Hey guys!

It's great to hear from you and see all your pictures. Spain looks awesome! I trust your giving the windjammer the business it deserves right now. Hearing all about it brings back some great memories. What ship are you on/how big is it?

Spain sounds like it has some amazing history. That's so cool. Those pictures look great too.

Dad, you're the best. Some fine Toledo steel mounted on my wall will go a long way towards impressing the ladies in college. Plus there's the fact that I can finally duel Sam now. Love ya

This week was normal. We did missionary work. We found one new investigator named Y. who could be promising. We also taught this really sweet lady named V. who wants to be baptized but can't because her husband won't give his permission. So be praying for her!

Other than that there's not much new. We're playing soccer at the church right now.

How many ice cream cones have you eaten so far?

Love,

Jake

Pioneer Day Festivities, Wolfhounds and Cleaning up the Area Book

28 July, 2014

Hey everyone!

 This week in Gridley has been pretty good. We've been driving around

 trying to contact everyone in the area book that the sisters were

 teaching before. They have a bunch of "new" investigators who haven't

 been taught in months (or in some cases years) and it doesn't say why.

 I guess they just never got around to dropping them. So now we're

 cleaning up the area book, finding out who's interested, who lives

 where, etc.

 We managed to find a new investigator who expressed interest in coming

 to church.  We found him while trying to contact one

 of the sisters' investigators who apparently moved out months ago. He

 was really friendly and said we could drop by this week. Shotgunning

 an area is a unique experience. For now we're just trying to get to

 know everyone. Gridley is a nice place. There are tons of Mormons

 here. It's almost like Heber in a way.

 We had interviews with President on Friday - everything good there.

 We're probably going to be moving (again) in the next few weeks

 because this little house we're in right now stinks. It only has

 electricity in half of it, and there's no water pressure to speak of.

 Sometimes the toilet just stops working. So President is going to have

 us move to a new place, which is fine by me. I haven't even unpacked.

 Lots of moving this transfer I guess.

On Saturday we had a stake Pioneer Day party. There were probably over

 300 people there. We got free hamburgers and ice cream, played some

 softball, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Speaking of softball, Elder

 Roberts and I got drafted onto the Spanish Branch's team in the stake

 softball tournament that's being played right now. We're playing in

 the championships next Saturday. I'll let you know how it went.

 Well that's all the news that's fit to print.  Have a fantastic time in Spain! Travel safe!

 Love you all!

 Jake

 P.S.

 Here's a picture of me fighting an Irish Wolfhound

 

Gridley, CA

21 July, 2014

21 July, 2014

Hey everybody,

So I'm here in Gridley now. It's a small town, but much bigger than Colusa. We're in a Spanish branch again, so that's cool. We've been told that we should expect to be replaced by sisters again in four weeks, so I'm not even going to unpack. We live in a tiny little house in the middle of an orchard. Only one of the three ac units work, so it gets pretty hot in there during the day. Other than that, things are good. The weather hasn't been too hot these past few days. Mid 90s, nothing above 100. I guess I can't really say much about the work since we've only been here for two days.

I'm doing well. Time is going by fast :)

It's great to hear from all of you. I'm glad you're doing well.

We played soccer for three hours today. It was awesome. I'm exhausted though.

I sure miss running in Dutch Hollow. It's awesome that we have all of those trails so close to home!

I'm also really excited for your family vacation. It's going to be a blast :)

Love you guys!

Jake

July 18, 2014

****Note****

Elder Nichols has been transferred again, after only one week in Colusa.  Some changes in missionary availability in Gridley necessitated the Mission President to move Jake and his comp there for four weeks.  Where he'll be after that, we don't know:)

On the Ground in Colusa

 14 July, 2014

Dear Family,

Well, I'm on the ground in Colusa.

First impressions: the water tastes like butt. That's the only complaint I'll verbalize about this area. I just needed to get if off my chest. There's a ton of sulfur in the water here because we're near a dormant volcano or something like that. So we have to drink filtered water.

