Another Letter From Grandpa Nick/Dad

Here's another letter that Dad sent me about his mission. It's dated March 19th 2009, but I didn't receive it until May, as Mom points out at the bottom. He was pretty sick by this time so I guess Mom helped him type it up. I didn't realized that Dad had never told me stories about his mission until I got these letters from him. He was always too humble to talk about himself, maybe to a fault. But I'm really really grateful that he told me before he passed away. They're pretty amazing.

March 19, 2009    

Dear Zack, 

The third area of my mission in Austria was Leibnitz, a small town near the border of Yugoslavia (now Serbia/Croatia). The population of Leibnitz was probably about 5,000-10,000 people. I was transferred there on about July of 1966, so I had been in country for about six or seven months. My new senior companion was Elder Lane Elmer from Beaver Utah. He was a strong guy, a former wrestler and football player in high school. He was also very sincere and sober, full of energy, and had a great desire to do a good work in Leibnitz. 

We were both new to the area; so to the best of our knowledge, we were opening the town to missionary work for the first time. Within the first couple of days, we decided to fast and pray that the Lord would direct us to the people who would be receptive to our testimonies. During our fast, we found a forested area on a hill overlooking the town and knelt in prayer. We prayed to dedicate the area and ourselves to the Lord’s work. We promised God that we would work and sacrifice to the limits of our strength and ability if He would guide us and bless the people of Leibnitz. 

 During the first week, we tracted from morning to night. Instead of walking from house to house, we ran. We ate only two meals a day and with the exception of our early morning study, did nothing but work to find someone to teach. We took no p-day. At night we were so tired, that after our companionship prayer, we sometimes fell asleep during our personal prayers and woke up in the middle of the night still kneeling beside our beds. My companion once slept all night on his knees and only awakened when the alarm sounded. We found no one to teach. No one even let us in the door.  

The second week was the same. No results at all, except for the complete weariness of our bodies, minds, and spirits. Each day we pressed on with as much energy as we could muster. By Saturday morning, of the second week we had taught no one. We tried not to be discouraged, and did what we could to continue working throughout the day with faith and positive expectations. About once an hour, we stopped in the shadow of buildings to pray together and to ask the Lord how else we could sacrifice and be directed to someone we could teach. 

 At about 4 pm, the Glatz family opened their door and invited us to give them our message of the Restoration. They lived in a modest home with their teenage daughter. 

 At 6 pm, about a block away, we spoke with a Mr. Mandl across his fence, as he worked in his garden. He lived in a nice home with his wife of about 40 years.  

We taught and baptized both families 8 weeks later.  

As I write this to you I have very tender feelings both for these experiences and for you as my missionary son. I learned that faith does precede the miracle and that much more sacrifice and faith and uninterrupted works were required of me that I had previously understood.  

Love,    

Dad  

Dad started this in March, now it is May 27. I am helping him by typing that last part for him. I know you will be happy to read it as I am happy to also. Dad has had more energy the last few days. I will write to you too. Love Mother

Voice

You know how when people read letters in movies the voice of the person who wrote the letter dictates the letter in the recipients head? Well, my voice is a little monotone and mumbly, as you know, so instead of imagining my voice dictate what you read in this blog, imagine the voice of Samuel L. Jackson. I think it will be more interesting that way.

Grandpa Nick's second area on his mission

Below is a letter I received from NAS. To give you some context, at the time I received it, I had been on my mission about 18 months and was serving in Exeter New Hampshire. When I got to Exeter the missionary work seemed pretty dead. I guess the Elder who I replaced had been injured for a while so they couldn't go out and work. So we didn't have anyone to teach. There also seemed to be some disconnect between the Elders and the members And it didn't encourage me when every missionary that had served there previously would say stuff like, "oh man, that area sucks," or, "Exeter is the worst area I've served in." So, I kind of got off to a rocky start in Exeter. But after a few months of being there, things started to change. For the first few months I was there we did all we could to build trust with members by raking leaves in their yards and bringing people to church that we had found on our own. Eventually we started seeing a little success and members started to really like us but we weren't seeing any baptisms. Finally after about five or six months we saw a miracle occur. 


The day previous to the date on the letter from Dad is the day we witnessed the baptism of a 15 year old kid named Min-Jae Kim. Min-Jae was going to a boarding school in Exeter. His dad was a baptist preacher at a mega church in California and did not want to give him permission to be baptized. In fact, he hired two professional anti-Mormon mercenaries to take him out to lunch and convince him to change his mind. People literally hire theses guys to go out and anti people so they don't join the church. Each time Min-Jae visited with them he came back with a stack of anti material. But he had received a testimony from the spirit of the Book of Mormon and he didn't waiver from it. Finally, to make a long story short, after seven or eight fasts, we got a letter in the mail from Min-Jae's Dad with permission for him to be baptized, which he was, on Valentines day of 2009. 


