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

December 28, 2015--Week 21

Hey everyone!

Merry late Christmas and happy early New Years! 

We had a pretty interesting week. Because it was raining and because of the holiday season, we haven't had too many people stoked on listening to us, but we had a few good lessons. We are really trying to think of ways "outside the box" for working with the Korean people and to work with the members in the Korean branch. It's unfortunate, but just contacting Koreans on the street does not get very good of results and almost gives us negative results. So rather than street contacting, we are working a lot more with members and thinking of absurd things to try. 

Outside of that, we've done a lot of caroling this week. We caroled to our land lady who let us in on Christmas day. She was super nice to us and gave us cookies and talked with us for a little bit. 

Also, I gave a talk last Sunday in the English ward that we work with. I wasn't one hundred percent sure how to prepare it because it felt weird to do as a missionary, but I think it went okay. I felt somewhat good about it afterwards because I had a few people come up to me after Sacrament Meeting and ask for my notes with the talk.  I had to disappoint them because my notes would have made no sense to anyone else because it was just an outline with a quote and a few points. 

That's pretty much it for this week. We only had one investigator at church, and that was Li. We're hoping after the holidays the work picks up because it's pretty slow right now. 

At this time of year as we are all making goals and getting ready for the New year, I would like to share one of mine. My main goal is to be able to answer yes to this question every night before I go to bed: “Did I do the best I could every single day?" It's a hard goal to measure, but if I ever have to answer no, then I have a sick feeling in my stomach. But I know as I strive to do my best every day, and then let Jesus Christ's grace take care of my inadequacies, I can do much more than I think I can. I love you all!

Have a great week!

-Elder Nickerl

This is the family that we ate Christmas dinner with and also all the missionaries in our area.

This is Elder Kim and me. He is from Korea and in the English program. He came out the same time as I did and so we go home at the same time.  We went on exchanges for some reason, even though we aren't in the same district and neither one of us is in a leadership position. But it was fun. And helpful for both of our language learning. 

December 21, 2015--Week 20

Hey everyone,

   This has been a pretty long week because we did a lot of contacting. I am not a huge fan of contacting because it takes a lot of enthusiasm to go up to random people and start talking to them and I am not very good at it, but we have been working to find new different approaches and came up with a few this week that have worked really well for us. We found 4 new investigators this week which is really good for us. Putting it into perspective, since I have been here, we have only found 2 new investigators until this week we found 4 new ones. 

   Outside of finding new investigators, it is getting really cold here and it's kind of miserable. It's too hot to be snowing, but it's about 40 degrees with a lot of humidity and wind making for cold fingers and face. It also means people aren't quite as friendly when we try to talk with them because they don't like standing around outside much.

    I don't really have too much to report on this week, nothing really major happened outside of a lot of finding. This next week is Christmas week, and we are looking forward to calling home. For our other investigators, we have Li, he is still doing Li things. He is coming to church, but is struggling with smoking. He will come around eventually, so we aren't too worried about him. We don't teach him more than once a week anymore because we can't do much to help him past his smoking so we just stop by every week. He keeps coming to church though and loves it and wants to keep learning more. He reads the scriptures every day. Quan, we dropped, he wasn't willing to keep commitments. Then we found 4 new investigators this week, please pray that their appointments will go through and that they will be open and receptive. 

     This week in my studies, I came across Ether 12-23-27 which I have read many times, but I caught something this time. In verses 23-25 Moroni sorrows because he thinks that because of his weakness because of what he considers his inability, the Gentiles will not listen to what he has to say. Moroni worries that because of him, the people in our generation will not accept the gospel. But after this in verses 26 and 27, the Lord comforts Moroni and explains why he has allowed Moroni to have this weakness. I encourage all of you to study this scripture this week. I know as I studied this scripture, I found many weaknesses that the Lord has given me, and I think he wants us to bring these weaknesses to him so that he can make them strong. I testify of the power of Jesus Christ's Atonement. I am proof that it works. I have seen it work in my life as I have worked to learn a new language and overcome fears. I know that this same Atonement is available to all those who come unto Christ. 

Merry Christmas to all of you and enjoy your time!

-Elder Nickerl

December 14, 2015--Week 19

Hey everyone,

   This week was transfers and it was a bit of a surprise, but a good one. We were expecting Elder Koo to go to the driving area of the Korean program and for me to get a new companion, but we found out this morning that we are staying for another transfer. We're excited because now we get to keep our relationships with our investigators and that is always a good thing. Outside of transfers this week, Elder Kahng is going home tomorrow. Elder Jeon is going to follow up train Elder Trask in the driving area of the Korean part.  

Elder Evans of the 1st quorum of the seventy came this week to talk to our mission. He pretty much laid it down for us and called us to repentance. Not really, because it was really spiritual, but we learned a lot from him and he made some pretty big changes in the mission. He also gave us some good insight on teaching repentance and talked for a while about our desire for our mission and how to go about achieving that desire. He laid it out pretty clearly. There are no shortcuts to achieving what we want, you simply have to do it. He talked about how to become what we want. His tip was that it is in the small things that we do consistently over time. 

After he came, the only thing out of the ordinary this week was going on exchanges. Elder Trask and I went on exchanges on Saturday and it was pretty cool. We got 3 Korean phone numbers in 2 hours of contacting. That's more phone numbers than we normally get in a week from Koreans and the reason that was cool is because neither of us speak Korean well. And so that was really awesome. I don't have a ton of time this week, so I'll just send a few pictures.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I am thankful for all of your love and support. Until next week!

Elder Nickerl

This is all the Korean missionaries except for Elder Trask.  He was talking to someone else.  

Here is Li and I drinking Korean yogurt. 

This is the Korean branch!

Elder Koo and I with New York in the background.

December 7, 2015--Week 18

Hey everyone,

I don't have a ton to say about this week. We pretty much did what we do every other week. Went around, talked to people, met new people, knocked doors, met more people, share the Gospel, do service, teach English class, ate food, met more people, taught lessons, went to tree lighting events in the community, got kicked out of every single one of them within 10 minutes, met more people. That sounds pretty much like a good summary of this week. If anyone has questions about anything going on, or anything in general, feel free to ask because I never know much of what to say in weekly emails. 

We taught Quan and Li this week, both are doing well especially Li. He's getting close. Both

went to church. Li has started on the Word of Wisdom and is doing very well. Quan isn't going to make his baptismal date because he hasn't been to church enough, but he is still doing pretty well. We have some investigators in the Korean ward. We teach a lady, Monique, we just started the lessons with her, but she has been giving us food weekly since I got here. That's it for the most serious of our investigators, but we are still teaching a lot of lessons. That's about it to report, still hanging in there and doing well. 

Last night, I loved the Christmas fireside. In Sister Burton's talk, she talked about our Savior. She asked this question, quoting the Savior! "Will ye also go away?" And That is the question isn't it, when it is all said and done, will we go away? Will we turn away from what we know? Will we reject our Savior who has given us everything we have? Don't forget to remember him who gave us all we have. His love and help is right in front of us and all we have to do is ask. Don't turn away, don't reject it. This week, we faced rejection from a person who we have come to grow close to and it hurt. I felt just a fraction of the pain that I am sure our Savior feels when we turn away from his help. I do not intend to compare myself to Jesus Christ, nor did I mean that to sound that way, but if it hurts me to be rejected by those I care about, I am sure that pain is multiplied that our Savior feels. I know he loves us and cares about us, accept that love, and you will be happier.

Love you all,

Elder Nickerl

Elder Nickerl's new Christmas tree all decorated.

With the 12 Days of Christmas gifts!