Abinadi

Dear Family,

This week we did a lot better than last week!  We worked trying to reach all of our goals.  We did a division with the Zone Leaders and I was with Elder Jensen who is around 6´7 and played defense for BYU.  He is about to go home in June,  so he shared a lot of good tips with me and I learned a ton from him.  One thing is how important setting goals are and what significance they have.  Every morning we set goals about how many lessons we want to teach and how many new investigators we want.  Those goals are set according to the spirit and what impressions we have for that day, meaning that they are set according to the will of God.  Which means that if we don't meet the goals, we fall short and missed an opportunity to meet someone that God had in mind for us. Which is why its so important to be in tune with the spirit. As I worked with Elder Jensen, when an appointment fell through he would say, "Well I guess there is somebody else around here that needs to hear our message" and so we would find them.  Nothing happens for no reason!  God knows what citas (appointments) will fall and where we need to be every day.  Its our job to figure that out!  It was amazing how many quality investigators we found by having this mindset as we worked! 

Elder Lewis is pretty funny guy and we are getting better and better at teaching and working together.  Learning the language does have funny moments. Yesterday Elder Lewis told a girl in Guarani that he hates all children, when what he meant was he hates mosquito! HAHAHA! She looked at him really funny. I hope to send some more pics soon, but I forgot my camera. 

I also am now the jovenes (youth) teacher every Sunday, so I have had a lot more pressure to better my Spanish.  Its coming along okay.    I taught last week about missionary work and trusting in the Lord, even when we don't see the fruits of our labor.  We read about Abinadi and talked about how from his point of view he probably thought his mission was to preach and warn the hardhearted people of King Noah. What he might not have imagined is how his words touched the heart of Alma who then converted people at the Waters of Mormon, and then had a son Alma the younger who influenced the sons of Mosiah, and them came around Helaman and Lehi and Nephi who all converted an enormous amount of people.  Its an awesome thing that the chain of righteousness and powerful leaders of Gods church all came out of the fountain of a testimony being born in the face of opposition and death. 

I love you guys and I hope you are all doing well!

Love,

Elder Neifert