The reason I share that story is because I'm hoping that you can grasp how much the timing of Grandpa Nicks' letter meant to me after witnessing what I had with Min-Jae. 


Here it is:

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Dear Zack,

The second area of my mission in Austria was Klagenfurt. It was a medium to small city (maybe 30,000 population).

I had been out about 3.5 months and was a junior companion to an Elder from Rexburg, Idaho. He had been on his mission for about 18 months and had a year left. He came to Austria when they sent foreign speakers out for 2.5 years so they could learn the language better. By the time I got to him, he could speak fairly well. But he did not know the discussions. I was just at the point of starting to understand what people were saying, but I couldn’t speak or converse very well.

My experience with this companion was very challenging for me most of the time. He was very dedicated to the proposition that he was the senior and I was the junior. For example, when we were riding our bicycles, he made sure that his front wheel was always ahead of mine and got very upset with me if I ever inched in front of him. He resented me when I made suggestions or ever tried to assert myself into the companionship decision-making process.

The Austrians usually had multiple locks on their doors, probably because of the fearsome experiences of World War II. So even we missionaries had key rings that were heavy with big skeleton keys. One day in our apartment, my companion got so mad at me that he threw his wad of keys (about the size of a baseball) at me. I ducked, but he threw them so hard that they left a dent in the wall behind me. Our relationship was obviously in pretty bad shape for missionary work.

Somebody, perhaps our zone leaders (I have forgotten who it was), probably saw what was happening and talked to us about some important things, like studying and praying more together. Anyway, for some reason, we started to respect each other more and work harder.

Not long afterward while tracting, we found a young couple with the last name of Blaschitz, who were interested in being taught. We were both humbled and mutually realized that the Lord had given us a huge responsibility and opportunity to teach these people. We started praying and fasting for help.

Gifts of the Spirit and miracles began to be manifest to us. For example, we were able to teach by the Spirit. This was a miracle, because I couldn’t speak the language and my companion didn’t know the discussions. We fasted and prayed about this and decided that my companion would lead out and get our meetings going and answer the questions. I would teach the discussions that I had memorized. Along the way, I was blessed with the gift of tongues, because my ability to speak the language took a major leap forward and we were able to bring them to baptism within about six weeks. After we had taught and baptized them, my prowess to speak German settled back into a more normal learning progression.

I testify that I was blessed with the gift of tongues and that it happened because of the faith we exercised in behalf of our desire to teach these people by the Spirit.

Another miracle that happened during this time was that two days before Sister Blaschitz was to be baptized, she accidentally tippe3d a boiling cauldron of soup down her front and was severely burned. The doctor told her to not bathe or immerse herself in water for several weeks, until her burn injuries healed. She asked us to give her a blessing so that she could be baptized on schedule. We blessed her, she was healed, and she and her husband were baptized the next day.

She exercised the faith necessary to be healed, and our faith to heal her by the power of the Priesthood enabled her to do the Lord’s will.

After a rocky beginning, my companion and I developed a strong bond of respect and admiration for each other that has continued over the years. When Mom and I were married, he drove many hours each way to be with us.

Missionaries must exercise great faith to ensure that they can love their companions and accomplish the errands the Lord has for them to build His Kingdom and exercise miracles in behalf of His children.

May God richly bless and guide you and your companions with the ability to perform miracles in behalf of His children in your area.

Love, Dad

Why I'm starting a blog and blog name

Catey inspired me to start a blog. She is the coolest little sister. 

I'm making it exclusive to my family alone because there are some personal things in here. I might not care if other people read some of this stuff. But there is some other stuff that I want to share with only the people I'm closest to. So if there's a person that I didn't invite to read this blog that you want to share this with make sure you ask me first.

There are three reasons I started this blog:

1. To share with my family some cool letters that Dad sent me while I was on my mission.

2. To share cool memories and/or dreams I've had about him.

3. Because I want to share my experiences with the people I love.

Blog name:

I know it's not very clever but I had to pick one. But here's why I chose the one I did:

As I stated above, one of the things I want to do is share letters from Dad to me. Hence, nas to nzs. Also I wanted to pick something simple, easy to remember, and easy to spell. Lastly, I thought it might be kind of catchy because it's like A to Z but with n's and s's on the sides. 

Disclamer: 

I'm a novice blogger so those of you who are really good at it (Catey), don't judge me.