I Ate Squirrel This Week - 2/16/15

Hey there family! Mom and dad I am happy you are going on a cruise to celebrate and relax. You both deserve it! I hope you have a great time with Ry and Keelie. That should be a ton of fun. It sounded and looked like a fun birthday party for Get Away Today. Pretty cool that Mickey Mouse came and celebrated with you all!  Then that is the craziest thing I saw when I saw Jacs getting asked to be someones valentine. I wonder how Dave is feeling about that? haha That was a cool way he asked her though. What was Jacs reaction to that? Well I am glad everything back home is going well. It seems just like yesterday that we were emailing. I love it though! I hope the whole family is doing great. I love you all so much!

This week has been another crazy week. Since we had Zone Training Meeting we had to plan that out. So on Monday after P-Day we spent the rest of the night planning with the Sister Training Leaders. We received from the Assistants what President Hansen wanted us to instruct on for ZTM. He wanted us to instruct on Obedience, Urgency, Frog Alerts (Flirting), and a bunch more stuff. Once we found out what we needed to instruct on we set up the program and decided who was going to do what. It took us a while, but we got it all situated. It was a good pday full of fun and then full of planning. I have noticed we do a ton more planning as a ZL. You plan for instructions, exchanges, meetings, and so on. I enjoy it though.

Then on Tuesday we had District Meeting. It was really good. We set some good goals. It is so nice not being a District Leader anymore. I think that is harder than what I am doing now. After we ran and got some lunch as a district at a pizza place. I instructed everyone there about different kinds of fats in foods haha! Everyone wants me to be their nutritionist. They all want to eat healthy so I am going to help them. It was going great for the whole week until this morning when I walk into the kitchen and all 3 of the elders that live in our apartment were eating cake and ice cream for breakfast... It was pretty funny! Well after lunch we went and did some service up at a lake by us. We unloaded a truck full of boxes and put them into a restaurant down on the water. It reminded me so much of Pineview. I envisioned the Mastercraft out there gliding through the water! haha But dont worry I am not trunky! :) Then we came home and planned some more and figured out our instructions since we wouldn't be able to do it on Wednesday or Thursday because of exchanges. So we figured everything out. I told some stories about Golf and obedience and I brought up the story about at Region my senior year at hill air force base when I caught that kid cheating. It was a good story. Well anyway that night we made some brownies and took them to our investigators and had dinner with a member who is very sweet. She made us deer meat spaghetti.. No Bueno... But at least we were fed. Then we came back home and made the final touch up for ZTM. 

Wednesday we headed up to Natchotoches to go to their District Meeting and for us to do an exchange with the District leader and his new trainy up their. The meeting was good. They have a legit district. Elder Sabey, Netzley, Smith, and Barney with sisters Merrill, Call, Arntz, and McMullen. Fun District. Then I stayed up their with Elder Smith... That was fun having 2 Elder Smiths together. Everyone enjoyed saying "hey Elder Smith" and then both of us would look. He is a cool kid. We saw some of their investigators and helped out with some service on Thursday. It was a 2 day exchange which was pretty long, but it was fun. We did some service for a guy on a ranch of only 40 acres. I was in love.. I wouldn't mind having a bunch of land with a sick house on it and then being able to be a little bit more of a country boy. I will send home a picture of the service. While we were their he let us burn a huge pile of sticks and tree branches and stuff like that. Since they can do it because everywhere around is so green. So we did that and acted like some country boys for the day. I loved every minute of it. It has been some time since I have done any service. Then that night I tried squirrel for the very first time. Elder Sabey is from Canada and he eats squirrel all the time. A member gave him one that he had just shot and so Elder Sabey skinned it and then he slow cooked it for 20 hours and then fried it up and let us all eat it. It was pretty good. I wouldn't eat it again though if you know what I mean. :) It was a fun exchange! Oh and it is the very highest north our mission goes. So I went from the very most south part of the mission to the very most north part! 

Then Friday morning we drove down to ZTM. It is an hour and a half drive or so. All the areas are so spread out here. I like it. You feel more like you are in the country and it is nice having the rolling hills. Well ZTM went great! All of our instructions went great. Elder Gosch and I did a skit for our activity and snack time. Well I dressed up as a girl and we did the whole frog alert thing... I just put on a wig and then a skirt and took off the tie. I have a video of it so I'll send it home after I email. Everything went great! Then afterwards we went out and saw 5 people. I finally met someone who loves golf and is as crazy about it as our family. He is an older Gentleman and he plays about 4 times a week and mows the greens so he can play for free. We talked for a good 45 minutes about that! It was awesome! We had a good day with that.

