March 3, 2014--Week 104--The End!

To my dearest family,

So, I can´t believe that I´m writing my last letter as a missionary today.  The time went by much faster than I expected.  As you can imagine, this week is very full of mixed emotions for me.  I love being a missionary.  At the beginning this style of life--most of all living such a scheduled life--it was hard for me.  I´ve now come to love it.  I love the people here of southern Mexico.  So many of the things that surprised me or scared me about the culture I now feel are mine.  As cliché as this is, I´ll be leaving a very large piece of my heart here in Mexico.  

At the same time, I know that my time as a missionary has come to an end.  Last Saturday I hit my two-year mark.  I understand that there are other things that I need to do with my life.  So, while I will miss so much this beautiful style of life and this land and people that I love, I´m happy and at peace.  I did what I was sent to do, and now it´s over.  Contrary to popular opinion, I haven´t been a perfect missionary.  Actually, more than ever in my life I´ve learned about my imperfections and weakness. But despite those imperfections and weaknesses I am satisfied with my work and I leave the mission field in peace.  I am so incredibly grateful for everything that I´ve learned and become.  With a very different understanding than I had as I started my mission, I now consider myself capable and ready to live the rest of my life as a disciple and servant of Jesus Christ and do the part that corresponds to me personally in the progress of His great Work of Salvation.  I know without a doubt that as long as I love the Lord and always have as my first priority over all other things being obedient to Him, I will live a happy life and I will progress.

I´m very excited to see you all on Thursday.  I never knew how much I loved you all until I didn´t see you for an entire two years :) 

See you in a couple of days!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

February 24, 2014--Week 103

Dear Family,

So, this last week was an absolutely beautiful week. We had our baptism on Saturday. Laura is awesome. She was one of the most prepared people that I´ve baptized on my mission. The baptismal service was beautiful.  

Apart from our baptism we found a married couple this week and they both went to Church. AND another married couple that we´ve been teaching for a while now went to Church for the first time.  All four are going to be baptized the 22nd of March. I´m no longer going to be here to see it, but that´s okay. :) I´m just glad that I had the opportunity to teach them and help them learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

I´m very grateful this week for all my blessings. I´ve been very, very blessed in so many ways my whole mission. And I´m just now starting to realize that it´s coming to an end. I'm really starting my last week as a missionary. When I send my next email I won´t have an area assigned to me anymore and that realization has taken me by surprise. But I´ve worked hard and I´ll keep working as hard as I can until my time is up so that I can leave without regrets.

I love you all and I hope that you have a great week. Stay close to the Lord and everything will work out. :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

Today we played early morning soccer with the elders of Central and La Salle.  We are totally exhausted. :) It was awesome.

So, as with all baptismal services Satan was a sore loser and tried to stop everything and we ended up starting an hour late, but in the end we got everything figured out and it was a beautiful baptismal service.  The talks were awesome, then we sang "Come Thou Fount" in Spanish.  But yep the Spirit was very strong and as always we all felt Him testify of the importance of this beautiful saving ordenance. 

These are the two districts that are in our immediate area.  There are now officially less elders than sisters.  That´s pretty awesome because when I got here there was only about 1 sister for every 7 or 8 elders. 

February 17. 2014--Week 102

Dear Family,

So, you´ll all be very excited to know that I saw a real live monkey this week. This is what I was expecting to see all the time when I first got here. Turns out that I had to wait almost my whole mission to see it. Contrary to popular belief (including my own before getting here) my mission is not in the heart of the jungle. haha We have a zoo in our area and aparently a couple of monkeys escaped and made their homes nearby. The scientists decided that that would be a good oportunity to study them and they´ve now had their homes there for years. So that was pretty cool.

So, I´ve got to be quick this week but apart from the monky I´ve got a couple other cool things to report--first of all, we´re going to have a baptism this week! Woo-hoo!!! I´ll send pictures next week.  

Apart from that, this weekend was stake conference. Elder Rafael Pino came from Venezuela to preside. President and Sister Cárdenas were also there. It was an awesome conference. I was really complemented and terrified out of my mind at the same time because Elder Pino shared a video that he wasn´t able to find in Spanish... so President Cárdenas volunteered me to translate it for the entire stake. :) So, that was pretty cool and I´m glad that President Cárdenas trusts my Spanish-speaking abilities and that I was able to do as he asked. He (Pte Cárdenas) called me up to the pulpit at one point in his talk with my companion so that we could participate a little bit. So that was also fun. Apart from that I said a lot of goodbyes to missionaries in the zone that I probably won´t see again.  I´ll show you the pictures when I get home. Sorry, I´m short on time so that´s it today.  But anyway I´m still not sure where the time keeps going... exactly 2 weeks from now my ministerial certificate expires :( but that´s ok.  It´s all part of progression.  I love you all very much!!!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

February 10, 2014--Week 101

Dear Family,

So, I decided that today, I´m going to tell you a little bit about my week before I read all of the emails, because I haven't told you many of the details lately. :)

First of all, this week my companion turned a year old in the mission (on Thursday), so we had a great pachanga (Mexican word for "fiesta"). We bought him pizza for surprise and Elder Finn and Elder Escobedo pulled a cake out of nowhere (I didn´t even collaborate on that one--those guys are good). They´re getting pretty good at that since they did it on my birthday too. That explains the first picture that I attached. Also in the picture I´m wearing the Real Madrid soccer jersey that I bought in honor or Adam.

