Elder Nieve: Week 9 in Nampa, ID

December 19, 2016

Thank you for all of your prayers. It was a rough time but because of your prayers and fasting, I was able to listen to Christmas music. Truly, a Christmas miracle.

GOODNESS MERCY IT'S COLD! Hahahahaha it snowed a ton again this week and it's about 10 degrees at noon and 0 at night. But I sleep totally fine! Don't worry :). Seriously there was like 12 in. of snow on our drive way. We had to shovel our way out. I swear the people that don't have a car are lucky cause they don't have to shovel their way out! ;))) hahahaha

So this week was pretty good! We taught some more people and were able to contact a few references. Nothing super note-worthy, but yesterday we taught this old man named Juan. Juan is super goofy, hahaha. He basically just vented to us for half an hour about how different the world is now and that all youth are sinners, haha. But he did express his gratitude for us. He said he was grateful that we were youth "out there preaching the word of God". So we talked to him about the Book of Mormon and explained what is was and how we have it. He said he believed us. Our invitation going into the lesson was for him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. But during the lesson, I suddenly thought "Invite him to be baptized". I hesitated because it wasn't necessarily the setting for it, but I felt guilty all of a sudden. I remembered that God puts thoughts into our heads for a reason, so I started talking about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ makes us want to change, and to be better. He was following me along the entire way and so I straight up invited him to be baptized. He agreed! So I said "We're having a service on Jan. 6th. Will you prepare for that day?" He said he'd have to pray about it, because all his family is Catholic and how it was tradition to be Catholic. I understand that (cause this week we invited 4 people to be baptized and since most Latinos were baptized as babies, they don't feel the need to be baptized again). But I asked him "Juan, do you believe that God can give you an answer between now and Jan. 6?". He agreed, so I asked him to prepare for that day and I explained that if he received an answer from God that said he should be baptized, then that it much more important than tradition. So he agreed and he's preparing for that day! Please pray for him. He smokes a lot and hasn't been to church ever and has a long way to go, but it's very possible con la ayuda de Dios!

So a couple funny things:

Elder Gonzales and I were out contacting and we passed a snowman that looks creepy as heck. So he says "Isn't there that horror movie about a snowman that comes to life?" HE WAS TALKING ABOUT FROSTY THE SNOWMAN. HE THOUGHT IT WAS A HORROR MOVIE HAHAHAHAHA. I died laughing!

Elder Gonzales shared a joke with us that I thought was funny haha: "Qué es la differencia entre una pera y una novia? Una pera es pera, pero una novia no espera" (Use Google translate for that one ;))

Vaya con Dios,

Elder Snow