti-zone which will be good. Oh and I got the package on Tuesday!! I loved it thanks a ton, especially the video haha so funny. I have been loving it, although haven´t been able to enjoy it this week. Thanks for everything I promise I' ll get a better email next week!! Tell Biss hi for me.
Love Nick
Well, how is everyone? All I can say is.. I´m glad this week is over. ha I had a bit of a health problem this week. On Wednesday I woke up at about 1:30 in the morning with an unbelievable pain in both my ears, and pretty much couldn't hear a thing. So I got up and tried to look for some medicine, but then realized that I left all my medicine in my last house, I didn't even have Ibprofine! So I spent probably one of the most painful nights of my life pacing my 12 by 12 foot room wanting to bang my head against the wall. Well the next morning I went to my cooks house and asked her to buy me some Ibprofin and I called the mission nurse. She gave me the name of some ear drops to buy and some other little things to try. So I did all that and it wasn't getting better, and the pain was straight up unbearable!!! I would take 900 MG of Ibprofen and that would calm it for about 4 hours on the dot and the pain would start up again, and on top of all of that I felt like I was constantly under watering my hearing was so bad. Well it just so happens that in this great country of El Salvador this week is break week, and not just for students.. but eeeeeeeeveryone. Including hospitals. So the nurse said that she couldn't get me to the doctor until Monday (this was Friday.. I had already past three days of torture). I called her back like five hours later and said hey listen I need to see somebody tomorrow. I don´t know what you have to do or what I will have to pay but just get me to somebody. So I went the next day to the emergency room place in Lyco to a specialist in nose, ears and throat. He examined me and said that I had a severe infection in both ears. He couldn't even see through my ear holes because they were both so swollen, so he had to pretty much pry them open. I about hit him. haha So he wrote up a list of medicines that he was going to give me and said that he wanted to give me three IV´s right then and there.. and that I would be better in three days. Well I called the nurse to check and see if that was ok and she said that she needed to call the area doctor to get authorization. She called back and said that the doctor only authorized the first IV and NONE of the medication that the doctor wanted to give me... so I had to explain to the doctor thanks for seeing me but that I couldn't follow any of his advice because the guy in charge of me wouldn't allow it... yeah embarrassing. So they gave me the IV, that was great (remind me to tell you some details about that some day), and I left.
The area doctor just told the mission nurse to buy a antibiotic (I had already tried 2 that didn't work) and just keep taking Ibprofen.. I was sooooo ticked haha. Well that was Saturday. I have been taking the medicine for two days, and the pain is a little better, but I still pretty much don´t hear a thing. So yeah, I'm gonna need some advice from Doctor Bruce Reid... I'm going to send the names of the medication that doctor wanted me to take and the names that I am taking right now and tell me what you think.
Well other than that everything is good. haha I pretty much was just in the house all week long so there is not much to tell you, but we actually have quite a few people in our teaching pool and the zone is doing really well for the most part. Tomorrow we have a muti-zone which will be good. Oh and I got the package on Tuesday!! I loved it thanks a ton, especially the video haha so funny. I have been loving it, although haven´t been able to enjoy it this week. Thanks for everything I promise I' ll get a better email next week!! Tell Biss hi for me.
Love Nick
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Back to Normal- August 1, 2011
Hey guys,
How is everybody? Sounds like this week was just one big party for everybody! haha that´s good live up the summer. We are in winter right now, kinda weird huh? It has been raining, and raining, and raining. Which is kind of good because that means more people in their houses (here people have a deathly fear of the rain... one little drop and they are certain they´ll get sick) haha. It has been a little weird having the whole week to work now that the temple is over, and especially since we are opening an area we are pretty much just doing a lot of looking and asking. Things are going fine with my comp, he´s a pretty serious guy....but like I said last week a good worker.
So it´s official, the 19th of this month the mission and the Santa Ana/Belize mission will have a special meeting with Elder Eyering! I´m way excited it´s gonna be great I´m sure. And then the next day is the cultural event for the temple and then the dedication on the 21st, it´s all coming up! Right now all the wards are in a bit a frenzy trying to interview as many people as possible so they can watch the dedication. We won´t be going to the actual dedication, very few will from the whole country. So we will just be watching it from the stake center. I´ve never been to a dedication so I don´t even really know what to expect! haha how bad is that, I´m from Utah and have never been to a temple dedication... Idiot!
