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