February 24, 2020

Our Church Caught on Fire?!?!

What a week! Thankfully some exciting stuff happened this week so I hope this is a good email!

Where to start? First think I've noticed when I introduce myself to members here. Whenever I say I am from American Fork, if they know where it is, or are from the Utah valley, they will ALWAYS without fail go, "Oh American Fark?" I don't know why but for some reason they always say Fark and it is the weirdest thing. Then the next question is always if I'm related to the President and one of these times I think I'm gonna claim him as and uncle or grandpa or something! Maybe great grandpa I'm not sure which. I did hear a new one tho the other day. A member asked me if I was related to Dalton Nixon on BYU basketball so that was a nice change for me! 

Thursday we got a call from the other Elders here in Hutch reminding us about exchanges which I had totally forgot about! I had made a comment a few weeks back about how when we go on exchanges I want to bike... Well I got my wish and I biked all day Thursday! Not so lucky for me, it was SUPER windy, and had just snowed the night before so that was not too fun. I'm not sure if I'm just out of shape or the conditions were bad, but it wrecked me. Still a good time though! 

Friday we met this super cool dude whilst knocking doors. He opened the door and told us his name is Josh. He didn't have a shirt on and he was covered in tats and piercings, but that didn't stop me. I told him we were sharing a message about Jesus Christ and the hope that comes from it and he told us he was always down for a message about Jesus so he let us in. He got talking and sharing his life story with us. Boy this man has seen some stuff. He had gotten out of jail like a week earlier and he told us he really wanted to change his life. He told us he had attempted to take his own life about 30 times up to that point and was contemplating attempting it again when we showed up! It was a pretty crazy experience. He broke down to us and just expressed how grateful he was that we showed up and I told him we really wanted to help him change his life if he would let us and he said that he would like that so I'm pretty satisfied with that! It is awesome how the Lord puts us where he needs us to be and any moment! Just a reminder to me how important it is to always have the Spirit with you! 

Sunday was a day! During church we had just finished the sacrament hymn and the Priest was about to start the prayer when the fire alarm went off! I've noticed that we as a society don't really know what to do when a fire alarm goes off (except in public school). I feel like most of the time we all just sit around wondering if it's actually real... well our Bishop quickly stood up and told us all to head outside into the rain so we did! Thankfully we didn't have to be outside very long before we were permitted to go back inside. Once we all got settled in it was a little rowdy, so we started singing another sacrament hymn. We were also waiting for our Bishop and building coordinator to get back in. Well about halfway through the song our Bishop walks in and stops our singing to tell us there was a piece of equipment in the equipment room that was VERY hot and he didn’t feel comfortable having us all there when he didn't know what could happen so he just canceled the rest of church... We were all super bummed that it was right before the sacrament, but hey we made some funny memes I'll share!  We were chilling in out car waiting to go when a fire truck pulled up! That was pretty exciting! I REALLY wanted to get out and take a picture by it, but the other Elders said that wasn't the best idea so I only got a picture of the fire truck which isn't nearly as cool.... 

Anyway that's all I've got for the week! Kansas is pretty dope! I love it here and I'm doing really good! 

OH also I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this... but we put someone on date... Well technically I didn't, but my comp did on exchanges and then forgot to tell me about it...lol But ya his name is Anthony and he has been taught by the missionaries for about 2 years and he really wants to get baptized and do the temple work for his family! So ya that's pretty neat! 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon