March 29, 2010

Nick's Zone Conference (Elder Dennis is the guy on his left who was his MTC comp, and Elder Montoya, his first comp, is on his right)

Give up? It's a dog!

Nick, the pro photographer! These are his two comps

hey!

Well two more weeks until changes! im pretty excited as you can tell haha. i really hope i get changed to a new area so I can experience something different.. but im trying to prepare myself just incase it doesn´t happen. So all the zone leaders in the mission had a big meeting the other tuesday so i got my package, i LOVED it! thanks so much everything was so good. especially the videos! i went to watch them and for some reason they wont work on my camera... but they worked on my comps 10 year old camera haha kinda funny, so next time you do videos try it on a different one i guess? But yeah it was soo good to see the house and you guys. the house looks SO nice... have you done anything different to it? seriously i have watched it like 50 times and everytime my mouth is just wide open.. it looks so freakin comfy and ah i dont know i can´t even explain it haha. Josh you freakin owned that kid in your match, that´s my boy!! one thing though... stop getting bigger.. for real though im going to feel like an idiot of your are bigger than me when i get back haha. Thanks for the hawaii pictures too that was a good idea, im going to print them off today and put them in my apartement. i also loved the art book way good idea! my companions were sooo happy with the stuff you gave them haha they couldn´t believe you would want to give them stuff, i think they are both going to write you letters (dad will just have to translate).

Well i have good news. a women that has been taking missionary discussions for over a year now and goes to church everyweek has decided to get baptised. She used to live with her husband (although not married) and so she couldn´t get baptised because he didn´t want to get married. But finally after talking with her for a while and going over to her house consistently our prayers were answered in a weird way. She decided to leaver her husband after some issues, i talked to her for a good 30 minutes after church this sunday trying to tell her that this was a blessing and that i know it is hard for her but really the blessings she is going to recieve for being baptised totally outweighs the pain she´s going through that will pass in a relatively short amount of time. she agreed with me and said that she is better off without him and is excited to get baptised. we are going to have the baptism the 10th of april! so yeah im going have a baptism this change!! who woulda thought?

Well i have a funny story to tell you guys that happened this week. So we were waiting at a members house because we were going to teach his friend there. This member is 93 years old and is way active and everything. Anyways, we were sitting there waiting and he asked me, "hey have a question. What´s up with the whole coffee thing?" I then asked him why and he said, "well i drink coffee everymorning and have been for the past 50 years." This man has gone to the temple 79 times (he knows the exact number), and is probably one of the strongest members! He then said "i think it´s an error in the scriptures." I was soooo mad, I then read him a bunch of scriptures, he argued with me for while, told me he will just sleep the whole day if he doesn´t drink it. I read him some more scriptures and it went on and on for about a half hour. finally, i really nailed him and said something he couldn´t argue with and he replied, "i have something to tell you....i dont drink coffee, i was just testing you!" hahaha i laughed so hard i couldn´t believe it. he is 93 years old and was SO serious the whole time!! Anyways he told me that he was very pleased with me haha good stuff.

Well conference is coming up this saturday and im very very excited!! pretty much all of saturday and sunday we will just be at the stake center watching it with our zone and the members of the stake, it´ll be a good day! It´ll be cool to think that i am watching the same thing that you guys are and at the same time. Well im glad nicole got home and that she did well at her homecoming. Tell her i said hi! Im glad you guys enjoyed the email for Hermana Zelada, she is awesome! I´ve become pretty close with her, I have been at her house everyday for breakfast and lunch for the past nearly three months! I cant wait to read the email dad sent. I might not have time to buy my hammock today, but if not i will for sure next monday. it´s not to sleep on, just to relax! well... ok maybe to sleep on some nights. haha but yeah everybody here in El Salvador has a hammock in their house.. EVERYONE. So yeah i just figured i´d by one while im in the city and am able to, and just take it to each house. i also think im going to buy a machete! Thanks for the pictures of Dani´s baby, she´s so pretty! gosh i wish i was there to see her! Well love you guys i´ll talk to you more next week, watch all of converence.. no sleeping boys!!!
love nick

Daylight Savings--oops! March 22, 2010

Dear Fam,

Well sounds like you guys all had a pretty crazy week. Holy crap I wish I could have been there to see Reese be born, I'm pretty sad about it. She is way pretty though and I can’t wait to see her and play with her when I get back! Tell Ashley and Dani congrats and they are going to be great parents! Thanks for the pictures I loved them.

