Taking up His Will

Hola Familia Neifert,

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

It is really weird how when I think about home its super cold and the leaves are almost gone and then here its getting hotter and hotter.  Did you guys get my pictures? 

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 aligned with the Father's.

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. 

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 + poop 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 nuts 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 guy's name is Hugo, 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 God's 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. I shared scriptures like Amos 3:7 and others from the Book of Mormon.  We shared 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 what is true through the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  Then 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.


I love you guys!!!!

Elder Neifert

Dear Family,

THANK YOU FOR THE EMAILS!!! AND LETTERS!

I got both dad's and Derek's letters this week!  And they are 3 weeks behind everything.

The money here is in Guarani's and I get 850mil a month.  Which was way funny to say, "I'm about to drop 50 mil on a banana bushel," but it has gotten a little old.  I have a debit card they gave me but right when I get reloaded with money, I go to the ATM and cash it out. 

My new place is okay... it doesn't leak!!!  But we are in it with 2 other elders and we have all of our stuff in a tiny room.  1 bunk bed, a table, 3 armoires, 3 chairs, and 2 fans because we don't have air conditioning.

We didn't do much this week, Elder Bredsgaurd was sick with what he thinks is a bug he had about a month ago that has resurfaced.  We went to the hospital and they had to run some tests - so we stayed at the office elder's house which is super chuchi (super fancy).  It had air conditioning in every room and had hammocks so we spent the night and studied all day. After they got all they needed for the test, we had to hang out at the office for another day waiting for results. So we studied and  watched church movies.  And then they called and said  the results wont be back till Tuesday, so we took a collectivo home and went back to work.  The next day we had an awesome day planned and a lady showed up who worked for the mission and made us clean our house all day.   And then I had chi vi vi wasu (shee vee vee Waa soo) (I have no idea what this means) and so we only taught a couple lessons Saturday, but they were good lessons. Sunday was awesome! We had one of our investigators show up for church and were going back today to teach him more!  Also we had a ward blitz on Sunday and the whole ward went out to visit less active members and eat lunch together in Nuevo Asuncion.  We found like 7 people who said they wanted to be baptized!!!  Elder Bredsguard and I are super excited for this week! 

I uploaded pics.  I hope you guys can see them.

I love you guys and I hope you are getting better, Mom!  And keep up the missionary work, Dad! That's awesome!

I will think about Christmas box stuff! I hope you guys had a good Halloween!

Hello Family,

ELDER BEDNAR CAME!!!!! It was way different than everybody expected!  We had a big conference down in San Lorenzo and both the North and South missions came.  We woke up at 4 in the morning and got there at around 7 taking collectivos (from what I can tell- a collectivo is a bus.) all of the way down. (Which so far is my favorite thing about Paraguay (I always think of Brother Goerring when I take those... behind all of great people and spiritual stuff.))  We had a big question and answer session for 3 and a half hours!  It was awesome! I think the main messages he wanted to share with us is that we need to teach people not lessons and that people are agents not objects.  Also that the spirit is the teacher not us! He said, "Do you really think that somebody is going to change just about every aspect of their lives because a 19 or 20 year old boy from the United States tells them too?"  Also he talked about how we shouldn't be playing the game of 'guess whats in my head' with an investigator. We need to ask questions really looking and listening for what they are feeling or thinking about (which is way harder than it sounds).  His wife spoke, too and there were some really awesome testimonies afterwards.  Then we took some really packed collectivos home and it was like 95 degrees outside. I felt sick and slept for an hour and then we went out and worked.

 We had a baptism this week set up, but our investigator didn't pass the interview and we are having second thoughts about what steps he has taken to know The Book of Mormon is true or that we have a prophet today, or even if God exists.  That is the biggest problem I think that people have here in Paraguay.  They all say they believe in God and Jesus Christ, but don't understand or care to understand why they believe in either of them or what it means.  It is really tough teaching someone when you can't find out where they are to start with.  Btt that is where inspired questions come in and where letting the Holy Ghost be the teacher helps them have a stronger desire to learn and grow closer to the Savior and Heavenly Father.  

Thank you for the letters Dad, Mom and Jessi and for sending the address! 

And congratulations, DEREK!!  That's awesome!  You are going to love the MTC and France!  Something I had wished I had done before coming out on a mission is have a stronger knowledge of the scriptures. Something that's helped me now is thinking about problems or doubts people have and find scriptures to help.  Same with Preach My Gospel.

Elder Bredsgaurd and I caught  a snake on our way home yesterday! I have a picture... And he stepped in a big cow turd this week!  (There are a ton of cows that wander around everywhere.) 

We have moved from the really leaky house into a better one.  The pictures are of the leaky one.

