Week 16: "Having the Time of My Life..."

            Entooonccesss! Buenas, Como estan mi familia? Espero que ustedes esten bien. Sounds like from your letters you guys had a really awesome week. That sounds so cool about the family in our ward. What an awesome experience. It’s really something you can’t explain watching and helping people come closer to Christ. On the contrary, there is nothing more sad than watching people fall away and make bad choices. As for my Spanish, it’s pretty good. I had some dreams in Spanish last night and this past week. So that was a cool sign. The hardest part for me is talking in English for p-day then trying to switch back into Spanish. My companion less than 2 months left in the mission. I am not sure what is going to happen for this change. He has had a different comp every change and if I stay for this change I will be here for 6 months so I think I could have a change this change but I’m not sure. There is basically only one more p-day. Crazy! As for my bishop, the wife is back but we just stay out of it. I don’t know what is going on. Ya basically every lesson in church is about missionary work and fulfilling your calling. We have been trying to get the ward more involved and coming to their meetings. As for water, we have water now so that has been really nice. I really find it weird to think that we had water always and you don’t have to worry about that. Also being able to drink water out of the tap, I wonder what that is like. But ya, I guess we could just go shower in the rain, if we wanted:) Today for p-day we went to pico bonito with the other zone. I talked a lot with Elder Sweat. I will send you some pictures of him. It was really cool and basically I felt like a Nephite going through the jungle. 

P-day adventure to Pico Bonito...beautiful!

Kaden and his companion Elder Ampie

 

Feeling like a Nephite walking through the jungle!

            This week was pretty good. We had a pretty disappointing week with one of our investigators. His name is Fernando and he is 16 years old. His parents live in the US and so he lives with his sister. He was a reference from one of the Young men in our ward. We have been teaching him for about 3 weeks and he has been to church more than 3 times. We had planned his baptism for this past Saturday, and the past week we talked with him everyday about his baptism and he was super excited. He had an interview with Elder Goddard and he was ready to go. We met with him Friday night and he was so excited! We invited him to invite his family to his baptism. We set up for one of the young men to pass by and take him to the church. In the morning we went to the church got every ready, filled the font, etc. After lunch we called the young man that was going to pass by for him and he said there was a problem. He didn´t get permission from his parents who live in the US. When we found that out we booked it up there and started talking with him. We were really confused because the sister, who is the guardian of him, already knew that he was going to be baptized. I guess his dad that lives in the states didn’t give him permission, but his sister is the guardian, so we told him that if his sister had the final decision and she said that if he wanted he could do it. We asked him and he said that he didn’t feel ready. We talked for about 20 min and expressed our love, and tried and tried to help him keep moving forward towards baptism. I think when his dad didn’t approve he really played with his head. I have never felt such love to the point were I wanted to cry because I had just witnessed a complete 180 change from being so ready to not. We were so confused, and we prayed so much for him. Finally we told him that it was his decision and that he has 30 min, if he changes his mind one of the young men are going to pass by to take you to the church and we will have your baptism. We invited him to pray and really think about the decision he was making. We went back to the church and waited, but he never came. We also invited a bunch of our investigators to the baptism and same with the hermanas. So when he didn’t come we had to be creative and had a really cool lesson about baptism and the Holy Ghost. We made the best of what we had but it still doesn’t make up for the sadness that I feel for the young man. We visited with him yesterday and he has taken some steps backwards. We brought 3 young men so hopefully we can help him turn it around and follow Christ. 

Making the best of the situation...

            This experience was really sad but on a brighter note with the family of Evelin. They are super awesome and came to church yesterday. As missionaries we teach a gospel principles class basically to all of the recent converts and our investigators. I taught the lesson on Eternal marriage. After the lesson, our investigators wanted to know how to be able to go there. We told them that they had to get baptized first. We have a date with them for the 26. They can’t wait they really want to get baptized so they can go to the temple. So for the 26th we are expecting probably about 4-5 baptisms. Pretty awesome.

            As for something I learned this week. Work smarter not harder. One day 3 of our appts fell through and so my comp asked me what are we going to do. So we started walking around and trying to contact people or visit investigators. By the end of the day we hardly did everything. We worked hard but not smart. The next day if something fell through we tried to visit members or inactives. It was a very smart plan because yesterday we had a ton of people in church and 12 investigators. Truly members are the key. Everyday we find and sometimes even contact inactives. I am so surprised with how many inactive people we have in our ward.      

            Sorry there is just so much I want to say but I don’t know how to say it. Also we have had to drop a lot of investigators this week. They have become really attached to us but don’t want to go to church or keep their commitments. Everyone here will listen, they always say oh the word of God is welcome here. But a lot of them don’t want to change. For example we find people that say I believe in your church and in the BOM but I have friends in the church or I am a pastor and I live off the money from the church so I can’t come to your church.

 We found an inactive family yesterday. The son went on a mission and everything and they are inactive. It was a sign to me that we must always stay strong and firm in the Gospel because even the best fall. One of the young men said that the return missionary was super awesome and did everything but slowly fell away into inactivity. We never stay the same, we either become stronger or we become weaker. So we must constantly be focused on staying strong. This is my invitation to you guys to keep moving forward, and strengthening our family, ward, and those around you.            

            I like probably many others that have left home understand how blessed we are. I don’t really know what else I can say or how I can express my love for you guys. I really love you guys. I thank my Heavenly Father every night for the support, prayers, love, and care that I freely receive. Thank you so much for your examples and your love. And yes dad, I am having the time of my life here. There is no place that I would rather be. Thank you so much for helping me get here and to be able to serve the people here. I have a lot of pictures to send. Thank you and I love you guys so much. There are so many times that I wish you guys could be here and experience the same things I experience every day. 

I love you guys!

Love Elder Neuberger