Two Baptisms!

Dear Family,

This week was a great week! 

We had a few baptisms - Romina and Mercedes!  We are working hard to keep the ward integrated in missionary work.  You would think with 10 returned missionaries in your ward it would be easy... not so chicken Joe. 

Luckily we had a good turnout for the baptisms and enough food for everyone! 

You guys wouldn't believe what we did this morning for p day.....

EXTREME HOPSCOTCH!  It was crazy.  Elder Richardson took a video and so I will try and send it next week, or I will just put it on my flash drive and send it.  Prepare yourselves for lava pits, monkeys, bum scoots, etc....

Spiritual experiences:

Mercedes is a rock.  She flat out told us that her goal now is to get a job to be able to pay tithing and help expand the Kingdom of God, and then go to the Temple.  WE HAVEN'T EVEN TALKED A LOT ABOUT THE TEMPLE!  Before her baptism we talked about if she would invite her family members to come too and she said that she already had but none were interested... but then she told us that she didn't care really because she wasn't doing this for anybody but herself.  She knew what the Lord wanted her to do and she was going to do it! 

The Torress family came for the second week in a row! They are going to start to begin to prepare for the Temple as well.  We had a lesson about baptisms for the dead and the work that goes on in the Temple and how the gospel is being preached on the other side of the veil as well.  Sister Torress` mom had died not too long ago and so she payed really close attention.  At the end she said she wanted to share an experience she had... She had a dream the night before of her mom. Her mom told her that the time was close for the second coming of the Messiah. We talked a lot about that and they have more excitement than ever about the gospel.  A lot of times when teaching I think about the ancestors of our investigators... I fully believe that they are present and very interested in the repentance and progress of there family members.

Lately, I have been studying the book of first John and it talks a lot about how our love for God is really directly related to our obedience to his commandments (if ye love me keep my commandments).  It goes into it a lot deeper and I am still learning.  One of my favorite verses is 1 John 4:19 "We love him, because he first loved us".   The more we learn of Christ's love for us, the deeper and more resolved our desire will be to repent and show our love to him through obedience.  I love him, because I know he loves me.

 Still no package.

Stay safe on the trip to see Gagu and drop Jessi off... and visit Cody and his wife who nobody told me about.

I am enjoying the mission more and more!   

Love,

Elder Neifert