I also went on a split with another new missionary who was from Guatemala!  I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to help at all because my Spanish really isn't that good yet, and Elder Bredsguard translates for me all the time.  But it worked out and I was really blessed so that people were able to understand me and I could converse with Elder Lopez really well! 

I am really slow at typing, so my letters aren't as long as I want them to be...that and I don't have very long, but I love you guys!!! Thank you so much for the letters and updates.  MOM! Did you score?  You must have scared the kids you were playing with really bad!!!  I hope you get better soon!!!  (Elder Neifert's mom teaches 4th grade and injured her leg playing a ball game with them recently.)

I cant figure out how to do pictures. Sorry.

Love,

Elder Neifert

Week 2

Dear Family,

Thank you for all of your letters! I forgot my camera at home, but I am going to have a ton of pictures next week. Elder Bredsgaurd and I had an awesome week. We had another baptism this week - Noelia's nephew! He is awesome! He knows the answer to almost all the principles of the gospel and comes to church every single week. In our last visit with him he prayed and asked that we all could stay on the right path because satan wants to kill us. Hahaha... but that's serious. We are planning on having three more baptisms next week with Cilvio and Ramona and David. Our lessons this week were awesome as well and we have been teaching around ten different investigators. We have been teaching the Fox family tree and it just keeps on getting bigger and bigger! They all live pretty close to each other and so we have been teaching aunts, nephews, grandparents, kids.... all because they have seen the changes that Noelia made in her life and how blessed their family has become from being baptized and following Gods commandments! 

I went on a split with the Zone Leaders so that they could have the baptismal interviews with the investigators. I was with Elder Thompson all day on Wednesday. He has three weeks left until he goes home and he speaks really good Guarani! We took some collectivos (? I don't know what this is - Jessi) over to his area near Luque and we went to an area that he hasn't been tracted yet. We made a lot of contacts and taught a family that didn't speak Spanish, only Guarani. I didn't understand anything, but I bore my testimony about Church and they acted as though they understood. It is really tough teaching people who only speak Guarani 1. Because I don't understand it and 2. Because they don't know how to read. So teaching is all done by them listening and us fumbling with the language. Elder Thompson said they'd come to church though. 

The next day Elder Bredsguard and I had an awesome lesson with a guy named Johnathon who works in publicity somewhere. He has a really bad smoking problem and he expressed how bad it was for him and his family and how he was looking for a way too stop. We taught him about the restoration and what kind of help the Savior can provide for us as we rely on him to carry our burdens. We gave him a pamphlet to read through and we've been having great lessons all this week and invited him to come to church. 

This week we invited like 10 people to come to church and they all said they would. But Saturday night and all Sunday there was a huge rainstorm. Everyone lost power and our roof and window leaks so my bed got soaked and water drops hit me in the head the whole time. Elder Bredsguard sleeps like a rock, so while he slept, I was locking all the windows and trying to keep everything dry. That morning we left early with our rain jackets and umbrellas and tried to round up all the investigators who said they'd come to church. We got 2 and there were 27 people at church total! Elder Bredsguard and I taught our investigator about the priesthood. It was a great sacrament meeting and the bishop gave a talk about what lessons we can learn from our kids and how his own son has blessed his life. It was an extremely spiritual talk and it was exactly what everyone needed to hear. After church, Elder Bredsguard and I went contacting and we had family night at the Lopez's house.  Today we are going on a hike with the Fox family to see a this legendary rock where supposedly Christ stepped. 

Sending letters from Paraguay cost 15 MIL which is a lot and I have been told that I really should only be keeping in contact with family so I will try and respond to any letters through email. If you guys are sending a package I don't need anything in particular. Whatever you send will be good. I will let you know if I do need something later though. From what I hear if you put Saint Mary stickers on the seams of the package the chances go down of it being stolen or ripped into.

Elder Bednar is coming this week and we are going down to the south mission to hear him speak! I'm pumped to hear what he is going to tell us! It is probably chastisement, but I don't care!

Just from the last two weeks of being in Paraguay my testimony has grown so much about how this Gospel can change people and that The Book of Mormon is the word of God. Having the opportunity to share this message with so many people has been the most faith building experience of my life! I know that God loves each and every one of his children! He wants the best for us and has provided us a plan to live with him again! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!

Love,

Elder Neifert

Yukyry - 1st week in Paraguay

Hey Family!

I am serving in a place called Yukyry (you can find it on Google maps by typing in: YUKYRY, Caaguazú, Paraguay) which is like the most jungle part of the mission! It is awesome! the people are amazing! We clap outside their gate and almost everyone lets us in and we teach like all day! Our house is the worst house in the mission, but it is really awesome at the same time. It is horribly made and it is tiny. We are looking for a new house though. I have pictures and will try to send them. I don't know if I can here. We are in a computer shop right by the street where we pay per hour too use it. 