The hunt for a new house continues, I just never have time to actually look for one and it seems like we are kind of hurt for options in this area. The limit we can spend on a house is $150 a month. Which is a pretty dang nice house here believe it or not! I about died the other night in that stupid house, a cat dropped in from the roof while I was up going to the bathroom half asleep... fell right in front of me and made some crazy sound. I´m sure if anybody saw my reaction they would still be on the ground laughing haha. Well tomorrow we have a zone leaders meeting at presidents house so I'm hoping that my package has already gotten here and that they will bring it.
Well the zone is doing alright, It´s just been a little tough these last couple of weeks having so many new missionaries in the zone, and all three of them gringos with Latin companions haha. The first couple weeks of the mission are pretty crazy living with somebody who doesn't speak your language. There is one elder in particular who is having a pretty tough time with the language, he just can´t understand anybody I feel bad, haha it´s so frustrating. But he´ll get it it´s just a matter of time. So how is everybody doing at home? the ward? Tell Bishop Welling hi for me and that I'm excited to have him as my bishop in a while here. Hey have you guys been looking into to signing me up for school? Make sure you try that for me please I gotta get going when I get home, start getting rich! haha. Well I'm a little behind today and better wrap it up but love you all thanks for everything!!!!! Have a great week, talk to ya later.
Nick
How is everybody? Sounds like this week was just one big party for everybody! haha that´s good live up the summer. We are in winter right now, kinda weird huh? It has been raining, and raining, and raining. Which is kind of good because that means more people in their houses (here people have a deathly fear of the rain... one little drop and they are certain they´ll get sick) haha. It has been a little weird having the whole week to work now that the temple is over, and especially since we are opening an area we are pretty much just doing a lot of looking and asking. Things are going fine with my comp, he´s a pretty serious guy....but like I said last week a good worker.
So it´s official, the 19th of this month the mission and the Santa Ana/Belize mission will have a special meeting with Elder Eyering! I´m way excited it´s gonna be great I´m sure. And then the next day is the cultural event for the temple and then the dedication on the 21st, it´s all coming up! Right now all the wards are in a bit a frenzy trying to interview as many people as possible so they can watch the dedication. We won´t be going to the actual dedication, very few will from the whole country. So we will just be watching it from the stake center. I´ve never been to a dedication so I don´t even really know what to expect! haha how bad is that, I´m from Utah and have never been to a temple dedication... Idiot!
The hunt for a new house continues, I just never have time to actually look for one and it seems like we are kind of hurt for options in this area. The limit we can spend on a house is $150 a month. Which is a pretty dang nice house here believe it or not! I about died the other night in that stupid house, a cat dropped in from the roof while I was up going to the bathroom half asleep... fell right in front of me and made some crazy sound. I´m sure if anybody saw my reaction they would still be on the ground laughing haha. Well tomorrow we have a zone leaders meeting at presidents house so I'm hoping that my package has already gotten here and that they will bring it.
Well the zone is doing alright, It´s just been a little tough these last couple of weeks having so many new missionaries in the zone, and all three of them gringos with Latin companions haha. The first couple weeks of the mission are pretty crazy living with somebody who doesn't speak your language. There is one elder in particular who is having a pretty tough time with the language, he just can´t understand anybody I feel bad, haha it´s so frustrating. But he´ll get it it´s just a matter of time. So how is everybody doing at home? the ward? Tell Bishop Welling hi for me and that I'm excited to have him as my bishop in a while here. Hey have you guys been looking into to signing me up for school? Make sure you try that for me please I gotta get going when I get home, start getting rich! haha. Well I'm a little behind today and better wrap it up but love you all thanks for everything!!!!! Have a great week, talk to ya later.
Nick
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
More Changes...July 25, 2011
Hey guys,
Well this week has been a little strange! We had changes on Wednesday. A couple nights before President called me and asked me about one of the areas of the sister missionaries in my zone and if it was dangerous (which it is). I guess the sister was talking to him at the temple saying that she wasn`t comfortable there. I told him what I thought and said that it would probably be good to put missionaries in there. Well changes come around and I was told that my companion AND I had changes.... President decided to put the sister missionaries in my area and move me to the area right next to me, area Jardín. My companion Elder Aguilar also had changes to another area, but in the same zone training a new missionary. He was a little bitter about it and it was a little awkward being his companion one day and his zone leader the next. haha my new companion is Elder Barrera from Guatemala. A real serious fella.... but a hard worker so that`s good. We have the exact same time in the mission so we will be going home together. It`s been a little frustrating have the sisters in my old area because a lot of the investigators that I was working with were really complicated situations like divorces and getting married and kicking husbands out of the house, really fun stuff. Sister Cabrera is training a new sister from Utah, Sister Jones. So pretty much all of this week has been us showing them the area and introducing them to members and investigators, we've had zero time to work in our area with that and the temple. So yeah all and all it`s been kinda stressful! The new house that we are in is the worst house I have been in the whole mission! haha we only have running water from 4 in afternoon to 12 at night. Suuuuper run down, so I'm thinking we are going to be looking for a new house. In the zone there are 3 brand new missionaries being trained so it`s pretty fun to watch. Poor guys... haha takes me back to the first days of the mission just not understanding a thing that anybody is saying. They are all good missionaries though they`ll be fine.
So that lady said that she saw me at the temple huh? haha yeah it was pretty weird she just came up to me and was like , "Elder Reid... is your mom named Holly?" so she was all excited and took a picture and said that she would send it to you.
Well the open house is finished. It was pretty sad to have it end, I`ll miss helping out there. On Thursday I was giving a tour and there was a couple in the group who jumped in at the last second. They asked a ton of questions the whole time and I was pretty much just with them the whole time answering questions and explaining things. When we got out we talked for another hour after teaching things and answered their questions. The guy told me that he has had a few spiritual experiences in his life and knows a lot about religion and the bible (actually a really smart guy). Anyways his said that he felt in the temple what he had felt during those spiritual experience. Long story short they gave me their number and I called the area that they belong to and sent the missionaries there. I would not be surprised at all if they ended up getting baptized! They took a picture with me and everything, haha they loved it.
So in total more than 166,000 people attended the open house. The goal was 120,000 so I`d say we did pretty well! They were soooo many people there on Saturday it was incredible. So I'm just hoping that I`ll have the chance to do a session before I go home.
Something really sad happened last week. Remember my companion Elder Merino? Well he was informed on Monday that his Mother died giving birth to a baby girl who also died. He is from here so he left and went to the funeral (conducted the whole thing) stayed for a few days, and came back to finish out the mission. He`s a real strong kid. I feel so bad for him, I can`t imagine having something like that happen, let alone while in the mission. So everybody is praying for him.
Well what else is going on, how`s the ward and everybody? Hey, what is a normal attendance at church there? I`ve had a lot of people ask me that lately and I don`t have any clue what to respond, haha. Well have a good week, love you all and thanks for all your support!!! Until next week.
Con amor, Nick
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
4 Months Left! July 18, 2011
Dear Fam,
How`s it going guys? Sounds like everybody had a pretty good/crazy week, so that`s good I'm glad! This week has also been pretty hectic and busy for me, but for the most part good stuff. We are now in the last week of the open house so its going to be a crazy week there. I'm going to be there Tuesday, Thursday, and for the last day Saturday! It`ll be cool to be there for the last day of the open house. It sounds like you guys have been able to see some things of the temple and a little bit of the inside, it`s pretty small but way beautiful. I love it. As to be expected, some kind of bad things have happened with the temple and the people here. Earlier in the week to American pastors who are here to train other pastors came to the open house pretty much to just content and make a riot. They went through the tour and everything pretty quite, but then when they went to the reception room at the end where there is a refreshment and people to answer questions, they went to town. They started talking to two sister missionaries in my zone and pretty much ripped them a new one saying all this bad stuff about the church and trying to battle. The sisters did well though, they just answered the questions, testified and left it at that. It really just ticked me off though, I wish I would have been there. I would have told him a thing or two. It just so happens that a know quite a bit about their religion and it`s just hilarious that they can talk bad about the church and try to make people feel bad when their church has so much apostasy and false doctrine that is just so easy to prove with there own bible. And not to mention that THEY are the invited ones in the open house. And then a couple of days ago a couple trucks drove buy and egged the temple pretty badly. That almost just made me laugh... there`s a one way ticket to the telestial kingdom for ya. Also some dude spilled some version of his "holy oil" in the carpet of the celestial room. But all in all it all goes forward and nobody lets it get to them. Far more good things and experiences have happened than bad that´s for sure.
We have received so many references and good comments about it. In fact, the President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, went through Friday morning... yeah! It was really interesting, he said that out of all the religions of the country we are the ONLY church that has never gone to the government to ask for money or for favors or some sort of support like that. He said in fact, your church has done nothing but help the country and has given so much freely given service. So I thought that was pretty cool.
Well I have sad news.... I had interviews with President on Monday and talked to him about you guys coming to get me. Well, he pretty much told me no. He said that he has 2 manuals, a stake president manual and a mission president manual, and both of them say that it is highly discouraged that the parents come to pick up there missionaries. He then said "ya know I served my mission in Chile; 22 years later my son served in Chile... do you think I wanted to go pick him up?" I said "I imagine you did", he then asked "but do you think I did it?" ....."no"... haha and then he said "I hope that´s kind of an answer for you". I told him that Mom you were gonna write him an email to ask you about it and he said, "you can tell her" :) with a smile on his face. Soooo yeah I don`t know what more I can say. He didn't flat out say no, but if you came I would pretty much be flat out going against the counsel of my leader. And I mean we can always go back and make a sweet trip out of it in Central America. Also if I go straight home I would be getting home on Thanksgiving Day!!!
Well thanks for everything love you guys!! Tell the ward and everybody I say hi. I have 20 months in the mission today... scary. haha Talk to ya next week!
P.S. IM FAMOUS! Man being in the newspaper in Utah and I`m not even in the country... imagine when I get home, it`ll be front page!! haha jk Cuìdense!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Busy week at the Temple- July 11, 2012
Hey guys,
How's everyone doing? Everything is going well here, just another busy week with the temple and all of that. On Friday 11,000 people passed through! Insane huh? I'm not exactly sure what the total count is, but it's gotta be up there pretty high. On Tuesday I got to give a tour of the temple to a family from North Carolina who were here for business. It was way sweet and fun to be able to chat with them for a while. It was the weirdest thing hearing little kids speaking English haha, I can honestly say that it has been 20 months since I have heard a child speak English. They had a little chunky 4 year old son with really curly hair and EVERYBODY was just loving it, rubbing his head, pulling his cheek, the whole deal haha. I got to see once again a lot of people from my old areas which was way cool, including a little group that came down from Ilobasco and Pedro was there! He's still going strong.
Well today the zone has interviews with President Glazier for the first time. Yesterday My companion and I had a stake correlation meeting with him and the Stake President. He's a really good guy, I like him a lot and am excited to work with him. I'll ask him in my interview today about you guys coming down to get me, I'm sure he wont have a problem with it.
Well this next week we should have a baptism coming up. It's a wife of an inactive member that we are helping reactivate. They aren't married so we're going to marry them and baptize her. Her name is Daisy. They have a son who is an absolute spaz haha, if you could send some riddalin down here for the little guy I'm sure the parents (and me) would appreciate it haha.
So John and Joan Robison are home huh? Sounds like they did a great job on their talks, I wish I could have been there to hear it! They are definitely great people and I'm sure were great mission presidents. That's cool that a lot of their returned missionaries were there, and even cooler the joke and John made haha hilarious. I can't believe Adam Jones is going to be home so soon! I just still don't fill like I have so little time left, and I know that is how I'm going to feel when I have a week left. I'm pretty sure I won't believe it until I'm in our house... and even then I might have to pinch myself a few times haha.
It sounds like Reese is getting so huge! Man its so weird to think that I have never even seen her, and she is walking, saying words, and giving attitude haha, I cant wait to get those videos! Well sorry a little short this week guys but all that is going on lately just seems like a big blur and I cant remember what happened this week or if it was the last or a month ago haha, but love you all thanks for all your support!!!! Behave yourselves and live the gospel!
Love Nick
How's everyone doing? Everything is going well here, just another busy week with the temple and all of that. On Friday 11,000 people passed through! Insane huh? I'm not exactly sure what the total count is, but it's gotta be up there pretty high. On Tuesday I got to give a tour of the temple to a family from North Carolina who were here for business. It was way sweet and fun to be able to chat with them for a while. It was the weirdest thing hearing little kids speaking English haha, I can honestly say that it has been 20 months since I have heard a child speak English. They had a little chunky 4 year old son with really curly hair and EVERYBODY was just loving it, rubbing his head, pulling his cheek, the whole deal haha. I got to see once again a lot of people from my old areas which was way cool, including a little group that came down from Ilobasco and Pedro was there! He's still going strong.
Well today the zone has interviews with President Glazier for the first time. Yesterday My companion and I had a stake correlation meeting with him and the Stake President. He's a really good guy, I like him a lot and am excited to work with him. I'll ask him in my interview today about you guys coming down to get me, I'm sure he wont have a problem with it.
Well this next week we should have a baptism coming up. It's a wife of an inactive member that we are helping reactivate. They aren't married so we're going to marry them and baptize her. Her name is Daisy. They have a son who is an absolute spaz haha, if you could send some riddalin down here for the little guy I'm sure the parents (and me) would appreciate it haha.
So John and Joan Robison are home huh? Sounds like they did a great job on their talks, I wish I could have been there to hear it! They are definitely great people and I'm sure were great mission presidents. That's cool that a lot of their returned missionaries were there, and even cooler the joke and John made haha hilarious. I can't believe Adam Jones is going to be home so soon! I just still don't fill like I have so little time left, and I know that is how I'm going to feel when I have a week left. I'm pretty sure I won't believe it until I'm in our house... and even then I might have to pinch myself a few times haha.
It sounds like Reese is getting so huge! Man its so weird to think that I have never even seen her, and she is walking, saying words, and giving attitude haha, I cant wait to get those videos! Well sorry a little short this week guys but all that is going on lately just seems like a big blur and I cant remember what happened this week or if it was the last or a month ago haha, but love you all thanks for all your support!!!! Behave yourselves and live the gospel!
Love Nick
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Temple Work- July 4, 2011
All the Zone Leaders and the new mission President and his wife
Nick in front of the El Salvador Temple after the first open house
Dear Fam,
Well this has been a pretty crazy week, it feels like I just wrote you guys yesterday! Things are going awesome with the temple open house. It has only been open for two days and we've already had 24,000 people pass through! The goal is 100,00. The mission is receiving a ton of references for the missionaries. Last night I was up until midnight writing down references that the office was giving me for the zone and calling the missionaries to have them contact them. Way hectic! They want us to contact the references that we receive within 24 hours of receiving them, so it's pretty crazy. Well Tuesday we had the zone leader meeting the new president and his wife. They are both great people. I'm excited to be able to work with them. President Glazier is a lot more spiritually emotional than President Pérez, which I think will help the missionaries a lot. His wife is just a classic mission president's wife haha. Sweet lady. Soft spoken, kind, energetic, worries about everyone. I can't remember if I told you guys this, but her father was actually the mission president of Uruguay when she was thirteen, you were probably just a little guy though dad haha. But it was a good meeting. We set some goals, talked about the needs of the mission and how are zones are doing. My zone is doing really well right now, I think everyone is going to baptize this month!!
So Saturday I helped at the temple for the first time! It was an awesome experience, soooooo many people went through. The best part was that I got to see a lot of people from past areas and a few converts! The temple is sooo nice I love it. Part of the day I was standing outside the door of the celestial room directing people where to go, so I got to see their reaction of when they came out. I saw quite a few people come out crying. There is a chandelier in the celestial room that supposedly has 10,000 crystals in it. It's HUGE! We are having more people that expected coming to the temple so they are going to be needing more help, which means I'm going to be spending more time there than I originally thought. I'm way excited, I'd help there everyday if I could haha.
We have an investigator who is a girlfriend of an inactive member that we have been teaching for a bit now. Before she was super cold and didn't really like talking to us, just did it because the member wanted her to. And the member never wanted to get married, despite the fact that they are living together. Anyways, they went through the temple on Saturday and I visited them Sunday. She was totally different, really nice, and we committed her to baptism at the end of the month. The member is totally willing to get married now and wants our help to do it! We are also going to be having a baptism this weekend if all goes as planned.
Well I'm going to send a few pictures of the temple. Love you all thanks for everything! les extraño mucho!
