June 29, 2020

I'm Lazy

What's good everyone! We've had a pretty chill week!

We had Zone conference in person which was exciting! Hopefully that means things are gonna start getting better here.

Um we went to the state capital building in Topeka so that was fun. 

So we went over to a less active lady's house to pick raspberries. So there was a really dense trail and there were a lot of trees too, and we, being the smart elders we are, didn’t wear bug spray. I knew about Kansas bugs but I was pretty sure they were a myth... they are not. Elder Scroggin found one crawling on my shirt and we knew we goofed up. So then we went to a barbecue at a trailer park out in the sticks, which was very interesting (some of the most midwestern people you'll meet). Then we went back home and called the mission nurse. She said to do a thorough check all around our bodies. Long story short I found a total of 3 ticks, Elder Scroggin had 9, my companion had ZERO and Elder Poulson got like 2. Anyways we called a doctor and had take a couple pills that basically just destroys lyme disease. So that was fun!

I know I'm missing some good content because I don't have my journal which I usually use to remind me of the good stuff so I'll be sure to include it all next week!

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon

June 22, 2020

I'm an Artist

What's up everyone!  Honestly not too much happened as y'all could've guessed, but it still was a good week!

I've only got a few things to update on. Not sure if I mentioned our referral Katherine from some missionaries in AZ but we taught her a lesson that went great! The other missionaries from AZ were on the call but their technology was being rubbish so they left and we just taught! Good times!

We did lots of service this week! We helped some members from on of the other wards here in town with some yard work. They're installing an in ground pool and we helped move dirt and rocks. I got to help him measure and cut stone for a little pathway! We were there for probably 2 hours and right after we finished we went to a little town outside of Lawrence to help this lady paint a metal fence. That took a lot out of me. It was probably 90 degrees, the sun was beating down on us, and we were just painting for like 4 hours. At least we got some pizza out of it!

This week I got super bored so I decided to improve my art skills! I drew a Jayhawk on my whiteboard with dry erase markers. It only took a few hours but it was worth it!!

Um yeah that's all I've got for this week! 

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon 

June 15, 2020

Reunited with an Old Friend

What a week everyone! Buckle up because this is a good one!

So first I'm sorry I didn't get an email out last week. It was just SO crazy. I got the word Sunday night that I would be transferring, which was VERY unexpected. I thought for sure I was gonna stay in my little town of Wellington, but the Lord had other plans. So I had to pack everything up very quickly as we had to be in Wichita the next day since good ole Elder Briggs was headed home. Thankfully I got everything packed in time! We spent most of Monday and all of Tuesday with some Elders in Wichita which was good fun! 

Wednesday was a wild day! We usually all meet at one of the churches in Wichita for transfers but there’s some angry dude who doesn't like when we gather there, so all the transferring missionaries met up at a movie theater parking lot! We couldn't get out of our cars, so we just waited until our President sent out an email that had a big google spreadsheet on it and we were to find our new comp and leave! So. My new area is... Lawrence YSA!! I'm so pumped!! For those of you who don't know Kansas, Lawrence is the town where the University of Kansas is located (AKA KU) and I am assigned to the Young Single Adult ward so pretty much once I can talk to people again I'm gonna spend all day on campus walking around trying to talk to people! My comp is Elder Hohmann from Tooele Utah. He's a good kid! The best part tho is that my MTC companion Elder Scroggin is serving in the same area! So we see each other a lot and it's GOOD fun. Not too much fun of course... but yeah I love it here. It's very different from my last area. Lawrence is a big college town with lots of restaurants and college kids (most with leftist views, which is fine... I'm politically neutral as a missionary)! 

Let's see, so we do a ton of service here. We help out at the Salvation Army preparing boxes of food, we serve at another place giving out food to homeless people here in the area, and then other random things! 

We've done a bit of exploring here and boy Lawrence is very different than all my other areas! There as so many trees here and lots of green and even some hills! It's all very beautiful. 

Another cool thing that happened this week was that we got a referral from some missionaries in Arizona! They had a YSA girl going to college out there and she moved home, which is here, and so we're pumped about that! I'll keep y'all updated with her!

Yep that's all I've got for the week! The work of the Lord truly cannot be stopped! I'm grateful to be a missionary at this time and for all the crazy experiences I'm getting to have! God is good! 

Hoorah for Israel!

Go Jayhawks!!

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

Ps... everyone tell my brother Jordan to stop trying to steal my Hawaiian shirt style. Everyone knows it's my look and he can't have it. 

June 1, 2020

PETA Would be so Disappointed

Well first off I got a much needed haircut from my companion Elder Briggs. For the most part he did good, but he did my bangs dirty unfortunately. It doesn't look horrible when it's combed, but when it's not combed it's a little funny. 

Let's see Tuesday. There is a member here in town who is really old and can't come to church and every so often we go pick up her tithing. Well we were on our bikes because she only lives about a half mile from us and as we were biking I saw this squirrel start to cross the road. Well I started doing some quick math in my head and realized that if the squirrel kept his path and I kept mine, I would hit said squirrel with my bike. Well I had a very important decision to make. Should I slow down and make the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals happy or should I keep going and make myself happy. I think y'all can guess which one I chose. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I do know the squirrel hit my back tire and went flying into a storm drain which he promptly got out of to go climb a tree and reevaluate his life. Good times. This member also gave us a huge box of food to take home so that made for an interesting bike ride.

Oh you remember that kid Colten I talked about like last week? Well on Friday I think it was we taught him a lesson and we put him on date to be baptized!! We are so excited! As of right now he should be baptized on Saturday but we'll see if that works out, but we are really hoping it does! So yeah that was definitely a miracle for the week!

