Esta semana ha sido muy buena. Aunque no
enseñamos muchos lecciónes, tenemos investigadores que realmente están
progresando. Tuvimos este jueves una actividad misional, en que vimos
"José Smith: El Profeta de la Restauración". Vinieron muchos
investigadores y menos activos, y por eso también tuvimos más asistencia por
miembros y investigadores en la iglesia ayer que hemos tenide desde
llegué. Dos de los hermanos que llegaron a la iglesia ayer asistieron por
la primera vez, y están tomando pasos hacia el bautismo.
Por la falta que tuvimos de lecciones, también
tuvimos más contactos que hemos tenido desde llegué esta semana, y tenemos
muchas citas esta semana para regresar a esas personas. También, despues
de algunas horas de contactar sin poder hablar con nadie, nuestro final
contacto antes de la comida encontramos un hombre que es bien bueno. Se
llama Fernando, tiene 50 años, su mamá y hermano son miembros, y se ha invitado
a la iglesia muchas veces, sólo no ha asistido por algunas cositas en su
vida. Leemos con el Alma 34, y explicamos que ahora es el tiempo que
nesecita hacer esos cambios en su vida y acercarse a Dios. Fue muy
especial para mí a ver como Dios nos da oportunidades así cuando trabajamos con
diligencia.
¡¡Buenas días!!
Couple quick things:
1. I´m not sure if it´s going to work out
yet, but I´m working on seeing if I can send a package home. If I know it
won´t get there or if it´s something ridiculously expensive like 500 pesos to
send I won´t be sending it. Anyway, I would like to know the favorite
combination of colors of each of my siblings (like 2 colors: more or less
a one for background and one for letters).
2. I was thinking if anybody has
questions they want to ask me if you guys could make a separate email for
questions each week that would help me. I think I usually do a pretty
good job of answering moms, but by the time I start to type the email, I forget
any that anyone else may have questions.
3. Thank you very much for sending a new
charger! We get mail every change (at zone conference or interviews), so
each 6 weeks. For the rest of this change Elder Howell just sends
pictures the same way I did. The baptism picture I sent was actually from
his camera, so that will be a solution until the new charger either gets here
or until he switches.
4. The questions I found in your
email: I don´t have clippers, although I´m thinking about buying some,
but the bishop does, and we just use his when we need to. And yes, the
Gift of Tongues is very real. It´s still kind of funny to look at the
difference of how well I understand someone when we´re contacting or teaching a
lesson as compared to when I´m buying something at the store.
5. I just realized when I mentioned the
Bishop in the last point that I haven’t talked about him really all that
much. Obispo Tadeo is really, really awesome. He’s really
young. His oldest daughter I think is 10 or 11. He´s always
incredibly busy because he´s an awesome bishop, but he always takes the time to
talk with us and offer whatever help he can. An awesome example is how he
took the time to help us put together the missionary activity that we had this
week and made sure we had a projector/computer/popcorn and just everything to
make it awesome.
This week has been pretty
crazy. Probably the best one that I´ve had in seeing progress in the
lives of those we are teaching. The funny thing is that we
had tons of appointments fall this week. We usually teach a little
bit more than 15 each week, and this week we only had 11. But we
had a ton of people at church, and we´ve definitely got some really
good baptisms coming up. We started teaching one man this week
(random rant about frustration with English: in Spanish, you just
say things how they are. For example "Ahhhhh sí la
gordita que vive por allá" is not rude or offensive even
though it was just said "Ohhh yeah that fat lady who lives over
there". Really, we started teaching a viejito, an old
guy, this week.) But anyway, he has been trying to stop drinking for a
long time now, and after our lesson Tuesday on the word of wisdom
he has not drank/drunk/whatever the right word is (sólo sé que no ha
tomado desde entonces). It´s incredible what the Lord can do for us when
we show our faith in him and keep trying, even when times are tough.
Also, Cesar attended church for the first time this week.
It definitely took much longer than we wanted to get him there,
but he had a really good experience and he´s really progressing toward baptism
as well. AND we´re going to be able to start talking with his wife
soon. Which is awesome because baptizing matrimonies is way better than
just baptizing one person because they can get sealed in a year!!!! I
don´t think they say "matrimonies" like that in English.... what´s
the real word other than "couples"? It´s all really cool
to think about your English starting to go away as you learn more Spanish
until it actually happens. The learning more Spanish part is cool, just
not the forgetting English. And I still have an American comp so this is
ridiculous that I´m forgetting my English. There are just some words that
we always say in Spanish. Anyway, the point is that we´re just really
excited to start teaching both of them. That´s really the reason
everything is so, so, so worth dropping life for two years, coming to Chiapas,
and walking around all day, rain or blazing sun. If they choose to do
what the Lord wants them to do, they can be sealed in the temple with their two
little girls in a year as an eternal family. And I will have had the opportunity
to have helped them just a little bit to get there. That is the reason
that mission call packets say (I don´t remember how exactly it says it but
something like this) "More happiness than you have before experienced
await you as you serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children."
I am so incredibly gratefully that the Lord has
trusted me enough to give me this opportunity to serve him among the people
here, and although it seems tough at times, and all that happens in a day is
that our appointments fall and afterwards we just get rejected door after door,
the people who´s lives are changed when they accept and begin to live by
the Gospel of Jesus Christ make is more than worth it.
I love you all tons and hope you´re doing
well. Enjoy summer and all that stuff!
Con amor,
Elder Nickerl
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