Now a little bit about the work. Things here in Juárez are awesome. Honestly it´s been a lot harder for me to work with the ward council here than it was in San Cris or Chahuites. We've had to be creative to make things happen. But that´s ok because we haven´t let it be a barrier. We´ve worked with the individual families and there are a couple of families here that I love a lot. We´re going to have a baptism on the 22nd. I think I´ve mentioned Laura before but if I haven´t she´s the cousin/niece of a recently reactivated family and she came to church for the 4th time yesterday. We already taught her everything and she's ready to be baptized already, but we´re waiting for her to have her 5 times at church first. She's amazing and we´re grateful that the Lord put us in the right place at the right time to find her. We´re also going to have another baptism the 1st of March. It´s going to be a 28 year old man that we´re teaching. He´s one of those people that reads and researches a ton so he´s already read a lot of the Book of Mormon. With the research that he´s done he´s had a lot of doubts (you know what kind of stuff about the church there is online), but he´s not like a lot of people that get really hung up on the doubts. When we explain him how it really is, then it makes sense to him. So we´re really excited for that as well.  

This week has been a pretty awesome week working with less actives as well. We discoved on Friday that there´s a 19-year-old young man who´s been inactive since he was a teacher who wants to serve a mission. He says that his mom doesn´t want him to go because she´s afraid that he´s not going to want to keep studying in college when he gets back. We talked with him and explained that he needs to go back to church and to prepare himself, and that we´re willing to do whatever we can to help him prepare himself to serve. Then we talked with his mom (who´s also a semi-active member--more active than him) about the example of King Mosiah letting his children go risk their lives to preach among the Lamanites. That made her think a lot and she told us that she´s going to do the same thing that King Mosiah did--ask the Lord. So then the next day we took Daniel (that´s the young man´s name) with us to a couple of appointments. He participated a lot and it was awesome. He told us when we dropped him off at his house afterwards that his mom had already bought him slacks to go to church (he hadn´t been to church for so long that he didn´t have dress clothes that fit him). So we were super pysched. Unfortunately, on Sunday nobody from their family came to church :( but we´re going to see them tonight because we know that the Lord put us there in the right time to help him change his life and go on a mission.  

On that note, I´d like to address any young man who´s reading this who´s hesitating or isn't sure that he should serve a mission. I know I sound like a broken record repeating the same thing as everyone else, but for me this is personal. Serving a mission has changed my life. Without doing what I´ve been doing for the last two years I probably already would have flunked out of college and be working at McDonalds without too much direction in my life. I´ve learned here that as I put the Lord first and above all things, keep the commandments, that I can turn my weaknesses over to Him and that He will strengthen me to reach my worthy goals. I´ve learned to be able to focus on more than just me and my temporary wants and needs. I´ve learned to discipline myself to be able to see long term and put other people before myself. I couldn´t do that before. I invite you to put the Lord first and to keep the commandment of serving a full-time mission. Dedicate your life to Him for two years and watch the change in yourself. He will change you from a boy to a man. It´s not just cliché--it´s real.  

I hope you all have a great week! Put the Lord first :) I love you all.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

We did exchanges this week with our DL.  Their area is all up in the hills on the side of Tuxtla.  It never turns out as cool in pictures but you can see ALL of Tuxtla from there.  

Here´s another panoramic one that my comp took (I did not know that I was going to be in this picture) from a place in our area where you can see almost all of Tuxtla, too.   

There is a "plaza de toros" right in front of our house.  I don´t know what it´s called in English but it´s where they do the Spanish sport of bull-killing (I don´t remember what it´s actually called but it´s with the matadors).  Aparently they had one in December.  We know the owner.  He´s really old now but he was a torero (matador) for a reallllly long time and he´s a really cool person.   

Our district this change.

Happy Mission Birthday to my companion!

This was the night of my companions mission birthday. We were serving the cake and mine almost fell so I thought it would be better to catch it in my hand than let it fall on the floor. And it was. Also that´s a better look at my awesome Real Madrid jersey.

February 3, 2014--Week 100

This is my comp (Elder Sánchez from Guatemala) and me and one of the biggest hills in our area. :) That's Tuxtla in the background. 

Elder Finn, me, Elder Sánchez, and Elder Escobedo (Elder Finn´s comp) at our zone conference this week.  It was nice to have a zone conference without being the stressed out zone leader haha.  It was my last one in the mission (I don´t know whether to put a sad face or a happy face with that comment).

January 27, 2014--Week 99

Hey Mom!

To answer your question about where we live so you can find it on Google, I'll just send you some points so that you can check out our area. It is more or less in the southern part of Tuxtla right in the middle. If you zoom down enough to see the names of the colonies (or neighborhoods as we would call them) we live in Obrera, and our area embarks most of what's to the right of that: Benito Juárez, San Juan Sabinito, Lomas del Venado, and Maldonado, until Cerro Hueco. If you have trouble finding that it´s below Av 9a Sur Ote and around Libramiento Sur.  

This is the stree right in front of my house:

https://www.lds.org/maps/media?type=streetview&id={ll:%2216.742804,-93.110137%22}

If you give it a 180 degree turn you´ll see our house. We live on the second floor of the house where there´s a lady´s gym poster on the wall (which is no longer there, but in this satelite picture it is). 

The work continues to roll forth here in Barrio Juárez. We're planning on having two baptisms on the 8th of Febrero (a brother and sister of 24 and 19 years--don´t make fun of my English there I know it´s horrible haha), and then another one on the 15th (a 16 year old girl that`s a cousin of a family of youth in the ward). We also found 8 new investigators this week. So that´s pretty cool too. Yesterday a guy that was just a tad bit drunk called us into his house and told us that he wants to change his life and that he wants us to visit him. So we convinced him to dump his beer down the drain and stomp on his cigarrettes :) which was quite lovely. We're going to visit him with a couple of guys from the elders quorum that had problems with the Palabra de Sabiduría in the past.  

I want to tell everyone who is reading this, especially family, how grateful I am for your prayers and support and how much I love you. I want to tell you all that I love being a missionary. I can't believe that my time is coming to an end, and I'm realizing now at the end of these two years just how much I've learned and grown.  I'm approaching my 23 month "birthday", and in this last month I'm going to work my heart out and invite all that cross my way to come unto Christ through repentence and baptism.  I've realized lately just how much more bold I've become as I invite people to repent and do what's right.  Before, I think I was embarrassed to invite people to change their lives.  Inviting people to prepare to be baptized terrified me.  I'm so grateful that God has helped me overcome those weaknesses. As I've realized that the door to discipleship is baptism, I kind of wonder what I was pointing my investigators toward before if I wasn't inviting them to prepare themselves to enter the waters of baptism and make sacred covenants. That is now our only focus as we teach--to ignite in others the desire to be disciples of Jesus Christ, to help them identify the way, and help the to do so, so that they can come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. I invite all that are reading this to examine your own lives and identify what you can do to become a more devoted disciple of the Master. For most of you that is no longer baptism--but we can all be more committed to keep the covenants that we have made with the Lord.  Let us all come unto Christ, and be perfected in Him. Let's deny ourselves of all ungodliness.  That's my invitation today.

So, I'm sorry that was kind of disjointed.  I was trying to piece together quickly all of what I've learned about my missionary purpose over the last two years... that's what came out without editting.  I love you all very much.  Trust in the Lord and have a great week.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

And this is apple pie.  We ate it yesterday.  It was the first time I´ve seen anything resembling American pie in my entire mission.  And I don´t really remember what it tastes like all that well, but I feel like the sister that made it (the daughter of the family that we eat with almost every Sunday, la familia Sánchez, made it) did a pretty good job and I think that it was just like genuine apple pie.  So, I was excited about

that and I wanted to share :)

January 20, 2014--Week 98

Hello everyone!

So, I just want to start off talking a little bit about our area before I start to talk about my awesome birthday yesterday. :) So, we now have baptismal dates!  We´ve found people because the members are working hard. :) I love teaching the message of the Restoration to the members.  There´s a very special spirit as we do it and we gain a lot of confidence that way.  So, we´re going to have a bunch of baptisms in February :) and the Lord has blessed us.

Ok, so, about my birthday.  My second birthday in my mission was only like 100000x better than the first one.  First of all, my companion remembered this year and told me happy birthday haha.  In church, the entire elders quorum sang me the latino Happy Birthday (las mañanitas).  And in the afternoon, an awesome family from the ward invited us to come over to eat cake (their daughter has the same birthday as me--first person that I´ve met in my life).  They made me my own mini-cheesecake!!!  Like legitimate cheesecake with "Felicidades Elder Nickerl" and everything.  I attached a picture. So that was so awesome. I´m very grateful for the love that they showed to me here in our ward. They did all this without me telling anybody other than my comp that it was going to be my birthday (he´s awesome too and I´m pretty sure he told everybody--but without me knowing). We got home at night and gave our weekly report over the phone and planned and all the normal things. And then, to my surprise, after we finished, Elder Finn and his companion Elder Escobedo came in with another cake! So that was awesome as well. We had a great time eating it :) Anyway, I had an awesome birthday and I´m very grateful for all the love that was shown to me yestderday.  

Just know that I¨m very happy here and I´m working my heart out for this last little bit in my mission... the time is going very quickly and it´s pretty scary--so the only thing that I can do is work harder. :)

Thanks for all of your prayers and love in my direction :) and don´t worry at all that the package you sent wasn´t here for my birthday.  I really wasn´t expecting you to send one in the first place anyway. You´re the best :) te amo muchísimo!  Que tengas una semana súper excelente :) 

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

This is my cake from the familia Mendoza! Pretty awesome, huh?