The food here is pretty good. There are dispensias everywhere which are like convenient store booths. I went to a couple ladies houses for lunch and one gave us airline food with napkins from the airline... which I have no idea how she got. The other is a chef who works for 2 weeks straight and has one Sunday off. Her food was amazing!!! She made us some chicken with shell noodles underneath and some really good sauce over the top.

My companion is Elder Bredsgaurd from Arizona. He has almost been out a year and is a really good missionary!! I am really lucky to be his companion... We have so many investigators and he is a really hard worker and walks fast everywhere we go.

The flight was LOOONNNG I sat next to a guy working at Illinois University and he put in his earphones and left them in the whole time! Even when he ate! So I talked to him for like 5 min at the end of the flight about baseball... it was dumb. The flight from Argentina to Paraguay was horrible. I Almost barfed like 4 times and the people next to me were freaking out.  I couldn't speak Spanish to them, or I felt like I would throw up. But I didnt - false alarm.  I had motion sickness for that whole day of meeting my comp and president and going to the Temple which is a beautiful Temple.

Anyway, me and Elder Bredsgaurd took a taxi to our area and the roads here are horrible - most are just dirt with sharp rocks underneath. Then we went out and worked. We met with the Fox family and and talked about the plan of salvation - it went really well. While we were teaching, a chicken walked right in the middle of everyone and nobody cared! There are so many chickens here. I hear a rooster call at least 3 times a minute. And at night they all make a ton of noise. The people here are way funny, too. We stopped a guy on the street and asked him his name and he said, "Super Gallo," which is like super rooster! HAHAHA - it was awesome.

WE ALSO HAD 2 BAPTISMS - two days ago! Noellia and Carmen! I baptized Carmen! It was awesome! The people here are super poor - like their houses are made out of trash bags half the time. It's really humbling seeing how happy they are with so little. We also talked with this guy in the ward named Axel Lopez and I am almost positive he is going to serve a mission! I love it here! Even though my Spanish sucks (which is also really humbling), it is amazing participating in lessons that you know that they know that our message can change them and that they can know it's true through prayer and asking our Heavenly Father. The best part about Paraguay is the buses!!!! They are nuts. They don't stop half the time and because the roads suck they are really rickety and crazy. The owners decorate them in crazy ways and drive super fast. Something else that is awesome about Paraguay is that everyone is always blasting music.

A couple days ago we went to like the outskirts of our area called Nuevo Asuncion and it's like a 30 minute bus ride north, I think. Anyway, there is a Guarani reservation here and the people are really funny. We clapped in front of a woman's house and she said that she "accidentally locked herself in her house". Everybody has some ghetto gates here and it was locked.

Church was awesome! I bore my testimony and a ton of other people did too. The bishop is amazing! He bore his testimony about how families can be together forever and that through the atonement of Christ it is possible. His 6 month old daughter died a week ago and my companion said it was super hard on their family, but their dad didn't even cry as he buried her. It is a really sad story, but the faith of the people here is amazing. We are also working with a woman named Mada whose son is getting baptized on Saturday. His name is Adam and he is the most awesome kid ever! He is nine and knows about everything we teach him. His mom has a drinking problem though, so we are trying to get her over it and be a better example for her son. It was super sad on Saturday when we had the baptism - he couldn't come because his mom was drunk and he wanted to take care of her.  He knows it's true and we are working really hard with his mom.

We are finding new people too teach everyday and my Spanish is getting a little better. I can understand what people are saying most of the time.

I love YOU GUYS! Thank you so much for the letters and prayers and I hope everyone is doing well!



 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEKAH!

I made it

Hey,

 I made it. Paraguay is amazing.  I will write you guys on Monday with my new companion and hopefully send pictures.

Leaving on the 8th!

Dear Family,

 

A ton has happened this week and I am in meetings all day today doing infield training stuff.  I also got my shots today and those babies are costly.  They gave me a paper to send home because they said insurance might take care of some of it.  Anyway take the money needed out of my account, por favor. 

 

I GOT MY TRAVEL PLANS!!! I  leave on the 8th of October at 10am! We are flying from Salt Lake to Dallas, to Buenos Aires Argentina, and then up too Paraguay! So the flight leaves from Salt Lake at 2:15pm and I get to Paraguay at 7:20am on the 9th. I don't absolutely need anything now.  And I am packing to figure out if I need to drop some weight.  I will let you know how I'm doing on weight tomorrow probably. I think I will be able to call you guys in between 12 and 1:30 on the 8th but it might change.  I will try and write tomorrow!!!!

 

Love Elder Neifert