Saturday we started our weekly planning since we were not able to do it on Thursday due to exchanges. Then we went to a members farewell party since he is leaving on his mission this week. Mitchell Viafanua. He is legit! It was a fun little party. He and his family are all from Utah but just moved here recently. Well during the party I received a phone call from our councilor to the bishop.. He said that one of the speakers for tomorrow had just dropped out and wasn't going to be able to make it so he asked if I would give a talk on the Plan of Salvation for 15 minutes. I was actually pretty pumped when he asked! I have been wanting to try out a new technique for giving a talk or even instructions.  So the way I prepared for the talk is I just studied the topic and wrote down some scriptures. I didn't write down a talk. Instead I wanted to go by the Spirit and say what he wanted me to as I was giving the talk. I noticed all of the general authorities do that when they visit the mission so I wanted to try it out. Well I was praying my hardest and going out on Faith because this was the first time I had met a lot of the ward and I wanted to make a good first impression. Well the talk went Great! I was very thankful for the promise the scriptures say about first seek ye to obtain my words then seek to declare them. So I was humbled and the talk went really well. It grew my testimony of Faith and believing in somethings and following through with that belief. OH and the other awesome thing was our investigator J.S. came to church!!!! And he loved it! He is a deacon for a baptist church, but he loved ours and said he wants to come next week too. It was so awesome! We are starting to see little successes everywhere. It is just as Alma 37:6,7 says. Small and Simple things. It was a great day and we ended it well with going over to an awesome members house. They fed us some great food! Loved it.

So as you can see this week was very busy. Whenever we don't have anything to do we tract. That is how we have found investigators up here. It is great. This week will be full of many more cool things. I will be in Oakdale for exchanges and then Friday we have Zone Conference down in Baton Rouge with a general authority so that will be awesome as well. Well that about wraps up this week. I love you all so much. I miss you, but not that much ;) just kidding! I am pumped that we are busy. This zone is pretty cool and I am excited to continue serving them. Well I hope you all have a great week! Mom and dad enjoy the cruise. Oh and I did get your package. Thank you so much! :) And Happy Valentines to you all and Happy Marti Gras tomorrow! Love you guys! :)

Love Elder Nick

A Big Change! - 2/9/15

Hey there family! I know you all are just dying to find out where I am at. I am sorry I have not been able to get over here to the library. It has been so crazy and heck-tick. Well I will just get right into it. So it all started on Tuesday. Since I knew I was going to get transferred I decided to go and say goodbye to everyone that I have come close with and have started to love. The first person we went was to see W. D. S. He was very sad that I was leaving. So was his son S. He said he wants me to come back and visit him and go to the Temple with him. He is such a great guy and is going to do great things! I am very thankful for the opportunity I had to work with him and help him.  Then from there we ran down to Brother and Sister Kennedy's. They have been one of my favorite families. They are awesome! We would always go over to their place on Thursday nights and practice teaching with Elder Puefua and Elder Jones. I grew really close to them and got to know them really well. Then we ran to Melodies. She is a great friend as well. She had a hard time with me leaving. So did her 2 boys. They all were crying haha. It was pretty funny. Then to celebrate one last time as a district we all went to Outback steakhouse. It was good and we had a great time. 

I have really enjoyed my time here in Houma. At first I didn't like it at all, but that was just because of my Pride. I wanted it my way.  I wanted to stay in Gonzales since I had only been there one short transfer,  but as soon as I decided to just let it go and enjoy it in Houma I loved it! That took me about a transfer to do that... It was tough, but I learned a very valuable lesson. It is not up to me, but it is Gods will. I needed to be in Houma. There are multiple reasons why I needed to be there. I met some of the most incredible people ever. 

Well then on Wednesday it was transfer day. We left our apartment at 7:50 and stuffed luggage wherever there was room It was crazy packed. Then at transfers some of my favorite missionaries went home. Elder Hansen, Elder Navitikula and some others. I am going to miss them, but it is cool seeing people go home because it just means I am right around the corner. Then I found out the news that I will be companions with Elder Gosch! In the area of Pineville LA! It is clear up in Alexandria. The furthest north I can go. It is a lot more country than anywhere else I have been. Our zone covers from Texas to Mississippi. It is huge!! It is really cool. I only know like 3 people in the whole zone. That kind of stinks, but I guess it will help me out with my social skills. The missionaries up here are a lot more on their own. They work hard and are really obedient. So when we came home it was a 2 and a half hour drive. We got home at around 7 and then went out and saw a few people. 

