11 months In! Monday October 18, 2010

Nick's new comp Elder Alviso

Getting creative with his camera

Nick teaching English to the people of El Salvador

Happy 20th Birthday!!!! He made a birthday cake from a mix we sent him

Celebrating his Birthday with his district

Dear faaaaam,

hey guys! Well today I have 11 months in the mission... sweeeet! time has been flying lately, seriously its nuts. I dont know what´s going on. This week has been a good one, we got a young couple to come to church for there second time but they aren´t married (like the whole country of El Salvador) so we are working on marrying them and getting them baptized. Hopefully it all works out! I had a way cool experience helping the sisters with an investigator they have had for a super long time, and ended up commiting him to baptism. I don´t know what it was but the lesson was so sweet and he just out of the blue said " alright I'm getting baptised Saturday, I just barely made my decision."

Mom, Im in zone San Salvador, and yeah my first area was Lyco. That´s cool that you guys went to Elder Twitchell´s homecoming! I never met him but he seems nice. What was the name of that other elder that was in his ward? Anyways my area is pretty cool like I said it´s pretty, surrounded by mountains, and poor like always. We haven't found a cook yet and I haaaate it! Haha I have just been having a ton of top ramen for dinner, but for the first time I actually cooked yesterday! haha you ready? Take notes if you want....

step 1: you take a tortilla ( be careful not to burn it)

step 2: scramble 3 eggs (do NOT let any egg shells fall into the mix).

step 3: heat up pre made beans ( refer to advice on step number 1)

step 4: put it all into the tortilla and throw on some cilantro if you want to make it look fancy.

yeaaaah I´ve picked up a skill or two in the mission.

It´s been pretty fun being able to train, I'm enjoying it. The only thing I dont like is that I feel like little things about my spanish are worse and it bugs me, oh well I guess that´s what I get for having to speak English all the time. So ever since I´ve been here, me and the sisters have been giving free English classes for anybody that wants to come so that's been really fun, and we´ve gotten a few contacts out of it, so that's always good. I was also able to make my cake in the church on Thursday and it was gooooood. I´ll have to send a pic with it. Sounds like your trip was successful mom, I´m glad!

So like I said to Josh, my companion has just been telling me about a ton of movies that have been coming out while I have been gone haha, gosh it´s been killing me. A new robin hood came out?! I love robin hood. Man doesn´t Nate Naegle come home soon? That's so sweet, I'm sure his fam is way excited. Thanks for those pictures you sent mom, the backyard looks so pretty and New York looks awesome. Well guys don´t have a lot of time this week so I´ll cut it off, but thanks for everything you do. Love you all have a great week.

Nick

The Sweet Life! October 11, 2010

All the Gringo Elder's and Sisters watching Conference

Hey guys!

Well this week has been pretty good, a little stressful, but good nonetheless. I really like my area a lot and the fact that I have an American companion is soooooo sweet. I´m loving it, I feel like ever since I have had him as a companion I have just been on divisions this whole time haha, so that´s a bit of a challenge to get the frame of mind that he's really my companion. But it´s a good time for sure, I can´t remember if I really told you much but he´s from California, close to Fresno. He´s going to turn twenty in November and he´s been a member his whole life. The weirdest thing about having a new American companion is that I'm the only one that speaks Spanish! Haha it has totally reminded me of my first couple of weeks here, barely understanding anything. It´s so weird how time flies, it seems like just yesterday I was in that same boat. But lucky for him, if he doesn´t understand something he just looks at me and I tell him in English haha. In fact the other day he was trying to say something but instead said a realllly bad word so I enjoyed that along with everybody else.

Well my ward is pretty sweet I like my bishop a lot. It´s a little weird sharing the ward with the sister missionaries but fun at the same time. The average attendance is about 130 people which is better than my last ward, but the church is alot smaller. Well what else can I tell you.. it terms of investigadors the last missionaries who were here didn´t leave with pretty much anything so we are just knocking doors alot and asking for referances from the members.

So my birthday was pretty sweet, looooooved the package, and yes I did get the one from Elder Twitchell´s mom last Monday. Gosh I love seeing video, it´s my favorite thing. Looks like Hawaii was awesome like always, I can´t wait to go back!!! It was awesome to see that Yellowstone trip as well, and of course almost the best part is always just seeing the stuff around the house. Brooke thanks for those vids of just driving around that was sweet to see, it hasn´t changed a bit, which is a good thing! Gosh seeing the golf course just about killllled me haha. Those rice kripsy treats tasted sooo good too. I haven´t be able to make the cake yet just because finding an oven hear is pretty tough, but there is one in the church so I'm going to try and make it this Thursday when we have a zone meeting there. That birthday card was pretty sweet haha, and hearing the Star Wars theme song got my adrenaline going as weird as that sounds!

So mom I really hope that thing in Phili helps, and hope you enjoy a little New York action (remember when you said you would take me there when I was 16?) :) Im sorry that you messed up your knee again! Gosh I hope you don´t have to get surgery or anything like that... maybe a little New York broadway is all you need haha. K what happened with Grandma´s leg nobody ever told me about that... fill me in!

Well love you all thanks for all the support, say hi to the ward and thank them for everything they do. Wish me luck for finding a cook this week, because as of right now we don´t have one and it is nooot fun. haha well love you all talk to ya next week!

Salú!

New Area!!!! October 4, 2010

Hey Fam,

Well as you already know I had changes, I have been sent to zone San Salvador! My area is actually pretty sweet; it´s called Colonial and it is pretty much a huge valley surrounded by huge mountains like a big bowl. I feel like I live in a crater or an old volcanoe or something haha its really cool and pretty. Soooo about my companion... Im training! President perez called me the night before changes and said that I would be training and that I had to be in Lyco at 8:30 in the morning.. so that means I had to wake up at 3:30 in the freakin morning, walk out in the rain with all my bags to try and find a taxi to take me to the bus terminals to San Salvador. haha needless to say I have been pretty dead this week. So we got there and I saw a bunch of buddies and got to hang out for a while while we waited for the newbies to get there. We had a short meeting with president where he just pretty much explained how important and big a job it is to train and how we are setting the pace for our companions for the rest of their missions. Well I was pretty nervous to see who my companion was going to be. All the trainers were on one side of the room and all the newbs on the other, and president would just call the trainers name and the area was he was going to be in followed by his "hijo" or brand new companion. So it turns out I am training a GRINGO from California!!!! His name is Elder Alviso. His great grandparents are from mexico but he doesn´t speak a word. I couldn´t believe it! I never thought I would even have a gringo companion let alone train one, so im pretty excited. He´s a cool kid we get along really well! Also Elder Montoya (my trainer) is in the same zone so that´s way sweet. I am also the District leader over Elder Ramsey who was in my district in the MTC, as well as two sister missionaries who are ALSO both from the states, Colorado and Utah haha! So out of the six that are in my district only one of them is Latin, Elder Ramseys companion! It´s pretty crazy, I can just about do my district meetings in English if it wasn´t for that one elder haha, except I doubt I would even be able to talk about missionary stuff in English without sounding like a huge idiot.

Well that´s the big news for me here, just been getting used to my new area. It´s been pretty hard since my comp is brand new because neither one of us knows the area at all, so we´ve been doing is walking around blind relying on help from members and things like that. Opening an area is tough! But im excited it´ll be good.

Well confernce was pretty sweet eh? I did get to watch it in English with all the Americans in my zone so that was good. My favorite talk, like dad, was definitely by Elder Uchdorf about pride, that guy is a stud. Brooke and Mom definitely need to read it when the Ensign comes (not that you are prideful, just cause you werent at priesthood conference haha)!

Well sounds like the funeral was amazing. I can´t tell you guys how much I wish I could have been there, but I can´t wait to listen to the disc of it. Sounds like it was super emotional, but everybody was strong. Im way proud of grandma and the way that she has handled it all, pretty impressive. The pictures that you guys sent are awesome, thanks for sending them.

Well tomorrow I´ll be 20.... freak. Haha man time goes by fast I'm coming up on a year! I did get the package that you sent and I'm soooooo stoked to open it tomorrow. That will definitely be the highlight of the day! Thanks for all your birthday wishes, isn´t it kind of weird that none of you will even know me as a 20 year old? So a couple days ago there was a small earthquake here! Well I guess you can't really call it an earthquake, but it was definitely a good shake for about 3 or 4 seconds. I thought it was going to start up big again and my heart was racing pretty fast afterwards, haha and the funny thing is my comp had just asked me if I had been in any earthquakes here yet. Well I love you thanks for all your love and support it means everything. Talk to ya next week!!

love nick

Waterfall! September 20, 2010

Zone Pday activity-Waterfall Hike!

All the Gringo Elders singing the National Anthem!

Hey guys,

Sorry that i am late writing this week, we all went to a waterfall as a zone this morning! It was pretty sweet, although the water was pretty gross haha. Oh well it´s not like I could have swam anyways. But yeah this week has been pretty normal, just enjoying my last little bit here in San Miguel. It really will be pretty sad to leave, I have gotten to know a lot of people that I´ve grown really close to and care about so yeah when it comes down to it, it will be tough to leave. I´m getting nervous as to where I'll be sent! I´m almost positive that it will be in the city. My buddy who was my zone leader in Lyco is now assistant and came to the zone last week to do divisions with everybody and I got to be with him for about half a day so that was really fun! I told him that he has to take care of me and send me to a sweet area with a good companion haha. He told me he´ll do his best.

