FEBRUARY

They set another baptism date for February 26th with a lady who has been taught for over two years. Her husband is a less active member, and three of her daughters were baptized a year ago, so they're very excited to see her make that step. Their only concern is that her church attendance isn't what they'd like to see, but she's definitely ready. A few weeks later, Nick said Christina and her eight year old daughter were getting baptized. He was very excited about that. But the best news of all was that the bishop decided that Joey, Christina's husband could baptize them!

They're teaching a family named the Halls who feeds them dinner every Monday. Sister Hall is an amazing cook and wants to cook bear for Nick (yes I said bear). She is looking into where to get the meat. They were talking about foods and how small town Idaho can eat weird things and she said she loved bear. Hmm...Nick would have never eaten that if I had cooked it (not that I would).

On Valentine's Day Nick decided to read the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel before he goes home in June. If he finishes it sooner he'll read the New Testament. Some missionaries do something called the Doctrine and Covenants countdown. They read a section each day to know how many days they have left until they go home. He would really like to read it cover to cover, but he doesn't want a daily reminder of when he's going home. Although he's super excited to go home, he knows that he needs to stay focused on the current task.

One of the ward mission leaders has another family over every Monday night for the lessons as a family home evening. One night they wanted to switch it up and do something fun, so they all went bowling.

They met two new cool families, the Bowkers and the Ciccarillos. Brother Bowker's wife is a member, and he says that as of now he is not interested in baptism but he would like them to come over and talk to him, so it's all good. The Ciccarillos have been a less active family, but the bishop said they want to go to the temple, so the missionaries started visiting them. They're really laid back and super cool, and love having the missionaries over.

They met another new investigator named Carol. She is golden. She hasn't even had the first lesson yet, but is 99 percent sure the church is true and just wants to give it a little more time before she gets baptized. She is really cool and is good about coming to church every week. She loves it and her beliefs are already right there with ours. Later in the month, Carol committed to baptism. She wants a little more time, even though she knows it's true, so it'll be just after Easter.

For p-day they had some boxing matches in addition to playing basketball. It was Nick's first match because he's small and no one really matches up. The only guy that does has backed out every time. So Nick boxed with Elder Reynolds who has ten pounds on him, and Nick beat him. It was a blowout, but it was fun.

Nick got a 17 minute lecture from the mission president because he had six people in his car for about two miles. But Nick thinks it's not important enough to worry about. But a week or so later, President Cannon came to take Nick and his companion out to lunch, just to tell them they're doing a good job. And they went to Cafe Rio, so Nick really liked that.

They had big leadership meetings. The meetings are frustrating in some ways and awesome in in other ways. Awesome because you get to hear a lot of good stuff from President Cannon, and the discussions they have there are great. Also they learn a lot about how to be better teachers But the frustrating part is the suck-up people that go crazy there. The two missionaries that are assistants to the prez are way cool. They knew Nick was keeping track of who was gunning up or sucking up the most so they kept looking over at Nick when somebody did, or they'd come up to him as ask who was winning. I won't give the name of the winner.

Nick go to go back to Kuna for a baptism. 6 of the 7 members of the Erickson family were baptized. One daughter is too young. Nick said it was amazing to him. It was the second time he's seen a whole family get baptized. It's always the best to see a family do that and then talk about wanting to be sealed.

The met a guy named Ken who is old and pretty crazy. He's been taught by the missionaries before. They asked how his day had been going and he told them it was horrible because he only has TV to kep him company right now and the cable people had stopped by to shut it off. sister Schieflebein (a member in the area) was with them, and there was a rifle mounted on the wall. So she tried to lighten the mood by joking and asking if he chased them off with the rifle. He said "no, I chased them of with this," and he held up a hand gun. Nick's companion asked to see it, and Ken told him to be careful because it was loaded. So Ken had chased around the cable company with a loaded handgun!

There was a gas leak in the home where Nick lives, which was a pretty scary. But he said they got it fixed right away. He said it was still a little scary going to sleep that night because he personally knew one of the missionaries who was killed from carbon monoxide poisoning in his sleep. Hmm...I thought I sent Nick a carbon monoxide detector.

And he mentioned later in the month that the area would be going crazy with baptisms if it wasn't for parole.