January 20, 2020

This is Becoming Quite a Hassle...

What is up everyone! Sorry I didn't email last week. Actually, I'm not technically sorry because to be truly sorry would mean I'm not going to do it again, but I'm not gonna lie, I am not a fan of weekly emails! But I do it for the fans! I do it for all y'all! 

First things first (rest in peace uncle phil, for real) shoutout to anyone who gets my reference there. Let’s see where to start. We found a cool dude named Mark who we can teach. We just found him knocking doors. He told us he believes the Book of Mormon could be scripture from God so that's exciting! We have an appointment with him on Thursday so hopefully it goes well! 

I went on exchanges with the Hays Elders which is always a good time. I love being able to just go with the flow and not being in charge of everything! 

Unfortunately, we had to drop a few people this week, but I don't think I've ever mentioned them in any emails so it's alright.

We have had the hardest time getting an appointment with Sage since she came to church. Satan is working hard, but we are working harder!

Haven't had much luck with Audrianna. She is just so flippin busy! One of these days we'll definitely work something out! 

Ya that's about it! Lastly, HOW BOUT THEM CHIEFS! I know technically they're in Missouri, but I still like them now, and they're going to the superbowl! The last time they were there was superbowl 4 so everyone here is pretty psyched! If you aren't rooting for the chiefs let me know so I can remove you from my email list... Just kidding! I love and miss all of you! Except my friend Scott. I don't miss you Scott. I have a new best friend now :)

Respectfully, 

Elder Nixon 

Pics: Birthday dinner
Tree
Grass
Big egg in Wilson
The tree and the grass are a result of what we call freezing rain. If you've never experienced it you're missing out. Essentially what it is is its freezing outside and then it starts raining. Why it isn't snow, I have no idea. But the rain hits your windshield and just turns to ice and it makes it very hard to drive and see and makes EVERYTHING covered in a dummy thick layer of ice. Good thing I'm a good driver :)

January 6, 2020

What is up everyone! 

I don't have a lot of time, or content today, so I guess it works out right? 

Well unfortunately we did not get to meet with Audrianna because she had to make an emergency trip to Wichita with her sick father. Stay tuned tho because we will meet again. 

Not sure if I've ever mentioned Sage in any of my emails, but she came to church with us yesterday which was a huge boost to us. Real quick, Sage is a young lady who graduated in May. She is good friends with a missionary serving from our ward, and before he left, he gave her a Book of Mormon and since then she has read it twice and is excited to use the Come Follow Me book to study!  She knows it is scripture from God. She told us after church she would see us next Sunday, so we are assuming she meant at church which would be awesome! 

I was on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, and they had an airsoft gun in their apartment, so naturally we all started shooting each other with it. It didn't hurt too bad, but definitely still left welts... 

Sunday I had a VERY stressful experience. As I was pulling into the church I saw a car I didn't recognize and I pointed it out to Elder Robinson. He said it looked like Presidents car, but I wasn't convinced. Well we walk into the church and low and behold there was President and Sister Ernst. Now if you're a missionary, or have been a missionary, you know how stressful it is to have your mission president drive two hours to surprise you at your sacrament meeting. Well we talked and he really enlightened my mind in regards to Alma 32. I always knew it was a good chapter, but holy it is incredible. Y'all should study it, and I mean study. Not just read it. Those last three verses are absolute bomb! 

Well that's all I've got for now, and unfortunately I don't have a ton of pics! I'll try my best to repent and do better next week! 

Warmest Regards, 

Elder Nixon

My one pic: I drove up to Hays on Saturday for the baptism of this young man in the middle. I got to know him really well from teaching him on exchanges, giving him the baptismal interview, and because he comes to our District Meetings. He wants to be a missionary which is awesome!  

December 31, 2019

I Leaked a Private Video?!?!

Hello faithful subscribers! Sorry I haven't put out any content recently. It's been a busy time. On the bright side, I should hopefully have some good content in this email! And a few pictures if that's what you're about

Where to start? I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but a few weeks ago we were going out to eat and our waitress told us she used to go to the Mormon church out in Hutch (about an hour south east from G.B.). Silly me forgot to get her name or number so we could talk to her in the future. Well through many miracles I found her on Facebook and was able to get in contact with her and we actually met with her yesterday which was SO bomb. She is what you call a golden investigator. Her mom was a member of the church, but she passed away when Audrianna (the golden investigator) was still young. We asked her to say our closing prayer and she kept thanking Heavenly Father that we found her here in Great Bend and for sending us to her. It was pretty awesome!  

So a few days before Christmas we went ice skating to go street contacting since there were tons of people there. Well come to find out, it wasn't actually ice. It was this weird plastic stuff and if you've ever tried skating on plastic, it doesn't work, but it was free, so no complaints here. 

