Elder Eppich Coming home this week!

Well it is about time to get Elder Eppich home!

He will be in @ 5:00 p.m on Wednesday!

We are very excited for this day to be here but also

realize that he has lots of decisions to make now to decide

where his path will take him.

I asked him if he was excited! He said, "Mom I have so many emotions

going on right now. Excitement, nervousness, sadness, scared, joy, concern

all in one. But YES! Pretty excited to see his family. 2 years is a long time

to go without seeing any family but he has LOVED his mission and he can

see that he has grown spiritually and has matured. Many wonderful things

are learned as a young woman or your man leaves their family to serve the

Lord for 2 years. We look forward to having him home and get to know him.

We will be in the process of moving into our new home back on the farm and we

are pretty excited about that. Possibly I will add one more post and then this

blog will be history for Nate.

Thank You all for your support for Nate during his service.

Love you all!

Two and half more weeks till Elder Eppich returns

Hey! Thought I would write a bit about Elder Eppich. He is going strong, doing his best to not get to trunky about coming home. His companion doesn't help. He reminds him whenever they see a plane that he will be on it soon. They have been working hard there in Lubbock. They opened up a new area. He is still on a bike! The office loaned him a bike till he goes home since he got his stolen in Artesia. He is having a day surgery on Tuesday to take a lump or a large lump and many small ones out of him lip. He hopes to be healed by the time he returns home. I think he is kind of scared. His blood pressure was very high when he went in for an exam. He was worried that something was wrong with him. I think it was a case of "Scared of the Dr." lol. He has really enjoyed his mission and looks forward to the next phase of his life. He will be arriving home at 5:00 p.m. on March 21st at the Pasco airport. We can't hardly wait.

He has turned 21 tomorrow March 4th. Can't believe that our baby is 21.

January 12,2012

Dear Mom & Dad;

Well, how is my most favorite people in the world? I can only imagine that everything is amazing for y'all. I am sure y'all are running around like a chicken with your head cut off. I am pretty excited to help y'all with the landscaping on the house. I am pretty good at service projects. lol What all has to be done on the landscaping? Well everything is pretty much going good here in Artisia. I am way excited for this Saturday. James is getting baptized. It has been a really long road for this guy. He has gone through a lot of missionaries. He told us a few weeks ago that he gives up. He has been trying to prove us wrong for so long but he hasn't been able to. He said since he has stopped trying to prove us wrong everything just seems right. He feels a lot better about what we teach, his doubts have gone away. He is really nervous but very excited . Elder Davis and I are too, lol. There is this other lady that we knocked into. Her name is Rayna, she is so solid. We taught her about Christ church being restored and how we are the only church that has the authority to baptize. We told her that this is the way she can come to know this is true by reading the Book of Mormon. The lesson went so smooth. It was probably one of the best lessons I have ever taught. The spirit was so strong and Rayna was really enjoying it. She kept wanting to know what was next . We went over to teach her tonight, we talked to her about baptism and the importance of it. How that is the first step to have an eternal family. We were able to set a date for her today for baptism on Feb. 4th. I hope it goes through. It is amazing what the Lord puts in your path as you are diligent. In D&C 75:3-5 it talks about the fact that if we go forth without idleness and lift up our voices and be faithful we will be laden with many sheaves upon our backs. I know this to be true. It happened with Rayna and many other times through out my mission. If you have faith, God will provide.

Wow! I can't believe it is 2012 already. I need to revisit a resolution that I had years ago when I was loosing weight. I decided to resolve not to eat candy or drink pop and I want to read all the way through the Bible and the Book of Mormon when I get home. Wish me luck. It sounds like things were a bit boring for New Years. That's ok I went to be at 10:30. So Kacie went to extreme bull riding on New Years. Didn't know that they had that in Tri-Cities. That is crazy what I am hearing about the whole basketball thing in Connell. Sure hope it all gets straightened out. Mom have you been able to get those vitamins for me? About Taylor's buddy. I have asked around to the other boarder patrol guards here in the branch and none of them know him. Does he go to church or has he left training already. We have a branch here but we will be a ward real soon. Well I had better get going. I hope everything is going great for y'all. Love y'all lots. See y'all soon.

Love Elder Eppich

Long time with no letters to post December 28, 2011

Dear Mom & Dad;

