Quillabamba 7.14.14

To give you an idea of what we are experiencing, we are excited when we break 70 in our little branch of Santa Ana! This week we were pleased to see a good amount of people come out to church, among them a less-active young man named Roy that we have been working with for a long time and have been trying so hard to get him to come! He finally came this week. It was a really interesting experience for me. I could tell that he was feeling uncomfortable ( it really is difficult for any less-active to make that decision to come back to church after a long time of inactivity). We hurried into sacrament mtg as it was starting and took our seat at about the middle bench. ( you can imagine that the chapel is small, about the size of the old oly choir room with out the vaulted roof). As we listened to the anouncements, I was surprised to hear him begin to make a few negative comments, and in general, just be a little impatient. I was thinking about how to help him when they called me up to direct the sacramental hymn. We sang "I stand all amazed" As I was singing/directing I thought to myself about the message of the hymn and about the savior. When I turned and looked at Roy, I could see that he was sensing the message of the hymn. It looked like he must have been feeling hurt, a litte bit of remorse for perhaps the difficulties that he has had since he left the church. He was later able to have an interview with the branch president and get some things worked out.

Elder Oaks visited our mission about a month ago. (I couldn´t be there quillabamba was to far away to come and be present in the mtg...:(   ) He made a comment that really struck me. He said that inactive members need to come to sacrament mtg because they need to feel like they are being baptized again. That struck me! As we renew that covenant, it can be an experience similar to baptism. Helping us to feel clean again. Really neat.

You can all hope for a great letter next week. Just know that I am doing very well, we are very happy with what we are doing. This is the greatest work and has been the greatest experience!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Neff