28 October 2013

Hey yall! I'm so excited to hear the good news about your member missionary work! The more you do it the more natural it feels. Thanks for keeping me updated in the work over there. I'm so glad that it's going well! Elder Christensen is so correct. We have complete control over our agency i.e extending the invitation, but we don't have control over others agency. That's a principle that you definitely learn out here. It can be quite frustrating at times when people you're working with choose to go against the light and truth that they've felt but just remember that it was God's plan to give us agency and Satan's plan to take it away from us. We have to experience the bitter to enjoy the sweet. I'm glad that I'm back by Airport Family Dentistry. I'll be having my teeth cleaned there this week. It's quite convenient because I realized my Dental insurance card was lost with my wallet way back when but since they have everything on file at Airport Family Dentistry, I'll be good to go. I'm glad God's helping me out and getting me through each day even throughout the stresses of trying to get all my things back in order. The work here is going well. It's a lot of planning for a lot of different people. Everyone has a different issue that they're going through, but they're all loving the gospel. Firstly is M&B: M is on probation and once she is off, her and her husband want to be baptized together. She might get off early in November for being good her first year. Please pray that things will work out for her. Then we have D&P: P is trying to overcome smoking. She has short term memory loss so it's difficult for her but she is a very sweet lady and her and her boyfriend D will work out either moving out until they get married or getting married once she has overcome this addiction. Warren: He's waiting for his mom Tomeeka to be baptized before he is. She works third shift so she is often sleeping so it's hard for us to meet with her. Pray that we'll be able to help her have the energy to meet with us and come to church on Sunday. Kruehto (Crew-too): He's from Burma. He's doing great there's just a small language barrier. He's been in the states for a little over a year but loves the gospel. There isn't a Book of Mormon available in the two languages that he speaks besides English but he is really striving to learn. There's a lot of good going on here. The members are fantastic and really have a strong desire to help us out. President Holm just gave me the okay to read it so please send it! I'm excited to get some great tips for helping out the members even more! I'm glad yall are planning with the missionaries and seeing success in that effort. Do yall remember an Elder Watson from like 6ish years ago? I may have already mentioned him but I met him in Spartanburg. He served in the Naperville 4th ward back then. It was pretty cool reminiscing with him. Keep up the great work! I love yall and I love this work. It's definitely the best thing I've ever done in my life! Love yall Elder Nair

21 October 2013

Big news for yall today! I arrived in WEST COLUMBIA SOUTH CAROLINA this past Wednesday. If you notice on your map of South Carolina you'll see that West Columbia is rather close to Gaston. So close in fact that we meet in the same building of the Congaree ward! (that's the name of the ward that I was in in Gaston :D) I was excited beyond belief. I'm serving up here as a zone leader in what is now the West Columbia South zone. It used to just be the West Columbia zone until all the sisters came and the mission split. But the areas in my zone are Gaston (sister's area now) & Cayce (both Congaree ward), West Columbia Elders (us) West Columbia Sisters (both in the West Columbia ward), Columbia YSA (sisters), Orangeburg Elders & Sisters, Traveling Spanish Elders and Columbia Spanish Elders. My new companion is my first companion that's not from Utah! Elder Saunders, who came out with me. It's so much fun getting to spend time together serving with him and also being back in the West Columbia area. Elder Saunders and I, our first day in the mission field, the West Columbia zone leaders took us out to go tracting in their area. After tracting for a bit, we stopped in to see these two recent converts of theirs Jazmine and her sister. It's so cool now because they give us a ton of referrals and they remember meeting us day one of the missions. It's so much fun being back here! We're also teaching this family that Elder Saunders tracted into that day last year. It's awesome! It just feels like home being back here. Apparently people have been talking about Elder Memmott and I's Halloween costumes with the trunk-or-treat coming up so soon. It looks like I got back into the area just in time haha. I'm not sure if you remember our old costume but I'll try to include a picture in this email. This ward is fantastic. It was so tough leaving Spartanburg because of all the wonderful Micronesian families that Elder Lee and I were working with. They're so cool and I'm going to miss them so much. Fortunately though, I've come into this area where just as much success is happening. It's making the transfer a little bit easier. This ward is so missionary minded. It's awesome. This past Sunday we were invited into the Primary to talk to the kids about being member missionaries and inviting their friends to the upcoming Trunk-or-Treat. It was so adorable. Those kids just make me smile :) Elder Saunders and I are super blessed here and I'm just excited beyond belief to be back here. A couple of the people we're working with here in the SCCM (we abbreviate it the South Carolina Columbia Mission :P) and more specifically in West Columbia are Warren and Cru Tu (pronounced Crew Two, he's from Burma). I'm going to meet all the other solid investigators here this week so I'm pretty excited about that. Things are just stellar :D. I love being a missionary so much. We're living with the Columbia Spanish Elders, Elder Judd, and Elder Silva. Elder Judd was serving in Charleston where he met a Brother Bankey. Apparently Brother Bankey was up in Syracuse, New York a few years ago where he met his favorite missionary, a black elder, who served in the army, and is now preparing to be a dentist and also happened to be named Elder Nair. Small, small world. But yeah let Solomon know that one of the Elders I'm living with was just serving in Brother Bankey's home ward. I love how cool stuff happens like that. I love yall. Hope everything continues to go well. I'm sure I'll get many more ideas about member missionary work here in this missionary-minded ward. They have so many cool ones that I'm looking forward to learning more and more about. Keep up the great work and keep being great examples! Just remember that no effort is wasted. You never know what's going to happen a year down the road. Cru Tu, decided to stop meeting with the missionaries after Elder Saunders tracted into him a year ago but just a few weeks ago he got online and requested that the missionaries come back and visit him. Not in a million years could we have guessed that that would happen. God's hand is truly in this work. I love it :D Love yall, Elder Nair

14 October 2013

I'm getting transferred!!!!!!!!!! Sad day, sad day. There's so much great work going on here. Elder Lee and I have been having a blast in Spartanburg. I'm going to miss this place so much! I'll be serving as a zone leader again in a new area so I will let you know next week when I find out where I go. As usual I'll be heading to the big transfer meeting this Wednesday and I'll find out my new companion and the new area that I'm serving in that day as well. I'm going to miss everyone here! I'm definitely leaving this area with lots of momentum built up. The new missionary that replaces me will surely have a fun time. We have 6 wonderful people being prepared for baptism in these next two months. It's sad that I won't be able to attend their baptisms but I know they'll be in good hands. This ward has grown on me so much. It's changed so much since I've been here. We went from about 75 active members at church every Sunday to about 120. It's grown and thrived and just been wonderful and really fast paced here. As much as I'm going to miss it, I know that I'll love my new area and the new people that I'm serving around. Transfers are always such a bittersweet moment. Especially when there are so many wonderful people preparing to be baptized. The temple was amazing! My goodness gracious. I just love going there. I hope to go with the Nguyen's soon. I love that family! They're my favorite. We're definitely going to be lifelong friends :) They're hoping to go to the temple before I get off my mission. I hope it happens so I can go with them :) I remember Brandon. I hope he does make it back around. I wish I had been more involved with him. Knowing what I know now, I could've done so much more in my youth to help everyone. I didn't have the direction that I now have in helping a new member/investigator get involved in the church. I'm going to make helping new people a priority in my life. They really need all the support that they can get. It's such a crazy life change that can be really scary. It's like a completely new lifestyle. It takes a lot of dedication and courage to make it through that first year. And Satan is really working his hardest then too. It sounds like the work is going great over there too. How soon will Riley be leaving on his mission? I forget how old these kids are getting. With the new mission age it just seems like they're aging way faster than they should be haha. Who's the next group that will be coming out into the field? Spartanburg is definitely somewhere I have to come back and visit. There's just been so many fond memories here. 4 months was not enough time to spend here. It just flew by in the blink of an eye. I could basically serve in one of 11 different areas at this point. There are 6 stakes in our mission and each one has 2 zones in it, leaving two zone leader areas. Greenville East, Greenville, West Columbia, Columbia, Charleston, and Florence. So I could literally be anywhere in the state. I'm pretty excited about the future but will still miss everyone here. Hope all continues to go well with yall. I love yall with all my heart. Love, Elder Nair

