Today my mission will be discussed.

In the beginning of my mission I had no idea what was supposed to be so great about a mission and I was just going through the motions and doing and sayings that I saw others doing. One of the many things I had learned at the LTM was the desire to learn more about the Spanish language, but even more about this fellow Jesus Christ who was our savior according to my parents and to my surprise according to everyone else around me now. So I would read both to learn the Spanish language and about my Savior. So I read the Book of Mormon both in English and in Spanish, which I found to be an easier language to understand in the end, to better understand this wonderful book that had the gospel of Jesus Christ spelled out so clearly in it. I read the Bible in both languages and I read the book "Jesus the Christ" in Spanish all of this to help learn both the Spanish language and the Gospel of Jesus Christ which I was now teaching and how could one teach without a knowledge of what one was teaching? I remember a lot about a lot of my companions but especially about my first two companions, Elder George Larsgard who was the best Elder I have ever known except the Apostles and, Elder Kenneth Turpin who was the most selfish and stubborn person I have ever known. The first week I was a missionary I was in a threesome with Elder Larsgard and Elder Brinkerhoff who was from Stevensville Montana, he didn’t remember me but I did remember him as he was one of the brothersf the little girl, who I had hit in the head with a rock. Well the first day we went out to tract the neighborhood I was all excited and couldn’t wait to get started. We went out as a threesome and the first few doors we went to either Elder Larsgard or Elder Brinkerhoff would talk which I was fine with, then we came up to a door and Elder Larsgard said “OK Elder Nield it is now your turn” to which I said M·my turn? I d·don’t know how to which he said you just go up there and speak in English if the person at the door speaks English then you cn speak in English and if the person at the door speaks Spanish then you speak in Spanish. Well I went to the door and knocked, waited and just as I was about to turn around, a young lady came to the door and said “Buenos Dias” so I turned back and in very good Spanish said “Hello, we are Elders with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, have you ever heard of this church?” and she said “mande mé” or what so I repeated myself and she said the same thing when Elder Larsgard said to me speak up Elder Nield. The whole point of this story is that I was so afraid that nothing was coming out of my mouth even though it was moving and I could hear myself just fine, a problem I often found myself in during the mission. Well, that being a mouthful, I remember that not being able to drive my companions and I spent a lot of time walking and riding bikes through neighborhoods that one could get very hurt or dead were in not for the Spirit of the Lord being with us. I remember walking through a neighborhood in San Antonio when someone picked up a rock and threw it at us and then hearing is friends telling him that if he could not throw better than that… well I knew the Spirit of the Lord was with us and I knew that the gangster would have hit us with the rock if he could have, I also remember riding bikes along one day in Laredo when this german Shepard came out chasing my companion and I felt a prompting to get behind that dog and try to save my companion who was deathly afraid of dogs and was wobbling all over, so I came up behind the dog and bumped it with my front wheel and it fell over dead and I ended up crashing over the dog while my companion, don’t remember his name, gave me a hard time about not being able to get along with dogs. The grandest thing about any mission though is being to teach people the Gospel of Jesus Christ and watch them start to understand then go all the way to being baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then having the authority of giving this same person, same people, the gift of the Holy Ghost. When I went on the mission I didn’t know what I had caused to happen to myself; however, when I got home from my mission I could count the many blessings I had received from going on a mission for the Lord but today I can’t count that high. I remember that I had met my wife during these two years/ when I first met her I remember being told that she was the one all the Elders wanted to come back to marry and I said “She is just stuck and conceited, I wouldn’t waste my time” to which I later regretted saying more than once. Tomorrow we will go on to my marriage if you dare.