Well we had a multi zone meeting Wednesday, which I always look forward to! I got see and hang out with Elder Dennis pretty much the whole to so I was way happy about that. It’s so funny to talk about the past month and different things that have happened to us. It’s pretty funny how similar of experiences we have had. I also got to see elder Montoya! ha-ha but yeah it was good to see him as well. I have a picture with both of them that I will have to send next week. Also I got the package!!! thanks so much Mom I loved it! I found the money from both you and Grandma and I bought my comps dinner a couple nights ago. I made a short little video of them saying thank you in broken English haha its pretty funny so look forward to that. Good thinking with the conference CD´s they have been so nice! it has been cool to listen to Elder Scott and Elder Christofferson because they both give their talks in Spanish! From the sound of elder Scott’s accent I'm guessing he went to Argentina? look that up for me I want to see if I'm right! But yeah it’s pretty impressive how well he can still speak for being that old. But elder Christofferson has REALLY good Spanish. I think he went somewhere in Central America. Anyways thanks a ton for the package I LOVE getting them and all of it was great.

Well other than that this week hasn’t been too eventful. I have a funny story to tell you about last week though ha-ha. So I didn’t know that last Saturday was day light savings time in the states.. and it turned out to be quite the problem for me. So our church begins at 8 and before it begins we get up early and go to all of our investigators houses and try to bring them with us to church. Well with having three elders in the house we decided to get up extra early, 5:30. We got up and went to houses but nobody answered, we were pretty mad. So we went to the church without investigators and at this point it was about 7:55.. or so we thought. we went to the church and the gates were still locked and nobody was there. well I pulled out my watch to check the talk again and realized it said 6:55 and not 7:55! My stupid alarm clock automatically changed because of day light savings time and we woke up at 4:45 in the morning!!! ha-ha kinda funny. We just laughed it off and went back to the house for a bit. The sad thing is after all that we still only got one investigator to come ha-ha.

Mom thanks for the updates on my friends; I can’t believe Jason is going to Alabama! that’s perfect for him, I don’t know why but I can totally see him there. Thanks for the NCAA updates! That’s cool that BYU finally won a game, sounds like it was intense! Well I love you all, thanks for all your prayers and support. I’ll talk to you next week.

Love nick

New Companions- March 8, 2010

Elder Montoya and I

Elder Montoya's Birthday Party (a little guitar and some bad steaks!)

Our flooded room, newspaper solves everything!

Baptism Day!

dear fam,
Well im sorry i missed you guys last week mom and dad, i´ll be sure not to go to that place ever again! Well this week has been ok, a little trying! Well here is a little info about my companions. Elder Gonzalez is from guatemala, has been a member for 11 years, and has four siblings. Elder Melgar is from Ilopango, El Salvador. He actually goes home Sunday night until Tuesday, and his calling is only for year(he's blind). It´s pretty incredible how self reliant he is. He has a book of mormon in braile and its soooo sweet to watch him read it. It´s like a huge binder and there are 7 different binders that compile the whole book of mormon, so he doesn´t carry it around. But yeah it´s really cool! We still live in the same house, we just have to squeeze three beds in our room now. I look up to that guy a lot for serving!!

So the other day our pipe to the toilet broke and we couldn´t get it to stop spraying everywhere so pretty much our house flooded haha, i´ll try to send you some pics if i can of it, but it was pretty bad and at 11 o clock at night! I was pretty dang beat the next day cause it took us like two hours to get it fixed. Well I opened up the package and loooved it thanks so much!! I particularly love hearing you guys on the tape, thanks everyone for everything you said i appreciated it a ton. Mom thanks for all the stuff in there It´s been so nice having some snacks and stuff! Those coin chocolates taste so dang good for some reason haha. But yeah everything in there was awesome thanks thanks again. I also forgot to tell you that i got the pics that you guys sent last week, they are sooo good! I also got the pics this week, Josh stop getting freakin big dude i still need to be able to work you over when i get home! Adam lookin good at your concert boi! 