Christmas Eve was awesome! We spent the night with some members out in a town called Larned which we cover. It was super fun to eat, visit, play games, and have a little talent show. My talent was juggling, which I'm really not too good at, but it was fun. I definitely missed going to my Aunts house for breakfast and hanging out with family, but this was also fun!

Christmas was good, but like every missionary says, it wasn't like being home. We got taken care of out here though! 

Ah now for a funny story. So a few weeks back my dad sent me a video from when I was about 8 years old just jamming out to The Middle by Jimmy Eat-World. Great song. Anyway I showed it to my comp, but never shared it with anyone. Well a few days later, I get a text from one of our AP's asking if I liked Jimmy Eat-World. By this time I had forgot about this video. I said yes, but then commented on how random that question was. He then sent me a screenshot from the video my dad had sent me. I was blown away. I had NO idea how he could've got the video. After lots of questions he told me I had accidently uploaded it to our missions google drive for the entire mission to see! I had to do a lot of searching to find it, but it was eventually found and taken off of the drive. I don't think it did too much damage. Boy did we get a kick out of that though! 

Well that wasn't as much content as I thought, but hey, it's content! One thing I want to challenge everyone to do is watch the video "The Savior Understands Me" By Elder Holland. It's a bomb video. 

My last words of wisdom is that missions are HARD. Once you leave the MTC you realize how little you actually know, and you wonder if it is all worth it. At times you wonder if what you're teaching is actually true, or if this is all just a big lie. Well in the wise words of my good friend Scott, "Even if the gospel isn't true, the one thing I do know is true is that it changes the lives of the people for the better. Even if everything is a lie, the only thing we aren't lying about is that it will make their lives better." Now that is something I know is true. I may not have had a crazy burning in the bosom, Moroni 10 promise yet, but I do know that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives for the better. 

Warmest Regards,

Elder Nixon

December 16, 2019

Not a Whole Lot

I don't have a whole lot of time or content unfortunately so I guess it works out. These week it felt like I was super busy. 

Wednesday I left to go to Hays for DCM and then exchanges. I left from there to go to Salina to do another exchange with the ZL's and then on the way back I had to stop back in Hays to give a baptismal interview. That was actually pretty exciting. The only weird thing is the kid was 11 so it was a little weird asking him some of the questions...(if you know, you know) but we made it through! I finally got home and then turned right back around to go to a dinner 45 minutes away. 

The other day we got a call from some Sister missionaries in another mission who had a referral for us. I'm pretty excited to go meet her and see what's up. 

Lastly I gained a new respect for all my friends in foreign missions. While in Salina I went to a dinner with a bunch of Spanish people and they spoke Spanish the whole time. I understood very little, but I just wanna say I respect everyone serving in a foreign country and learning a new language. 

Also I will be staying in Great Bend for another transfer so I'll be here till about February! 

That's all I got for this week. I love and miss you all. Make sure all y'all are always good examples because you never know who is watching you!

Warmest regards, 

Elder Nixon

December 9, 2019

We're Having a Baptism?!?! Or Are We...

Hello my faithful readers. It is great to be with you again on this wonderful day. This week was pretty average, but hopefully my email is anything but average! Who knows though.

Tuesday we had a really good lesson with one of our investigators named Brain. We were reteaching the restoration because there were some parts he didn't quite understand, but when we were talking about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon the topic of baptism came up. I asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he said yes! We set a date for January 12. It just felt like the right day since I have a friend with a birthday on the 11th and one with a birthday on the 13th! We were pretty excited (but only for a few days...)

Wednesday we had interviews in Salina which meant leaving the house at 7:30 to make it there by 9. It wasn't too bad driving that early. Interviews were super great. I accidently deleted all of my notes from it though :( I do remember we talked about determination and grit. We also got Little Caesars since Salina is the closest one. It was some good pizza. 

Thursday I was very grateful for police officers. We were helping some lady change her tire, and all we had was a little jack, but this officer showed up with a floor jack, so we were able to get her car jacked up real quick and the tire changed in no time! 

Friday we had our ward Christmas party which was nice. I was hoping to get some investigators there, but none came. Who doesn't want free food and a message about Jesus? Oh well, their loss and more food for the hungry missionaries. 

Saturday was a sad day. We kept trying to visit with Brian who we had put on date earlier in the week, and he sent us a text saying he was going to keep going to his church because his mom doesn't want him going to ours. We were pretty sad. We are going to work pretty hard with his mom and step dad to get them all to join the church. 

Sunday we thought we were going to have a good amount of people at church, but then we had 0. Sad boi hours. We'll get em next week for sure. 