What a time to be alive! I've heard a little bit about the riots going on all over the country and boy it sounds crazy! Just remember who is at the head of our church! It's God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. And how blessed we are to live in a day with a Prophet who can speak to us from God. That's quite the blessing I'd say. Be good this week everyone. Don't go looting. It's bad. 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon

Pics: My wonderful haircut

          A giant windmill blade 

          I made bread this week

Oh and I feel I should include this PSA

In case y'all didn't know, the little lights you can turn on on most standard ovens get REALLY hot, especially if you've left them on all day, and it only takes oh not even half a second to burn your fingers on them pretty bad. It took me 19 years to figure this out so hopefully I can speed up the process for some of y'all!

May 25, 2020

Tickle, Tickle

What is up everyone! Look at me being proactive and getting a weekly email out! I can't promise this is how it'll be from now on but I didn't have anything better to do so here I am! We had another great week out here in the old 620! Lemme tell y'all a little bit about it

We had the chance to actually teach someone who lives here in town which was great! His name is Colten and he's 9 and his Mom and Grandma are both members. His mom is apparently super less active but his Grandma isn't and she watches him a lot and so we went over to teach him and he told us he wants to get baptized and keep going to church with his Grandma!! We were so excited so we're gonna hopefully get him baptized here in June! 

We also invested in an ice cream machine this week. We picked it up at Walmart for like 30 bucks. We figured we have so much time during the day we might as well do something fun with it! So we spend a lot of time making ice cream. Some of it we keep and some we take to other missionaries. It gives us an excuse to go see other missionaries and to do something nice for them! So far we have made Peanut Butter Honey, cookies and cream, salted caramel pretzel, cake batter, and our own special creation which we call Sewing Kit Kookie Butter TM. For that flavor we took those cookies you can only find in the blue sewing kits that a lot of grandmas have. Well we took those crackers, smashed them up, put them in a vanilla base and then put some biscoff cookie butter in to change the base to cookie butter instead of vanilla. Turned out really good! 

So recently we had the opportunity to help a family move. They were just moving from one house here in town to another. It was really weird because we couldn't go inside so we just took stuff from the porch to their van and then drove over to the new house and unloaded everything onto the porch. Well during one particular unloading time their son, who I guess is around 12, came up to me, tickled my shoulder, and simply said "tickle tickle" then walked away. It was easily one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to me. I just looked at my comp like what the heck just happened and we both just laughed about it. And we continued to laugh about it. This kid also heard me singing Tangled and without missing a beat started singing with me so that was funny to! 

Yeah I think that's all I've got for the week! 

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon 

May 11, 2020

Fishers of Men...or Just Fishers of Fish

What's up everyone! Thought I'd send an email real quick! This week was not too bad I guess! We've been fishing a lot and you'll be happy to know I caught a fish and have actually caught quite a few fish so I'm getting better! Now one could ask "how do you get better at fishing?" Well let me tell you. You stop breaking your line every other cast and you don't lose your bait as much because you actually know how to cast. Oh and you learn how to cast far. So yeah I'm having fun with that!

We also went to the Keeper of the plains this week in Wichita which was lots of fun! It's this big Indian statue and it's one of the few things to see in Kansas! 

Umm yeah that's about it! We're trying to teach lots of lessons so if you'd be interested in a lesson via messenger, hangouts, or another form of communication we can use, let me know and we can work something out!

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon 

May 4, 2020

Elder Nixon: Master Fisherman

Hello everyone! I thought I'd be proactive and get my email out before my parents ask me to send one! Go me! This week wasn't too bad honestly! We did a few things that got us outside and doing stuff which was pretty great! 

The first thing I'll write about is some service we did for a member here in the ward. He called us and asked if we could come over for the most interesting service project of our mission, which intrigued us, so of course we said yes and we went over. So for this service he needed one of us to crawl into this crawl space in his garage and then move a bunch of 2 liters full of water while they threw more at me from the garage. It was a tight fit getting in there, but it wasn't so bad once I got in! They threw a bunch of bottles down the hole and then I took them and moved them all to the side so the entrance was clear! Pretty exciting stuff. I'm not sure if it was the most interesting service I've done though. Not sure who all remembers the cat lady from my first area and the service we did for her... but that was interesting.

We got the opportunity to do some more service this week too! Or at least we thought we were going to get to do some more service. There was a service project in Wichita that we volunteered to go help with one day. Well we got there and apparently a ton of other missionaries volunteered to help as well! Our Zone Leaders had to send some missionaries home because we had too many people there and we wanted to follow our mission rules and not be in groups that large... so unfortunately we were some that got sent back. We did however make good use of our time in Wichita! Us and a few other missionaries found a disc golf course and we decided to play a few holes. I am not very good at disc golf but I had a good time. For some reason whenever I throw my frisbee always goes to the right which is annoying, so you can imagine I got pretty nervous when we were throwing next to a river, with the wind blowing toward the river and my throws curving toward the river. I decided my safest bet was to just keep the frisbee low and not throw it far at all. I'd throw the frisbee maybe 6 feet, go get it, throw it another 6 feet, and so on till I got to the metal thing. It didn't help that this was the only 600' hole in the course so yes it took a while! 

The last thing we have started doing is going fishing! Which as it turns out, I'm also not good at! I enjoy it and I like being in the sun, but man I don't get it! I thought fishing was just something everyone could do, but we fished for a long time and I didn't catch a single fish... my companion did get one on the line and let me reel it in which was nice but I don't think that counted. 

That's all I've got for this week! I hope y'all are doing good and hanging in there! I'm surviving out here! It's hard to believe I've already been doing this for 9 months! The time really does fly! I hope by now y'all have listened to at least a few general conference talks again! Those who speak to us during that truly are inspired. How amazing that we can listen to their words over and over. 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon