June 28, 2021

 Oklahoma City is Cool

Hello my good friends! So I have like a weird half p day today and I'll explain why later! 

This week has been great! As most of you know this is my last transfer! My old comp Bo Jackson went off to Italy so I got a new companion! His name is Elder Wilson from Arizona! He's a lil bit of a weeny but I'll survive! 

Let's see run down of the week. Tuesday was Dylan’s baptism!! He was so overwhelmed at the amount of people who came to support him! We had a nice service and then right after confirming him we gave him the priesthood so we could get him into the system so he could get a temple recommend asap. So yeah that was nice

Wednesday was transfers and as I mentioned I got a new comp and got to see loads of mission friends including Elder Scroggins! Good times. 

Thursday and Friday flew by without any incident because I was just looking forward to Saturday all week! 

Saturday our branch had a temple trip and with special permission from my mission president I was able to go down to the Oklahoma City Temple! Its not an experience most missionaries get when the temple is outside your mission, but it was SO good to be back in those holy doors. I truly know that the temple is the house of God. I got to go with two of my recent converts so that made the experience even more special! Sorry mom but I didn’t get pictures with them at the temple... they're not big picture people. I definitely got some of my own tho! So this is where the half p day comes in. Technically a temple trip counts as p day, but when we got back Wilson and I went to work so now we can have some time today to do other p day activities! 

But ya that's about all I've got! I may get lazier writing these last few weeks (I know how can I get worse I'm already awful) but know that I love every one of you and am grateful for the time I've had to serve a mission! 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon

June 14, 2021

 The End is Near

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood morning everyone! I figure if I don't get this email off now then I won't get one off at all. We stay pretty dang busy on Mondays. Our typical schedule is play basketball from like 8-12, grab lunch for an hour or so, then meet at a park and play spikeball, pickleball, tennis, etc. for a few hours, then head back to the church to play card games and talk to family! It's a great time!

Let's see... Dylan is doing pretty good! If all goes according to plan he will be baptized next Tuesday which happens to be the day before transfers! Crazy that next transfer is my last one  anyway he's working to overcome some Word of Wisdom issues with tea of all things! When we taught him about tithing he thought he had to pay 10% of everything he has in the bank so he was ready to drop a fat stack of cash for tithing and was relieved when he learned he didn't have to haha. Those are the type of converts we want tho! 

Ethan and his family are doing good. If you don't remember Ethan, he was baptized back in April and now we teach his family because he wants them to be baptized so bad because he loves the gospel. He's even considering going on a mission which is crazy! 

Let's see what else. Oh for those who know me well, you know that I am a pretty big introvert, so the idea of just going up to random people and talking to them is terrifying and the first time I tried it on campus it was a huge fail. Well recently I put on my big boy pants and did it! And it's for a fathers day video, so be sure to check out the Facebook page "Church of Jesus Christ in Derby" or the Instagram page "we_know_him" for some hopefully high quality content! 

We're teaching 3 college dudes who are very skeptical of everything we say, so we use the bible a lot and while teaching about baptism we turn to john 3:5 which says "verily verily I say except a man be born of water and of the spirit he can no wise enter the kingdom of God" or something like that. Well I thought it was pretty obvious what that meant, especially considering Jesus has just told Nicodemus that he can't go back into the womb and then later the apostles go and baptize, but these 3 goobers tried to tell me that being "born of water" wasn't baptism and that referred to a physical birth because of the fluid that is present... we later dropped them. 

We had zone conference since the last time I wrote! It was with our new area president Elder Ames! It was only about 3 hours, and he talked all about planning and how to effectively plan and schedule things, we've been implementing some of the things he taught! Cool dude too. 

It has been getting H O T out here in the Midwest. I'm talking we've had days up at 95 with like 100% humidity so you step outside and everything is just sticky and gross and I already sweat really easily so it's been an experience. I do love the heat tho so I can't complain too much. 

Ummm yeah that's all I can think of to write about. My grandpa said I should tell everyone who hasn't sent an email to me in the last oh I'd say 3 weeks that they're gonna get removed from my email list for the last transfer hah. Not like I send em too much anyways, but still Grandpa you are a legend. So y'all know the deal. If you're reading this and I haven't heard from ya in the last three weeks in the words of Grandpa Galen "Remember to threaten your followers with sudden excommunication from your mailing list unless they each send you an email within your specified time frame." So y'all have a week;) 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

PS if your name is bailey scroggins (emphasis on the last S) then I love you and am still praying we can be comps.