Really pretty bad quality, but it´s the best we could do.  This is the cake from Elder Finn and Elder Escobedo.

January 13, 2014--Week 97

Hey Mom!

While the photos load, I want to tell you that my new area is awesome.  Our area is on the outskirts of Tuxtla, and we´ve got some hills that go up and offer some pretty cool views of the city.  I will load a couple photos of that in a few minutes.  I've enjoyed getting adjusted to the city.  It's very different than what I'm used to.  I was nervous at first and almost got run over a couple of times, but I've got the city life down now.  :)  

We´re working hard to coordinate with the members here and as we´ve taught several of them the message of the Restoration (something that hasn't been done here before). We've seen a lot of positive results and I feel like we´ve gained a lot of trust.  We´ve received a couple of referrals and found some people this week that are definitely going to get baptized. 

Apart from teaching the members, we´ve also been trying to work with the ward council so that they will fill up our planners with important appointments.  We´ve told them that we want appointments to do the following:

1) Obviously as missionaries we want to teach nonmembers and prepare them for baptism and confirmation.  So, teaching nonmember friends and family members of the members of the ward in the homes of members or at least with the members present.

2) Teach less-active members in the company of presidencies of their respective organization to help them to achieve reactivity.

3) Teach and strengthen active members.

We´ve had a pretty positive response so far, and we´re going to keep working hard so that the stone cut out of the mountain can roll a little faster here in Barrio Juárez.

My companion´s name is Elder Sanchez.  He´s been in the mission for about 11 months and he´s from Guatemala City, Guatemala.  He´s really awesome and we get along really well.  He´s very obedient, a hard worker, and very service oriented.  I´m grateful to be here with him for my last couple of months and I´m LOVING just being a normal senior companion again and focusing all of my energy on proselyting in my own area. :)

But anyway, getting back to my area.  To my pleasant surprise, getting here to Tuxtla I learned that we live in an appartment with another companionship of elders.  I was super excited to learn that the senior companion of the other companionship is none other than Elder Finn, my companion from my last transfer in Chahuites who goes home the same day as me and one of my best friends in the mission. So, that was pretty awesome.  The four of us missionaires play soccer every morning here (on a basketball court, not a field), and then Elder Finn and I go to a field in front of our house and we do sprints. :) He's my workout buddy, so it's been a lot of fun having him around.

Okay--that´s all for today.  You´re all in my prayers, especially Elder Nickerl el español :) I love you all very much.  

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

This is Elder Martinez and me at the Christmas banquet.  He was my companion in San Cristóbal.  We got a long great and I miss him a lot.

Christmas Day!

 This is the 1st Counselor in my ward in San Cristóbal when I went to say goodbye to him and his family.  He helped us A TON last transfer.  Without him, we never would have gotten the tours in the stake up and running.  We´re definitely going to go visit him and his family when we come back to visit  in March.

Elder Martinez and me--as we part our ways at the bus station in San Cristóbal.

With my new companion, Elder Sanchez.  Our new area is on the outskirts of Tuxtla and we´ve got some hills that go up and offer some pretty cool views of the city.  

My new area is pretty awesome!

January 6, 2014--Week 96

Hey Mom! :) 

WOW today has involved a lot of changes!  Between knowing that Adam's been set apart as a missionary and that he's leaving today and receiving my own transfer today, things are pretty well mixed up in my head.  So, for my last trasfer, I´m finally going to have an area in Tuxtla.  It´s called Juarez and it´s in the Tuxtla Mactumatza Stake.  So, that´s pretty cool and I'm excited about it. :)  Also, I will no longer be a zone leader or district leader :D and so my stress level will be much lower.

In the last couple of minutes with Adam before he gets on the plane to leave, please tell him that I love him very much and that I´m so proud of him.  And I´m excited to not be the only Elder Nickerl any more.  Sorry, I can´t email again this week for shortage of time... I feel so incredibly lame about my emails this transfer. haha.  But, next week I will no longer have to turn in a report of the zone :) so I´ll have more time for writing and photos.  Just know that I love you all very much and that you´re all in my prayers, especially Adam this week.  And know as well that I´m very at peace with my transfer and that I´m really excited to work for these last two months in Tuxtla. :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl (el mexicano)

December 30, 2013--Week 95

Sorry for no real email--again.  Next week I´ll probably have a transfer but I´ll try to send some pictures and give a little brief of what we´ve done this transfer.  The visitors tours that I told you about when we Skyped have been AWESOME.  They've ended up great and have been very successful.  Thanks for everything again, Mom :) You´re the best and I love you very very much.  Have a great birthday this week!  

Love,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

December 23, 2013--Week 94

Hey, Mom!  

I just logged into my email after a stressful week to find out that I will be officially going home on the 6th of March. So, just to figure things out so that I can tell the mission secretary to buy a plane ticket or not, would you and Dad fly in that day to come pick me up or would I fly home and then a few days later fly back?  I know you mentioned your spring vacation starts on the 6th... so let me know what I should tell the secretary to do for my ticket.

Also, I´m writing stocking notes for everyone at home right now and so I don´t think that I'll have time to write a regular weekly email, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for the Twelve Days of Christmas presents!!!!  Please tell Dad thank you for his work on that, as well. It's been so much fun because my companion has been gracious and grateful for the gifts too.  We´ve been loving opening them every day :) You´re the best!

I haven´t said too much about my comp or even sent pictures.  Just so you know, he´s awesome.  We get a long great and we´re doing a lot of important work here. We´re crazy busy working with the stake leaders to try to get some things together to make missionary work really take off with the members here.  Hopefully next week I´ll have more time to tell you about it.  Or tomorrow when we Skype. :) And remember that it won't be a full hour. :/ We´ll have to start saying goodbye´s at 35 minutes because the missionary handbook says no more than 30-40 minutes.  But, we´ll make the time worth it :) and it´s my 4th call of my mission, which means I´m about to really see you all, anyway.

I love you very much!  I'm excited to talk to you tomorrow!  Have a great Monday!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl

December 16, 2013--Week 93

Dear Family,

Mom, congratulations on your finals!  The Lord does work--and we can see His miracles when we look for them. :) On that note we had a really cool experience giving a blessing this week.  One of the families of investigators that we´re teaching has a son that has had a high fever for a couple of weeks. The medicine that they'd given him had no effect. We gave him a blessing and two days later when we came back he was just fine. I don´t think that they realized the significance of what happened, but I definitely did. I know that God is still a God of miracles today just as much as He was anciently.

Ok, so my time is short--again. :/ Sorry about that.  This week started off really awesome.  We found 5 new investigators who we set baptismal dates with.  That was pretty cool.  The really uncool part was that not even one of them came to church on Sunday (although they had all committed to doing so), which also meant that their baptismal dates no longer exist (since they have to go to Church five times before being baptized).  The family that we found last week was really excited (we found the dad on Tuesday and had an awesome lesson and set baptismal dates with him and his wife), but then on Friday, the pastor from the Church that they had recently stopped attending, came to see them and talked to the mom.  And since the family is indiginous (we think they´re Tzotzils but we´re not sure) and very humble, it also means that it´s a very male dominated culture and the women have very little say.  So, having said that, she sees the pastor as a huge authority figure and he told her not to go to church with us anymore or even to accept us in her house.  So, that was really frustrating and we wanted to have a few words with that pastor but unfortunately (or rather fortunately haha) he was no longer there when we got there.  So she won´t let us talk to her anymore but we´re going to see what her husband says when we have an opportunity to meet with him.  

So, it would have ended up being a pretty discouraging week, but last night we had stake leadership training with the Area Seventy (his name is Elder Reyes).  President Cárdenas called us on Saturday and told us that we would be attending this meeting.  So, we went and Elder Reyes talked about Hastening the Work of Salvation.  And he said that the purpose of the ward council is to carry this work out. So, what we gathered together in Ward Councils and made lists of people (one list of non-members and one list of members) for us to visit.  Actually, we didn´t make the list, the ward council did. Our ward council came up with more than 50 names on each list.  So now, we´re psyched to work with the all these new people and we ended the week on a great note.  ...And better yet, the ward is now focused on filling our planners and giving us people to teach. :) 

I´m so grateful for modern revelation and I know that this work will move forward so much more powerfully this way.

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

December 9, 2013--Week 92

Dear Family,

So, this week was pretty great.  We started off by going to Tuxtla for the leadership council and President talked to us about working with the ward councils and the members so that the Work of Salvation moves forward correctly.  That´s been all of the focus lately.  I can´t believe how much that´s changed for me since the beginning of my mission--we used to just knock doors all day.  I´m so thankful that the Lord helped us see the more effective way of doing things.  This week we received a referral from a recent convert of a complete family.  They´re a very humble family.  They don´t have much, and the dad is always gone working (we still haven´t met him yet, but we have an appointment with them tomorrow and we´re hoping to find him).  On Sunday morning we went with a brother in the ward to bring the mom with two of her kids to Church.  Next week we´ll be turning that reponsibility over to the ward mission leader, who will make sure that they get to church. :) Working with the members really is more effective... Imagine how many more people the members can bring to church together than just us two missionaries (actually four... there are four missionaries in this ward, too) without a car.  Speaking of that, this is by far the biggest ward that I´ve been assigned to work in (although Chahuites is heading this way, too), 120-130 people attend every week.  So, that´s all I have for this week.  Sorry it´s rushed, but I´m out of time.  I was going to send a couple of pictures, too, but again, I´m out of time.

Anyway, I love you all very much :) Thank you for your prayers.  I feel them in our work here.  Have a great week and for everyone that has exams and finals--trust in the Lord and know that if you do your part, He´ll do the rest.