Nick
Update! June letters
Nick with President and Sister Perez and their daughters
Nick's recent convert Pedro and his family
Elder Merino, Elder Jolley, and Nick
June 6th:
Well this week has been pretty good, and pretty busy. We`ve been trying to get a marriage worked out and it`s been a pain. They both had been married before and their spouses both died so we have to go and take out papers for both of them proving that there spouses are dead (weird) and then renew there ID`s (both of them have been expired for four years now) and then print off their birth certificates. After all of that we can give it all to the lawyer and get them married and the wife baptized! So we`re hoping for a miracle and that it can all work out before this Saturday so we can have the marriage and the baptism the same day. It was pretty sweet yesterday in testimony meeting a lady was saying how much faith she has in missionary's giving blessings. About a month ago she asked us to give a blessing to her son because the doctors told her that he was probably going to lose his right eye. So we did the blessing and I didn`t really hear much about it after. But yesterday she said in her testimony that he didn`t lose his eye and that it is starting to heal! Pretty sweet. And then Pedro got up and was saying how sad he was cause possibly me or my companion might leave Wednesday and how`s his grateful for all we have done for him. So nice and spiritual everything good and then........ this 15 year old girl got up and dropped everybody`s jaw by saying a really bad word and confessing some of her latest sins. hahaha I`ll miss stuff like that. But yeah other than that everything is going well and we`re just waiting to see if me or my companion get`s transferred on Wednesday. We should find out tonight or Tuesday morning. I also had my last interview with President Pèrez which was good. He gave me some good advice for life and finishing out strong my mission. President Glazier get`s here on the 27th, coming up! It`ll be interesting to see what things he changes or if things stay the same and just how he goes about everything. Seems like a good guy though.
June 13th:
Oy! So this has been a surprising week for me. We were waiting for the calls about transfers to see who was going. I was obviously thinking that my companion would be leaving, seeing how it is his first area and he has more time than me in the area. Well when the calls came I was told I had a changes and he was staying! My companion had pretty much already packed his bags haha. Well later that night the phone rang and it was President Pèrez letting me know that he had called me to be a Zone Leader. Didn't expect that! We chatted for a while about what I needed to do and what my responsibilities would be and how I can take advantage of the opportunity to as much as possible. I was pretty sad to leave Ilobaso, I liked it a lot and had some good converts and friends there. Not to mention this week I was supposed to marry a couple and get them baptized! But oh well that`s how the mission is, at least the missionary that took my place is happy I'm sure haha. But yeah I`m a zone leader now of zone Cuscatlàn, in the area of Buena Vista. It`s a pretty sweet area but It`s right in the capital pretty much. I'm about 10 minutes away from my first area in Porvenir! I`ve been tempted a couple of times to go over there and visit some people to check up on them, haha. It is however nice to be back in an actual ward, and a pretty strong one in fact. I`m actually in a threesome companionship right now, Elder Jolley and Elder Merino, because Elder Jolley is ending his mission in two weeks for school, so they just kept him here instead of sticking him somewhere else for just two weeks. He`s from Utah and way cool, I already knew him before so it`s been way fun to be with him. Elder Merino is from here El Salvador. I`ve already had my plate full the first week dealing with quite a few problems in the zone that I was lucky enough to inherit, but we`ve finally got them all worked out. I'm definitely going to grow a lot I can tell you that much. Especially in the sense of real life application. It`ll be challenging but good, and help me finish out the mission strong.
June 20th:
Well this week has been really good, just getting in the swing of things with all the new stuff I have to do. It's not too different than being a district leader, just that I have a cell phone, more meetings, and in charge of a lot more Elders. It's pretty cool though! Elder Merino actually had changes on Tuesday (long story) and they sent us Elder Aguilar from Costa Rica. My first "tico" companion so that's pretty sweet. He's a cool kid, a little on the hyper side but a good worker. He also speaks English pretty well! But yeah we have just been dealing with all the stress of the end of the month coming and having to help the zone meet all the baptismal goals and that kind of stuff. This is Elder Jolley's last week in the mission! We're trying to help him not be too baggy... but it IS his last week haha. No he's great though still working way hard and going out strong, definitely one of my favorite companions. It's pretty weird "killing" a companion though, I can't imagine how I'm going to feel my last week here.
Well right now we are working with 4 complete families which is awesome. la familia Echeverria, Acosta, Colorado, Parrilla, and then a couple other people. All of them have to get married but that's cake. I'm pretty sure we're going to baptize a ton this coming month! On Tuesday we had the farewell meeting with President Pérez. It was really good and he gave us a lot of good advice. He gave us five points of how to be successful financially and then five points how to be successful spiritually. I haven't really had a way close relationship with him, but it really is going to be sad to have them leave. They had their whole family in the meeting and all their daughters got up and bore their testimonies about there experience here and all of that. Most of all I'll miss Sister Pérez, she's a pretty incredible lady. So in exactly a week from now President Glazier will get here and then a couple days later there will be a meeting with all the zone leaders and him. I'm sure he's going to need a lot of help and support the first couple of months to help and get things going and help the transition be smooth. I'm excited though, change is a good thing once and a while! I'm also getting really excited about the open house and dedication for the temple coming up, ahh I can't wait. That's pretty much been the main focus in sacrament meeting for the last couple of months and there is a huge focus on bringing investigators to the open house. I think tonight some members are going to take us to see it and eat afterwards :) That has definitely been one of the things I've missed most on the mission, being able to go to the temple. I didn't get to go a ton of times before the mission, but enough to know that it's unlike anything I had experienced before. Hopefully they will let us go once and a while! I also hope that the members here take advantage of it and go regularly. Elder Aguilar was telling us that the temple in Costa Rica has a hard time, mainly people willing to be temple workers and people going on regular bases.