May 24, 2021

 Deja vu?

Well I know if I don’t get this off now I never will because it's fixin to be a busy day! 

Tuesday we had a lesson with our friend Dylan who is on date for baptism! We had to go over the Word of Wisdom with him and it was... mostly well received I think. He said he had issues with Tea and that he doesn't believe in a God who would make such arbitrary laws. We tried to explain things to him, and asked him to pray about it, so hopefully he does! 

Wednesday we had our weekly lesson with Drew, Tim, and Tyler. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned them, but they're 3 college kids at WSU and they ask some brutal questions. We got going OFF on the Book of Abraham, and honestly I don't know much about it, or the claims they were making so I looked into it and I'm ready to bash the living daylight out of them. Respectfully of course. Jk I would never bash, but I do feel more prepared to answer their questions. 

Friday we had interviews with our mission president. He asked if I had my shot and I said no and he told me I oughta get it because things will open up a lot more to those who have it here soon... so naturally on Saturday I went and got all chipped up! 5G compatability will hopefully come later in June after my 3 weeks. 

Our branch is having a temple trip end of June and I'm DEFINITELY looking to try and go. I just need to possibility of riding with a member to open up, then we can make the 2.5 hour trek down to OKC (with President approval of course.)

Sunday morning was a HOOT. As I'm sure some of you will remember a few weeks ago our CO alarm went off, and as missionary protocol we have to call 911 so we did and they got no reading and told us to change the battery. Well Sunday morning around 7 it went off again. I shoved my head in my pillow and was going to ignore it and let my dear comp handle it. I figured it was just faulty, so we silenced it and called it good. Well it proceeded to go off two more times and we decided that might hold some ground so we called 911 and they sent not one but TWO GIANT FIRE TRUCKS! And to top it off they sent the fire marshals truck so a total of THREE trucks. I guess Sunday mornings are pretty slow. Anyway they go up and they get a super high reading of carbon monoxide so they start knocking on all our neighbors doors... at 7 in the morning. Sorry neighbors. Anyway they call Kansas gas who have to come out and run their tests because it's more precise than the fire department or sumn. So that dude comes out and tells us out water heater is broken and it's missing a safety pipe or something and the flame rolls around in the bottom which is bad and that's why it went off. So he shut off the water heater and we're not allowed to turn it on till we get it replaced so cold showers baby! But yes I'm glad they didn’t send all those firefighters just for nothing. One even came in lights flashing and everything. Good times.

As our Social Media Leaders say "FACEBOOK WORKS". I'm still skeptical but definitely trying. Time is quickly running out and I will soon be reunited with my best friend Scott to reek havoc on those intermural at UVU and destroy some bots in Rocket League or sumn

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon

I learned how to use spray paint this week 

Chipped up 

Idek 

Fire trucks

WSU

May 10, 2021

 I Called 911?!?!

What's up everyone! Look at this, two weeks in a row on the email! Thank me later.

Monday was spent playing LOTS of sports. Good times. 

Tuesday wasn't exciting until like 10pm when our C02 detector randomly went off. Well when they happens they tell us to call 911 and get it checked out... so next thing we know we've got a giant fire truck pulling up to our apartment and firemen all decked out going to check our CO level. It was all normal and we didn't die, but that was exciting. 

Wednesday was cinco de mayo so we had a party with our district. It was fun. 

Thursday my comp and I had a great idea to do a bible trivia video on campus where we walk around and ask random college kids bible questions. I was so hype for it all morning...and then we got to campus and I remembered how introverted I am. For those of you who don't know I am VERY introverted, so to just walk up to random people and talk to them is absolutely terrifying and I didn't do very good at it... thankfully the weather was beautiful that day so I didn’t mind. 

Saturday I got to go to the baptism of someone who I taught in Hutch over a year ago, so that was neat! I don't feel like I had the biggest part in his conversion, but it was still sweet to see him baptized!! 

Also this week is transfers and I'm not being transferred which I'm happy about. My comp is going to Italy sometime soon tho so I'll get a new comp soon enough. 

Thanks for reading.

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon

May 3, 2021

 My Comp Ditched Me

Well I figure if I don't get my email written early it's going to be hard to do later so here I am. This week has been a blast in all honesty. 

Things are still going well with Dylan who is on date to be baptized June 10th! So I'm hoping I'm still around, which I think I will be! 

My companion flew out to Utah on Tuesday to go sign for his Visa which means he'll probably head out to his original assignment of Italy in the next month or so. I'm happy for him but sad because I like him a lot and was hoping I wouldn't need another comp the rest of my mission but I guess I'm out of luck. I got to hang out with some other Elders who live close by who I love very much so it was a grand time being with them! I stayed with them all of Tuesday and all of Wednesday and then got Elder Jackson back late Wednesday night!

Friday was another busy day. I got the great opportunity to watch the funeral for my grandpa who passed away this week. Bless up for technology and making that possible. Later in the day we had some training meetings and if you've ever served a mission you know that often times those start very late. So our two Assistants to the President (APs) show up like an hour late to start training. It made for a long day and now we have to get on zoom training Friday since they were late. 

When I read emails from home most people talk about wanting to go to 2 hours of in person church. Well lemme tell ya, its nice. So nice that we actually do 4 hours of church. We do 2 hours with the family ward we cover and then 2 with the YSA branch we're in as well. By the end of the day we are always just WIPED from all that church. I love getting to be there in person though so I don't mind. 

Let's see... I think that's all for this week! As I shared my testimony yesterday in church I was reminded of the simple yet powerful truth that Jesus is our Savior. There is no question of that. What a beautiful thing to know, that no matter what life throws at us, we can ALWAYS rely on Jesus Christ for strength. So if you're feeling down... trust God and know he has a plan and rely on the strength that comes from Christ for the time being. Things always work out in the end and if they don't, it's not the end. 

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon

April 12, 2021

We Got the Cops Called on Us

Ciao a tutti! That's Italian (I think) in honor of my comp who is supposed to be in Milan Italy. Kansas is far better though. This week has been baller but I'll keep it brief-ish

Monday was solid cause I got to play spikeball for the first time in a FAT minute. I may or may not have bruised my bone but it's fine we power through. 

Went on exchanges Thursday which was fun.

Saturday was a great day! We had Ethan’s baptism!! I don't remember if I mentioned Ethan last week, but we kinda just walked in on his baptism. kinda nice tho. The last two Elders put him on date and then both got transferred out so Elder Jackson and I got in, solidified a few things then got him dunked on Saturday! The other Elders who taught him were able to come so that was nice for them. Ethan is super cool too! He's 22 and is actually looking at serving a mission which is amazing! Yeah that's Saturday 

Sunday... boy for a day of rest there was not much rest for me. We went to the family ward sacrament meeting at 9 since we help them out a little with missionary work and then at 10:30 we had branch council for our little YSA branch. That lasted a fat minute and we had sacrament meeting at 12 for the YSA branch. We get to go to both hours so that's nice. The afternoon was just studying and all that jazz. 

Ok now to address the title... I feel like it's the best clickbait I've had in a while. Well here’s what happened. The Sisters we share the family ward with were picking up dinner from a member for all of us, so we were chillin on their porch waiting. Well they had made the comment that we could try to get onto their deck which is on a second story so naturally we took a look (With all my climbing expertise I'm sure I could have done it but their downstairs neighbors back door was open so we decided against it). So then we started seeing if there was another way we could get in so naturally we checked the front door and looked for a spare key. We discovered it wasn’t too hard to get onto the roof but we decided we better not do that. Well last resort was a window that we assumed was for their apartment. It was unlocked but there was a blanket over the window and we weren't 100% sure it was to their apartment so we again decided against entering. Well fast forward 3 or so minutes and there’s two police officers pulling up and in that moment we realized how freaking suspicious we looked so we just sat there like innocent little boys. Thankfully the sisters pulled up and we grabbed our food and dipped before they came and talked to us. Moral of the story. Don’t try to break into a window unless you're 100% sure it goes to the apartment you want. The end. 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

April 5, 2021

 We Get Fed Too Much

Hello everyone! Terribly sorry about last week’s email. I know it was short, but it was also to the point. Regardless I will repent and give the people what they deserve! 