Con mucho amor,

Elder Nickerl

P.S. I wanted to tell you that this week when we went to Tuxtla, they gave us the time-frame for our Christmas call.  We plan on calling on Dec. 24th.  I´ll have time to do my videochat at 7pm here.  It´ll be on Skype just like the last two calls.  We´ll be doing it in the stake president´s house.

December 2, 2013--Week 91

Hello from the cold!!

So, this week I just about froze to death (but I didn´t). San Cristóbal actually has a beautiful climate (that we´re now enjoying), but the same day that I got here there was a cold front from the Gulf of Mexico which lasted about 3 days. And the sun didn´t come out. And I was really cold. But on Friday the sun came out and although it´s cold at night we´re enjoying beautiful weather during the day. I´ve just been reminded this week that I don´t mind the cold--as long as I live in a heated house--which I don´t.  haha. But anyway, apart from the cold, San Cristóbal is AWESOME. It´s a beautiful city and I now understand why it´s the tourist center of Chiapas. That´s been another super weird thing, by the way... I see white people here all the time. I was not used to that. I was the white guy in Chahuites. Speaking of Chahuites, I miss my little town and all of my people there. As awesome as San Cristóbal is, I don´t recognize everyone that I see in the street and it doesn´t have the same general friendliness as Chahuites does. But yeah, anyway, I´ve heard so many languages here. I´ve heard people speaking English in the street a couple of times, but mostly I´ve heard German and French and other languages that I don´t distinguish. Also there are a ton of indiginous people here, mostly Tzotziles and Chamulas. I´ve started learning a couple words here and there in Tzotzil, mostly to lower prices on the stuff that they sell. (haha)  I know how to say (the spelling on the tzotzil words is very likely not correct, it´s just how it´s pronounced in Spanish) "Hi/good morning/good afternoon/etc"--"Leoté", "How are you?"--"cushailán", "fine"--"lecoy", "What are you doing?"--"Cushi-shapás", "How much does this cost?"--"cus-tojol", "That´s really expensive."--"Toj-toyol", "I want a lower price"--"tsu-lesó", and "thank you"--"kolabal". So that´s been fun. I´m going to try to find a good Tzotzil book and learn a little bit more. :) 

As far as the work goes right now, we don´t have many of investigators here, so we have been/will be visiting a lot of members and teaching them the lessons and inviting them to invite their friends to listen to us. We know that we`ll find a lot of people that way.

Another cool experience really quick before I go... yesterday we were waiting outside the church for our investigators, and a whole bunch of members from Utah showed up. And they didn´t speak Spanish. So they asked me to translate for them in sacrament meeting. To my great surprise, I did so fairly successfully. Just one time I realized that instead of translating what the person was saying I was just repeating it in Spanish... everyone turned around and looked at me and laughed... that was embarassing. But other than that it went pretty well :)

That`s it for this week.  I love you all very much! Rely on the Lord in these couple of exam weeks and everything will go just fine :)

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

November 25, 2013--Week 90

Hey family :)

Sorry, this might be kind of a lame letter this week... I think that's usually how it goes when I get transfered because I don´t really remember that much about the week before because I´m busy thinking about what's ahead. So I´ll just talk about my transfer. This morning we got the news that after more than 8 months in my beloved little town of Chahuites, tomorrow I´ll be heading to San Cristóbal. I´ll still be zone leader there. I´ll probably only be there this transfer (until January 5th) as it´s my last transfer as zone leader. My companion is going to be Elder Martínez. I don´t know that much about him, but I´ve talked to him a few times before in leadership councils (he´s been a zone leader a while, too). I just know that he´s from Colombia and that he´s an awesome missionary. I´m super psyched to go to San Cristóbal. It´s the tourist center of Chiapas. Everyone goes there to see the indiginous people and there is an incredible amount of culture there. I´ll hopefully be able to learn a little bit of Tzotzil. The missionaries have told me that if you know Tzotzil you can get wayyy lower prices on all of the cool things that they sell (if you don´t, they crank up the prices because you´re just another tourist). Oh yeah, San Cristóbal is also the coldest zone in the mission (I would guess that it doesn´t get below freezing too often, but after being here and without a house with a heating system like the houses in the US, that´s going to be a shock for me). I´m going to be really grateful for the sweaters that I bought in Comitán. I heard that the hot water system in the house isn't working either... I really hope that that´s not true... If it is I´ll just have to work out really hard in the mornings so that I´m sweating and enjoy my bucket-of-ice showers (the previous experience in Comitán will come in handy as well). But all-in-all I'm really excited and hopefully I'll email with some cool pictures next week.  

Before I go, I did write down a couple of cool experiences from the week:

--First of all, we were eating with the Hna Imara this week and she gave us a couple of sea turtle eggs each to try.  Sea turtle eggs are a delicacy here.  It´s weird... the shell is soft and you kind of semi-boil it and then just tear the shell a little bit and suck out the contents.  I can´t say that I loved it but it was a cool experience :)

--One of our investigators gave us coconuts--but not as we know them in the US.  She gave them to us like they fall off of the tree.  With a machete to open it.  So we opened them up with the machete, drank the coconut water, and then opened it up all the way to eat the fruit.  Mom and Dad, when we come back in March we can do it. :) It was a lot of fun.

