November 18, 2019

I'm a dad?!?!

Hello everyone,

This week has honestly been a pretty long week. I have no idea why, but it just felt really long. 

If you know anything about missions and being a dad, then you know it means that I'm training! I got a call from the AP's and they asked if I would train a new missionary and be the District Leader. I was pretty excited. Unfortunately, that means Elder Grassi and I are no longer together, but that's okay. It was bound to happen sometime. So, on Tuesday night we drove down to Wichita and spent the night there. Wednesday I had to be to the church at 7:30am to sit through some trainings. Finally, around 11 am I got assigned my new companion. His name is Elder Robinson and he's from Mapleton Utah! He reminds me a lot of my friend Scott, so needless to say, I love him. We had a lot of driving to do so we got to talk and get to know each other pretty well. I'm pretty excited for this transfer.

Thursday we met with Craig and gave him a church tour which was super dope. I'd never given one, so I really didn't know what I was doing.  I thought for sure we would see him on Sunday at church, but we didn't which was most unfortunate. 

In addition to being a trainer I am also the district leader here. Not sure how that happened, but it did. As district leader I get the wonderful opportunity to prepare trainings for my district every week. My mission went from 0 to 100 real quick. Anyway, so I was just planning on doing my first training this Wednesday, but I got a call from the ZL's on Thursday and they said I needed to do a training the next day. So that stressed me out, but it went really well. 

That's honestly about all that's happened this week. Being a missionary is hard, but also so fun. I'm so grateful for the choice I made to serve. This truly is the kingdom of God on the earth! 

Elder Nixon

p.s. Elder Scroggin, don't tell President I am talking about posterity :)

pics

Great Bend Missionaries

My wonderful district

A goofy pic of me and Elder Robinson. Maybe I'll get a nice one later...

November 11, 2019

I found a bomb?!?!

Well folks another week done in this great heartland of America! This week was pretty average, but I still managed to do some things to spice it up.

We had exchanges Monday to Tuesday night which was wild. Monday night Elder Winkel wanted to build a blanket fort so I was like heck ya! So we built a freakin dope blanket fort and then did facemasks because his mom had sent him some for some reason... It was pretty luxurious. We walked all day Tuesday which was honestly pretty nice because it felt so good outside, but by the end of the night I was worn out! We texted Elder Grassi around 8 to see when he'd be back up to Hays so we could exchange back. We got a text back and he was like "wait, I thought you guys were driving down to Great Bend..." Keep in mind Hays is an hour from G.B. so we didn't have enough time to drive down there and back so I just spent the night again in Hays! I was doing some looking around their apartment and I found some bath bombs! Elder Winkel told me to use one, so I took his essential oil diffuser into the bathroom and then took a bath with this bath bomb. It was an experience. Probably not something I'll do again though lol. 

This past week we met this guy named Craig. He has been through a ton of crap in his life and I asked what he did to cope with the crap that goes down. He said he smokes weed and stuff, so I testified that he could find peace by reading the Book of Mormon. The Spirit was so strong and he just broke down and poured his heart out to us about his relationship with God and I told him again that reading the Book of Mormon would strengthen his relationship with God. I hope we can continue to work with him and help him see the need for the scriptures and church. 

Well stay tuned for next week because I've got some exciting news coming for y'all! 

Cordially, 

Elder Nixon

November 4, 2019

Winter is upon us…or is it?

Well another week done here in Kansas! This week flew by, but it was super good! 

Last week on Monday it started snowing so that made me want to cry because I'm not ready for winter yet... It was snowing on Monday, and then by like Saturday and yesterday we were back up to like 65-70 degrees. The weather here is whack. 

So a few weeks ago we were smackin doors and we met this dude and then we went back to follow up with him and we met his daughter. We started talking and we got a return appointment with her. We went, and taught her and I asked her if she would read from the Book of Mormon. She then told me she's already read the whole thing not once, but twice. I was baffled. After some more talking we learned that she is friends with the missionary who is serving from the ward here and he gave her a Book of Mormon before he left and she's read it twice! Hopefully we'll get her baptized soon! 

We had Zone Conference on Wednesday which was amazing! We talked a lot about asking inspired questions and prayer. When we ask our potential members questions, we basically get them to realize and extend commitments to themselves. It reminded me of this thing called framing which I learned about in AP Psych which basically is just you ask questions a certain way to get certain outcomes. (you're welcome Jordan) I've noticed people tend to keep commitments a lot more it they come up with them themselves. And we also talked about prayer and how we can make our prayers more meaningful. 

Thursday was pretty fun! Since it was Halloween we weren't allowed to drive our cars after 5pm, so we had one of our recent converts pick us up and take us back to his house where his mom had made us dinner. We had a good time there! 

On Friday we went to an all you can eat Thai restaurant and for those who know me, you know I LOVE curry. Thankfully they had curry at this place, so needless to say, I was in heaven! Just thought I'd let everyone know that. 

Well I think that's all I've got for this week! The church is true!