This week was pretty baller! We had transfers on Wednesday and as the Haiku said I was being transferred. So I pull up on Wednesday and see all my friends and it was a good time. I get told I'm going to the Rock Road YSA here in Wichita! It's the YSA that covers WSU so I'm pretty stoked! Mi compa is Elder Bo Jackson from Portland Oregon.  (No doesn't play football or baseball) he is AWESOME though. He is originally assigned to the Milan Italy mission so we'll see if he leaves me at some point. We whitewashed in which means we are both new to this area so our first few days has just been getting to know everyone and trying to get situated! It's been great so far! We walked into a baptism on the 10th so that's pretty sweet! The dudes name is Ethan and he is just so ready and excited for his baptism, and so are we! And unfortunately I don't have much else to say because the week has just been lots of getting to know people and the area! We get fed an excessive amount here. And no it's not from the broke college kids. We ward share with a family ward and I'm fairly certain the only reason we do is so we can get fed. I've been here since Wednesday and have already been fed like 9 times. So yes more than once a day. Its baller! 

How about conference tho! It was so good! I love hearing the words of our Prophet and apostles! It was just so powerful! President Nelson's address in faith was especially powerful in my opinion. He listed 5 things we can do to strengthen our faith that are absolutely amazing! If you missed it, be sure to check it out when you can! And 20 new temples!! Wow! Super sad none were in Kansas, but we'll get there! 

Things are going great out here! OH also note my new mailing address ;) 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

1770 S ROCK RD APT 906 WICHITA, KS 67207-5177

March 29, 2021

 Transfers   

This week was average 

I will be transferred Wednesday

This is a haiku

March 22, 2021

 New Hair, Who Dis?

Well I ain't got much to say unfortunately. This week flew by though! We have been doin LOTS of service which has been nice because it gets us outside and the weather has been SO nice so I've been loving that. I'm getting excited for summer and 100 degree weather with 100% humidity. just kidding it sucks but that's okay! The work has been a little slow here unfortunately, but Louis who we baptized has been doing AMAZING! He is going to get a temple recommend next week and he told us that yesterday he spent 4 hours doing family history and we didn't even ask him to!! It is awesome seeing him progress in the gospel! 

Uh yeah I think that's all I've got unfortunately. I was joking with one of the sisters in my district who gets her emails off consistently every week and writes a lot that it'll wear off eventually and once you miss one week of emailing it just gets easier and easier to not email. 

I did have a cool spiritual thought I guess. I was reading 2 Nephi 24:16 stuck out to me. I reckon there will be a day when we see Satan for who he really is and quite honestly I think we'll just laugh at him and probably say something along the lines of "bro you really the one that caused all my pain? You're a chump." Now I'm not sure if it will be exactly like that but everyone remember that Satan truly has no power of us and we have all power over him. All we gotta do is consistently choose the right! No wonder that's what we teach the primary kids! 

Yep that's all I've got! Hurrah for Israel!

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

March 8, 2021

 This is Every Missionary's Dream

I should specify every missionary serving in Kansas or anywhere in tornado alley   this will be a shorter email since not much happened.  

I guess the cool thing that happened this week was on Sunday Louis was able to give his son the priesthood! It was super cool because last week I gave him the priesthood. I had to help him with the wording but it was still an awesome opportunity for him and a great blessing for their family! Seriously love them so much. 

So onto the title. In Kansas every Monday there is statewide testing of the tornado sirens at noon. So you can imagine my surprise when I hear the tornado siren going off on Tuesday as well. My first thought is oh that's weird. The weather outside is nice. Certainly no tornado. Well then I get a text to my phone. I'll attach a screenshot of the text. It pretty much said it was not a drill and to take cover immediately. I was like "oh yeah here we go" so naturally I go outside to look for it and nothing. It was a BEAUTIFUL day. Not a cloud in the sky and I was like what the heck is going on. I hopped on our local fb page and everyone was talking about the siren and the text. Finally we figured out they were testing some new tech and the text was automatically sent because the siren went off not on Monday. So for a brief moment I really thought I was gonna see a tornado. Twas a shame.  

Oh also we had zone conference this week which was great!  

Yep that's all I've got! The work is good! God is good! Hurrah for Israel!  

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon