Happy Monday everyone!
This is another one of those weeks that has just flown by. I´m not really sure where the time is going anymore.... today we´re starting week 6 of this transfer (the last week) and consequently almost without doubt my last week in Chahuites (I would really love to be proven wrong on that next week, we´ll see how it goes). Probably next Monday when I email I´ll be able to tell you where my next area will be.
Anyway, apart from the strange and disappearing concept also known as time, this was a good week. I think part of the reason that things are going so fast is because we´ve been so incredibly busy. We didn't have one day this week that we got to work in our area all day like normal missionaries. I love being a zone leader, but I´m excited to be a normal senior companion again my last transfer here in about a month and a half. :) So, one of the things that made this week very busy was the fact that we had zone conference. We usually have it with another zone in a city/town close to here called Arriaga, but this time we had it here in Chahuites, which means that all of the logistics of the conference fell squarely over us. They had told us beforehand that the conference was going to be the 20th, but the assistants called us Tuesday with the surprise that it had been changed to the following day (Wednesday the 13th) and that we had to find someone to prepare lunch (remember that here that´s the big meal of the day) for 30 people, invite the district president and all of the branch presidents, and prepare a 20 minute presentation from a pamphlet that we didn´t have. :) So, I´m not quite sure how we got that all figured out, but it was pretty awesome. The conference was great. I love hearing from President Cárdenas and Sister Cárdenas. Sister Cárdenas talked about the first principle that we teach as missionaries: "God is our loving Heavenly Father". It was awesome because sometimes we get so caught up in what we´re doing and teaching that we forget to ponder on the basics like that. I felt the Spirit very strongly and I know that Heavenly Father values me as His son (see attached song--it has to do with this and I love it). Then President Cárdenas talked about the Book of Mormon and the Gathering of Israel. And it was awesome. I love Sunday school every Sunday, but I definitely already know what they´re talking about (especially since we go to Gospel Principles with our investigators). It was definitely more on a missionary understanding of doctrine level :) and I really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
Apart from that we´ve been running around the zone doing lots of other things in these last couple of days. We´ve been checking on the elders, doing exchanges, baptismal interviews, etc. In our limited time to work in our area, we did find some other people who now have baptismal dates. They´re nieces and nephews of a member family--they gave us the referral and we teach them in their home. Just another example of how much more quickly the work progresses when missionaries and members are one united force. We would never have found them on our own.
I´ve got to go because of time, but I´m so grateful for the blessings of the Lord. I know that He is a God of miracles today just as much as He was to the children of Israel, the Nephites, or any other group of people in any time. The typhoon story with the sister missionaries is just another example of that (thank you, Mom, for sending that to me--it was an extremely touching story and full of miracles).
Have a great week, everyone. Always rely on the Lord. Wise words from the Relief Society President here: "Haz el Señor socio de tu empresa." I´m not sure how to translate that that well. Basically it´s like "Make the Lord the center of your business." Business meaning "life" for the analogy´s sake. I love you all :)
Con mucho amor,
Elder Andrew Nickerl
This was fun as well--we left the house one day and found a donkey outside of our door. It was really manso (someone can look up the translation for that) so we took pictures with it. It was a really nice donkey.
This is a cool picture that we took coming back from a baptismal interview in Ixhuatán (area of one of the district leaders). We caught the sunset on the bridge just a tad late, but it turned out pretty well anyway.
This is just another one of those cool "I´m serving in a little town in the middle of nowhere and it´s beautiful" pictures.
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