Merry Christmas!

MTC 10 July, 2013

Well today's my second P day, and I'm doing fantastic. We usually start off our Christmas ("P Days") by singing Christmas carols and doing laundry. I was really glad to hear all about your 4th of July. We got to watch Stadium of Fire from the CCM (Spanish acronym for MTC), which was pretty neat.

The past few days I was feeling homesick. We call it feeling "trunky" here. But I prayed and after a while received confirmation that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. It was one of the strongest spiritual experiences I've ever had in my life. I have a quote from Jesus the Christ that I really love - it's an excellent book by the way. I'd recommend that you read it. This might not be exact, but it goes something like this: "And a man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, such is not fit for the Kingdom of God."

I know that I'm exactly where my Heavenly Father wants me to be. I'm already developing a love for the people that I'm going to be teaching in Mexico.

Tell Jess and Libby that I hung up their pictures in my room! They're awesome.

Sam - The food here is pretty good. There's LOTS of it. All you can eat. They say the average weight gain for CCM missionaries here is 15 pounds. I'm trying to stay under that goal, but it's hard when they have Captain Crunch during every meal...The beds are probably a little bit short for you, too.

Right now we're 5 to a room meant for 4 people, but it's not too bad. It's awesome that there are so many missionaries who want to serve missions that the CCM is packed. Learning a language has been fairly easy. If you have the spirit with you, it becomes easy to learn and understand everything you need to. We've been told many times that we're not here in the CCM to learn Spanish, but to learn how to teach and love our investigators. The spanish will come in the field.

I hope you're doing great, Kate. Take good care of my ipod ;)

Mom - Thank you for the scriptures. I'd like it if you could maybe send me a note card with each family member's favorite scriptures on it. I'll get it laminated and carry it around with me. My spanish is coming along really well. We learned the Subjunctive form yesterday, which is pretty tough, but I can now teach my lessons in spanish without any notes at all. I've started trying to memorize a few scriptures in spanish too.

Being confined to the space of a city block for 6 weeks is the hardest part of the CCM. I'm excited to get out to the field. But I'll do fine. I can't believe it's already been 2 weeks. I attached some pictures of my new comp. He's great. His name is Elder Hardy.

Thank you for being such a supportive, loving family. I love you all!

Sincerely,

Elder Nichols

P.S.

Thanks for all of the letters! I love getting mail from you guys!