Thursday is when it really started to pick up. We had 7 lessons and tracted a lot. As well as doing all of our responsibilities. We decided to call everyone in the whole zone and get to know everyone. It was really fun getting to talk to everyone. Then on Friday we had to set up for the weekend. We had Stake conference which all of the missionaries would attend. The problem is everyone lives so far away so for miles it would really kill our zone. So instead of having everyone drive up we had members drive the missionaries up and then we had all of the Elders stay the night in our appartment. It was Packed!!! 24 elders on Saturday night. We had a good time but we had to be good examples and get to bed on time and hope that everyone else would as well. It all worked out great. We also had interviews with President Hansen so we had to coordinate that with our whole zone and let them know what time they would be having their interviews. It was stressful, but it all went great. 

Then on Sunday it was crazy getting all the missionaries over to the church from our apartment. Elder Gosch and I also went and bought breakfast on Saturday night for everyone so they wouldn't starve. We bought donuts and bagels and oranges. All the missionaries really appreciated it. So with that I have had to spend some extra money with getting food and everything I need for a new apartment so if you could check to make sure I have some money on my home card that would be great! Thanks mom! Oh yeah so on Sunday after Stake conference Elder Gosch and I were exausted. We came back to our apartment hoping to take just a 15 min nap since we didn't sleep well and we had to stay up late to get all the missionaries set up. Well we got home and I laid down and looked at the clock and we had an appointment in 15 minutes..It kind of sucked! but we decided to go. Well the guy wasn't even there. So we decided to go try and see some people. We ended up getting into 2 members homes and then we tracted a few houses. We had a hard time staying awake, but I know the Lord will bless us for our diligence. 

Well I am doing great. I am super tired and I don't think I will be getting a whole lot of sleep in the next 6 months of the mission. So please keep me in your prayers. Sorry if this email is all over the place, but I can barely think. Elder Jones he is doing pretty good. He is a little nervous and his new companion is a little more strict than me so we will see how that goes. I am enjoying Pineville though. It is really fun being with Elder Gosch. He works my butt off! We have exchanges with all of the district leaders every week for this transfer. On Wednesday to Friday I will be in Nathitochas. Then this Friday we have a Zone Training Meeting that we have to put on and instruct. It is going to be a lot of fun and we are going to be very busy.  

How are you all doing? I hope you all are doing great. Mom and dad I am glad you were able to spend some good time down in Arizona. I hope the whole family is doing great! Well I love you all so much! Keep up the good work! No need to stress about me. I am doing great! :) I love you guys!

One Of The Coolest Days On My Mission! 2/3/15

Hey there family! This week has been a crazy week to say the least. I mean from it being transfer week to having Elder Cook one of the twelve Apostles come to the mission. Well first off it sounds like mom and dad you are having a great week. Having fun down in Arizona. That sounds fun. I hope the weather warms up for you. I am glad you both are doing so good this week. That is always the best thing ever! It sounds like our family is doing great as well. Sounds like the tennis stars are doing great. Well I hope you all have another great week!

Alright now for Transfers. Well first off last night brother Simmons and his son invited us to go to the Pelicans basketball game to watch the Hawks. It was such a good game! They hooked us up with really good seats on the 7th row behind the hoop. We were wearing our white shirts and ties so hopefully you were able to see us! I told Ryan and Daniel to tell you both so hopefully they did. Well before the game started it was pretty legit. Jimmer was out warming up and he stopped and looked up and saw us. We started yelling and he smiled and waved at us. Then throughout the whole game he would look up at us every now and again! And when he sunk his 3 pointers he turned and pointed at us missionaries! It was awesome! Then they went on to win the game and jimmer played a lot. He was the 6th man. He had 10 points. Whenever he hit a 3 he would get soo pumped up haha it was funny. Well on our ride down to New Orleans I received the transfer calls for our district. The Zone Leaders called and they told me that 3 people from our district were getting transferred. Elder Gordon, Elder Brosnahan, and Elder Smith! So I am getting transferred!!! Then during the game President called me and asked if I would be a Zone Leader! So tomorrow morning at transfers I will find out where I am going. The only options I think is either New Orleans or Baton Rouge. I think I am going back to Baton Rouge. I am pretty honored that Pres trusts me enough to be put in the position. I told him I will do my best. So that is the big news for the week!! I am getting transferred. Elder Jones is a little sad. He is so nervous for his new companion. We had a good run together. Yesterday we committed a lady to be baptized for the 28th of February and then had another great lesson with Ms R. I am excited to have a change, after all its been almost 10 months but I am going to miss this area. It has turned out to be a great area and I have learned so much here.   It is just kind of crazy to think that I will be leaving. But I am excited for the change! All the members though are sad. haha.