Sounds like you guys have had a pretty crazy week, I'm really sorry to hear about grandpa... poor guy. Tell him I love him and that I hope everything works out well. I can´t believe he broke his femur!! That´s incredible that an 87 year old man had to have surgery and is doing well... I'm sure with the help of a lot of prayers. So have they told you guys that he´ll have to be in a wheelchair for a while or what´s going to happen with that? I can´t imagine how stressed out Grandma must be with all of this... how´s her back doing? I will definitely keep both of them in prayers!

Gosh it sooo weird that people in my grade are getting married.... i feel like I'm still 12. And probably still act like it haha! Me and Nate were saying that we´re not getting married for at least a while haha, so remind me about that promise when I get home. I can´t believe that I'm coming up on a year.... it kinda scares me that I'm almost half way done! I still have a ton to learn. I always looked at return missionaries like brilliant accomplished adults with their lives set haha. I've got a long ways to go to get to that point! But I have learned and grown an insane amount in the last 10 short months and know it´ll just keep getting better. Thanks for all your love and support I miss and love you all!

Love Nick

In come the tanks! September 13, 2010

Tanks for gang security

Rolondito's birthday (his cook's son)

Original Spanish Book of Mormon (above and below)

Hey fam,

Well this week has been a little crazy! A law was passed here in El Salvador against the gangs saying that just being a part of a gang is now a crime and they can put you in jail just for finding out you´re a part of the gang (or have any tatoos of it ec), as apposed to how it has been up until now where you have to get caught doing something to get in trouble. So needless to say the gangs didn´t like that and let it show. They burned a bunch of buses in the capital and one here and killed a whole bunch of people. Tuesday, Wednsday and Thursday there were absolutely no buses or micro buses (which means there is nothing in the streets if you´ve been to El Salvador), because they said if anybody runs the buses they will kill them and burn the bus. Soooo needless to say we had to be in the house and 7 at night pretty much this whole week and the work was extremely slow. Everytime we knocked on a door they would just look at us weird and say "you know... you shouldn't be on the streets today, go home and come back another time." The country actually told everybody to stay indoors after 6pm, so yeah absolutely a ghost town!! It was super weird. I never thought that I would live in a country where the bad guys have more power than the good guys. That´s literally how it is. If they say there aren´t buses.. there aren´t buses.

But other than that everything else has been good this week. Dad it was funny you mentioned the reactivating thing because we actually reactivated a family this Sunday that hasn´t been to church in 4 years! I found them like a month and a half ago and I couldn´t get them to budge, the Mom just kept making excuses like she has to do wash and make breakfast in the morning, so she doesn´t have time blah blah blah. So I made her a deal and said that I come to her house super early Sunday morning, wake up her family, and cook the breakfeast while they got ready. She agreed just because I think she didn´t think I would do and would be impressed if I did. Well we did it and they went to church, haha it was sweet. So hopefully they keep going!

I was at a recent converts house the other day and we got talking about how long ago the missionaries first visited him and he said it was super super long ago and that he actually still has the book of mormon they give him. So he brought it out and it is sooo sweet and so old looking! He saw how much I liked it and just gave it to me! I´m going to send you a picture of it! It´s gotta be the first edition in spanish ever made. (Dad don´t get offended if these are the ones that you passed out on your mission haha!)

That´s cool that Conner Winters got called to the same mission as Jeremy! One more guy to speak spanish with when I get back haha. How´s grandma and grandpa on both sides? Tell them all I say hi! haha I had to laugh pretty hard when I read what Will Naegle said to Nate. To avoid that little problem here my president held up the missionary hand book in a meeting and said " while you're on the mission, these ARE commandments." haha good old Papi Perez. Well guys I'm glad that everything is going well I think about you all a lot. 10 months on Saturday! pretty nuts. Love you all I´ll talk to ya next week!

Love Nick

Crazy Week! September 6, 2010

Hey fam!

Well sounds like a pretty busy week for you guys again. I feel like so much has changed at home since i have been gone! I dont think im hardly going to recognize some of the things that are going on and just the way life is for you guys now! Pretty weird how much can change in such a short amount of time.