Let´s see what else can i tell you guys.. I like my new zone they are all pretty cool! Well right now we are just trying to find investigators, we´re are having trouble getting into peoples houses. We have find a girl named Wendy who we taught and she´s real possitive but when we came back to teach her, her grandparents answered and chewed us out for good five minutes haha no joke screaming in our faces... for some reason they REALLY don´t like mormons. So did Danielle have her baby today?! Brooke tells me her due date is today. I can´t wait to get pics.. so hopefully next week!! Well im going to send some pictures now so i´ll talk to you guys next week, love you all thanks for all your prayers and support, I know they help.
love nick

Baptism Possibilities! Feb 22, 2010

Hey fam!!

Well this time next week it’s possible that I will be in another area with a different companion! But it’s also possible that I will be in the same area with the same companion haha so we’ll see. Well I know that you have all been concerned about my rash so I’ll start of by saying that it’s on the mend!! It doesn’t itch badly anymore and it looks like it is starting to heal. I called the mission nurse and she gave my some pills to take to take away the itching. It did the job, but unfortunately made me feel kind of crappy.. but oh well at least it worked. Thank you for all your prayers I know they helped!

Well this week has been pretty good, not too much news with the Ramos family, but last night we dropped the "baptism bomb" on them and told them to pray and ask God if getting baptized this Saturday is the right thing to do, and they all said they would. Some are more hesitant than others, but I think at least most of them will be baptized this Saturday. Also the sister of Alex (the guy I baptized) has decided to get married, so she can now get baptized this Saturday as well!! So if all goes as planned, we’ll have a really good last day of the transfer. Mom thanks a ton for the pictures you sent of Danielle’s shower, I loved seeing everyone! looks like it was a good time.

I forgot to tell you Brooke that I got your letter last week thanks a lot! I also got a dear elder from Danielle and from Kim this past Wednesday so its looking like they are taking about ten days to get here. not bad! Interviews with president Pèrez went well, pretty short and simple so yeah its all good! He complimented me on my Spanish, so that was a relief! Josh, Brooke, Adam, and Dad thanks a ton for the Olympic updates, it sounds like I missed out on a freakin sweet week! I can’t believe Shaun White has been doing that well, I can’t wait to see that new trick it sounds sooooo sick. And what the heck where did Bode Miller come from?! That’s awesome that he is making a comeback, what a stud. Josh freakin captain of the wrestling team that’s right baby!! do me proud, I wish I could be at your matches. Adam sounds like your doin solid in school, keep it up! you better do better than I did haha but that’s not too hard. What else have you been up to bro? What about Justin I didn’t hear anything from him! Mom thanks a lot for your letter I really enjoyed it, I had never heard that story of your friend that’s so sweet! I'm hoping the whole ripple effect will be able to happen here in El Salvador. Also thanks a ton for the updates of my friends, sounds like they are all doin well. Joe is speaking English right?

So I don’t have much to tell you about this week other than I’ve discovered EVERYBODY that we visit wants help with their English homework haha I was at a members house and the daughter wanted help with some stuff, and it’s sooo hard to explain why we do certain stuff in English! It really is a way weird language. I’m glad I already speak it haha. Well everything is going well I'm doing fine and getting pretty comfortable here. Thanks for all your love and support everybody I really appreciate it. I'm gonna send some pictures now! love you all

Nick

Almost 1 Month in the Country- Feb 15, 2010

Hey Fam!

Well I’ve almost been here a month now. In some ways it seems like forever and in others it has seemed pretty fast! This week has been pretty good, with one exception.. I have this really bad rash/infection type thing on my arms and hands that itches like crazy! I’ve had it for about two weeks now and it just keeps getting worse and worse and I haven’t been sleeping well because of it so we’re going to call the mission nurse and see if she can get me some sort of medicine for it, so hopefully that’ll help!

That’s so sweet that the Olympics have started, that makes me so jealous! that’s like my favorite type of the year, especially the winter Olympics. Sounds like there has already been some drama with it.. That’s way sad about that guy from Georgia. You guys will have to keep me updated on all of that please!