June 27th:
Well I lot to tell you this week! I've got some great news, remember how I said that we weren't going to able to participate in the open house for the temple as missionaries? Well On Thursday I got a call from the assistants saying that all of the sisters missionaries in the mission are going to be helping in the open house and 24 Elders.... out of the 180. And me and my comp are gonna be there! I was so excited I can't even tell you. So we had a special meeting yesterday in the church right next to the temple that they have built. It was sooooo nice I felt like I was in Utah again! haha. Nice seats, air conditioning, good sound system, nice lighting, everything. Some representatives from Utah came along with Elder Rivas from the area seventy to explain to us what it is that we are going to do and how we need to do it. Pretty much there are going to be three assignments for us. One of them is in a room where all the people are going to pass through as pretty much a "welcome to temple" type thing. I'll talk for a bit explaining a few things and then show a video of the temple, which is incredible. Then there is obviously the part of being a guide in the temple, taking the people through. Then after there is a refreshments room and a place to ask questions and write down comments and say if you want the missionaries to come visit your house, that kind of thing. We will all pretty much be rotating through these different assignments. It starts on the 1st of July and goes until the 21st. Between those dates I will be there 7 times pretty much all day long. I can't tell you how excited I am it's going be so awesome! Well they wrapped up teaching and showing us what we needed to do and all of that and then somebody made the comment of if we could go through the temple.. well the guy in charge went around talking for a few minutes to some people trying to pull some strings, and then asked my president and his wife if they had gone through together yet, which they hadn't. Well long story short, they let us go through!!!
We were one of the firsts to be able to go through the temple being totally finished. It is absolutely incredibly I can't even explain to you. When you first walk in, there is about a 10 foot painting of Christ with two little girls at his side. One a Nephite, and the other a Lamanite. They are holding onto his white robes and he has a bit of a serious look on his face. It is one of the sweetest paintings I've ever seen, and it was made especially for the El Salvador Temple. The temple isn't super big, but it is so nice. It is very personalized to El Salvador. In the session room the walls are painted with scenes of El Salvador and all over the temple is the national flower of El Salvador, the Izote. I could explain it to you all day but I don't have that much time haha. Anyways it was an experience I'll never forget. My first day of working there is this Saturday. I'll give you plenty details! It was so cool how it's not even dedicated yet and how strongly you can fill the spirit.
Well Elder Jolley went home this morning, he is probably in the air right now in fact. I really enjoyed being with him and I learned a ton, he's a great guy. He definitely ended the mission well going to the temple yesterday haha. Also this morning, we had a surprise farewell for President Pérez and his family. It was pretty sad but pretty cool. They are an exemplar family and we'll all miss them. The new President arrives tomorrow and will officially be the new president at 7 pm.
This week is going to be crazy. Thursday we have a Zone Leader council for the first time with President Glazier. Friday we have a multi zone meeting with about 5 zones. Saturday I'll be working in the temple. Time is going to start to fly more than it already has!
Well sounds like everybody is doing well at home, I'm glad. Just stay busy everybody! I feel like everybody is going to be so different when I get home it's going to be crazy.
Friday, May 20, 2011
6 Months to Go! May 16th, 2011
Hey fam,
How are you guys? Sounds like you all had a pretty good week, especially with dinner at Grandma Reids..... You´re killin me! haha tell Grandma that she already has to start to plan a return dinner for me haha. Well today we are going to have Pday here in Ilobasco so I don´t have to travel, which is awesome. That means more sleeping time! haha. So guess what? My companion's Aunt lives in San Salvador and so when my comp talked to his family for Mothers Day, they arranged for her to drop him off a package here in Ilobasco! Well I was thinking that my package had to be in the office by now, and that I wasn´t going to be able to get it until the 31st... and needless to say that´s way to long. So we called her and asked her if she could stop by the mission office and bring me my package too! So she came with the packages on Tuesday and took us out to lunch and everything. Very nice lady, and not too bad off financially, haha. I'm not exactly sure what she does but I know that she lives in the richest part of the country (Escalón). But anyways the point is I have my package now! I'm loving it thanks a lot! Everything in there was a great idea and tastes so good. The Grifindor shirt you sent is way sweet, I love it! And of course the Barcelona :) but yeah thanks a ton I loved it all!!!!!
