Email from 02.22.10

(*Here is a pic of Ster burning a tie at his 6 month mark*)

Just a few words from Ster this week.

We had zone conference last week. Sister Hale taught us about cooking and gave us a list of foods that are easy to make and really cheap. Pres Hale talked about Prayer and having a Mighty Prayer. We participated in a lot of different activities where we worked as a team. One activity was called the helium stick. A group of us had to lower the stick to the ground w/ our fingers and if our fingers came off the stick we had to do push ups. Then another one where we were on a platform with a bunch of tennis balls under us and we had to try and cross the room on the platform and our team were gathering the tennis balls to keep us going. Then my favorite called "Crossing the Beam". We had to try and get everyone across a beam depending on our weight. It was a lot of fun. (To see pics of these activities go to the FL Mission Website, listed to the left) (*Here is a pic of Ster doing the helium game*)

I got my bike fixed. But, listen to this, Ok, so the guy from Frenchie's Bike Shop fixed everything on my bike, things that didn’t need to be fixed, he basically gave me a whole new bike and told me to pay for it. argg... I was thinking "did I ask you to grease my gears or my shocks, or correct my spokes or put jet engines on my seat, or to add a second seat or put on these crazy alien lights or to unscrew everything and then put it all back together, then charge me the man hours it took to put it back together, and then put helicopter landing gear on the bottom? DID I........) Ok, so some of those things were an exaggeration. But you get the idea he charged me a lot for things I never asked for. Freaking French people. ;)

Well I love you mom and dad. I will talk to you later. I will try to send some mail this week; you guys are always in my prayers. Talk to you later

Email from 02.16.10

Because of Monday being President's day we didn't hear from Ster until Tuesday. Here is his email. Not a long conversation, he didn't have much time:

Remember the people that wanted to get baptized but not go to church, well they are going to church this week hopefully, and plus they do need to get married.

I love to listen to the scriptures in Spanish and the other talks and music that you sent to me on the ipod. It is really awesome. I listen to it all the time whenever I am home and when I do my language study I listen to the Spanish chapter that I am reading, it is amazing I really appreciate all the effort dad put into it. The talks are amazing and really uplifting.

I've met a couple of Spanish speaking people and then gave them to the Spanish comps but there are not very many Spanish speaking people over here.

Well I will say that I truly love the iPod thing, it is so amazing, I appreciate all the time you put into it Dad. I know it probably took a while. I listen to it all the time, I'm pretty close to being done with the Truman Madson talks. I just really like it. And I listen to the Spanish scriptures in my language studies. So ya, I use it all the time.

The man that said he only needed to read the Bible, we told him to read Ne 29 and I can tell his heart is softening so that’s good. We just need to get him to read the book of Mormon some more and to come to church and if things go well he and his wife will be baptized

I feel almost 100% better, my wrist is still crappy, we'll see how that goes.

I put my bike in a shop called Frenchies Bike shop last week, and I haven’t received a call that it’s been fixed yet, but what should I expect from the Frenchies? Lol

Well I ran out of time I want you guys to know I love you lots and I love this gospel, that is for sure. I will talk to you later.

Sincerely Elder Nisson

Email from 02.08.10

Hi Everyone,

The contacts are fine. Our teaching pool has about 6 investigators which is better than when I came in and there was really only one. We have some people who will be baptized within a couple of weeks, so that will be good if we can get them to come to church. That is the problem with all our investigators. They want to be baptized but not come to church. It is pretty frustrating sometimes lol.

My health is a lot better. We actually have a nutritionist in the ward, and he has given me some great ideas of how to boost my immune system, also he gave us something which is supposed to be really good against bacteria.

The bishopric didn’t have me speak but I did decide I better go up and bare my testimony, so the people would know who I am in the ward. I bore my testimony on how I was truly converted in the gospel and through my story I mentioned various things. After Sacrament meeting was over a women came over kind of crying and told me she loved my testimony and it really gave her hope for her son who is 25 and not active, and she really knows that he will come back to the church. So, I’m glad I could help someone out.

