Luque 1b

Dear Family,

I am excited to see you guys too!  That will definitely be a party with everybody over there!  (Elder Neifert's Grandparents, Great Aunts, Aunt and siblings will all be in town for mother's day)

This week was a great one! We had a family come for the first time to church!  It was awesome that the members made them feel comfortable too.  

This transfer is over and I am headed to Luque 1b. with Elder Greer from Benson, Arizona.  He is the other Zone Leader, so I am out of the Training PROGRAM!!!!!!!! 

It will be a different and it gives Elder Greer and me more time to think about the zone instead of other stuff.

There is a less active sister who Elder Richardson and I have been visiting who got in a moto accident last week.  so we`ve been calling her and sent her things to read in the hospital and finally today we went to visit her.  (by the way her husband left her a month ago).  She learned today that her leg was infected and they would have to amputate it this coming week... She was really calm about it all and bore her testimony to us that she knows God will take care of her.  It was a humbling experience.  It would be good if you all could pray for her, her name is Adriana Alvarez.

There was a funny lady this week who, as we clapped at her house, just yelled out, "I dont like you!" It was funny.

We had more people this week at church than any other week and the Rojas family showed up to give their new baby a blessing.  Dad still didn't come but his wife said he was about too, just his brother showed up last minute.

That is sad about Gene Motley. I am sure that she has lots of people like you guys to be with her!  

I will call you guys Sunday at 5 pm my time! 

Love, 
Elder Neifert

Temple Trip

Dear Family,

WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,  Lets just say the new things there exploded my brain.  Walking out of there we all said, "I finally get why we go to the temple!".

We had a great testimony meeting as a zone afterward and we did a musical number. "If You Could Hie to Kolob."  there is a professional pianist in the zone and he did a sweet arrangement that left the mission president's wife in tears.

We had a great week! Romina is finally getting her head straight about what she really wants in life and this morning declared that she is going to prepare herself for baptism.  It has been a long process for her to get to this point! When she said that it felt awesome.  What we taught about was based upon DyC20: 37 which is the requirements for baptism.  I asked her about what she should feel like before she can be baptized.  She said, "I should have repented of my sins and be changed!".  and then we asked "How are you going to do that?"  ,"Through praying, reading, and going to church",  BBAAAAMMMM.  That is someone who understands the gospel.  I feel like too often we wonder if we truly have repented of our sins, questioning whether the atonement is really playing a role in our lives when often we just need to look at how we spend our time, thoughts, and efforts.  If you are truly praying with real intent, treasuring up the scriptures, and attending church wanting to become more like Christ..you will without a doubt be changed/repentant cleansed from sin.

A lot of crazy stuff happened as well this week... We dug a trench again, and fixed a dirt driveway... while digging I found a white oval rock that looked cool.  So I picked it up and it was smooth and then as I squeezed it a little it exploded on my face.  It happened to be a snake egg.  All of the Paraguayan kids thought it was funny.

Elder Richardson is doing great, he has dropped about 30 lbs.  Happens when all you eat is lunch and walk around all day.

We have been finding some great families in our area and getting a lot more help from members!  We had about 2 families who were inactive show up for church! 

I finsihed The Book of Mormon again in Spanish this last week, and I am starting on Jesus the Christ in Spanish.  

Love, Elder NEifert

RACHEL!, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! whenever I think about your birthday i think about you and you are cool, and funny, and a great sister! 

I need to send you a picture, but you will have to wait until next monday when i have my camera cord!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Easter = Chipa?

Dear Family,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUSTIN AND FIL! AND ALSO JARED NEXT TUESDAY! 

This week was full of great stuff.  Because it was "la semana santa" there was a of traditions going on. Really just a lot of chipa.  Chipa is a hard cheesy flour based bread that you bake in a tataqua (brick oven) on top of banana leaves (its not that good).  We made some chipa with the Britez family and we also cooked one of their ducks, a pig, and 2 chickens.  

But everybody makes chipa...so every house we went to they loaded us up with more chipa until it just got ridiculous, and we cookie monstered (pretend like you are eating it but its really just crumbling in front of your face) as we walked home.  I am not sure what chipa has to do with Easter.

We found a great family this week who were less active and they came to church last week! They have 5 priesthood holder possibilities!.  