Well how's is life treating y'all? Well as y'all know by now I am sure, I am now in Artesia New Mexico. I am pretty surprised that I got transferred again. I think this is probably where I will end up finishing my mission, I hope anyway since I have been doing a lot of packing lately. I have a lot of stuff that I don't know what to do with right now. I think I will need to start sending somethings home as I only want to come home with l bag. Artesia is pretty sweet. It is a smaller town. There is about 10,000 people that live here. Oh! They are way good at football here. Their stadium is so big here. It is bigger than most college ones. The ward here I hear is not the most active. We have a lot of boarder patrol people here. It is one of the biggest training facilities for law training. So they are not the best at missionary work so we have some work to do. There are some really cool families here, the Whites, the Heists and a few other families but I don't remember their names. There is this one guy his name is John and he is 75. He pretty much takes care of the missionaries, feed us and buys our food and drags us around. In fact I got my bike stolen and he insisted on buying me a new one. I argued with him but I didn't win. He is really giving. He makes us breakfast every Thursday. He is a way good cook. Hope I don't gain to much weight. I was pretty surprised because when I got here I found out I was serving with Elder Davis again. They don't tell the missionaries where they are getting transferred to or who they will serve with until they get to their new area. We were real surprised. It's way crazy! We were both shocked but pretty stoked. I served with him in San Angelo if you remember. We should do good here. We gotta do a lot of knocking. The last Elders didn't have much going here. There is this guy named James. He is pretty crazy. You can tell that he is pretty down. We actually set a date with him the night that I got here. It is for Jan. 14th. I hope it goes through. I am pretty positive that it will happen this transfer. I will continue to update y'all on that. Next we have Cassi and her family. She has 2 daughters that are baptized, then 3 boys that are 12,10,8 and they aren't baptized. I haven't meet them yet. They seem to be coming along pretty good. That's about it though. Everyone else either doesn't keep commitments or won't listen. We need to find some more sound people. Well everything is going pretty good. Trying to keep myself going strong till the end. Don't want to get to trunky, lol! Well I hope everything is going good for you. How is the house coming along. Is it close to being finished? Y'all should send more photos for me to see and I will try to get some out to you. How are all the kids doing? Did everyone get back safe from Christmas. Oh! Mom! I sent the Christmas tree home, thanks for that. Well I better get going. Love y'all all , Take Care!

Love Elder Eppich

P.S. What are y'all doing for the New Year? Happy New Year!

Having Snow in Abilene, Texas Dec, 2011

Well we got our e-mailing back. I didn't know how much I love the e-mailing system. Dad I don't know how you did it on your mission. lol I sure did miss e-mailing and knowing what was going on right then at that moment. Pretty grateful for small things. So for Christmas we get to Skype or video phone. President just sent us all an e-mail telling us of this opportunity. I just wanted to let you know so that we could do that if you want to. Let me know what y'all want to do , I am down with whatever y'all decide. I would like to do the video phone so I can see everyone since it has been so long, lol. Mom I still haven't gotten my box with my little tree in it. I thought you had said you sent it and I wanted to make sure it didn't get lost in the mail. It doesn't feel like Christmas without my little tree. lol Thanks! Well the weather here has been freezing cold, we have been down in the 20's and let me tell you it is not one bit of fun riding bikes in that kind of weather, lol. Abilene has gotten it's first snow fall. We got a whole 1/4 inch. Ya! we are moving up in the world here. They said a long time ago it snowed a whole 1/2 foot, Ha I didn't know weather to act surprised or just be like, "oh that's cool. We get 4 times that much in Washington. lol My comps and I are getting along great! They are pretty funny guys to be with. We get some pretty good laughs while we are tracting and out working. I am pretty excited for when I don't have to go into the bathroom to be alone. Ha Ha! So how is everything back home? Anything new or fun you all have been up to? How is the house looking? Have ya'll started working on the inside yet? When are ya'll expected to be in? I get it! Ya'll are delaying the move in so I can help , right! lol
Did ya'll get those pictures I sent home? Hope you liked them. Before I forget. Dad , Happy Birthday, also can you tell little Taylor Happy Birthday for me too.
Well a little about the area. We are getting a bit frustrated about everything that has gone on here. We find new people and we all get so excited and they seem so strong and then we can never get ahold of them. We have been having that a lot. So we don't have to many solid people right now. We are working hard towards positive things to happen. We do have a girl named Hannah and her boyfriend named Toby. He is a less active member that is trying to get back into going to Church. She keeps her commitments but it is hard for her to get to church cuz she works on Sundays. I think she is done working after Christmas though. Then she is going to be having a baby here in February so we will see what happens. Then we have Eric. Eric isa guy that always tells us that he doesn't have time to read the Book of Mormon, but then whenever we go over to his house he is playing computer games. We taught him last night and he tried to bring up every excuse that he could think of in the excuse book but we were on our game so we had a little something to say after each one, so he pretty much backed himself up in a corner. Then, Tarus we found when we were looking for one of our other investigators. He is way cool we started just talking to us and we were getting to know him and all, then all the sudden he just started asking questions so it was pretty sweet. Our of all the people we have found since being here he is the most solid one. lol So I got a pretty funny story to tell y'all. You have to picture this in your head while you are reading it so it will be funny. So we were riding down this sidewalk, and whoever designed this sidewalk is an idiot. They put fire hydrants right in the middle of the side walk. We were riding and I was on my bike and I tried to shift up but it wouldn't shift so I was looking down at the gears and right when I looked up I ran right into a fire hydrant, flew off my bike into the area, hit the cement and slid like 5 feet. It hurt pretty bad but I think the thing that got hurt the most was my pride cuz I was on a main road so everyone in Abilene pretty much saw it, or I felt like it. lol So I had to get my bike fixed from that. I had to use all the money on my mission card so I will probably be using the home card for food for the rest of the month. Well I think this tops my longest e-mail home. lol I probably better get going. Make sure y'all write back right away letting me know if y'all want to do the video phone or Skype for Christmas, ok. I need to know asap. I love y'all , take care and stay warm building the house. Hope to hear from you next week. Love Elder Eppich

Pecos, Texas! 2011

Training meeting again! Elder Simmons & Me!

This is God's four-way stop sign in Peco's Texas!

More photo updates!

Eppich has a smile on this one! :)

Elder Eppich and Elder Jacobsen at training meeting!

Floors in Apartment are getting cleaned! Time for a snooze!

A member took them to a mexican horse race! He said a guy died that day!