9 October 2013

Hey! Since we have our temple trip tomorrow, we're having our P-day tomorrow. But the assistants decided that we should do our emailing before we go since it will take awhile to get to the temple and back so we're taking care of it today. Sorry if you were expecting an email back on Monday! Don't worry I haven't forgotten about yall :P This week has been really cool. Conference is always spectacular. My favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf's in the priesthood session. That was a really good one. I just love the focus on missionary work right now. We can really use it with members in our efforts to find those who are ready for the gospel. There's a lot of intense changes going on in the mission field. Here in the SCCM we're staying pretty traditional but some other missions have been getting the iPads and all that incorporated into the work. I don't know when we're going to start doing that but for now it's been great doing things the old-fashioned way. I'm so excited to go to the temple tomorrow! I've been looking forward to it for so long. It's crazy that it's already here! Time is just flying, flying, flying. It's so crazy. But time always flies when you're having fun. I really love being out here so much. It's amazing to see myself change. I know I've probably said this before but I was just thinking about the change that's taken place in me and I could've never seen myself with this much desire to do what my Heavenly Father wants me to do. I love how Preach My Gospel emphasizes changing the missionary. I really want to become Christlike in every way that I can. I love the confidence that the gospel brings. Things that used to seem scary to me, I feel like I can face with no fears. I feel like I can be successful in anything that I put my mind to. The self-discipline that I've gained out here is amazing. It seems that I've accomplished so little in my life before my mission. There's so much more that I could've done. But I'm looking forward now. Having the gospel in your heart just changes your perspective on everything for the better. I'm proud of Solomon! Congratulate him for me please. I'm glad things are going so well in his life. Having your priorities straight makes so much difference. It's sad seeing my brothers and sisters who don't have their priorities straight. I want to help them so much. There's no better way to have peace in this life than by living the gospel. There's strength there that no one can give you but the Savior. Keep being a light to your friends and our family. I'm glad progress is being made there. I've really grown to desire the welfare of those around me. I want to help them. There's so much more that I wish I could do for them. But I understand that I am where I am and God sees fit for me to do what he's allotted to me. I hope to do the best that I can with it. Love yall so much, Elder Nair

30 September 2013

Hey yall! So good to hear from you as always! I have to share a huge miracle that happened this week first off. Saturday we were out with some youth members of our ward Byron (17) and Daniel (13) to help fellowship our recent converts Rozay (17) and Ques (14). We started off going to Ques' house and had a nice visit with him there but when we texted Rozay and asked if he was home he said he wasn't. For some reason we just felt like going over there anyway despite the fact that he said he wasn't home. They live right next to a McDonalds so we always park in the McDonald's parking lot to go to their house. So Rozay didn't answer when we knocked so we went back to the car and as we were pulling out of the parking lot another car started honking at us and shouted "hey! Where is the church?!" Upon hearing that we got out of the car and started talking to them. It was this little member Micronesian family. They had recently moved to Spartanburg from Tennessee 3 months ago and have been looking for the church ever since. Norma (the mom) and her son Dursten (17) and their littlest one Oliver (3) were all in the car. We got their information and scheduled to see them that night. When we went over there that night we met Norma's soon to be sister-in-law Brenda who is not a member of the church. We taught her the Restoration and Norma bore a very powerful testimony of how much the gospel has blessed her life from her baptism at 8 years old and her husbands baptism just a few years ago in Tennessee and how she just wants to come to church every week. Brenda is now preparing herself to be baptized on the 26th of October. Dursten, Brenda, Norma, and Oliver all came to church and had a wonderful time. Brenda was so excited to be at the church and said she felt so happy the whole time. I'm so excited for her and her family to add to our membership here every week! The ward continues to thrive with a lot of members returning to activity, move-ins, and baptisms. I'm enjoying it so much. Things are going so well out here. As for helping your friend and to answer your question let me give a resounding YES to using Preach My Gospel! Preach My Gospel as come to be one of my favorite "books of scripture". It truly is completely inspired writings of the apostles and prophets and is the best go to source for missionary work. Chapter 3 Lesson 2 outlines the Plan of Salvation and the basic principles of it that nonmembers need to know. It offers great council like making sure to be very simple and basic when sharing the story of Adam and Eve. It also offers great scriptures that outline it as well. The pamphlets are fantastic too and I think the Plan of Salvation one would be great to give to your friend. I'm sure the missionaries will give you one. Maybe consider giving it to her with a few of the Plan of Salvation scriptures out of the BofM written in like 2 Nephi ch 2 with the invitation to meet with the missionaries again. Simply say something along the lines of "the first time we talked with the missionaries they basically outlined where our church came from. They'd love to share with you some of the basic restored truths of the church that are outlined in this pamphlet as well." Basically let her know that there is much more that the missionaries share with people and their whole purpose is to be spiritual guides for people in helping them study and learn more. Continue in prayer as you study Preach My Gospel. I'd also turn to chapter 11 on Helping others make and Keep Commitments. Pretty much everything that applies to missionaries applies to members as well :) Every member a missionary! Haha it's funny that you mention that about getting old because I'm starting to become an old man over here myself! We saw someone moving in a bunch of furniture by themselves and we offered to help him out. It was a lot of large heavy things that he had left and just Elder Lee and I and him. Up to this point in my life I don't think I've ever had my back be sore haha. I slept with a heat pad on it that night and felt completely fine the next day but I've gotta start being more careful as I get old and grey. I have a few white hairs coming in and I feel like my hair is thinning haha. I'm not quite sure if I'm just imagining it because my hair has never been this short before but I hope yall still love me if I come home bald :P haha I'm glad Dad's getting involved with his side of genealogical line. Genealogy is something that I've just been so drawn to lately. We'll be going to the temple next Thursday on the 10th so we're getting really excited for that new experience! Things are just going really well overall here. I'm getting so excited for conference. Every year Conference is just so amazing. Sister Krieser was telling me that her son Seth put it in a funny/ completely accurate way. Conference is like the super bowl for missionaries haha. It's true. It's been my favorite weekends of the year. I hope Uncle Junie and Aunt Peachy enjoy it :) Love yall keep up the amazing work! Elder Nair