We are going to the temple tommorow and I am freakin' out about seeing the new temple movie!  I have only seen the old old one so I am pumped.  The whole zone is doing a fast so that the work will progress and that is cool you all are doing one too!  

Elder Richardson and I tromped around in the rain a ton this week visiting people. He fell down in the mud twice and it was super funny.  We both have gone into a haiku poem phase where we make up sweet haiku`s.  No stomach problems this week and we are back at 100%.  

Some great things I learned this week that have inspired me are a talk by Elder Eyring titled "Come Unto Me". and might I recommend it to you all.  It opened my eyes a little wider about how we can know the atonement is taking affect in our lives.  Also I found another scripture that I like a lot in luke 9 vs 62: "No man having put his hand to the plough, and LOOKING BACK is fit for the kingdom of god."  It helps me think about the commitments and covenants we make with Christ and how only when truly committed and resolved progress is made.  There is so much work to be done, and it takes committment to do it.

We did a trek to the Temple, walking with members from the chapel in Yukyry to Asuncion.  I think it was like 10 miles.. easy peasy for a man who walks all day every day... but for a lot of the sisters in the branch showed up with flip flops it was tough. Not suprisingly half way through the trek when the rain started that it was the men who wanted to quit and take a bus, and the wemon in flip flops who said they would rather push forward. We sang as we saw the Temple "I Love to See the Temple" and there was a great feeling.  Arriving being soaked we finshed the trek to the Temple super happy and spiritually filled.  

I will let you all know how the Temple goes and the musical number we are singing.  Hopefully I can get a video of it!

Love,
Elder Neifert

Photos!

Okay.. we got c´s candy suckers and were excited,

We found a tarantula by our door,

We killed a pig,

went to the soccer museum ....again

The president of south america football

General Conference group photo.

Pig Tongue and Shangrilaaaaa!

Dear Family,

I ate Pig tongue!  We showed up at someones house to teach a lesson and it was somebody`s birthday.  They had roasted a pigs head and saved us the tongue to eat.  So they flipped over the head and with the tongue still connected and in-between its teeth they cut it out.  And then with a little lemon and salt we ate it.  It wasn't bad, but it did feel like a tongue and I will leave it at that.

This week was okay.  We are still working hard trying to help people draw closer to Christ.  Nobody showed up at church yesterday...I think due to the rain..(a Paraguayans worst enemy).  

We have been still teaching a lot about the Sabbath day and the sacrament.  The Seventh Day Adventists are still fighting us about it being on Saturday, so we are just trying to help them read more and more of the Book of Mormon.  It is that book that holds all of the pieces to the puzzle together, and the power it contains blows away doubts.

We had a great family home evening with the Acosta Family.  We talked about the prophet and apostles and how much preparation, and revelation goes into the messages they share,and then applied it to us and how we must prepare ourselves as well in order to hear what Heavenly Father is saying to us.  You know if you don't ask questions, you don't hear the answer.

Today we cleaned our house with a Peruvian crazy lady from the mission.  She knows how to clean, but she ruined our chances of going to Shangrila which is a restaurant we have been wanting to try out.  Next week we ride to shang gri laaaaaa! 

No changes for elder Richardson and I!!! So well be together until the beginning of May, I think! 

I hope all is well at home!   

Love,

Elder Neifert

Less Actives Returning

Dear Family,

It sounds like you guys had a good time at the Whatcotts!  

This week was a good one.  We had zone conference and I had to talk to the zone about how to plan and set goals more effectively.  That was fun.  We also did a ton of service...cutting grass with machetes and cutting down trees!  We cut down a 40 ft tree with machetes.  I have dubbed my machete 'Matilda' and Elder Richardson's is 'Sharkisha', Elder Gunther's is 'Darth Sampson', and his Brazillian comp doesn't have a machete so you guys can guess how wacked up his priorities are. We took a few pictures and I will send em next time.  I also blew up Elder Richardson's alarm clock trying to figure out how it works.  We forgot about the power difference and while trying to set the time it exploded in my hand.  No harm done to me, but we both were freaked out because our faces were right next to it.  

We had 3 investigators at church!  Romina and Graciella and Arnaldo!  Graciella and Arnaldo are 7th day Adventists and after about 4 weeks of visits they came! Also 2 menos activos (less actives) were reactivated and are going strong.  Adriana and Hermana Aquino.  

