Bonus letters

A couple of people have generously shared letters or excerpts from letters that Nick wrote to them.

Hello Andersons!!

I just got your valentines in the mail yesterday and I love them!  Thank you so much!  I sincerely hope and pray that you all also remember how much love your Father in Heaven has for you all.  He loves us all so much more than we can imagine!  I am so thankful for that!

I can't believe it's already Feb!  And it's almost halfway over!  This whole mission thing is going by way too fast.  I swear, I blink my eyes and a transfer is already over!  I mean transfers are on the 17th, exactly one week from today.  His handwriting is pretty bad and this is the best translation I could come up with for the following sentence -  Wasent? Wasn't? Wase't? (eh, I can't English today) I could have sworn I just got assigned Elder Guthrie as a companion last week seriously.  Is normal life this fast too?  College? Kids? Marriage? (ya I meant to write that in a different order.)  If life is this fast too I'll be in the spirit world before I know it!

Oh!  So I finally got the chance to make some curry today!  The entire house smells Fantastic!  While for some reason it didn't quite taste the same to me, It was still great!  I'm not sure I liked the celery, but the bell peppers were a must for me. :)

Also thank you so much for the awesome letter! I am so grateful that The Lord has shown me how great writing/reading letters are!  Now I just need time :)

I absolutely love going to members homes and talking to them! I definitely totally have favorites in the ward here, and it really is one of the saddest things to have to cancel a dinner with them.  Anything I wish they would/wouldn't do?  Well, it's really uncomfortable when members purposely sit you next to their YSA (Young Single Adult) daughter so that we hopefully can have a good influence on her.  It Is So Awkward!  It's already happened several times and it's the worst!  Other than that, not too much.  Oh, don't let the missionaries get away with talking about topics like the weather.  I wish members called me on it earlier,  I had to read a General Conference talk to change my ways a few months back, thankfully.  But some of my favorite discussions have been those centered on the gospel, honestly.

Oh, It's 10:26,  I should probably go to bed now, love you guys!  I'll try to write more tomorrow! Good Night!

(Insert Sleep Here)

Alright so good morning!  Ugh, I feel like such a bad missionary right now.  I accidentally left the phone in the car again, so we didn't have an alarm to wake us up, we both slept in 35 min! Completely missing morning workout :/ Oh well, it happens.

Anyways, thank you so much for the letter again! I absolutely love hearing from people back home.  i know that Dani asked me this week on how I felt getting news  from home and I'm totally ok with it!  It's been nice (knock on wood) but I haven't really gotten homesick.

Thank you so much for the scripture :)  Lately I have found tons of comfort in D&C 12:8, While it's an old one, It's still my favorite.  It is literally a promise from the Lord that as long as we have love and care about those things that the Lord has entrusted to our care (The people around us, my area, family, etc) Then we will be successful in the Lord's eyes and we will be blessed. :)

I hope that you all have such a wonderful week, I love you all!
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
-Elder Berrett

PS Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that I've turned into a dog lover.  Being in Montana, where I swear it's a law that you have to own at least 2, I have fallen in love with them :)

And here's part of a letter his friend Dani shared with us - 

There was some great stuff in this letter I just got today :)

*I told him I have a sudden obsession with rubik's cubes*

"I honestly never got too much into those, they mostly just frustrated me. I remember that I used to have one but I threw it against the wall too many times that it sorta just fell apart. I don't normally get frustrated but man those things. I know that there's a "trick" but I just wanted to solve it by myself sooo badly!

"I've been reflecting a lot on how much I have changed in the last year and it's been crazy. I love how the Lord truly manages to work the Refiner's Fire so beautifully. (By the way if you haven't seen the Refiner's Fire Mormon Message, do yourself a favor and look it up, it kills me every time) Also, you know what, I almost took our little night stand Christmas tree down, but I've decided that I like the reminder it gives me too much. While unfortunately we don't have any pictures of Christ or temples to adorn our apartment with, (but we do have Darth Vader) the Christmas tree provides a beautiful reminder of our Savior and I have found so much joy in waking up and seeing it every morning. 

"Oh! so we had glorious [there was dashes all around the word glorious like rays of sunshine] 45 degree weather all week and all of the snow is finally starting to melt :) It's been so nice, we even have a little stream that runs past our house now!

"So today we had kind of an interesting dinner lesson with a family. At first it was totally normal, we had pizza, talked about some less actives that they are working with.... then a poor wayward son started speaking up. Unfortunately he was a *little* high at the moment. Anyways he started ranting about how prideful we all are that we think that we worship such a loving God who will forgive our sins through Jesus Christ and how maybe only 15% of all sins will get forgiven, oh and how meth is okay. I'll admit, I was shocked. I had no idea what to do as his mom started Bible Bashing with him and started trying to calm him down. Thankfully we were able to intervene with a lesson, but before we could start the mom requested a blessing. It. Was. Amazing! Complete opposite from before, the spirit was so strong as we blessed her for her health and then, in the blessing, testified of God's love for her and for her family! So while Satan tried to completely ruin this poor family's evening, it totally turned around as we all FELT the spirit literally kick out Satan and comfort us all. I know that God is truly a loving Heavenly Father and that, through Jesus Christ [rays of sunshine around 'Jesus Christ' too] we truly all can be saved :)"