Today has been pretty fun. We went around to all the thrift stores in town looking for decorations for our second Christmas tree. We had a tiny pink one, and then we got a bigger white one from a member here. It didn't have lights or decorations though, so we went on an adventure. I'd say we came out victorious as we managed to decorate this tree for about 10 dollars! 

Well that's all I've got for this week. Missions are hard, no doubt, but I don't have any regrets serving. Sure I'll be away from my family for two years, but that is nothing compared to eternity. Some people don't even know they can spend eternity with their families. Sad. But that's why we're here! I love my mission and I love Kansas! It also has some pretty baller sunsets.

Oh I almost forgot my funny story. That would've been tragic. I found out last night that my comp sleepwalks! I was sleeping and I woke up to him over by bed and then he said "this is my blanket now" and then he yeeted my weighted blanket off me and threw me his blanket and so in the morning I just waited for him to notice and he was so confused when he found out. We laughed about that for the longest time. 

Unfeignedly,

Elder Nixon

Pics: Elder Robinson and I at a train

clouds

Pic with Elder Nielson from our mission conference a few weeks back

Those Kansas sunsets I was telling all y'all about

Jumping for joy because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Our Christmas tree

December 2, 2019

I cast out evil spirits?!?!

What is up everyone! I don't have a whole lot of time today, so I'll try and get everything in! 

Since I'm a District Leader I get to do training for my district. I also get the wonderful opportunity correct people when they are doing things they shouldn't and I had to do a lot of that on Wednesday in my DCM. Consider the evil spirits cast out.

Thursday was a very amazing day. We drove up to Salina to play games with our zone before everyone had their meals. It was snowing pretty bad, and looking back, we probably just shouldn't have gone, but we did anyways lol. Salina is about an hour and twenty minutes from here, but it took us a little over two hours to get there. We had so much fun tho! We drove back, and thankfully the roads were nicer, and we hosted our own Thanksgiving dinner at the church. We just invited a ton of people who didn't have anywhere to go or just simply didn't want to cook. We had a good turnout and it was a great opportunity to talk to lots of people! 

Friday we just did a little bit of Black Friday shopping...

Sunday I think was my official 4 month mark! Pretty crazy! Time really does fly. Church that day was pretty strange. The heater in our chapel is currently broken, so we just held our sacrament meeting in the relief society room. It was a little tight, but we all fit! Perks of being the only ward in a building! We went and stopped by Kelsey and Dewayne's house, who I don't know if I've ever talked about, but we stop by there weekly to invite them to church. Kelsey has been a few times, and Dewayne always says he knows he needs to come, but he never does, well we went by and had a really good talk with him and got him committed to church. In the past we've got like a maybe, but this time we got a solid yes. I'm pretty excited!

Well to end this I'd like to challenge everyone to watch The Christ Child and think of who you will share it with. It is an AMAZING video and if you haven't seen it, you're missing out! 

Warmest regards,

Elder Nixon

Pics:

We celebrated a birthday in my district, so we all got party hats. 

This is how we spent a lot of our evenings. We go to Walmart and buy discount bakery garlic bread and pound it while playing battleship.

November 25, 2018

I'm a Murderer?!?!

Howdy folks,

This week flew by, as most do. Not much happened Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday night we drove down to Wichita because we had a mission conference at 7:30am and Wichita is 2 hours away. We spent the night with some Elders there and then went to our mission conference Thursday. It was SO good. We had Elder Gifford Nielson come to preside. We learned a lot from him. One thing I really likes was that we talked about is we are all children of God and that we were born to be Kings and Queens. I always knew that, but for some reason this just hit different. It was a day just filled with the spirit. My comp and I sang in the choir which is always fun. Near the end of the conference the AP's got up and said they were gonna call a few people up to bear their testimony and of course I was called. Normally that kind of thing would give me a good amount of stress, but I wasn't stressed at all. I bore my testimony and as I was walking off Elder Nielson shook my hand and told me it was a beautiful testimony. I wish I could remember more of what we talked about, but I don’t have my journal with me. Oh well.

Friday I drove home from Wichita on a quarter tank of gas which is unheard of, but I had such exceeding faith I made it home. Friday we had snow stick to the road and sidewalk so we spent all morning shoveling sidewalk. Last night I was driving up to Hays to spend the day with the Elders up there and as we were driving I saw a pair of eyes looking at me. I didn't have enough time to stop and even if I wanted to I wasn't going to get a driving violation so I ran over a raccoon. I smooshed it good and sent it back to its maker. We laughed for quite a while about that. 

Well that's all I've got for this week. If you're contemplating whether or not to serve a mission, just do it. It'll bless you so much more than you realize. Full send. 

Cordially,

Elder Nixon