Serving Paraguay: The Fourth Missionary

Hola Familia Neifert,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! I hope you had some good pie!

It is really weird when I think about home, its super cold and the leaves are almost gone and then here its getting hotter and hotter.

This week I read a really awesome talk called "The Fourth Missionary" and it really changed the way I taught and looked at my purpose as a missionary. I don't know if you guys can find it but that would be an awesome talk to read for anyone going on a mission. I think the main thing I took from it is that the only way that we can reap the fruits of being a missionary is if your heart is in it completely. You can't learn anything if you don't give your heart into the work because otherwise everything you do will be biting a bullet because you would rather be somewhere else. If we give our heart over to God, he gives us new desires, a new purpose, a new driving force that over time changes us into a completely new person whose will becomes alined with the fathers.

So I tried focusing on giving all I had to the Lord and his work and placing my will to the side and taking up His will.

Elder Cristofferson is coming tommorow!!!!!!!!!! I am super excited to see what he will talk about! I will for sure write about it next week!

Our investigators are slowly progressing... mainly because some cannot read, but we are getting some cd´s of the Book of Mormon, that I think will help a ton.

We found some great people to teach and I am excited to see what kind of questions or doubts they have for the next lesson!

The zone conference went well, Elder McSwain and I found some Paraguayan kids to do a demonstration of how to teach the apostasy and dispensations. They both had about 11 years (11 years old), so being in front of about 36 elders and the mission president, they were scared and shocked to the core. It was super tough to teach them, but it turned out well I think.

The branch here in Concepcion is growing, and we will be planing out a Christmas activity to bring the spirit especially for all of the menos activos (less actives).

After that ward blitz in Nuevo Asuncion, we had a lot of people who wanted to hear more and so we spent a ton of time out there this week. Nuevo Asuncion is in the middle of nowhere and a lot of the people don't speak Catellano (Espanol) only Guarani. There isn't anything there but really poorly made houses and farm animals + waste canals. We met a ton of people who wanted to know more about our church and a couple who just wanted to be baptized on the spot without knowing why or what role baptism even plays in salvation. We did a lot of explaining and inviting and invited about 30 people to church! Its amazing how many people had been prepared for us and wanted to hear and learn more about the gospel. We also have a ton of in-actives out there and we spent a lot of time trying to get them to church.

We also found a couple of people who are super prepared to receive the gospel and we had some incredible lessons with both of them. One guys name is Hugo and he is really curious about the Bible and the Book of Mormon and had some really deep questions about God and His plan for us. We talked for a while and he expressed how the only people that he would trust to really guide him to know Gods will is a prophet of God! I almost jumped the gun I was so excited I was going to just yell out "THERE IS A PROPHET AND HE IS CALLED OF GOD TO DO THAT!!!", but I held it in and started talking about prophets of old and who a prophet is and does shared scriptures like Amos 3:7 and others from the Book of Mormon. We shared about the first vision and he said he would read and pray to ask God if it was true.

We also found a whole family who all really want to know more and we taught them on Saturday about what the restored gospel of Jesus Christ means for us and left her a Plan of Salvation pamphlet. She read the whole thing and came to church the next day with her son Alejandro. She came with a ton of questions and we answered some and then taught her more about how she can receive answers for herself through the scriptures and prayer. She can receive a testimony of whats true through the guidance of the Holy Ghost. We went to sacrament meeting expecting some sweet talks and surprise surprise. It was the primary program that day. It was nuts and kids were running around and crying all over the place. She said she had a good experience though. Hopefully we can have a great lesson this week and she'll come to church.

We were helping a member move some bricks around in here back yard when a big storm hit and her house was completely under the water. So I dug a canal in her back yard with an old guy who came to help.