Yikes. Motherhood Fail.

Getting caught up again.

 June 3rd

This past week was pretty good. We are still working on the "no-tracting" thing and it is going pretty well. It will take a little bit of time to get that moving forward, but it will be worth it in the end. Once we can get the ward rolling, we will be the busiest and most fruitful missionaries in the world. Something that we are working on as a zone is harvesting. Planting seeds can be fun, but we are called to help people be baptized. 

We had a pretty good meeting about that with the District Leaders this last Friday. We are hoping to have 11 baptisms in the zone during June. It is a big goal, but we feel like we can hit it. Tom has gone MIA. We aren't really sure what is going on with him. His fellowship doesn't really know either. Hopefully he is alright. 

Sam is doing well. He is still waiting for that answer. He wants to know everything, which is kind of a set back. We are having FHE with him tonight and we are going to talk about faith and why we need it to get answers. 

Our ward got a set of sister missioanries last week. That is why we had to move. They are doing well. One of them is from Alpine and totally went to LP. Crazy how small of a world it is in the bubble. That's about all that I got. Oh, We are taking a final journey to Independence this week. It is weird that I won't go back. KWM 4 Life!

1. Yep, he gave me a workout routine, and I am on a high-healthy calorie diet. Lots of rice and chicken.

2. This week I am working on learning about baptisms for the dead. We talked to this guy who had some interesting questions about it.

3. I don't know if I believe that there are secret speed detecting devices on our cars. I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know.

For your lesson, I would tell those girls to encourage the priesthood holders to be good people. Boys listen to girls, so they can make a huge difference by just setting the example.

Hey, I was wondering about housing this fall. I think if I can get a room about anywhere for cheap that will work. I won't be there very much anyways.

Welp, have a great week. 

Love you, Nick

June 10

Things are going well here in Derby. Summer  heat is picking up, as well as the work. 

This week has been quite the roller coaster. We headed to Independence on Tuesday in the longest drive known to man. It wasn't too bad. Our Mission Leadership council was sweet. We found out that on the 18th of this month all of the missionaries in the soon-to-be KWM are going to the temple with Pres. Keyes! Instead of having a normal zone conference, we are doing that. It is really exciting. It has also made us really busy getting clothing sizes and finding housing for overnight missionaries. I am really stoked for it. 

It seems like the closer we get to the mission split the crazier things are going to get. Leaving Independence and the mission home was weird. I am going to miss that place. We rode another roller coaster with Sam this week. On Wednesday he texted us wanting to meet but we were in Missouri so we had to wait until Thursday. Then in our appointment he told us that he got his answer and that we wants to be baptized on June 29th! Then yesterday he wasn't at church because he went to his church to presumably tell his pastor that he wasn't coming back. Then we got a bunch of texts from him saying that he isn't ready for baptism and that he is doing this for the wrong reasons. We are pretty sure that when he was talking to his pastor that the guy totally anti'd him. We were able to get an appointment with him tonight, so we are going to see what happened. It is going to be really intense. Other than that, everything is pretty normal. Just missionary work.

1. Zone Conference plans: See email above

2. That means that we go to members' houses and ask who they are sharing the gospel with and invite them to give out pamphlets or things like that and then we follow up. Or we will go and teach less-active members and part-member families.

3. Si, recuerdo espanol.

Okay family, have a safe week. Love you more than dad loves moles.

Love, Nick

June 17

That is cool that DDP is a fitness guy now. I was actually thinking about what happened to him the other day.

This past week has been pretty good. We actually had quite a few days that were pretty rough. The work is slow right now because we are trying to get more member involvement which takes some time. Do you happen to know anyone in Wichita that could use the gospel? Nobody else seems to, ha. We are still working hard though. 

We are slowly losing one of our really solid investigators named Sam. He was totally anit'ed last week and now we can't really connect with him anymore. It sucks. I feel like Obi Wan in Star Wars 3 when Anakin goes all crazy and then Obi Wan cuts off his arms and legs and is all sad and whatnot. Sad, man.  He is too deceived by the "craftiness of men". He started asking us a bunch of "anti" questions this past week and he seems to be moving further and further away.  We thought that he was solid. He is really confused, I think. We should be meeting with him again this week and hopefully we can help him out some more. It is hard because only he has felt what he has felt. We don't know exactly what happened early last week so we can't say anything about how he interpreted what he felt, you know? Out of my entire mission, Sam and Roger from Riverview have probably been my biggest letdowns. They are/were so close to grasping the fullness of the gospel. 

This work is hard. 

Other than that, the temple trip is in full swing. We are picking up some elders tonight to stay with us. I don't know any of them. Our mission is really young. Over half of the entire mission have been out for less than a year. Also, we helped the new APs move in (Elder Taylor and Elder Stratton, yeah, the one from our stake) to their new apartment. That made things real. They are really coming down and the mission is really splitting. 

It is crazy. Elder Eliason and I were talking last night and my exit interview with President Bell will be more like a "get to know you" thing. It will be weird. Welp that is really all that is going on. We are pretty busy with the temple trip.

1. My most positive camp memory has to be coming home from camp. Ha ha. No, really, I think the last High Adventure was really fun. Like the one where we got lost for hours in the canyon in Southern Utah. At the time, it sucked like a vacuum, but hindsight 20-20, I thought it was a good experience.

2. We had to find out heir height, shirt size, and shoe size because the KC Temple is providing packets for everyone.

3. See email for update on Sam.

Anyways, life is good. Have a great week! 

Love you, Nick

July 1

I am glad that you survived. I can't imagine you camping. The very thought perplexes me.

This is the first weekly email from the new Kansas Wichita Mission! How crazy is that? It is really exciting. There is quite the buzz within the local wards.

 This past week was actually pretty good. We are still working on baptism for our investigators. One of them, Liz, is doing awesome. She is reading and doing really well. She says that she gets excited when we come over because she always leaves feeling good. It is nice to make a difference in someone's life. 

Our other person preparing for baptism, Shelley, has been a little frustrating lately. She and her member fiancee won't come to church. Last week they said that they always had too much to do on the weekends, so on Friday we went over there and cleaned up their yard. They still didn't come. Some people's kids... 

We also started teaching a sweet couple who moved from Oklahoma on an Air Force assignment. Their names are Cory and Debbie. They are cool. They are looking for a church with a good church family. Voila! Here it is.

So those are some things that are going on in the field. We are reaping the benefits of the broadcast last week. The members seem more excited about the work now. That broadcast was the best thing to happen to missionary work since Preach My Gospel.

Also, The Halls are coming to Utah this week and they have one of my suitcases for you. It's just full of stuff that I don't need right now. You have to meet the Halls though, they are awesome.

1. See email about our current investigators.

2. Today we are going bowling as a zone. I don't really enjoy bowling, but I am stoked to chill with my lil homies.

3. We have a Mission Leadership Council tomorrow and we are going to establish a lot of mission standards. It will be sweet. Then on Wednesday we have a Meet and Greet with the Zone. Other than that, we are all just very excited.

Welp, thanks for everything family.  Have a great week. 

Love you, Nick