We are still working with the Rojas family and we will be having a BBQ at there house tommorow!  I am super excited! They promised that they would come to church after their newborn baby is doing better.  She was born like 4 days ago... and the mom is already up and cleaning the house and whatnot.  Those Paraguayan women recuperate fast.  

A great experience I had this week was teaching investigators and less actives about the sacrament.  We had been suffering about how to get people to come to church without us having to go out and drag them there, and President McMullen helped us out.  He said that the reason people do not come to church is because they don't understand the significance of the sacrament.  So we taught just about all of our investigators and menos activos (less actives) about the sacrament...reading from Mathew 26 and 3 Nephi 18 and D&C 11:13 about why the Lord instituted the sacrament.  It is truly a marvelous blessing to remember the love that he had, has, and will always have for us.  It signifies our commitment and love for him and can be a spiritually enlightening as we participate with a purpose.  We challenged everyone we taught to attend that Sunday so that they could show their love for the Savior and feel his love during the sacrament service.  And we had more investigators and menos activos (less actives) at church than we have for a while.  President McMullen is a smart guy.  It seems like such an obvious answer to get people to church teach them why its important, but it is something I definitely needed a refresher with.

Elder Richardson is doing well, getting skinnier, which he is pretty happy about.  We sometimes wrestle and he is a lot bigger than I, but I learned from the best.  I put him in the 'Figure Four' the other day and using the shroud of shadows I feel I can hold my own.  He is a great companion.

I hope all is well at home and that you guys are as excited as I am for General Conference!  

Love,
Elder Neifert

Happy Birthday Grandma Whatcott!  WAAAAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I hope you have a good one!   

Be Prepared

Dear Family,

That is awesome elder Hatch talked with Aaron!!!!  I hope they talked for a little while!  Does Aaron know who he is rooming with?  

You guys went to the Provo Temple? I thought Grandma and Grandpa worked at Timpanogas?  but that's cool.  It looks like a spaceship.  I went there every week at the MTC!  Did you guys see missionaries there?

I have been studying a lot about Joseph of Egypt too!  Isn't it cool to know that we are related to that great guy!  My favorite lesson from that story is how even when he was away from home, he didn't forget about the great principles he learned there.  He could have made many excuses to fall into temptation... nobody would know...when in Rome do as Romans do....etc  But he stayed true to who he was and the God he learned to love.   It's funny to think  that if he had fallen into temptation he probably would have been imprisoned as well, and without the company of the Holy Ghost he wouldn't have been able to interpret the dreams that would be his ticket out.

We played Basketball today!  It has been a while and my B-ball skills are suffering, but it was fun.  Elder Richardson didn't have any shorts so he wore my St.Louis cardinals pajama pants.  

This week we have been working a lot trying to help people keep their commitments as usual.  We found a couple new families to teach as well.  We have a few investigators that have baptismal dates and are progressing little by little.  Vañia just finished 3 Nephi 11 and already has a testimony of God's love for us and The Book of Mormon.  She told us a story about how when she was younger she lived close to Brasil and she got mixed up with a drug deal... so people were coming after her to kill her. She ran away and got as far as possible from there.  She had nobody to run to and lived in the street for a few days and prayed constantly for help. A lady whom she never met took her in and gave her a place to sleep and food.  And she bore her testimony that she knows God loves his children.  It was cool.

The Paredez Family (7th Day Adventists) are coming along okay.  They still haven't come to church.  But they are reading The Book of Mormon little by little and praying for an answer.  We' ll see this coming week how bad they want to keep commitments and know if the church is true.  

The Rojas family is set on coming back, but due to the mom being extremely pregnant they haven't been coming for a little bit.  But they committed that right after the birth they will come back.

I hope the vacation goes good and that it is starting to warm up there!  

Love, Elder Neifert

PS Oh yeah and the Branch President, on Sunday, from the pulpit, gave me a surprise ten minute talk.  I talked about the sacrament and the atonement.  It was a good reminder to always be thinking of spiritual messages to share.  On the mission it seems that about 85% of the time we are winging it, and it is a definite faith builder as we pray and plead with the Lord to help us know what to say.