Nathan got reassigned to Nashville, Tennessee while waiting on his Visa to Ecuador. He flew from the Provo MTC to Nashville on September 21st, arriving with some other incoming missionaries. He got to check in with me for a minute that evening to let me know he arrived. We didn't talk to him for another week though. However, a friend of mine from college sent me a photo the next morning of Nathan standing by a lady who was related to her husband. They had discovered a connection from Oklahoma when Nathan talked about his family. That lady and her husband had housed those incoming missionaries in their home that first night.
Nathan's companion is Elder Rees (from Utah). They have an apartment in Mt. Juliet and also have a car, but their miles are very limited so they can't drive around all over Nashville. His P-Day is on Wednesdays. They went to the temple on one of those days by taking a train down to the temple. Nathan is now discovering what it's like to cook meals every day and how much groceries cost. He made spaghetti for the first time. They have a Sonic nearby, so they go there quite a bit. They get to play Chess and board games sometimes on P-days. The missionary work is hard because they aren't allowed to knock on doors to find people to teach. They have to wander around parks and malls and places where people are already out and about to meet people. They have to make several contacts to get just a few people to teach. One day they contacted 100 people and got one lesson out of those people they met.
He's learning to follow the Spirit. Recently, they were in the mall sitting down on a bench. They got the feeling they shouldn't be there and got up to wander somewhere else. They ended up in the Goodwill store, donating a couple of Book of Mormons and handing out some pamphlets. Later that evening, their dinner appointment had to cancel due to illness, but they paid for Little Caesars Pizza. When they went to pick up the pizza, they crossed paths again with a couple who they had given a pamphlet to at the Goodwill store earlier. That couple was interested in learning more. Crossing paths with them all started with the prompting to get up off the bench at the mall. It was also interesting that their dinner appointment needed to get cancelled to end up at the pizza place. The Lord works in mysterious ways!
With another person, they already had a Book of Mormon and had been reading it. They called up Nathan and said something like, "I love this book! When are you going to teach me more?" That doesn't happen very often. I'm not sure what happened after that, but that was a highlight of that day for Nathan. It's been pretty challenging, but he's still loving the work.
He flew to the consulate in Phoenix on October 5th to get his Visa for Ecuador. He'll head out on November 1st, so he's had about 6 weeks in Nashville. He's enjoying the beautiful fall colors there. The sister missionaries got Nathan and his companion the skeleton shirts.