Anyway, that´s all!  I´m thankful for your support and prayers!  Happy Thanksgiving!  I love you!!!  

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl

November 18, 2013--Week 89

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.

November 11, 2013--Week 88

Dear Family,

Ok, to answer your questions first: :) the CMEJ (EFY in Mexico) was held over the summer. And I didn´t know that music for it in Spanish even existed and I do not have access to it.  :) So yes, if you could send me a disc with it that would be super.

The district conference you saw the photos of was held in Zanatepec (more or less the central location in the zone) and it was on the basketball/soccer court of an elementary school there. All the chapels here are pretty small, so we definitely don´t all fit in just one for the district conference. That was a pretty awesome experience. We felt pretty good because we brought 9 investigators with us to the conference (that´s a lot).  

I did get Brother Mahelona´s poem and I thought it was pretty awesome.  I thought I had responded about that before :/ so I'm sorry about that.  I´ve also gotten a couple of other letters from him with funny/inspiration poems/cartoons/quotes that have all been really awesome.  Could you give me his email address so that I could write personally and thank him?

So, this week has been really good.  It´s hitting me pretty hard now that I´m really going to be leaving Chahuites in just a couple of weeks.  That´s going to be tough for me.  I love the people here so much. But we´re going to have another baptism the Saturday before I leave, and we´ve found a ton of people that are definitely going to be baptized in December, so I feel like I´ll be leaving the area in good shape. :) Also, I don´t know if I had told you last week or not, but before district conference (we didn´t take attendence of the branch there) we´d had 3 consecutive weeks with more than 100 members in attendence. We set that goal back in July, and we had hit it a couple of times, but now we´ve done it 3 weeks consistently.  It is so excited to reach a goal and seemed nearly impossible at the time.  Now it´s now time to set a higher goal. :) 

I´m still loving having Elder Finn as my companion. We would have liked to have more time than just one transfer as companions, but that´s ok. The Lord knows what He´s doing. :) We get a long well and we help each other out in a lot of things. We get up and do excercise really well every morning.  We did no más today. :) We can just barely make it through step 7, but in a couple of days we´re going to do it to step 8.  

Umm other than that I don´t have too much to say.  I love this work and I´m kind of freaking out a little bit that my time is coming to an end. As I leave Chahuites I´ll only have two transfers left.  And it´s probable that those two transfers will be in two different areas, since in this mission if you´re a zone leader for your last transfer you get another area as just a normal senior comp or as a district leader.  So, I´ve got one transfer left as a zone leader and then they´ll probably change me again. So, I´ll have the chance to have two more areas :) unless by some miracle I get to stay in Chahuites again.  

Anyway, I love you all! Have a wonderful week. :) Keep up the good work in your lives.  I know that there is a lot to do right now and it´s a really busy time of year with the holidays and school finals, but always remember to make the Lord the center of your lives and everything else will fall into place.

"Therefore, take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed?  For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye need all of these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things shall be added unto you."--3 Nephi 13:31--33

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl 

November 4, 2013--Week 87

Dear Family,

Sorry, we've had a super hectic report writing/family writing session today... full of calls from the assistants and from just about every area in the zone.  I've really loved being a zone leader, but I´ll be pretty happy for my last transfer when I can just be a normal senior companion again.  So, I apologize that I'm just about out of time to write and I didn't say anything about this week other than the baptism. All I can say is that it was a great week and that we had a lot of really good experiences.  The leadership council in Tuxtla was pretty awesome, and then we came back Wednesday and had a really really great zone training.  We felt like we transmitted to the elders and sisters what President wanted them to know and hear.  Then, we had a couple of really cool experiences as a companionship finding investigators. We found a couple of new people that are definitely going to get baptized. I guess we'll just wait to see if I'm still around when that happens or not. :) 

Sorry that that´s all I can write. :( I´m out of time.

Have a great week!  I love you all very much!

Con mucho amor!

Elder Andrew Nickerl

So, this week when we went to fill up the baptismal font, water did not come out.  We thought that was pretty unfortunate until we learned that we could have the baptism in the RIVER!!!  And at that point it became the best thing that happened to us all day.  So, here´s Merced and me right after the ordinance.  

This is right before the ordinance.  Both of us were pretty excited because we hadn´t baptized in a river before.  This was a really special experience.  

  

Here we are heading out to the water...

And right before the ordinance.... so this one really goes right after the first one that I sent. :)  It was an AWESOME baptismal service.  If we can, we´re going to have the rest of our baptisms here in Chahuites in the river.  The only downside is that my white temple pants are super dirty.  But they´re in the washer right now so we´ll see if I can get them a little bit cleaner. :)  If not, I´ll have to scrub them by hand (which I don´t like doing).   

October 28, 2013--Week 86

Hello family!