(Jimmer Fredette)

 

Alright well now that you know what is going on I will let you know how are week was. It was one of the most Spiritual weeks I have had. On Thursday we went down to Cutoff and saw some cool people down there. Then Elder and Sister Croker (Missionaries in the westbank that came out with me) wanted to take me out to dinner since they are going home. They took us to Golden Corral and then we went to the church to institute one last time with them. They were called as the  senior couple to teach institute. It was a really good discussion on the bible and also the Doctine and Covenants. We talked a lot about the Priesthood as well.  I learned a ton. I am excited to talk to you mom and dad and show you all the notes I have taken and my study journal. We are going to have some good topics to talk about when I get back. Well that was a great time and I really enjoyed their company. They want me to teach them how to play golf when I get back. haha. 

Then on Friday there was a baptism. It was a members daughter named S. It was cool because she wanted to take all of the lessons so pretty much we taught her a lot. Then she asked if I would be a witness and then if I would be the only missionary in her confirmation circle. It was one of the coolest things I have participated in. Her Grandpa confirmed her, but when the blessing was over she was crying.  She said she felt the Spirit. The reason it is so cool is because her dad is not a member and to have her show her dad how special it  was I know he felt something very powerful. Like the Scriptures say we will be lead by a little child. So who knows that may be the starting point for him to join the church. I have tried a lot with him and he doesn't really want anything to do with the church. But anyway that was pretty cool! 

Then on Saturday it was one of the coolest days of my mission. All of us missionaries gathered in Baton Rouge. I mean the whole mission was there. Also the mission President from the mississippi mission was there. And guess who spoke to us! Elder Cook from the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. And also Elder Halstrom from the presidency of the 70. Then our area 70 elder Bluth was there as well. We all were instructed to get to baton rouge 30 minutes before the meeting and sit and read our scriptures. So the Spirit was very strong. Well when he walked into the room it went up even more. The cool thing is that Elder Cook is just a man. Just like you and I. The difference is he is set apart full time just like us missionaries to be a witness. He was pretty short actually haha. When he came in all of us stood up and he chuckled and told us to sit down haha. Then he wanted to shake all of our hands. He said he was going to interview all of us by looking into our eyes. It was pretty cool. I will share with you all one thing that he said to us. In his testimony he wanted all of us to remember just 1 thing. He said "Just remember this one thing sisters and Elders, I know the Saviors voice." It was the most powerful testimony I have ever heard. It was so awesome!! Then after we came home and all went and got icecream! haha while there we got 2 new people to teach! It was so awesome. 

Then Sunday we had another stake conference. Elder Halstrom came down and spoke to our stake. It was a great meeting then after the meeting a member came up to me and told me to grab my companion and come with them. Well it turns out that they had asked Elder Halstrom for a Blessing because this member has a brain aneurysm. Elder Halstrom first started out by saying that just because he is a General Authority he doesn't have any special power. He said he has the same priesthood as us and pointed towards us missionaries haha. Then he said that they don't do this too often because of the principle he had said before. It was such an amazing blessing. I wrote down what I could remember, but it changed my whole attitude towards Priesthood blessings. I Know they work according to Gods Will. It was such an awesome experience. And it was so much fun to see some of the old members I used to serve around and with. It was a great day! Then the superbowl was awesome as well! We went over to a members house and they invited 5 non-members and we were able to talk to them. We got permission from our ZLs to go so no worries mom! :) 

This week has increased my testimony so much! I have a sure knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know this is his church. I know He strengthens us in everything we do. I am thankful for Him. I know God is going to help me to become stronger and to become better. I know he has a plan for all of us. I am excited for this new adventure I am about to embark on. I will let you know as soon as I can where I am going and how it is. Well my family I love you all so much. Keep up the good work and keep doing the small things. Because by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. I love you all and have a great week!! 

Elder Smith

PS I hope you got all of my pictures I sent! haha