January 25, 2016--Week 24

Hey everyone,

Well if anyone was wondering, we sure did get snow here. This week has been absolutely crazy. With too much happening to even talk about half of it, so I'll just mention the weekend. On Saturday, we woke up to about two feet of snow and a constant blizzard throughout the day. By the end of the storm, I think we had about 3 feet of snow. But yeah, Saturday we were told not to go out and proselyte unless we had good snow clothes and really wanted to. So we went out and helped all of our neighbors shovel their driveways. They all were a little weirded out because they were wondering why we were helping them when our own driveway was covered in snow. But after insisting that we wanted to help they were really friendly. We created a lot of good relationships and many of them offered us money or dinner or all sorts of things. That took most of the day and by the end of the day, everything was covered again with another two feet of snow. Sunday morning, we repeated the process because church was cancelled. And in the afternoon, we walked an hour and a half through snow to get to our investigator Monique’s house to shovel her driveway. Then she fed us dinner and we went home and went to bed. After two days of shoveling snow, I don't like snow anymore.

Anyways, I just want everyone to know how real the power of the priesthood is. This week, a lot of really crazy things happened. Things I didn't even know actually happened. But the power of God overcomes all. And truly, I can't say much more than to assure you after things I have seen this week that God is real. His power, is real. He loves us and nothing will or can overcome that. I know this and I promise this. I hope you all have a great week!

--Elder Nickerl

This was Saturday morning before half the snow fell!

This photo doesn't do it justice!  This pile is 8 feet tall!

I'm really glad that we don't have to shovel that!

January 11, 2016--Week 23

Hey everyone,

This week we put Li on baptismal date! It's super far away, so we are looking to change the date, but it is for his birthday so he doesn’t want another day. We will be continuing to work to get it closer, but in the mean time, he is happy and moving forward. We resolved A LOT of his concerns this week regarding his membership if he gets baptized when he goes back to China. That really is the only update for this week. Nothing much else to report, but it's been a good week and it went by super fast. We have been really busy. 

This week, I'm thankful for the opportunity that we have to repent and start new. Because no matter how hard I try, I will never be perfect in this life. And I am very aware of that this week as we have had a few disastrous lessons that almost got Li and one of our other investigators to drop us because we did not prepare as well as we should have for the lessons. Fortunately, both are giving us second chances and we have the ability to try again. I know that in this life, we will mess up. It's just a simple fact. But that is part of the plan. Without mistakes, I know personally I would never learn. I'm not thankful for the mess ups, but I am thankful for the lessons we learn from them and for the forgiveness that we receive so that we can move on and become better.

I love you all, have a great week!

-Elder Nickerl

January 4, 2016--Week 22

Hey everyone,

It's been a quite week again with the finishing up of the holidays, and a few people dropped us, so we are back to a ton of contacting.  The only thing we really did out of the ordinary this week was on New Years day. We went and had lunch with our investigator Monique (이원경). She fed us a traditional New Years Korean meal and it was super super good as usual. This investigator has been dropping off food at our apartment two or three times a week for like 2 months. She thinks of

us as her children kind of. She's awesome! She even gives us referrals (the other day, we randomly got a message from her saying[in Korean] she wanted to take us out to lunch with her friend). But yeah other than Monique, Li is still chugging along.

This week, I was studying a lot on spiritual gifts and I thought a lot of things were cool, but I wanted to point out something I found. God wants to help us, he has given us the opportunity to become like him. And so, if we seek for these gifts from God (with a righteous intent) he will bless us with these gifts. To me, this means a lot of things, because I am a very imperfect person, and I can not do anything on my own. I can't speak the language of the people I love and want to serve, I can't teach people perfectly, English or Korean, and most of all, I struggle to be outgoing. All of these are things that as a missionary, I have to overcome and I can't do by myself, but God has promised that after doing my best, he will make up the difference. I know that this promise not just applies to me, but to everyone.

Thanks for all your support,

-Elder Nickerl