Wichita

Things are going well down here in Wichita. We had a cool week. On Tuesday we made the 4 hour trek up to Independence and stayed the night at the mission home for a Zone Leader Council on Wednesday. It was a really sweet experience. We were trained on how to hasten the work, and now we have to relay the messages to the zone this upcoming Wednesday. We do about 5-6 hours of administrative stuff a week, so we actually have a good amount of time to be missionaries. 

Also, I don't know if you watched any of the morning talk shows this past week but, there is this little boy named Titus Ashby who can shoot a basketball like it's going out of style. He and his family went to New York to do some talk shows this past week after his video went uber-viral. He and his family are in my ward. I just thought I'd name drop on a 2 year old. 

The work is going pretty well. Elder Raddatz and I get along really well and that makes things a lot easier. We are working through the ward and branch rosters trying to contact the unknowns. We've seen a little bit of success out of it, but we are struggling to find new people to teach. You know what that means! Tracting!!! We have a lot to do and are staying busy.  There are lots of people here who work at the aviation plants. 

The Zone is doing really well which is nice. We have 9 companionships in the Zone and 3 of them are opening up areas. It is crazy how big our mission is getting. It is ridiculously huge. It is crazy the amount of missionaries that are coming out. Out of 30+ newbies this upcoming transfer, 14 of them are sisters. It is getting ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if this mission splits. 6 hours of church is still 6 hours of church. It is pretty draining. That's all that is going on with me.

That's too bad that the Warriors are playing like the Warriors again. I can't believe Tim Lincecum cut his hair. That is crazy. Next thing you know, Brian Wilson will shave his beard. We ran into this inactive guy yesterday whose son was a Major League pitcher and actually pitched against Barry Bonds. It is pretty cool.

1. There are 18 missionaries in the zone and 11 zones in the mission.

2. Elder Raddatz is a Spanish speaking elder as well. I haven't served with a Spanish speaker since last May.

3. We are in both the city and the suburbs.

Welp, mi familia, have a great week. Keep working hard. 

Love you, Nick

The Niners lose, and Nick is mature about it.

Man, that stinks. stinks. stinks.

Welp, I'm in Wichita. It is really far away from Kansas City. My comp is Elder Raddatz from Orem. He went to Mountain View (pronounced: Moun'in View). You can send me packages straight to the address- where we live is pretty safe. 

Here's the big info:

2510 E. Pawnee #403

Wichita, KS 67211

I got shipped out to the middle of nowhere. Apparently President thought it would be funny to let me serve my entire mission up to this point in KC, and then put me out here. Some interesting news is that I am now a Zone Leader. It is crazy. We do a lot of paper work, especially with miles and whatnot. My comp was trained in Riverview, so we have been talking about the people that we know. He has been out for 18 months, and got to the field one transfer before me. We are covering a spanish branch and a ward. We have to go to 6 hours of church every Sunday. It was a lot of church yesterday. 

Wichita is way different than anything that I have seen before. It is FLAT. No hills, no nothing. There is a ton of sky here. It makes for some cool scenery. It is very different out here, but I am excited to get to work. 

It is good to hear that Granddad is doing better. 

It really sucks that the Cuarenta-Nueveros lost. It super stinks. 

Well, the library is packed, so I  better finish up.

1. No, I didn't see the game at all. I was sad, but I figured my obedience would've caused the Niners to win. I guess not...

2. On Thursday at 8 I got on the transfer bus and rode the long 4 hours out to Wichita. It was almost as boring as driving through Nevada.

3. We are in a Spanish branch of about 40 active members. It is really small and intimate, but really great. We also cover a normal English ward. It seems super functional. Nice.

Okay fam, love you to pieces.
Love, Nick

Holidays =closed Libraries=No Email

Hey,

We couldn't email on Monday so here is a really short one. 

I am alive. 

We have the fireside with Elder Gavarret tomorrow night. We actually are coming from our zone conference with him. It was good. I'll say more on Monday. Transfers are coming up. 

