Coco´s

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON!  You are getting old, and I am old.  I hope your surprise birthday at Hardees arena in Chesterfield is a good surprise.  (his mom was trying to throw a surprise party, but he found out)

Dear family,

We have been super busy teaching lessons.  We cannot get to everybody we want to teach.  Its an awesome problem.  The only problem is that like none of our investigators came to church.  It is crazy how things pop up when you want to do what God wants.  We had one of our investigators saturday night who had to go out and look for his daughter who didnt come home from a party until like 9 in the morning.  And then another fell and had to go to the hospital. And another had to go pick up her husband because he got in a car accident.  Coincidence?  I dont think so. 

I have an awesome story I want to share with you guys.  We went to visit an investigator who we have been teaching for about 2 months.  The day before her husband had just lost his job. She has cancer and is waiting for test results.  She needs more treatments, and she works going door to door trying to sell manicures.  They live in a really old beat up house that is falling apart, they have an infiltration of ants in their house, and they have 4 young kids.  That day she just broke down in front of us.  She was telling us about all she was going through when her two youngest girls came sprinting across the road with their shirts full of coco´s and humongous smiles.  They yelled, "Hey we found some coco´s! Look what we found!"  Coco´s, in Paraguay, are little coconuts that fall from the trees here.  They are all over the place.  People sometimes crack them with rocks and eat the inside but they aren't awesome... they are everywhere! They are the most common thing in Paraguay.  Plus they don't taste that good.  Their mom told me about how her girls loved finding coco´s and smashing them and eating them. ¨to them, it is better than money.  Its the greatest treasures of all time, to find cocos. ¨she said.  It was amazing to me how they found joy and fun even when they knew their mom had cancer and their dad lost his job, but the circumstances that we are in don't effect how we respond.  They found a way to be happy.  It was an awesome lesson that we had with our investigator and we read Mosiah 24 about how Alma and his people overcame their trials.  Those girls were stuck in my head this week and I wanted to share that with you guys. I don't think I will ever have a good excuse to complain or be depressed after seeing that family.

Also, this week we ate some crazy weird things.  The bishop's wife cooked up some jungle bird that only comes out at night.  It was super gamy and overcooked.  I spit out about 3 bullets because the bishop hunted them about 2 days before with a shot gun.  We also found these really awesome inactive members that have cows.  I don't like regular milk... and she handed me a warm thick glass of milk, full of floaties. I almost puked.  It was straight from the cow - with the smell of being straight from the cow.  To be kind I will say that it was funky.  My companion chugged it down super fast and then the lady who gave us the milk just stared at me, waiting for me to finish it.  It took me about 10 minutes of taking tiny sips and waiting until the floaties wafted to one side so I could drink.  She told me about three times, ¨Hey, you don't have to drink it¨ and kept saying to my companion, "I don't think he likes it,¨ but I told her, "No, I like it. I'm just savoring it."  I don't know if that counts as a lie, but I couldn't tell her it was gross.

I hope you guys are all doing well! Thank you for your emails! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Aaron.  Break up 5 people holding hands for me at your party.

 I am going to send some stuff home in a little bit.

Love,

 Elder Neifert