Letter dated 6 March 2023

Dear yall, This week was great! Check it out! Monday We had some amazing member messages and called it a night after P day. It was fun. Tuesday We had zone conference and we got to meet with our mission president. We talked a lot about the doctrine of Jesus Christ and helping our friends come closer to it. It was very uplifting and I really needed it. It was also amazing because I got to see some of my previous companions and talk to them. The ones there were Elder Batista, Elder Elmer, and Elder Scott as well as some of my favorite previous district members. They're fantastic. They have become some of my greatest friends and I've been so lucky to be able to have great companions all throughout my mission and even right now I love my companion alot! That evening we gave a blessing to a lady in our ward and then had an amazing lesson with Sawyer and she is super excited to be baptized. We read over the tree of life with her and her mom. That's one of my favorite experience in the Book of Mormon and it was just really fun to be able to explain to her and then watch the video of it with her. Wednesday We had some good lessons and we actually met with our friend Justin and he really enjoyed reading through the sermon on the mount with us. We also had KFC for lunch because it sounded good and we had KFC for dinner because our member family wanted to take us out since it was the mom's birthday. Lots of chicken but fortunately I can never say no to deep fried chicken goodness! Our ward is currently doing a pinewood Derby for the youth and so for that evening we were making pinewood derby cars. It was super fun because Sawyer was there and then we also got to make our own cars. Elder Ray is going to be making a Book of Mormon car and I'll show you pictures of it next week when it's finished. Thursday We had to weekly plan since we were going to do an exchange on Friday. Because of that we were weekly planning and no one was really interested. Then we had an amazing miracle! There's a gentleman named Patrick who is from Brazil and has been studying in the United States as of late. Because of that it's been a really hard transition culturally as well as job wise for him and he's just been going through a lot. His family has been needing a lot of support and a lot of help and he knew he needed to come to a church so that'swhy he reach out to us. Now Patrick doesn't speak very much English because he speaks Portuguese, y no falo Portugués (I don't speak Portuguese). Back when I served in Paper Mill I talked with a lot of Brazilians who didn't speak very much English and so I would usually just speak Spanish since its easier for them to understand. This required me to have the gift of tongues in all these circumstances and there was a tender moment when I was talking to him that I realized I knew exactly what he was saying, I knew exactly what he needed, and I knew how to respond in my broken Portuguese that I've learned. It was awesome. He did better after we talked with him and he should be attending the Portuguese branch from here on out. Friday On Friday I had a good district council and everything seemed to go well. We talked about repentance and the importance of declaring it to everyone that we see by helping them come closer to Jesus Christ. On Friday I had a good district council and everything seemed to go well. We talked about repentance and the importance of declaring it to everyone that we see by inviting them to follow Jesus Christ. After district council I went on exchanges with one of the Elders in the district named Elder Esplin. We actually started our missions together which is cool. It went super well and we had a good day. We taught a lot of people, met with a few members, and it was overall pretty awesome. That evening we met with someone that we've been helping out named Paul just work towards baptism. We had a really good conversation and bore our testimonies to him. It was awesome. Saturday Saturday was awesome! In the morning we did some service for one of the more recent move-in families in the ward and they're awesome. Their names are the Madsens and they're just really willing to meet with us and to help out their neighbor. The Powells from last week that I talked about are their daughter and son in law so that was cool to make that connection. After we met with the Madsens we then went to Chick-fil-A and met with our friend Mykhailo the Russian guy. He did not stand us up! He actually came and we had this awesome interaction with him where we taught him about eternal families and our message as a church. This was all over Google Translate, which was a huuuuge blessing! He told us that he would want to come to church but he does have a position in his current Russian church so we'll talk to him a little bit more about that and we have a member who actually speaks Russian that we're hoping to get into our lessons with him. After we met with mikhailo we were able to teach our friend John. John is a great person, he's gone through a lot of hard things in his life, and he's just really needing the gospel. We went to his home and talked to him for about 2 hours about the plan of salvation. At the beginning of the lesson he said and I quote" y'know Elders, I love the Book of Mormon. it's so beautiful and this is really an amazing book I love everything about it. I don't know if it's true though and I don't know if I'll ever be a mormon but I love this book." By the end of the lesson we were all choked up and it was a very tender moment and then he said "Elders I think I'm a mormon I'm coming to church tomorrow." And he came. It was so cool so I'll talk about that on Sunday. Sunday Yesterday at church John was able to make it and it was fascinating. Part way through he looked over to Paul who's come every Sunday since I've been here and asked "am I allowed to go up there?" Paul said "sure thing just take one of the Elders." I went up with John up to the pulpit and waited our turn. He was nervous so I tried to encourage him and told told him to bear his testimony from the heart. It was very sincere. He talked about his difficulties going through the military and many difficult experiences he has been through, but then he looked at me and Elder Ray and said, "these dudes are awesome, they helped me through everything and I they are just the best!" He talked on for a little bit longer and everyone loved listening to him. It was awesome to see you and everyone went up to greet him and he wants to be baptized. He has to work past a few different commandments and it'll take a little bit more time than he may like but he is very excited and we are very excited for him. It was awesome to see. After traveling to a bunch of different meetings and different dinners that we were invited to we finished off the day and had a lesson with our friend Christine on zoom. The Lawrenceville Elders are currently working with her but she's moving up to Braselton and so we were able to introduce her to one of the members of a relief society on the call. She is excited to be baptized someday and we are here to help her out so we are looking forward to being able to assist and help her in anything that she needs! It was a really good day. And yeah, it's been phenomenal. I can't really say that I deserved much of anything that happened this week but it was really good and I'm glad the Lord is willing to bless me. I'm going to the temple tomorrow and I've heard from everyone that the new temple session is spectacular and I'm just really excited to be able to go again. I love being able to connect to God so closely and deeply in the temple. I love you all, have a good one and be safe! I've gotten 9 weeks left. Sincerely, Elder Nicholas Nephi William Schindler.