Well I'm glad the lesson with Kris Tanner went well. I was kind of surprised that you guys liked so much of what I wrote, because I actually felt a little bad that I didn´t take more time to think about it and write it down ahead of time, so I was worried it would make a lot of sense because I was rushed, but I'm glad it was of some use! I liked what you said in the lesson Mom, it sounded really good. It´s so true about the bell thing. Everybody responds differently to the spirit and hears it in a different way. So as a teacher or a friend or whatever, you have to be able to discern how it works for that person and be able to adapt your teachings accordingly. It's a little embarrassing that you had a blown up picture that I sent and put it up there the whole lesson, haha by what can ya do.
Hey I haven´t heard any talk about the Bleaks or the Hunts these days, what's going on with them? Well this week or the next, we will be baptizing a twelve year kid named Samael. Short little chancho haha, he´s hilarious. Well sad news, a ladies son in our branch was killed on Friday. He´s inactive and was drinking supposedly and started wandering around, and happen to wander in a zone of MS. They ask where he came from, and him being drunk and not thinking, responded from the "elen" which is a 18 zone... so him being from an 18 zone and crossing over to an MS zone, and being 23 years old, was reason enough for them to shoot him. So his funeral is tomorrow. It´s weird how numb I have become to murder.. not something I´d ever thought would happen.
Well love you all thanks for everything, I hope you all have a great week! Cuídense!
Love Nick
How are you guys? Sounds like you all had a pretty good week, especially with dinner at Grandma Reids..... You´re killin me! haha tell Grandma that she already has to start to plan a return dinner for me haha. Well today we are going to have Pday here in Ilobasco so I don´t have to travel, which is awesome. That means more sleeping time! haha. So guess what? My companion's Aunt lives in San Salvador and so when my comp talked to his family for Mothers Day, they arranged for her to drop him off a package here in Ilobasco! Well I was thinking that my package had to be in the office by now, and that I wasn´t going to be able to get it until the 31st... and needless to say that´s way to long. So we called her and asked her if she could stop by the mission office and bring me my package too! So she came with the packages on Tuesday and took us out to lunch and everything. Very nice lady, and not too bad off financially, haha. I'm not exactly sure what she does but I know that she lives in the richest part of the country (Escalón). But anyways the point is I have my package now! I'm loving it thanks a lot! Everything in there was a great idea and tastes so good. The Grifindor shirt you sent is way sweet, I love it! And of course the Barcelona :) but yeah thanks a ton I loved it all!!!!!
Well I'm glad the lesson with Kris Tanner went well. I was kind of surprised that you guys liked so much of what I wrote, because I actually felt a little bad that I didn´t take more time to think about it and write it down ahead of time, so I was worried it would make a lot of sense because I was rushed, but I'm glad it was of some use! I liked what you said in the lesson Mom, it sounded really good. It´s so true about the bell thing. Everybody responds differently to the spirit and hears it in a different way. So as a teacher or a friend or whatever, you have to be able to discern how it works for that person and be able to adapt your teachings accordingly. It's a little embarrassing that you had a blown up picture that I sent and put it up there the whole lesson, haha by what can ya do.
Hey I haven´t heard any talk about the Bleaks or the Hunts these days, what's going on with them? Well this week or the next, we will be baptizing a twelve year kid named Samael. Short little chancho haha, he´s hilarious. Well sad news, a ladies son in our branch was killed on Friday. He´s inactive and was drinking supposedly and started wandering around, and happen to wander in a zone of MS. They ask where he came from, and him being drunk and not thinking, responded from the "elen" which is a 18 zone... so him being from an 18 zone and crossing over to an MS zone, and being 23 years old, was reason enough for them to shoot him. So his funeral is tomorrow. It´s weird how numb I have become to murder.. not something I´d ever thought would happen.
Well love you all thanks for everything, I hope you all have a great week! Cuídense!
Love Nick
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