Elder Nixon

I took that second picture on the drive to Salina whilst Elder Grassi and I were doing a freeze out because I was starting to snooze. It was about 35 degrees outside and the wind was howling.

October 28, 2019

I was just trying to rake some leaves…

What is up everyone? I hope all y'all are doing great and exceeding in your endeavors, but if not, keep trying and hopefully you will succeed. 

This week was fantastic out in the heartland of America. We did a lot and accomplished even more it feels like. 

First off this week we spent our P day in Salina and man that was a good time. They have like one of three chick fil a's in Kansas there so we partook of the goodness. We went out to this place called Coronado Heights. I have no idea what it was once used for, but I'll tell you what it was great for, rock climbing. They outer walls were literally perfect, so we did some climbing. It was SO windy there. In the pictures you can see me hair is straight back as is my nametag. We were standing on picnic benches and leaning forward to see how far we could lean into the wind. I'm pretty sure I was at like  45 degree angle or something like that. I also caught another snake in Salina, but this one was not nearly as photogenic as the one I caught last week. 

Elder Grassi and I had a lot of success finding potential members this week. (I think we're supposed to call our investigators potential members now also). We went knocking sort of late, and the first door we knocked on the lady, Marissa, told us to come by another day, so we went back. Unfortunately I was on exchanges so I didn't get to go to the lesson, but apparently Marissa has a husband or a boyfriend that we are also going to teach! 

Another person we found this week is named Matt. He works at the Freddy's we used to frequent, so he was pretty familiar with us and was very accepting to what we had to tell him. He's a super solid dude. 

We were able to experience the joyous union of two people we have dinner with every week. I'm not sure if you could say we are teaching them, but they feed us so that's nice. The wedding was supposed to start at 11:30 am, but get this, they were late to their own wedding. How's that for Delta Utah?? (if you know, you know) But around noon they did show up and we had a nice ceremony for them. 

After that ceremony we went to do some service for a ward member who needed help raking leaves. We would rake them onto a tarp and then he would load them into his minivan and take them to the dump while we raked some more piles. Well we finished all the raking and there was a nice little bench in their backyard so I decided to sit on it. Before thinking about the weather that bench had seen, and the condition that wood was in, I plopped myself down on the bench. Not a second later I realized the grievous mistake I had made. By the time I heard the splitting wood, it was too late. I broke the bench and fell to the floor in a fit of laughter. It was pretty funny explaining that to the member. We all got a good laugh from it though. 

Also fun fact that I learned. The church building I currently am attending is apparently the only church in existence that has an Elders Quorum office. It's not too big of an office, but I thought that was pretty neat. 

Well I think that's all I've for for ya this week. The church is true everyone. 

Elder Nixon 

October 21, 2019

I'm a snake whisperer?!?!

 What is up everyone? I hope y'all are doing well. I apologize for the short email last week. We had a lot of missionaries in our area to hang out on p day so I didn't have much time to email. However I have repented and can promise a better email. I'm actually writing this on Sunday night as we drive up to Salina because we are going to hang out with the Zone Leaders tomorrow for p day. I'm pretty stoked because Salina has a Ross and a Chick-fil-a so ya I'm pretty excited. Well where to start with this week. As you saw in my pictures from last week, we were busy playing board games all day. Once the day was over, I drove myself and Elder Noack up to Hays because we were going on exchanges. It was honestly pretty weird to drive again, and I never realized how much I missed it until I got the opportunity to drive again. Elder Noack has only been out a few weeks, so it was pretty fun to work with him. We're both still fairly new and still don't really know what we are doing, but we had some of the best success knocking I've ever had which was very cool. 

So I'm serving in Kansas obviously, and one thing I never thought would happen here, has happened. I've talked about a returning member we visit named Mark who drinks a lot of mate. Well he gave me a cup, a straw, and some mate, so I started making it for myself almost every night, and I'm not gonna lie, it is very good. When we're visiting him, we drink this stuff that's called taraqui, and he gave me some stuff different than that to take home. What he failed to tell me is that the stuff he gave is also a natural diuretic or in other words, it's a laxative. And that's all that I will say about that. 

I had a pretty crazy thing happen this week that I didn't know was possible. While playing games on Monday we were eating popcorn, and I got a kernel stuck in my throat. It didn't bother me too much, and I just thought it would eventually dislodge and I would be fine. Well folks I had this popcorn kernel stuck in my throat for FIVE DAYS. I didn't know that was possible. It didn't bother me too much at first, but man by the fifth day my throat was so sore and it hurt to swallow and to eat. Well I can tell I'm a missionary because my mind instantly thought of some analogy I can make with this so I'm gonna share this with y'all. Temptation is like the popcorn. Maybe you give into temptation a little and you eat some popcorn, and all is fine. You eat more and more, and give into more and more temptation, and then one time it doesn't turn out fine. A kernel gets stuck in your throat. At first you don't think much of it. When you first sin, maybe you don't think much of it. You think everything will work itself out. Well the kernel stays lodged in your throat, and the sin doesn't work itself out. After five days you're hurting pretty bad, but you still don't do anything besides drink water to get it out. After five days you can't handle the pain anymore. You have to do something about it, so you take your pinky and you shove it down your throat and you don't stop until that kernel is gone. The point is, you have to take action. I thought that I could just drink a lot of water and my problem would work itself out. When we do something we shouldn't we have to take action to make it right. Our problems are not going to magically fix themselves unless we take action. I hope that made sense because I'm typing, but also lowkey jamming out while driving to Salina, so there's that...