Well this week has been pretty good for me, I had to do three baptismal interviews on thursday which was really cool, and really sad. The first one I went to was for a lady that has aids. We showed up to her house and we knocked on the door and she wasn´t answering. We could kind of hear something through the window so we peeked through and saw her lying on her bed, clearly in bad shape. We called her name but she wouldn´t answer and her body was just in a way weird position. So we no joke ran about two miles to find her family to try and get keys to the house. When we got there we talked to the mom and we told her that her daughter is super sick and that she needs to come with us to open the house so we can help her. The mom said "It´s my turn to visit her every two days and im scared of crossing the bridge so i´ll just go tomorrow..." I couldn't believe she didn´t really care at all. So her 11 year old son was actually on his way there to give her food so we went with him there. I dont think he really understand the sickness that she has so I was talking to him about how if his mom is bleeding or has anything like that you CANT touch her or he could get really sick. So when we got there we opened the door and went into her room was she was just about dead. She could barely utter a word and her head was just hanging off the bed. So we tried to call an ambulence but the only hospitals that have ambulences here are the private ones and the family doesn´t have money to have her there, so we ran and got a taxi. It took about an hour to get her from the front door to the taxi because she really didn't have any will power, she just wanted to die. When we lifted her up her back we could clearly see that she hadn't even moved for about a week, her family hadn't been doing anything besides her 11 year old son! Well we finally got her to the taxi and off to the hospital. I have no idea what happened to her but I would not be surprised at all if she died. So sad. 28 with three kids. It was a super weird feeling being around someone that sick in that bad of circumstances.. you should see the house she was in.

After that i went and did the other two interviews and they passed with flying colors. It was really cool to do the interview i enjoyed it a lot! My convert Miguel got the Melchezidek priesthood last week!!! So sweet. It was cool to see him progress and he is preparing to go on a mission. fruits baby! Early this week I had to go take out a birth cirtificate for an investigador in another area and the city where she was born is right by the beach so I saw the beach!!!! sooooo sweet ah it was so good to see the ocean. I´ll try and send you some pictures of that.

So Angie is going to BRASIL!!!!!!!!!! that´s so nuts....! she´ll love it though, it is sweet being in a foreign country. I have definitely had my eyes opened here. I just found out that in the month of August there were 376 murders.... in ONE month. And a member was explaining the me the cayote system of how people from here and Mexico and get smuggled into the US. It is a legit business! Pretty crazy. It was really good to get the emails from Dani and Ashley! Whenever they come over tell them to write me, even it is during the week so that I can hear from them as much as possible! Well other than that everything is going well here. 6 months is a long time but im staying strong. haha but yeah mom what you said about the one ward thing that's how it is here too, we are assigned to only one ward. The area is usually pretty big but yeah I go to the same ward every week. I've got some good people that we are working with right now, so we´ll see how it plays out in the next few weeks. I love you all thanks for your love and support. I couldn't be here without it. Seriously! Talk to ya next week! Portense bien

love nick

Back to School- August 30, 2010

Making smoothies at a member's house

Nick and one of his favorite members at her pupusarie

Nick's cook's cute little boy (Nick likes to call him Chancho off of Nacho Libre)

View of the volcanoe. He walks up this path everyday for breakfast and dinner.

Hey everyone,

Well sounds like you have all had a pretty busy week!! Boys sorry it´s back to school time haha. This week has been pretty good for me, and pretty busy. We had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday which went pretty well. It´s a bit frustrating at times here because the leaders just aren´t as organized as they are in Utah, so confusion and disorder are pretty common! Half of the meeting the microphone wasn´t even working, people were getting up off the stand to go and answer their phone, kids were running up and down the isles and the parents weren't doing a thing, yada yada yada. Haha but with time I know the church will get more and more organized as it gains time and experience. The José guy was baptized, but he actually wasn´t in my ward. We found out at the last minute that he actually lives in the boundries of my ZLs, and so they were the ones who finished up the teaching and baptized him. I was kind of mad but that kind of thing is pretty strict here, just so that the whole word doesn´t go to one ward over the other over little things like not getting along with a leader.

So I've been getting a lot of complaining about the whole Arizona immigration thing. Supposedly they are shipping out any illegal immegrants and there were quite a few from El Salvador, so yeah almost everytime I talk to someone that gets brought up and they somehow act like I have a say in it. I finally kind of blew up yesterday and told a guy "well maybe if they weren´t breaking the law and just got citizenship papers it wouldn´t happen. That´s how it is in the States, you break a law and there´s a puinishment.. not like here where if you kill somebody you are in jail for 6 months maximum." Haha so yeah that kept him quiet. Also I guess a group of 72 people headed for the states got murdered by gangs in Mexico. Man there are some evil people out there. So did you guys really not get any of my pictures last week?? I sent like 10! I will make sure to send them again this week.

Well other than what i have told you everything is going well here and im just sticken out my last month in San Miguel. I can´t believe that I will have been here for a fourth of my mission! crazy. hey do you know what I was thinking about? I will be coming home the 23rd of November and Thanksgiving is the 24th... how is that going to work out if you guys want to come and get me..? Let me know what you think. As for my health im doing just fine. Im skinnier than I would like to be but at least im not sick. Well guys I love you all and thanks for all of your support. Keep being obedient and doing the little things! talk to ya next week,

love Nick