Four Baptisms! April 26, 2010

hey fam!!

well this week was a pretty good week. I actually had four baptisms this past saturday! We had been working with this inactive lady for quite a while and she has three kids that aren´t baptised so we reactivated her and baptised her kids, it was awesome. Then there was another girl that is way way solid that we baptised, she is only 14 but i think knows more than i do. The house of the family we baptised is out in the middle of nowhere, it takes about 30 minutes by bus and then another 30 minutes of walking. Right in front of there house is a big river that we had to cross, haha it was awesome i took some video and a pic that i will send. Well I'm starting to get more used to the area which is nice but the 105 degree weather is still killing me. It should start raining here in a couple weeks so that will be a nice change.

Im not sick anymore so that's good news! We might have to change houses here in a little while because we think somebody is stealing our electricity... our bill was $30 this past much which is RIDICULOUS. It´s usually about $8.. and it´s in a pretty dangerous part of the city, so yeah i want to move haha. We´ll see what happens though cause you have to get direct permission from the president. Well tomorrow we have our multizone meeting which Im pretty excited for! I don´t think I will see many elders that I know, but that´s alright it´ll still be a good time. Supposedly this Friday the Lions Club is coming to El Salvador and a ton of gringos are going to go and translate for them! I'm kinda nervous I'm not sure how well I´ll be able to do it, but oh well it´ll be cool and maybe I´ll get to see some elders that I haven´t seen for a while. Oh yeah i forgot to tell you that I gave a talk yesterday in sacrament meeting, my first talk in spanish! it went pretty well and it was only about 8 minutes so it wasn´t too tough.

Well only two more weeks and I will be talking to you guys on the phone! I can´t believe it. I'm way excited! So supposedly the night before I'm supposed to call you guys and give you the number that you need to call me on for the next day. Well thanks for all your prayers and support I love you all have a great week!

p.s tell Darrel Welling that i know he´ll do an awesome job and that im stoked to have him as my bishop when I get back.

First week in San Miguel- April 19, 2010

hey fam!

Well first week down here in San Miguel. its been pretty crazy! San Miguel is SO hot... like nothing I have ever felt before in my life. I feel like I am in a different country, it is very very different from Lyco. It’s really not very pretty, just really dry and a lot of countryside.. almost like I'm in Kentucky or something! Ha-ha but it’s way weird because it seems like I am sooo isolated from everybody and everything in my area, but then I just have to take a bus 20 minutes and I'm in a city and there is actually a small little mall! Where the zone meets for Pday there is a WENDYS!!!! I couldn’t believe it... I think we are going to eat there today and I can’t even express how excited I am.

We have to take a 30 min. bus to get to our church, so that is also very different from lyco. But I was pretty happy cause we got 6 investigators to come to church which is pretty good! We actually have a lot of people to teach and our area is HUGE. It goes all the way to the beach which is actually about 1 hour or so. But after 5 o’clock we are restricted to only about a third of our area at most... it’s pretty dang dangerous here! I have already seen and heard some crazy stuff. Don’t worry though I'm going to be smart and follow the rules and as long as I do that I can guarantee nothing is going to happen.

Well my cook is really really good! A lot better than my last one. She is not a member so we have to wash our own garments which kinda stinks... but oh well. I feel like I'm living like 70 years ago so that’s pretty cool ha-ha. Her house is seriously like a zoo, she has a chiwawa and a HUGE dog that looks like a bear, two parrots, and like I all ready told you a monkey. The monkey is insane its waaaay strong and aggressive so you can’t really play with it or anything but it’s still cool to watch. Friday and Saturday I actually got really sick. I had diarrhea and was throwing up every half hour.. the worst I have ever been here! I obviously ate something pretty bad. But I'm all good now!

Yesterday we had a huge rain storm which was awesome!! There is a part of our apartment that doesn’t have a roof so I just laid in my hammock listened to the rain with mist blowing in my face, it was reaaal nice! Well I'm sorry to hear that Kim’s Dad died.. sounds like it was pretty tough. Sounds like he was suffering a lot though so I guess it’s a blessing that he finally is released from all of that. Well yeah that’s about it, I'm just plugging a long here takin it one day at a time! I'm sooo excited to talk to you guys here a few short weeks it’s going to be awesome.

Well I’ll write Brooke and mom and dad on their emails so have a good week everybody thanks for all your love and support!!

love nick

New Area! April 12, 2010

hey fam!

Alright, ready for the news? I have been transfered to San Miguel!! My area is called Roosvelt. it is THE hottest area in the mission... it's on average over 100 degrees, plus the humidity..haha oh well im just getting it over with early in my mission. My companion is named Elder Gonzalez, can you believe it?! haha two in a row, pretty weird. He is from Honduras, and ready for the kicker... he has 1 and a half months in the mission.. im senior companion!! I was pretty dang shocked, and i am really nervous to tell you the truth. I now have all the responsibility of teaching him, making sure we complete our numbers, baptizing, and paying all of our bills and all that good stuff. I know i will grow a lot this change, but i also know that it will most likely be very challenging.