Honestly the title of my email is pretty straightforward. The other night we were walking around and Elder Grassi pointed out something that he thought was a worm, and he was like, Elder Nixon, that is the weirdest and fastest moving worm I've ever seen. I looked at it, and it was a snake. Honestly the thing is tiny, but ya he didn't want to pick it up so I did and got a picture! He was not receptive to the message we had to share. 

Also I've got an interesting question for y'all. As we were walking, we noticed that the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall doesn't have any windows... It was rather odd. I now know why they don't have windows, but I want to ask y'all and see what you think. Why don't the kingdom halls have windows? 

Well I hope everyone has a fanfreakintastic week. Make the most of the time that the Lord has given you!

Elder Nixon

October 7, 2019

Should I become Catholic?!?!

Hello everyone! Or as they'd say in the native language here, Hello everyone! This week's been pretty good. Kinda boring. I apologize up front about the subject of the email. Not a whole lot happened and it was just hard to get a good subject. I'm ashamed of myself... I would promise to do better next week, but I don't know what's gonna happen so I'm not gonna make that promise then let everyone down. 

Out here in Kansas it's getting cold and I love it more than anything. I finally get to wear my sweaters and long sleeve shirts and everything about fall. 

We did a good amount of knocking doors which is always fun out here. But boy are there a lot of catholics. If I had a nickel for every time I heard "We're catholic", followed by the slamming of a door, then I'd have at least one nickel. We knocked on this one lady's door and I told her we have a message that can bring her joy and she was just like "oh I have the joy" She then told us she was catholic (shocker) and that she felt that the catholic religion got a bad rep. She asked us if we had any questions so naturally I asked her about the Great Schism, and she told me that was all a misunderstanding. She then challenged Elder Grassi and I to find out for ourself if the catholic church was true, and I thought lady if I wanted to I could disassemble your whole testimony and prove why our church is true, but she was nice so we just said we'll look into hers if she'll look into ours. It was pretty funny. She straight hit us with the reverse card. 

Man how about General Conference this week! How blessed are we to be led by Prophets? I don't think we realize how lucky we are to have them. I really liked Elder Bednar's talk about the cheetah's and how they always do the same thing no matter what. Once we figure out how it is that the adversary tries to attack us, it is a lot easier to stay away from it. I can't remember right now who gave the talk yesterday afternoon about the 3 D's or something, but I though it went really well with Elder Bednar's talk. 

Well that's all I got for ya this week. Hopefully something crazy happens this upcoming week and I get some good content! Love and miss you all! I'd love to hear from you. 

Elder Nixon

Hope y'all enjoy the pics  

September 30, 2019

I played Fortnite?!?!

Well folks it's been another amazing week here in Great Bend Kansas. Transfers are this week which is honestly so crazy to me! I don't know how I've already made it through a whole transfer! I don't think I'll be leaving G.B. though. 

So this email is probably gonna be shorter, but that's alright because I took a lot of pictures to make up for it. 

Friday I went on exchanges with the Elder's up in Hays. I went up to Hays which was actually a lot of fun! It's a little bigger than G.B. so there's more to do which is nice. We went downtown and did sidewalk chalk all over since later that day they were having their homecoming parade and the whole town would be out there. I still think it's weird that they do homecoming parades out here. So we thought it'd be fun to do a bbq for dinner so we bought some brats, burgers, and shrimp. Elder Winkel had a grill and we went to a park to cook. We put all our meat on the grill and lit it up. It was smoking so much and then after about 2 hours of cooking we came to the conclusion that what we had was not a grill, but that it was in fact a smoker. Not gonna lie though, those brats were some of the best I've ever had. 

Saturday was awesome. It was finally cold enough to wear a jacket!!! It was about 50 degrees and rained on and off all day. I'm pretty excited for winter, but whenever I say that people tell me I'm crazy. So we went and did service for this lady and she had this huge tree stump that was all rotted. I was using basically a screwdriver to break it up, and I noticed a construction crew across the street. I jokingly said it'd be nice if we had one of their pickaxes, so this lady goes over and asks to use a pickaxe and they actually let her! So she brought it over to me and I was going to town on that tree stump. I'm getting mass gains out here. Maybe if people didn't feed us so much, and so often I'd actually lose some weight 😂 But ya,v swinging that pickaxe reminded me of fortnite, and I needed a title for my email so…

Hope everyone is doing well! I'd love to hear from y'all! 

Elder Nixon