For the Gratitude Journal project, my gratitude thing is I am grateful for going back a second time to people's houses.

1. Leaving blessings in homes is an interesting concept. I have never thought of that.

2. Yeah Pday Eve is when you have a more laid back Sunday night. I much prefer having work to do.

3. We do exchanges with the Zone Leaders once a transfer. It's fun, lots of back and forth with stories and whatnot.

Okay,  I love you. Bye.

Love. Nick 

Always a Football Connection

Man, that is super cool. NINERS!!!!!

 I’ve had a few run-ins  of my own with the NFL. On Saturday night we went to visit a super cool recent move-in to the ward who is an immigrant from the Ivory Coast. We got to talking and his kids live in Castro Valley. Wild. His son is apparently an all-star running back for CVHS and his mentor is a guy on the Ravens named Paul Kruger. Paul Kruger served in this mission and that is how they know him. Another interesting fact about Paul Kruger is he went to the University of Utah. An even more interesting fact is that he is from Pleasant Grove. That 6 degrees of separation thing is creepy. 

The bigger NFL experience is as such: the Kansas City Chiefs recently hired a new coach named Andy Reid. He happens to be a member of the church. Cool, right? That's not all. This new coach found himself in the sacrament meeting of our Riverview ward. Afterwards he came up to us and shook our hands. I had to hold myself from exploding football upon him. It was super cool. I've seen him on tv many times and we went to a game against his former team, the Eagles, my senior year. There he was, in sacrament meeting. It was unbelievably cool. In hindsight, I would've told him that the Niners are going to kick his team's trash the next time they met. So cool. It would be really sweet to have a Super Harbowl. Do they ever use LaMichael James on special teams for like kick returns and whatnot? They should, he was the best running back in college football and a track star.

The work is going well. We've been working hard and staying anxiously engaged. We are trying to get some people to church because everyone that was a regular church goer dropped us. It has been a little bit of a struggle, but we are working through it. We found a few cool investigators this week. We're hoping that they work out alright. 

We are having a member of the Seventy named Eduardo Gavarret come out to visit our mission next week. It will be pretty neat. Last year we had one named Elder Evans come here and he had a lot of good things to say. He spoke at our stake conference when President Anderson was called. He was the guy that 40 minutes left in the meeting and used every last one of them. I’m excited about Elder Gavarret coming. It's going to be cool. He will be holding a special fireside for all of the Spanish people in the area at the Kaw River building. It is going to be great.

We have hit another classic case of Missouri weather: in the 60's on Friday and it hasn't gotten above 28 degrees since. Better not get used to anything because it’s always changing.

Go to the January Ensign and look on page 76. Is that our house in the background? Why did you let this family into our home? 

1. Yes, we have a microwave in the apartment.

2. We give them quite a few tries if they dog us on an appointment. We just go until they tell us not to come anymore. Persistence is key.

3. We are going to play some basketball today. It will be fun.

Okay, mi familia, have a great week and cheer hard for the Niners. I love you.

Love, Nick

Fish out of Water: Missionaries in the Liquor Store

Note: Because of the Christmas and New Years Holidays, the library was closed and Nick was not able to email.

Hey  I spent $30.00 at a liquor store. 

So what happened was we switched cars with the Zone Leaders for some random reason, and we needed to get gas, but the gas card was not in the car. We called the Zone Leaders and they didn't have it, then the AP's called us and said that we could use one of our Blue cards (card with monthly amount) and get it reimbursed later. We just happened to be in an unfamiliar area, and the only gas station close was a Crown Liquor. Therefore, your son spent $30 at a liquor store on his mission. Pretty crazy, considering I have never set foot in one before.

The rest of our week was alright. We are still working with one strong investigator, and now he wants us to focus on getting his wife comfortable with the church. 

We had dinner with a really cool couple last night. The dad hooked us up-he gave us some ties from his mission in Hawaii (not fair, right?) and a CD with some Polynesian hymns on it. It was sweet. 

