Dear Family, 

Everything has been going just super fantastic, okay it's been hard, but my goal for this week has been to be positive.  I want to tell you a little experience I had that has changed my perspective   So every week we have the opportunity to go to the library and familiarize ourselves with mormon.org.  I was watching one of the 'I am a mormon' ones about this 19 year old professional rugby player.  He was offered this huge chunk of money to keep playing professional rugby but turned it down to serve a mission the thing that bothered me was how happy he seemed.  He had given up so much but was happy and I realized that was because he knew all that he has to gain.  So I decided that it's not about everything I'm giving up,  it's about the gift I have, to give everyone to lift them up, and all I can gain from that.  Don't get me wrong things are still incredibly hard and it is an uphill battle getting into this mindset every day, but it has definitely helped me through.  So Boom, there's my spiritual thought.  So I think it would be a good idea to keep some money on my card every month just for emergencies.  Let me tell you a story that will help you understand why.  We were playing basketball with a sweet potential named Dontavia, this sweet black 17 year old who balls it up.  Anyways the ball was going out so I ran really fast and saved it and slid on my knees and banged both of my knees into to sharp corner.  I got cut up pretty bad, when we went home and showed the Zone Leaders my cut they said we should go to the hospital.  So the next day we went to the hospital and even with the insurance I had to pay like a 40 dollar co-pay thing and that is a big chunk of my msf which is suppose to be used for food, which we are running low on.  So it might be good to keep some emergency type of funds on my other debit card. 

Mom- 

I sent a letter with some pictures and told you all of the stuff I have eaten and I think you will be very proud of me when you read it.  The food here is pretty good!  I'm not gonna lie.  I have had to try a lot of stuff that is just disgusting but for the most part it is pretty good food.  Virginia is so diverse though with all that I eat it's almost like I'm on a foreign mission.  Elder Kay and I even tracted into a little Asian lady who didn't speak a lick of English we had to try and communicate using small words and hand gestures.  It was quite the experience to say the least.  We have dinners every night! I don't think I've cooked for myself more than five times so far, the ward is so good about feeding the missionaries and they just love us! I have to say that I miss my good old home cookin', no one holds a candle to mom's home cookin' :)   They are all very nice and super hospitable and you can really feel their love for the missionaries and the work that they do, and it has made things a whole lot easier.  That's so cool that you had the missionaries over! It's cool to hear the other side of things, and the effect we have on families.

Here's a little bit from a letter I got from Nick in the mail today:

So you want to know what a day in the life of Elder Kay and Elder Sahagun is like? Well honestly it would depend on the day. Everyday is so different than the next. On Tuesdays and some other days we volunteer at a food pantry. We help weigh and sort food and all that fun stuff. We stop by the Worthen's as often as we can and visit with them. Every Saturday we teach our only truly progressing investigator his name is Robert. We found him one day smoking on his lawn when we were tracting. We've been teaching him for about four weeks now. This poor guy has it pretty rough. He's a schizophrenic, bi-polar,who's done drugs and stuff and he still lives with his mom. He is really nice once you get a chance to talk to him. The last time that we saw him he told us that he had decided to quit smoking and that he wants to come to church this next Sunday so he can really decide for himself if he wants to stick with it. It was pretty cool to hear all that and mainly with him I have learned how to love people not for who they are but who they can become. He has so much potential and I'm so excited for him!! Every Friday we go to a recent convert's house for dinner. The Wagner's, I'm not gonna lie being around that house is hard and and has been a great test of my patience and of holding down weird foods. I'm telling you you'd be so proud of some of the things I've muscled down. One night at the Wagner's was seafood. There were muscles,clams, Salmon, Shrimp, Craw-fish , and yes I tried and ate all of them all and no I did not enjoy any of them. The craw-fish was probably the nastiest. So let me explain to you how to eat these things. Step 1:Take the live craw-fish in both hands with the tail in one hand and the head and claws in the other. Step 2: Pull on each end of the craw-fish until it has separated into two pieces. Step 3:Take the tail end of the craw-fish and suck everything that is inside into your mouth and finally the last and most trying step. Step 4: Chew and swallow. Some of the other things I've tried consist of lamb, peas, carrots, beef stew, and probably a whole lot of other things I can't remember. Oh at one at the houses we had some interesting Mediterranean Food. Man the things I'm willing to do in the service of the Lord surprise me at times.We also go and help out at the local nursing home for people with Dementia and Alzheimers as often as we can. On Easter we went there and helped the old people with an Easter Egg hunt. I pushed this old black lady around in a wheelchair and she would tell me when she saw an egg and I'd push her over to it. After that we did a egg toss with hard boiled eggs. I was surprised at how coordinated some of these 80 and 90 year olds were. Man I love those old folks. They just warm my heart.

Keep writing me letters and praying for me. Let me know what's going on at home.

I love you all so much and miss you.  The church is so true, and I'm so thankful to be a servant of the Lord at this time. 

 I can't wait to hear from you all.  Did you notice that? :)

Love, Elder Sahagun 

Dear family,

 I'm been having a very rough time, this has probably been one of the hardest month and a half of my life. I've been super homesick and my anxiety doesn't help with it at all.  It's getting better though I think.. at least I hope so.  I'll tell you all about my missionary experiences in my letter I write today along with some pictures to help illustrate some things.  Just know that i'm safe and making it through day by day.  I will tell you how crazy it was when they announced a temple in Cedar City!!! We were watching conference at the chapel with the other missionaries and everyone else who didn't get it on there house.  When he made that announcement I dropped my notebook and was like WHAT?!?!?! i had to explain to a lot of people later that that was where I used to live ha ha  anyway I love you and miss you all very much, keep praying for me and all the other missionaries in the world, because missionary work is hard if you'd believe it ha ha ;) I love you  so so much! 

I've been having a lot of bike problems too, me and Elder Kay that is.  One day when we were riding down the road he noticed that his pedal was a little lose, so naturally we didn't think anything of it and just kept on riding.  We got to the next stoplight of this insanely sketchy intersection.  it has no cross walks or anything so you just have to know, and then go! so it was a good time for us to go so we started pedaling our little hearts out.  So about the middle of the road Elder Kay's Pedal comes clean off but he just keeps on going and yells, Pick that up! so i stop in the middle of the road and scrambled to get all of his stuff together and went across the road.  So for a while we were trekking it out on foot.  Once we got his bike fixed i was super excited to get back on bikes, So we set out to teach this guy we had tracted into and all the sudden my ride felt a little more bumpy than normal and i looked back and yeah you guessed it, my first flat tire.  we had to cancel with our appointment later that night we went to go get an inner tube at Wal Mart, on my bike it says 20" so I bought a 20" inner tube wouldn't you know it, the wrong size.  So had to return that.  bought another tire and that one turned out to be the wrong size too.  so it turned out that we needed to go to the bike shop where i had bought it at which is close to Midlothian, which is way to far away to drive to on a normal day.  So today I will be buying, hopefully for the last time, an inner tube. In the mean time I was riding Elder Harrison's bike it is junk! Actually yesterday we were riding out to go visit a less active kid with a crazy controlling mother and that pedal broke too! So we walked all the way back to the apartment to get another bike that we could ride.  I was pretty upset and wondering why all of this stuff was happening,  but little did I know  that God was about to answer my question.  As we were riding away Elder Kay said Hi to one of our neighbors,  this little black girl who looked like she could of been 14 years old. She looked like she was in pretty bad shape, she asked if we had a cell phone and we gave her ours.  All of the sudden this younger black guy comes storming out and starts ripping into us " uh uh no y'all need to get stepping off my property go on get out" we tried to explain that we were just letting her use our cell phone and he said. " well y'all better do that on the other side of the street before Shtuff get real... he didn't say shtuff.  so we walked a little further into the street she called about ten numbers and finally we asked if she was alright,  she said that she was fine and just needed to get out of there.  By what she explained and looked like hinted that she was in a very abusive relationship. I realized then that if I never would of had all of those bike problems we never would of had to go back to the house and we never would of been there for her when she needed us.  It's incredible how short term our perspective can be at times, and all that time God's looking down with his eternal perspective knowing that all of our trials are for our good.   It is just a matter of putting our trust in him,  anyway I have to go now. Tell dad that I will write him a letter, ahhrrgghh communicating is so stressful at times. I love you all and will write a letter with more stuff love you !

Elder Sahagun 

Dear Mother,Father,Family, and whoever else reads this, 

I was so happy that Sister Worthen called you, she is the sweetest old lady you'll ever meet.  She is about 80 something and her husband is about 87 or so, we go over there every other day and help him get some exercise.  The first day we went there we called their house first and asked if there was anything we could do for them and she said, " i usually don't say yes, but i do need your help" so we went over there and she invited us in.  Her husband was sitting in a chair across from us and he stuttered a little bit when he spoke which was weird.  She started to explain how he had a condition and that's why she asked us to come over.  Right as she started to explain a little about what his condition was brother Worthen started kicking and flailing involuntarily.  It turned out that he had a condition that no doctors can explain, where he has seizures but doesn't black out he just stays awake.  and this poor old lady was having a really hard time trying to take care of him all by herself.  The day we came over she said that she was ready to just cry and give up and just really needed help and she said that it was in that very instant that we called.  We gave brother Worthen a Priesthood blessing and the spirit was so strong.  Before we had come Brother Worthen had had 20+ "spells", after we gave him a priesthood blessing he had two.  This last week has been super hard, I've been wondering what in the world I am doing so far from home,  and questioning if i can do this for the next two years of my life, and I realized with that experience why I'm out here.  To help the people, member and non-member, of Virginia.  It's still been really hard since, but I know that it will be worth it. Well that's my missionary story for this week.  So anyways....... Elder Kay is my companion, he is pretty much exactly like me, he didn't like to study, he loves music and sports and is super laid back, and I love him to death!  he is from Mapleton, Utah, which is up north close to Provo.  He's been super cool and helped me out a lot.  I'll send you a letter with pictures and stuff.  Yes, Please send Taylor (my guitar) to California, and please tell Chad to play her nicely and love her like a crazy cat lady loves her first born kitten.  yeah, also, please send me my iPod   I Am DYING without music so if you could do that that would be awesome,  well I don't have a lot of time left so I love you and miss you guys A LOT!!  the church is true!! and I will send you another email next week. Love you guys!

Love, Elder Sahagun 

Chester, Virginia

Dear Mom and all y'all, 

Man I can't hardly believe that I'm in Virginia it all feels so unreal.  At times I'll totally forget that I'm actually in Virginia and then I'll catch myself and it's like whoa.... I'm in Virginia.  I have some pictures that I want to send to you, but they need some explaining so I think I'm going to print them out at Wal Mart and write on the back of them and then send them to you and that will be my letter.  Man the last four days have been so crazy I don't even know where to start.  When I first got to the transfer meeting I was so nervous to meet my new companion, but I saw Elder Holman, (Jordan Holman) it was so crazy and so nice to see a familiar face.  So Anyways (Nacho Libre accent) I was sitting with my district at the transfer meeting and all of the new trainers were sitting up in the stand, and one by one all of the friends I had made in the past two weeks were off with a new companion in a new area.  It was kinda sad, but I have an awesome companion that has helped me so much, he's actually kinda like me, he's into sports, he likes music, he didn't study a lot in high school and didn't enjoy the work.  His name is Elder Kay, kinda cool because in Men In Black Will Smiths Trainer's name is Agent K and Elder Kay is my trainer ha ha i just thought that was funny.  We get along really well, and I've been super homesick these past couple of days and he's been so cool about it and really helped me through it.  So my area is  Chester, Virginia and I am serving in the Swift Creek Ward, and man I just love the ward already.  My first Sunday I was sitting in the congregation and without warning the second counselor announced that I would be giving the opening prayer, I guess it's their new missionary "initiation" or at least that's what Brother Buis told me.  My first night one of the brothers in my ward Brother Harris took us out to dinner to this nice Italian restaurant.  Brother Harris kinda resembles John Goodman, if you know who that is, he has the biggest heart though and I just love him and our ward.  So I am living in an apartment with four other Elders at the time being.  It's kinda crazy having six missionaries in one place, but in about a week and a half I think me and Elder Kay are moving into a nice missionary home with the Zone Leaders.  That will be nice. So if you want to send a letter any time between now and then just send it to the mission home (the address in my missionary packet) and they will forward it to me.  I'll give you my new address when I'm in a more permanent location.  We have some investigators but we haven't been able to meet them yet because where we are living is 8 miles away from where they live so we can't bike there and back so we've just been going around with our zone leaders that we are rooming with.  Well tell everyone that I love them and that I miss them for me. I really wish I could come home and be with y'all but I am on the Lord's errand for the next two years.  I Love you Muchly and I hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Elder Sahagun 

Week Two-Virginia or BUST!!

So I got a call today from the Atlanta,GA. Airport from Elder Sahagun! he sounded great! He said he woke up at 4:00 a.m. to leave for the salt Lake Airport. He told me that there were 27 missionaries on their way to Virginia. (17 Elders and 10 Sisters) He was super excited to be on his way! He said it was hard to get all his stuff in his suitcase. (Refer to Heather's Blog) It's a funny story. It was great to talk to him for that brief time. I later got a phone call from Sis. Burton who is a missionary in the office in Virginia! She just called to let me know that all of  the missionaries had arrived safely, that they had been fed, and were having interviews with their mission president. They'll be meeting their trainers and then heading out to their new areas in the morning! Sis. Burton was super sweet. Her son is the principal of East Elementary where Ray taught. Her grandsons went to high school with Nick and they told her to watch for Elder Sahagun and to say, "Hello" for them. Such a small world!  I will post more pictures and letters from Elder Sahagun  as I get them!
It's so great to have two missionaries serving! Such a blessing for our family!

I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go!

MTC Week One

Dear Family,               Feb. 27, 2013
Ahhhh!! Man this is so crazy I can't believe I'm out here it's so exciting!! Okay so pretty much the most overwhelming day of my life. There is so much to take in and so little time. So after you guys left my host got me all set up. I got my badges (Which are awesome by the way) and took me to my classroom that my district will be for the two weeks that I'm here. My district is awesome. My companion Elder Moffett is so chill. He's from Idaho and kind of likes the same stuff that Jared does. I'm really excited to get to know him better. We are also pretty cool with the other Elders that we are rooming with. Elder Crawford is a basketball guy and Elder Bothell is just Elder Bothell, haha! They're all great. The spirit here is just amazing. We had a little demo lesson thing where we have a pretend investigator and the class takes turns taking over the lesson and our instructor (This awesome French guy , who made a Star Wars reference which makes him even awesomer) just talked to us after each one. At the end he told us that we were terrible teachers, haha, it was kind of true. So I'm kind of running out of time...One more thing, our room had a pull up contest with a missionary backpack on. I got eight but Elder Crawford totally showed me up and got like 12 ha! Well I hope all is well . I love you all very much, the Church is awesome!!
Love, 
Elder Sahagun

                                 P.S. I SAW HEATHER RIGHT WHEN I WALKED IN!

The Mission Begins Here....Provo,Utah- Missionary Training Center

Today is the day! Elder Nick Sahagun reports to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah! There was a knock on the door of our home in Cedar city at about 8:30. Nick's friends,Spencer Crankshaw and his little brother Andersen, and Jared Delaigle were her to see Nick off. Nick was taking one last opportunity to sleep in before his missionary schedule of waking up at 6:30 every morning for the next two years began. His friends were very excited to be able to be the ones to "motivate"  him to get out of bed one last time before he left!! They've been great friends and they'll each be leaving soon to serve their own missions.
Our family took the three hour drive to Provo from Enoch as a family. We listened to the sounds of hymns being played with an acoustic guitar per Nick's request. Tyler, Jessica, and Nick entertained themselves with Tic-Tac-Toe championships, thumbs wars, drawing pictures, and twenty questions. Nick stumped us with his choice of a missionary name tag. We had a quick lunch, drove to the temple took some family pictures and then it was time to drop him off. We said a quick goodbye and he was off!  I know that he will be a wonderful missionary and that his testimony of Jesus Christ will be a blessing to many.

Go Forth with Faith!