Well I realize I haven’t been the best at answering questions in my emails so I’ll try and answer all the ones that I can remember. The most unusual thing I have eaten here is like a bird membrane in a soup.. haha nasty. Usually though my meals consist of beans rice and eggs and tortillas. I don’t get to hear much at all of what is going on in the world.. once and a while I’ll see something on the TV but that’s about it. I have heard however a new song by that chick that was on American Idol..? sounded pretty good! of course my vision might be a little skewed because I heard that titanic song the other day by Celine Dion and was lovin it haha. There isn’t a set time of when you get transferred.. it’s different for everybody. Elder Montoya has been in the same area for 3 transfers so like 4 and a half months and others get transferred after a single transfer so who knows! I’m getting nervous as to where I'm going to go or if I'm going to stay and who my new companion is going to be. I haven’t heard from any of my friends.. I want to know how they are doing so if you hear anything let me know!

Dad on P-days we usually get together as a zone and play soccer, and once and a while we’ll go and eat.. but everyone always says they don’t have money so we just write at an internet cafe that costs like a dollar for an hour and go into the city for a while which is always fun! So how was skiing with all those guys from your work? that sounds way fun! did you have good conditions?

Well this past week we have been working with this family that I’m pretty sure is going to get baptized sometime here in the near future so keep your fingers crossed for that! It hasn’t been as hot this week so that is good, I can’t believe that it says it’s only 80!! it’s gotta be more... what part of the country are you looking at? So Brooke have you found a job yet? or just lovin the life of freedom? haha eh just take a break for a while. Well we have interviews with the President this Wednesday so that should be fun.. ha I’m kind of nervous I don’t know why. Well I’m going to send some pictures here in a sec so I’ll talk to you guys more a little later!! Love and miss you all. Have a great week

love Nick

Going Good! -February 8, 2010

Fam!

Well i´ve made it three weeks. time is starting to go a little fast now that im getting into a rythem of things and getting to know people a lot more. Well this week has been pretty good, we had a multi zone meeting where I got to see elder dennis and elder marchant, I didn´t even know they were going to be there so I was way stoked! So I guess Elder Dennis got to kill a pig at a members house and for some reason thought it would be ok to eat it after, so he got really really sick for the first week or so haha he was telling me some details but I won´t put you through the agony,I'll just let you use your imagination! Also Elder Delmarcado who was in my district in the MTC is in the hospital I guess he has been really sick the whole time... I feel bad for him. I can´t believe I haven´t gotten sick it all! It made me feel way lucky. Elder Marchant is doing well, he was really homesick at first, and still is, but it´s getting better for him. It was really nice to talk to them because we all found out that each of us had pretty much the exact same struggles and worries about the mission right now so it made us realize that it is normal and that it will get better.

So I finally got some letters delivered to me by the Zone Leaders and I was all stoked ready to rip them open.. and then... I realized that they were all letters that were supposed to be sent to me in the MTC but were just sent to El Salvador on accident. haha freak! I got a Dear Elder from Brooke and from Amie and I got a Christmas card from President maybe with 10 bucks in it!! I couldn´t believe he spends ten dollars on each missionary... we have like 50 in our stake! what a stud. But then the last one I opened was from Mom that was actually supposed to be sent here, so that made me way happy, thanks Mom!! So I´m going to try and send you guys a couple voice clip things with that recorder we got before I left, so hopefully it works! one is for the fam and the other is of Elder Montoya speaking to Dad so you can see how different it is. He actually kept it pretty simple, so just know he speaks a lot faster than that!

Well nothing too exciting has happened this week. You guys wanted to know if I feel safe and everthing here, and the answer is yes. There hasn´t really even been a time where I didn´t feel safe so no worries. Although the other night we were talking to some people and all the sudden I heard five gun shots.... about 5 pasajes away, so that was the first time where I was looking over my back the rest of the night. I actually found out the next day that three people died from it. pretty crazy! But really don´t worry Im safe and smart here.