The baptisms lat week were good. It was 2 part-member families that we were helping complete. Both families are from the Marshall Islands, which is in the Pacific somewhere. 

The real deal in the field is the real deal. We teach all day everyday, at least we try to. Sometimes people blow off our appointments or shut the door on us. Sometimes we teach like 7 or 8 people in a day. Lots of ups and downs. We had a hard time getting members at our lesson last week, so that was tough. Also, nobody that we are teaching showed up to church yesterday. It was a real bummer. It is okay though, because the Lord has been working with us. Our tracting time went really well during the week, and we have some excellent potential investigators to teach. For New Years, I slept and heard the gunshots go off. Other than that, it was a normal day here. We are making sure that this past week's low points can be made into next week's high points. We had a cool lesson in EQ yesterday about how we can build up our lines of defense against Satan.  Making constant improvements is key. Life is good.

Interesting, the Packers are coming to the Stick again. Their QB has an arm and has put up good numbers. SF's QB is a scrambler with some good weapons. Eerily similar to a past game. Once again, Go Warriors! 

1. I'm having a hard time making resolutions, because I have some 8 month ideas, and some 4 month ideas, but I am not sure what exactly to pick. With the Book of Mormon challenge, I want to read it in English and Spanish before August. That's probably the biggest one.

2. Most of our finding is through tracting. I like it because we get to meet lots of different people. We haven't gotten very many referrals lately.

3. I have no idea who is 18 and who isn't, so all the new missionaries are the same to me!

Be safe and healthy. 

Love you, Nick

P.S. any word on scholarships?

Nick at Christmas

We didn't get an email from Nick last week, because it was Christmas Eve, and the libraries were closed. But a nice mom with a beautiful home invited Nick and his companion to Christmas 

dinner, took their picture and emailed it to us.

Doesn't he look happy? And full?

A Duck: Is he or isn't he?

Your son could potentially be a Duck. 

That is really awesome that Blake is going on a mission. She'll get home about 6 months after Cody. That'll be interesting. 

That is really sad to hear about Devin. Poor guy. He'll make it through. That must be hard. I can't imagine going through that. I said the word "that" 5 times in the first few sentences. Man, I cannot write anymore. Whatever.

Cal has a new coach. That's cool. It will be interesting to see Cal go from a primarily West Coast offense, to a high scoring air attack team. That is good that the Niners won again. Harbaugh hasn't lost 2 straight so far. Knock on wood. Go Warriors! Man, it is always a good year when they do well, granted, that rarely happens. Remember when they went to the playoffs and Biedrins ruined their season? Ah the memories. 

Things are going well here. We saw some total miracles last week. Everything is going well in Riverview. We had an interesting lesson with Roger yesterday. He has been going to his Mom's church the past 2 weeks, and when we were talking to him he sounded like he was fully invested in that church. Then we said "I got my answer". I thought "Oh no, we lost another one..." Then Roger said that he had a dream, and that he knows that our church is true. I be like WHATTTTT!!! He has received that sacred witness, but he still is trying to keep one foot in his Mom's church. He wants to get baptized by the restored authority, so he'll follow through with his date in January. It's exciting. We were also able to see Wilfred last night. It went well. He should be coming to church next week. We are being blessed. We met some really prepared people as well. I hope that I don't get transferred. I want to see my fruits. But, if God wants me to go somewhere else, it is what it is. 

Man, I finished reading Alma this past week. The war chapters should be made into a movie. They are super epic. Alma 62 is the battles of all battles. Kinda like the battle in the 2 Lord of the Rings. Wicked awesome. Now I'm in Helaman, reading about the Gaddianton robbers. Stupid robbers. 

 So that is the big news from KCMO. Other news, it is freezing outside. Like really cold. The weather said that is was supposed to hit 12 degrees last night. People were right about the cold here, it hits you to your bones. 

I don't have much else to say. Have a great week. 

Love you,Nick