A Very Bad Week :(

So I just figured out why I've had a very bad case of BWB (Blog Writer's Block). This is a very hard thing to write about and I just didn't want to do it. Nevertheless, it deeply affected Nick and his mission, so here it is. One night Melissa was texting me telling me that she was also texting a friend from home who said he was on the phone with Nick. On the phone with Nick? On a Thursday night in February? What the heck was going on? Of course, I wonder if he's goofing off, I mean we are talking about Nick. It was so hard to wait until the next P-Day to find out. I should have trusted him, and I should have remembered that the last email I'd sent Nick told him the names the two missionaries who died in Romania. I didn't expect it to affect Nick much, but actually one of them was a friend of his from BYU. One of a huge group all preparing for their missions during freshman year. It hit Nick very hard to hear about this. His friend was McKay Burrows (and his companion Jace Edwards), who died accidentally in his sleep from natural gas. Nick said,

"I was pretty upset by it, that kind of thing really makes you think. He was just on his
mission doing the same thing I am, but he doesn't get to come home."

He cleared a two-day leave with the mission president, and swapped companions, spending time with his good friend Elder Neville in Twin Falls. He'd needed to talk to a friend and wanted to call home, but thought that was too much to ask. So he called Eric, and it really helped pick him up. About the time off, he said,

"It really gave me a clear perspective and helped me see how fragile everything is, and how
much I want to do this. So I came back a few days later and I'm working even harder, and
I've tightened up on a few rules."

I'm very proud of Nick that he let this have a positive instead of a negative effect on him. But I'm writing this through tears as I can't imagine how difficult this is for the parents of those two boys. It just made me miss Nick even more and wish that I could see him.