So, first of all, we´re going to have a baptism this Saturday so we´re pretty excited about that. With the new rule that they have to go to church five times before getting baptized, Merced is definitely more than ready and we´re ready to have one too. We´ve now gone more than a month without a baptism so we we’re getting a little restless. I´m not actually going to write that much today because I´m going to send some pictures. I figured out a way to fix my camera short-term (I put in and take out the SD card with tweezers) and I´m hoping it´ll last until I get home and then we can take it to a good repair-man.

We're off to Tuxtla now for our leadership conference which is tomorrow.  We're taking the bus and it will take us about 2 1/2 hours to get there so I need to go after I send some photos.  

I love you all.  Have a great week!

Con mucho amor, 

Elder Andrew Nickerl

I´ve now been in Oaxaca almost longer than I was in Chiapas. :) Oaxaca is currently my favorite Mexican state. 

This past Saturday we had an activity in the Church.  It was kind of an "open house" so that the people from the town could see the Church on the inside.  Each organization prepared their own room and were assigned to talk about certain things. This is the room that the Relief Society (Sociedad de Socorro) prepared to explain Relief Society.  They talked about the history of Relief Society and what it does for women today.

 

This room was prepared by the Primary... so I´m not exactly sure why it has the Young Women´s banner hanging on the wall behind the little temple--but it looked really nice.  And I´m not sure who made the little temple, but it was pretty amazing.

The Youth (meaning basically the YW because there is only one fully active YM) were assigned to explain the Book of Mormon.

The activity went really well.  They were announcing it all week on the radio.  We didn´t have as big of a showout from the general public as we had hoped (based on how many people asked us in the street about it), but a good number of people showed up and we´re going to look for them this week and try to teach them. :) 

Here we are with the sisters and with Cristian at the activity.  They´re going to call some ward missionaries soon which will be awesome.  The missionary corps is growing. :)

This was this morning.  We´ve been looking for more opportunities lately to give service, and today we got to cut down an oak tree with a hand saw. :) We started by cutting off the branches on top so that it didn´t break anything when it fell (and then we got to make firewood out of the branches with a machete!!  I love machetes!)  This is finishing that process.

This is the last branch we cut off the top before we started cutting the trunk. 

  

Making firewood out of the branches with the machete. 

This was the hardest part.  Cutting through the trunk was a beast.  

The tree is finally down! And, my comp and I got a picture together.  With me sending pictures of just me it makes it look like I did all the work.  But no, my comp probably did more than I did.  To answer the confusion with the half missionary clothes/half service clothes, we were in our own yard--doing service for the people who own the house (they´re awesome and they take care of us a lot, so we owe them all sorts of favors anyway).  

So yeah it took us about an hour, but we beat the tree.  I feel like my man-skills have greatly increased on my mission haha (I´ve now cut down trees with a hand saw and cut grass with a giant knife--and it feels pretty cool).  

October 21, 2013--Week 85

Hey family :)

So, this week was a pretty cool week. We started it with transfers. It was pretty unreal when Elder Reyes left. After having been companions for almost 6 months, I was expecting him to come back at any minute. Turns out that he stayed in Tuxtla (that´s what he was supposed to do, I just wasn´t quite with the program yet).  

So, then we waited for the afternoon in Arriaga for the new missionaries in the zone to get there. I didn't tell you guys that Elder Esparza is in our zone now as a district leader. It's pretty cool having an old companion here.  I'm happy to be able to be around him for this last transfer in Chahuites (it´s almost for sure that at the end of November I'll be heading out of here.  It's pretty much unheard of that a missionary stays longer in his area than 6 transfers, and I´m now in my 6th transfer).  

So, this week having Elder Finn as my comp has been pretty awesome. It's pretty funny hearing us talk. Our Spanglish is terrible. We never speak English, only pure Spanish or a ridiculous mix of the two languages. For example, this morning I said, "I´ve got to wash this vass todavía" (meaning "I´ve still got to wash this cup" or "Tengo que lavar este vaso todavía"). And that´s how we do it. We get along great and we work and teach together really well, too, so it´s a shame that we´re only going to be companions this transfer. Another thing that I didn´t realize until this week is how many people I know in this town. Elder Reyes knew almost everyone that I knew, so I didn´t really think about with when I was with him. But yeah, I almost can´t walk for a block here without saying hi to someone that I know. We went on Wednesday to buy tlayudas (the famous gigantic quesadilla with carne asada and beans of Oaxaca) so that Elder Finn could try them, and I knew everyone in the restaurant. It´s not a huge restaurant, there were only like 4 families eating there, but yeah it was pretty funny. I knew and talked to them all. So that's pretty cool.  

As far as the Work goes we had a couple of disappointments this week. A lot of people that we thought were going to get baptized made it clear to us this week that they don´t really want to. But, we´ve got one awesome young man (he´s 18) who´s going to get baptized November 2nd. He even brought a friend with him this week to Church. We´re going to visit her for the first time tomorrow. So yeah. I´m running out of time, and I don´t have much else to say right now :) I love you all!

Have a great week!  

Con mucho amor,

Elder Andrew Nickerl