Baptisms always make you feel better! January 24, 2011

Reynaldo's Family at his Baptism

Hey guys, How´s everybody doin? Well this week has been pretty good, super busy! We baptized Reynaldo and Elder Mason and Elder Chavez baptized a guy named Salvador so we had the baptism together. We did a little version of Come Thou Fount at the baptism! Harmonica, flute, and singing haha it was pretty legit. It was way good though, he was way happy to finally be baptized. His whole family actually came to the baptism which was a big surprise. We went to pick him up and were waiting in his house for a couple minutes just chatting with his Dad. We invited him to come and told him it was something really important and that he would for sure enjoy it.. but I didn´t think he would come to tell you the truth. But about five minutes before it started both of the parents and the little sister walked in, his Dad in a white shirt and slacks! I didn´t even know he owned a white shirt haha. So yeah Reynaldo was pretty excited. We are starting to work with his Mom and little sister, I´m pretty sure they´ll get baptized this month.

On Thursday we had a super cool meeting with the whole mission. Elder Jensen, the President of the Quorum of the 70, came and spoke to us. It was the first time in a really long time that the whole mission met together for something. Everytime I hear a General Authority speak, especially in person, it stregthens my testimony a ton! You can just tell that they aren´t normal men. He shook everybodys hand and talked to them for a bit. He talked at first about the power of music in the church and how life would be empty without music. He then talked about how there is a lack of reverance in the church. He said, "where there is reverance, there is revelation." I liked that. He also talked about the Book of Mormon and how we should read it as a big picture rather than chapter by chapter. Anways, he talked about a lot of stuff, I won´t be able to cover it all but it was way awesome. His wife also spoke with a translator and did a really good job. It´s cool to think that he is probably going to be an apostle one day and he spoke to our mission!

Well as for me I'm doing pretty well, pretty much back to normal health wise. We have changes here next Wedensday, it´ll be interesting to see what happens! Im pretty sure my companion will get changed. It has been pretty tough with him this change. That´s so sweet that Preston got called to Paraguay!! There were a couple of guys going to Paraguay in my zone in the MTC, pretty cool guys. But yeah tell him congrats and he´ll love it. So did you guys get an email from Angie? Hopefully she´s doing alright. Let me know!
So the office told me that I have a package that I´ll get today! I'm assuming its the new years one, I'm pretty excited. So if you guys go to Jaxons mission call opening put me down for Brazil. Well I'm going to try and get some pics sent of so I'll end this but love you all thanks for everything that you do. Talk to ya next week!

Nick

January 17th, 2011

Hey guys!

So I went to the consult and I just had a stomach infection mixed with the flu, so just a bad combination. But a couple days on meds and resting a bit and I'm pretty much good now so no worries! I still don´t have a lot of desire to eat, but I do it anyways just so I don´t lose a ton of weight haha. But yeah don´t worry everything is fine here, thanks for all your prayers I know they helped. Don´t worry so much next time if things are really bad of course I would tell you guys. And if the mission knows that things are really bad the office would call YOU and let you know haha.. I got like 4 calls within 45 minutes asking If I was in the hospital or If I was dead or what! First the mission nurse called me saying she got a call from a doctor in salt lake (Doty I assume), then sister Perez, then from the office elder that Mom talked to, I almost just wanted to call myself and say I´m ok! But yeah I tried to tell that Elder what to tell Mom exactly and at the end asked him "do you even speak english man?" He said ummm kind of? haha so I knew the conversation would be interesting. So yeah everything is cool here noooo worries.

So you guys went out to lunch with Angie huh? Sounds like she is pretty nervous! Can´t blame her. She´ll do fine though I know. It will definitely be tough for her at first, just like it is for everybody else, but she´ll end up loving it. Make sure to give her my email address so she can keep me updated on how she is doing. I think it´s a good thing that she is going to the MTC in provo instead of in Brazil. I just hope it doesn´t take an eternity for her to get her papers and all of that stuff.

Well this weekend we are going to baptize a kid named Reynaldo. He has been going to church for a long time, like over a year, but his parents never would give him permission to get baptized until recently. We are going over there tonight to finalize it and talk with them one last time to make sure it´s ok and try to sneak a signature on the baptismal form haha. But there are going to be possibly quite a few baptisms this weekend in the zone so we are thinking about having a "white night" and doing all the baptisms together and a big meeting, kinda like what Dad did for Christmas on his mission which would be sweet! So hopefully there are enough to do it! I´m pretty happy cause my whole District is going to baptize this month which is always the goal.

So sounds like everybody is pretty much done with winter haha. Has anybody else been skiing other than the boys? Im going to die when I get back to winter, I get freezing if I´m in any place with air conditioning (which is rare), haha so I can´t imagine how´s it´s going to be returning to snow. Well thanks for everything and all of your prayers this week, sorry that you were all worried. Have a good week I´ll talk to ya next week! love you
Nick

January 3rd and January 10th

January 3rd, 2011

Hey Guys!
Happy New Years! I can´t believe it is 2011.. so weird. According to the Mayans this is the second to last year ever so live it up! haha not in the sort of eat drink and by merry way though...
Well New years Eve was pretty much just a repeat of Christmas here. But up all night long lighting fireworks (I wouldn't really call them fire works.. pretty much just bombs haha), drinking and blasting music. I didn´t get to sleep until 3 in the morning because of all the noise. But the next day President told us that we didn´t have to leave the house until 2pm the next day because everybody is pretty much hung over. It was pretty fun though we just stayed in the house with the other elders and played UNO for a while. So you guys didn´t even tell me about your New Years what did you guys do?
Well that´s way sad about Jody and Jesse's baby. It´s pretty cool though to think that their baby was one of the more valiant ones and just needed to come and get a body and not have to worry about all the crappy things of the world. And I read just a little while ago that if somebody dies before they are full grown, they will resurrect just as they died but continue to grow until they reach a full grown age. Which means anybody who has a child that dies or dies early will get to watch them grown up in the millenium.. pretty sweet! Man I can´t believe that Nate Naegle is coming home on Wedensday... that is insane! You guys will have to tell him hi for me and let me know how the homecoming went. So something pretty crazy happend this week! I was on divisions and this lady walked up to us and started talking kinda random. She is a member but has lived in California for the last 29 years. Anyways we were just talking and she asked me where I was from, so I told her Utah about 10 minutes north of salt lake. She told me that the missionary that baptized her lived in a place called Bountiful.... I told her that´s where I´m from and I asked her what the missionarys name that baptized her.. ready? She said Elder Milligan!! Tom Milligan, son of Don Milligan! How crazy is that? Even more crazy is that she is going to visit Utah on the 6th of this month which would be this Thursday so I´m going to send her with a little package to take to you guys!! She pretty much worships Tom Milligan, haha pretty cool how much an effect you can have as a missionary. Anyways you guys hopefully should be getting a little visit here soon.

I´m starting to get more familiar with my new area and really like this ward a lot! I´ve never been in a ward with this much member support, they pretty much fight to give us dinner! Haha apposed to my last area where we couldn´t even find anybody to pay to give us lunch. It´s been super hot lately though, I can definitely feel the summer coming... Im just glad I'm not in San miguel like last summer, what a nightmare! Well have a good week everybody, hopefully that lady comes and visits you, that would be way cool. Love you all talk to ya next week!!!!! p.s como les va con la musica latina que les di?

January 10, 2011

Hey everyone,

How´s it going? Well I don´t have much to say this week because I´ve been super sick the whole week! I´m not sure what I have, probably a stomach infection. I get to go to an El Salvador hospital today.... haha wish me luck. But yeah tell me what you think it could be.. my whole body kills especially my head and back, diarreah, threw up yesterday, cold one second hot the next, a fever that comes and goes, stomach pain. Gotta be parasites or an infection right? Oh well I guess we´ll see today! So yeah I´ve pretty much just been inside the whole week, and just managed to make it to sacrament meeting yesterday (with four investigadors might I add) haha but left after that cause I threw up. Pretty crappy.

So sounds like a pretty good week for you guys! It sounds like Angie did a good job, I´m excited for her. Im going to print off her talk so that I can read it. When does she leave exactly? Hopefully she doesn´t have a ton of problems with her papers because when I was in the MTC there were elders there going to Brazil that had been there for 16 weeks! That would be horrible. Also sounds like Nate did a good job with his homecoming talk that's awesome. I imagine he is absolutely dying from the cold haha, although I hear there are some kind of cold places in Columbia so who knows.. nothing like utah though that's for sure. Is he going to go back up to Utah State? So everything is starting to calm down here with all the crazy stuff that has been happening. I´m not exactly sure where everyone is, but I know that they are still in Central America so that's good. So everybody is already sick of the winter huh? haha yeah that's usually how it is by January or February.. that´s why you have to ski or snowboard!!! So how´s the little mouse.. I mean Sophie doing?

So earlier in the week a 16 year old kid was killed by my house so everybody has been sad about that (relatively sad.. people are pretty numb to death and murder around here). Here in my area supposedly has the highest rate of youth gangs.. kids 11-13 years old already runnin with the big boys. Pretty crazy. So what else is goign on with everybody? Same old stuff? Sorry this is short but not to much to report this week. Love you all thanks for everything and tell everybody hi for me!

Love Nick

Everyone please keep Nick in your prayers. We will let you know as soon as we know more about his condition!