Well Spanish is coming along a lot better, I´m pretty much able to understand the jist of what everybody is saying. Cool story, we were knocking doors and I was talking to this lady and she asked me where I was from, so I asked her to guess, and she guessed Spain!! haha I was pretty stoked. Even though the whole door approach is definitely what I know best in Spanish so if our conversation went into depth any further she would easily be able to tell that I don´t speak Spanish very well, it still made me feel good haha. Thank you guys for your emails, I feel bad that I never really have time to Email each of you back personally, but I figure that you like to get a couple of pictures each week so I´m going to have to hand write some letters soon and send them. I´m excited to get your packages!! I have no idea how long it will take, I´ll have to let you know. So the Saints won the Super bowl... that´s too bad! haha Adam I would have rooted for the Colts as well bro. It sounds like it´s just normal life at the Reid house, keep me updated on what each of you are up to and what not. It´s so good to hear from you guys I look forward to it every week. Well I´m gonna try and send the voice clip and some pictures now so I´ll talk to you guys next week! love you all.
Love Nick

1st Baptism -February 1, 2010

Hey everyone!! well ive got two weeks down. this week has still been really tough but i have some great news, this past saturday i had my first baptism! His name is Alex and his mom and a few other members of his family got baptised a couple months ago but he didn´t want to but we finally convinced him. I actually baptised him!! It was so awesome.. they don´t have the little cheat sheet in the font so i had to memorize the prayer, luckily it is pretty easy so i didn´t have to do it twice haha. it was a really good experience though he was so happy after and i know he knew it was the right thing to do. i´m going to send you guys a pic of it so hopefully you get it.

So I´ve had a bunch of funny experiences this week, but here are just a few.. we go over to Alex´s house quite a bit cause there are still quite a few people in the house who haven´t been baptised, (to be honest i dont even know what child belongs to who and who is the grandma and who is the daughter and blah blah blah haha there are so many people living in this tiny house) anyways i was there and one of the daughters who is 15 asked me if i had any brothers, and i said yes three. and then she said "do any of them have the same color of eyes as you? they are really pretty" haha! so i showed her a picture of josh and adam and all the little teeny boppers in the house we very impressed, so boys if you need me to hook you up down here just let me know! haha alright next topic.

Things are very different around here concerning privacy and what not... the other day we were teaching a lesson to this lady and she had a little two year old and right in the middle of the lesson she just started breastfeeding her with no effort to cover up whatsoever.. yeah... haha you see that quite a bit down here. and then one day we had been knocking doors for a looong time and it was SO hot and we came to the last house of the colonial and this guy answered and was like hey please come on in!! I was thinking one of those classic mission stories was about to go down, but i was very wrong. haha we started talking to him a little bit and just wanted to bash our church and then started going off on how he hates americans. he asked, "who do you think has the most problems, a man like me who has nothing, or a guy like you from america who has everything?" yeah we left pretty shortly after that haha. Our area is acutally one of the hardest areas in the whole mission, people aren´t too nice and very stubborn. But its all good!

So the food still isn´t too bad, the other night we went and got pupusas and i bought 4 of them and a really reallllly good fruit drink and guess how much it cost? 1.30! sweet huh? We have a women in the ward cook breakfast and lunch for us and she is really close to our house so that´s good. We are pretty much just on our own for dinner.. I think i´ve lossed all the weight of the MTC already. So about our living conditions, its a very poor area like you said Dad so our house isn´t very nice obviously but i think it could definitely be worse. we don´t have hot water or anything to cook on so we just buy a lot of snacks. i´ll try to send you a pic of my room. thanks so much for your emails everybody i loved reading them, i miss you guys a ton and got pretty teary eyed reading them but i had to fight, i can´t be cryin in front of all these elders! haha let´s see what else was i going to tell you...this week has been better with understanding people a little better, and im getting better with understanding montoya (you killed my father, prepare to die). p.s i can´t believe utah´s air quality has been so bad... that´s gross. It has been SO hot here... i am constanty sooo tired. what can i do about that? seriously im constantly fighting shutting my eyes all day, its no good. Brooke you´re finally learning to drive a stick?! freak why didn´t you learn while i was there! haha that´s sweet though don´t worry its not hard. have you found a new job yet? thanks for your email justin! how´s school? how did basketball end up going? well i dont have much more time but i love and miss you all and would definitely like some actually letters as well, some pictures too! sorry this email has been grammatically horrible this keyboard is way weird along with me learning spanish is not a good combo haha. well I hope to hear from you guys soon! have a great week!

love Nick