Letter dated 20 February 2023

Dear y'all, This week was a lot to handle but it is over now so that makes me glad. Time to do it all over again! Tuesday I had to say goodbye to Elder Scott and Elder Clancy which was hard but I am currently with Elder Ray. He is from Ephraim Utah and he has been introducing me everyone in the area. We went from the mission home to my new area of Braselton and we had a few visits with some less actives and some friends. At one point we stopped by our new friend George who was very enthusiastic to talk to us about Valentine's day (Happy Valentine's day by the way! <3). He was very adamant that we should all respect the Holiday by keeping the law of chastity and so we talked about the importance of this commandment. It was the first time I ever street contacted someone and first taught them about the Law of Chastity so that was fun! We also met with our friend Sawyer who is super excited to be baptized soon! Please pray for her and her family, nothing bad has happened yet but it seems like everytime someone begins progressing towards baptism something terrible happens right before so please keep them in your prayers. Wednesday We had the opportunity to give a local sister a blessing in the hospital which was very sweet to be part of. We also had a Book of Mormon study that night with 8 missionaries and 3 members which was pretty lowkey but fun nonetheless. Thursday I had a looooong meeting as a district leader on zoom. It was a good meeting and President Harris gave us district leaders a lot of very good advice but I was very worn out by the end of it. We also had an amazing lesson with our friend Roy. He was very receptive to the Plan of Salvation, particularly surrounding the idea of people in the Spirit World being able to accept the gospel regardless of nationality, experience, or predispostions. Friday I lead my first district council which was very fun! My district is great and they seemed to enjoy the trainings I prepared. I taught about the importance of the first two points in the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and how to use personal revelation. Afterward we weekly planned which was a huge slog, but we finished. That is the greatest acomplishment we can have on the mission. Saturday We had a crazy lesson on the street with a drunk guy and a highschooler. It was wild since the drunk guy kept on asking weird questions and the highschooler (not of our faith) began defending our beliefs from our drunken friend. By the end of the conversation they both requested a copy of the Book of Mormon and it was pretty funny to think back to later. We also had a good visit with a less active member and it was powerful to feel the Spirit with her. Sunday We had a good church service and I got to meet the ward which was pretty exhilerating. One of our friends who speaks very little English, becasue he is from Russia, was planning to come to church with us but was 4 hours late so we had this confusing thread of phone calls of trying to meet up with him, him not wanting us to meet at his home, him wanting to meet at our home, but we finally settled on meeting at the Chik-Fil-A parking lot since it is empty on Sundays. He then proceded to not show up. Fun stuff. Afterwards we went to dinner and gave a sweet blessing to the father who really needed it. All in all it was a good week but I am currently exhausted from everything moving around and getting used to this transition. Have a good one yall, be safe! Sincerely, Elder Nicholas Nephi William Schindler