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