Colusa is... Interesting. It's a tiny little town wayyy out in the countryside. We actually cover four or five small towns in total. I'm pretty sure we have the biggest single area in the mission here. Mt. Shasta could be bigger, I'm not sure. From what I've seen here the elders before me have hardly had work in English, let alone Spanish. Van Leeuwen told me on the way out that he was surprised they hadn't closed the area this transfer. Encouraging, that. But I guess it just gives me a chance to do some work. We found four new investigators here last week, both Spanish speaking couples. We taught them some good lessons and we're hoping to teach both of them again this week. I feel bad for Elder Roberts because being trained here, his Spanish is more or less still at "fresh out of the MTC" level. We'll get to work on that too though.

Sweet bonus of being in an English branch, we get fed dinners almost every night!

So, aside from the butt water, it's steady as she goes.

We met President Marston last Friday. He's a pretty cool guy. Very down to earth. He'll be a great mission president. We're going to have interviews with him this month.

I'm going to email him today to ask if we can get some help with starting a Spanish branch out here. We need Spanish-speaking members to help us fellowship, because starting a branch from an English branch where nobody speaks Spanish would take some seriously golden investigators.

On Sunday Elder Roberts and I got roped into singing in sacrament meeting, then we had to teach sharing time in primary because the teachers weren't there. I wasn't really looking forward to teaching a bunch of little kids, but it wasn't bad. Kind of fun, actually. We pretended to be reporters talking about baptism, and we had the kids come up and answer questions. It was goofy, but they liked it.

So yeah, that's me. It was great to hear from all of you. I'm glad you survived trek!

Love,

Jake

New Branch in Colusa!

7 July, 2014

Hey er'body,

Well, I got transferred. I'm going to be District Leader in the new Colusa Area. Apparently we're responsible for trying to get a Spanish branch started there. I'm excited to be leaving, but nervous about my new responsibilities at the same time. It'll be a good learning experience. My goal is to be more positive about my area whether it's good or bad. If it's bad, I'll make it good. If it's good, I'll make it great. My new companion is Elder Roberts from Texas. I've met him before and he's cool. Elder Tepox will be staying here to become senior companion to a younger missionary.  I'm going to make a list of people to focus on for them to use after I leave.

So yeah. Goodbye Citrus Heights!

Well, that's about it. I got food poisoning on Saturday, and then had to translate fast and testimony meeting the next day without any notice beforehand. Bonus: the stake president was there visiting that day. Needless to say I was pretty nervous. But he came up afterwards and told me I did a great job. According to him it was way better than other times he'd been there. That made my day. It also strengthened my testimony of fasting because I know I could never have done as well as I did if I didn't have the help of the Holy Ghost.

On the 4th of July everyone conveniently forgot the rule about no fireworks for a few hours and chaos ensued. Elder Johnson lit his "6 month tie" on fire, despite us telling him that missionaries don't really do that. We barbecued some hamburgers at a members house too. It was lots of fun. I'd send pictures but I forgot my camera. Sorry mom!

Love you!

Jake

New Mission President

June 30, 2014

Hey Mom and Dad,

 Sorry this is coming late again, we were ice skating this week. Fun stuff. I only "ate it" twice. This week was stake conference and we got to hear some outstanding talks. One of them that I really enjoyed was about temples and how important they are. We're so blessed to live in a place where we have easy access to temples on a regular basis.

Also, at stake conference there was a special missionary segment where they basically told all the members that we need more referrals and that tracting is quote: "a waste of time".  Thank you stake conference! Hopefully we get some more help from the members in the near future.

We also got a truck to use this week which is pretty cool. Our car is in having some body work done for a few days.

We found a new investigator this week. He said he'd read the Book of Mormon in his free time. Hopefully he follows through. We'll go see him again this week. This Sunday is transfer calls. I feel like having a change of scenery but there may still be work to do here for me, so we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, our other investigator has stopped drinking once and for all and says he's committed to coming to church. We had a lesson in the Bishop's house this week and he cooked us honey-glazed Dutch oven ribs for dinner. They were incredible. Our investigator accepted a commitment to be baptized. Hopefully that will happen in the next few weeks here.

I forgot to tell you that we had a goodbye meeting with President Weston by the way. He flies home tomorrow. As of today, President Marston is officially in the mission as mission president.

 Mom, something that really helped me improve my accent was reading aloud in Spanish and trying to imitate the accents I'd heard. That was probably the biggest thing.

That's all the big stuff that happened this week.  

Well, my second year has begun.  It’s gone by so fast!

Anyways, love you guys!

Jake