The salt and pepper combination is fine, I'm actually glad to be here. I finally get to speak what is in my heart, to people. Like sometimes when I speak/teach with the spirit, there have been 3 times now people just start crying. It is so amazing to see their lives changed like that.

My companion and I are doing well, he is a good guy. He has been out like 10 months I think maybe 11, and he is the oldest of the family. He lives in Oregon and was home schooled his whole life and so was his sister, and his two younger brothers. So he is pretty smart. I can just point at a tree or bush or fish or anything and he will tell me about them and their origins and the scientific term used for them, lol, kind of funny.

My wrist is fine if I don’t try to move it up or anything lol. I can move it down just fine and to the left. But, not very easily to the right or up, its all good.

We tracked on Super Bowl Sunday; we can’t go over to people’s homes anymore unless they have an investigator there. That means no dinner’s either, unless they have an investigator there. So, we haven’t had food from members since my last 2 weeks in El Portal. I’m wasting away here. It’s kind of getting hard to see me these days. The members were the only ones who kept me from the pure cereal Diet haha...but seriously. We implemented this rule because members thought their job was to feed the missionaries, when in reality it’s to find new investigators, so that’s why we have the rule now.

Love you guys so much. I really missed you guys today for some reason lol, so I was really excited to get your email.

Email from 02.01.10

Ok, I’m in Coral Springs East now and it is a really big area. I went from living in poverty in El Portal to living in Luxury in Coral Springs. lol. My comps Name is Elder Jarvie. Elder Jarvie was in the area last transfer. I am in a “salt and pepper” companionship. Meaning one English and one Spanish Elder. Elder Jarvie is English, well the Ward is English. It works fine when we contact, if there is someone who only speaks Spanish then I talk to him. Then if he is interested I pass him to some Spanish elders.

I’m in a car area but we use bike mostly, so we can contact better, and, no my bike is still broken and I use a bike that was left here. lol.

I’m doing better; I just have a bad cough now so I’m steadily making progress.

Here is a spiritual experience to share with you. The first day we got to Coral Springs we had an appointment with a guy named Mike who is a recent convert but is now less active. Anyways, we found out that day that Mike had some bad drug problems in the past and a lot of other things so he is kind of hard to keep focused (o, side note this guy is smaller than me but has a lot more muscle and he had a lot of rough experiences in his life and doesn’t shy away from violence). So, he made us dinner and he put like a stick and a half of butter in it, and then poured like a pound of garlic salt in this pasta. My heart started hurting just looking at the thing lol. Anyways after dinner he started talking about how he was able to quit all the bad habits of his past except for Chew. So when he was talking he started to take some out, because he said he needed it, and when he started to open it I said "wo wo wo Mike, let’s just take a deep breath. Do you like being controlled by this stuff?" of course he said no. so I told him "ok you have to bottles of chew there, in front of you now what do you want to do with it? He said he would like to chew it because it is driving him crazy lol I told him, "ok but in reality what do you want to do with the chew?" he said to throw it away. I told him "Perfect that’s what we are going to do, we are going to throw it away and then after that give you a blessing of comfort and you won’t need chew if you rely on the lord and go to church." after some conversation and cheering him on. He said ok. I asked him for all the chew he had, and he gave them all to me there was like 6 total. And he gave them all to me I pocketed them and me and Elder Jarvie proceeded to give him a blessing. It was a very spiritual blessing. The lord promised him some amazing things if he would have faith in Him and go to church, and that he would be able to stop chewing. After the blessing, he said he felt fantastic and the desire to chew was gone" so everything was fine. We told him we would check up with him every day to make sure he is good, and if he needed help he could just call us and we would do all we can to help.

Then a couple of days go by he calls us telling us that he is having some major cravings for chew so we pray with him tell him it’s all alright then, he said he’s good and the cravings went away. Then he calls us another day and said his work was getting so crappy that he just had to chew so he did. I told him Mike. You were given a sacred promise of the lord that if you just have faith in him and go to church you will be free of this habit. He said ok I will try again. So, he went to church and so far so good. He even got some patches to help with the addiction. Cool story huh?