23 September 2013

Hey yall! So good to hear from ya. Sorry that you're not feeling so well...Elder Lee has been sick as well. It's just that time of the year where things start going around. I learned a little trick that may or may not work but it's been working so far to help me not get whatever it is that Elder Lee has. It's simply that whenever someone in your vicinity (doesn't matter where at just in the surrounding area) coughs or sneezes, just hold your breath for a few seconds. The germs die in a matter of brief seconds so I guess it helps you to not catch colds from that. It's secondhand info from a pediatric doctor so it may or may not be true, but I figure it couldn't hurt. Definitely something I've already gotten into the habit of doing and will probably do for the rest of my life haha. Matt was baptized and confirmed this past weekend :) It was great. Things went so smoothly for that. We are for sure, for sure going to the temple now. I'm so excited about that! We'll figure out when exactly we go soon. I love the temple! It's been a very crazy month with all the success we've been having but it has ultimately all worked out great. The craziest times in life are the best times in life. Brandon is doing well, he's decided to get married! We're excited for him and looking forward to helping him work out all the details. He's working on living the Word of Wisdom still so we're pushing his baptism back to the 12th of October. He's going through a lot right now with his family but his dedication to the gospel will bless him so much. I'm excited to see how the gospel will continue to bless him. Keep it up with the missionary work back on the home-front. I'm excited for yalls success and perseverance to share the gospel. I know how many great and eternal blessings it will bring you. Zone Conference was fun. It's interesting to see some of the signs of becoming an older missionary....I can basically quote all of President Holm's little "catch-phrases" and his favorite topics of discussion haha. It's kind of funny. I'm just glad I still have so much time left out here. It's such rewarding work. That sounds like fun to have some of the family together for conference. I hope Aunt Peachy really enjoys it. Last conference we invited a member to invite one of her friends that lived in Alabama to watch conference. That was his first experience with the church. He really felt the Spirit, loved it, started meeting with the missionaries and was baptized 3 weeks later. So I definitely have a strong testimony of the power of general conference. I hope things keep going great for yall. Thank you so much for all the support and encouragement you give me! I appreciate it so much from the bottom of my heart. Knowing that yall are there to love and support me makes this so much better. I couldn't imagine doing this without yall. Love ya

16 September 2013

Hello from South Carolina! That sounds like a pretty cool meeting. I like when other religions can at least accept each other and get along. It's always a shame when you see people from another faith with so much anti-Mormon stuff instilled in their hearts. Our core doctrines are all pretty much the same but people get so anti'd that they think we worship Satan or something. It's a pretty weird part of being in the South but as we break down those barriers and keep sending missionaries out into the field, the stereotypes will be broken down little by little. It's cool though seeing that most people realize that the stereotypes aren't true. It depends on which area you serve in. On that note, I'm still here in Spartanburg with Elder Lee. Things are going great. We've been together for about 8 weeks now. It's a blast. There's so much success continuing to go on. We're working with this golden investigator Brandon who's really intent on changing his life. He came to church for the first time yesterday and loved it. His four year old niece that he babysits loves it too. She's so adorable haha. Babies and little kids are awesome. This work is still moving forward with great speed. This weekend Matt, the husband in a part member family is getting baptized. Brandon is on date to be baptized next weekend. He has some things to overcome but he's going to do it. He's being really strong and progressing greatly. The ward still seems pretty excited here. We're helping this awesome member family that just moved in a few months ago. The Leggitts. He served a mission in Canada. They're a great missionary-minded young couple and even brought a friend to church last week. He's going to a medical school in this area which is awesome because there's a lot of people that come from different parts of the country attending there and since most other churches aren't worldwide, a lot of them are looking for a church to go to. There's a good little group of Mormons going up there so it's quite exciting for the work. I'll for sure let you know about the temple trip. I'm so excited to go soon. We'll probably go the last week of the month. We have zone conference coming up this week so we get to travel to Greenville for that. Zone Conferences always pumps me up. Being a missionary is sweet. It's tough at times but I've never done anything in my life that has been so rewarding. I'm so happy to be out here. Love yall, Elder Nair