Alright, kicker number 2.. remember Elder Street? He is in my District!! haha i couldn´t believe it.. almost 200 missionaries here in El Salvador and I am in his same district as him (only us 4 in total). Elder DelMarcado is also in my zone, so yeah its pretty sweet to be in the same zone as two elders from the MTC! It is very different here in San Miguel from what i have seen. It´s much more rural and VERY hot. There are a ton of cows and horses and oxen that pull stuff around and yeah its pretty crazy. Guess what? Supposedly my cook has a pet monkey! haha im way excited for that. Well yeah that´s the big news for the day.

So our baptism this past Saturday actually fell through.. i was pretty sad. But that´s ok hopefully they will just get married in the near future. A couple days ago as a result of my not drinking enough water, I apparently got some sort of infection and I felt like i was passing a kidney stone! It lasted for two days (longest days of my life).. but luckily it went away. im going to need to drink a ton of water here! Well sounds like you guys had a pretty good week. Sorry to hear Grandma and Grandpa have been sick.. but i know that Grandma worships you Mom, she tells me everytime in her letters haha.

How was skiing this past week? Mom im sorry im not going to be there to translate the letter you sent to Hermana Zelada.. but there is another gringo so he will be able to tranlate it for you. So yeah about that text message josh got haha. I was at a members house and this girl was messing with her cell phone so i took and put in my number and said this is my brothers number send him a text! So she took about 10 minutes to type it in English and the original message said " hi am from El Salvador, you brother is my house," haha so I corrected it and she actually sent it! I didn´t think it would actually get to the phone thats sooo sweet! I wasn´t there when he replied.. what did you say? Brooke I can´t believe you are graduating college... that´s incredible way to go! The invitation to Reese's blessing is way sweet, she´s so pretty! Tell Danielle I got her Dear Elder today and that I´ll write her back next Monday. And I can´t believe you have turned to the dark side of the golf world.... repent! haha jk.. But seriously, Dad I can´t believe philis won! im still impressed that tiger took fourth though considering everything. How did Boston go? Well you got your wish for me to be in a more rural place, I feel like Im in the year 1750! Haha it´ll be sweet though and hopefully I´ll have some success. Well sorry guys I don´t have a ton of time but love you all and wish me luck this week!

Love Nick

Happy Easter! Monday April 5, 2010

His highly anticipated Hammock

All the Gringos watching Conference in English

Nick and his Machete

Well this was a pretty exciting week. Pretty much from Friday to today I have had a "missionary vacation" ha-ha. Here in El Salvador they celebrate Easter the whole week, its called "holy week". Friday is a special day where they make huge painting type things in the street of the Savior and other religious things. They are called alfombras. But it’s not paint or chalk, it’s actually colored salt and different weird materials. I'm going to be sending you a few pictures of it, it is one of the coolest things I have seen my whole mission! So yeah anyways that day literally nobody is in their house so we pretty much just walked around and looked at the alfrombras! way fun. We then watched conference Saturday and Sunday all day at the Stake Center. As you guys know it was really, really good. I think (ok... I know.) that this is the first year I have actually caught every second of conference ha-ha. Dad I also thought of you and the boys a lot during the priesthood session. Man that Uchtdorf is a stud! I think my two favorite talks were from him on patience and from Elder Holland. They had a separate little room where they had a TV playing it in English, so that was way nice. All the gringos in my zone watched it in there with pop and candy and snacks, it was way fun. It really strengthened me a lot. It’s really cool that like Hermana Zelada said in her email, that even though the people here are not even hearing the voice of the speaker, they can still fill the special power than the prophet and apostles carry.

Well right after the afternoon session of conference, I saw my first big rain!! it was awesome. It was raining sooo hard and I made a comment about it and my comp said, dude this is "tranquilo", not bad at all! ha-ha so i can’t wait to see what they consider here a really big rainstorm. But I got to test out my jacket and my more heavy duty shoes and they both worked great, so that’s good! Well sounds like you guys had a pretty good Easter. Adam to answer your question, no we didn’t get to tie-dye Easter eggs.. too bad huh! They have never even heard of that here, and the idea of a bunny being the representative of Easter is completely insane to them ha-ha.

Well like you guys I am soooo excited that I get to call home in a month!! How sweet is that? That’s way weird to think that I will almost have six months down when I call.. pretty cool! Like you said Brooke in some ways it seems way fast but others in seems like an eternity ha-ha. Brooke that’s sweet that Sam talked to you! I miss that kid. Tell him I said to freakin write me! Well guys I'm gonna hurry and send this so I can get some pictures in there and a little voice clip things possibly. love you all and glad you had a good conference weekend and Easter!

Love nick

p.s. My baptism is still on for this Saturday!

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