Sicuani 5.27.13

This has just been the most exciting week ever. I really am so pleased. Percy and Soledad were married this friday, baptised saturday, and confirmed on sunday. Surely the most exciting weekend of their life to date! Really every moment of it was precious and I was so pleased that the Lord had given them and their family such an amazing blessing. 

Perhaps I didn´t give you enough information about this family in my other emails... I will try to give you an overview of the experience that we had with the family Hancco Terraces over the past few months. 

They were refferals that we recieved from a member family during my first change here in Sicuani. I remember talking to my companion after meeting them and making a comment like "Wow they are really nice people, lets do everything that we can so they progress." Little did I know that they would surprise me with the rate of their progress and dedication to repent and become members. 

At the beginning they progressed a little slowly and had quite a few doubts... but all of that changed when they made the special effort to pray and read the scriptures as a family, and especially when they asked Heavenly Father if what we had really taught them was true. From that moment on, EVERYTHING changed. They began to assist regularly to church and left their business that they were running selling backpacks and clothing on sundays (when they had the most success during the week I might add). They read every assignment that we gave them from the scriptures and kept all the comittments we extended.

We had invited them to be baptized, and they had all the desires to do it. The only obstacle was marriage, and it proved to be a difficult decision for them to make. Their dificulties came more from the fact that it would be a big expense, and that they wanted a lot of time to prepare. We challenged them with a specific date and they told us that they would pray and discuss about it. 

That lesson when we challenged them, I spoke to them about the doctrine of Christ and his atonement. I told them that the marriage did not need to be something fancy or grand, that they simply needed to get married so that the Lord could bless them, accept their fruits of repentance, and so they could enter into the waters of baptism... and that because Christ had made such a sacrifice for them, nothing else could be so important to them than this, in this time of their life. 

The next lesson, Soledad told us that she had a dream where she was hurring to get marriede the 24th of May. And Percy simply told us "Elders, you dont need to convince us anymore, I recieved an answer." (keep in mind that they said this about 3 weeks befor the wedding date)

Miracles DO HAPPEN!!!!

 

I love my mission. I love the chance that I have to live by faith and to help others to face difficult challenges. I know that the Lord gives us amazing blessings as we decide that his will is the most important thing in our lives, and as we live according to that will. 

I love you all so much. Summer is about to start! I hope you enjoy it. Here everything is freezing solid in the morning and melting in the blazing heat during the day. But we are loving every minute of it. 

Les Quiero, 

Elder Neff

 

 

p.s. I now have permision to email to who i please and can send more than one email a week. If you read this or the blog and want to write me a little by email i would love to hear from you and can respond a little. Call my mom for the email address.

Sicuani 5.20.13

WOW! It is hotter than an oven in this peruvian internet cafe, but I could not be happier for the chance I have to write to all of you and to hear how the family is doing.

HAZELNUT!= cutest nickname for the cutest niece in the whole wide world!!!! I loved the video of her laughing. What was John saying? something like "Yeah!" and she would start to laugh. She is adorable and resembles a little the michelin tire man... but 1000000x cuter, and that is exactly how a new baby should be, cute, chubby and healthy.

HARD WORK is how Iwould describe this week. We put in a ton of hard work and it felt super good. As you all know my companion and I have been split up because two new missionaries came to the mission and opened up a sector in our zone. My companion is training one and the other is a missionary with more experience that has come from another mission, I have been working with him. We basically divided the sector so this week we were in desperate need of finding new investigators and working in areas of the sector (which is GIGANTIC) that we couldn´t get to for the size of the area. What does that mean? In addition to searching for references and supporting the less actives and new converts, we knocked on a LOT of doors. I really enjoyed myself, it is interesting to see how the people react to hearing the message of the gospel for the first time. I have a spiritual experience that I need to share about our increased efforts to contact. One night it was late, we were about to leave an area where we were contacting and head towards a meeting that we had with a less active. As we turned to leave the street we were on, I had a strong impression to contact a man who was walking slowly down the street It looked like he was depressed for something and the feeling was so strong that I couldn´t contain myself. It was interesting because at first he seemed a little startled that two young men began talking to him in the middle of an abandoned street haha, but he soon opened up and became very interested in the message that we had to give. We taught him this saturday and he and his wife have desires to get married and be baptized. Preach my Gospel says that when we teach people, at the start they may not realize that we are servants of the Lord, but if we have patience and teach them with power and by the spirit even the people with very hard hearts can be receptive to the gospel. So much more to say but my time is up....

I love you all, am praying for you. Next week Percy and Soledad get married. I AM SO EXCITED!!!!


Elder Neff

Sicuani (pronounced sik-quan-ee in case you wanted to know) 5.13.13

WOW! I loved talking with all of you. That was a highlight of the week. It is wonderful to see how you are all doing so well and that you are all very happy. I´m happy too! I love that I have a family that is so supportive and loves me so much, know that I appreciate everything that you do... including that Mom and Dad still wrote me last night even when we had just talked a few hours earlier, thank you mom and Dad!

This week, two new missionaries were sent to our ward to open a new sector. It was something completely unexpected, one of the assistants called me during the lunch hour and told us that we needed to get everything ready for two new missionaries that would be arriving in Sicuani at about 8 oclock at night, they also said that we would be splitting up our companionship, and each of us would be taking one of the new missionaries. My companion took a brand new missionary to change and I took an Elder Vasquez that was transfered from the mission columbia Barrancia for health. It has been was fun showing them the sector, it is always exciting when you get to learn from another missionary. Everyone teaches in their own specific way, and it is fun to see the way that these people bring the spirit into a lesson. Elder Vasquez is very good at inviting the spirit.

 Elder Vasquez and I had an interesting experience teaching a man and his family that I think i told you about yesterday. Rarely have I had a moment to argue with someone during my mission, but as I was telling you yesterday, the Lord sometimes asks us to speak forcefully to people who reject gospel truths. This man needed to be burned (with love) a little and have his eyebrows singed... the spirit moved me to speak to him, but the words that I spoke were not my own. Nobody rejects a true testimony, because it is a conviction that one receives from the holy spirit, and the holy spirit testifies of all truth. I love that many times when all the information seems to be confusing and the doctrine difficult to understand, the spirit helps me to feel that what I am saying is true, and that makes all of the difference.

Mom and Dad maybe just for you... your discretion.  Many times here I feel like it is difficult for the missionaries to find themselves with the spirit, or that there are so many concerns for living in a third world country,  and dealing with people and missionaries from another nationality that there are problems with obedience or with concentracion on the mission. This has been very frustrating. The other day a missionary was talking with his family in an international call box and I was looking out onto the street... I asked my Heavenly Father what he thought of the situation, and how he viewed the circumstances that I was in. A few distinct impressions came to my mind. The first was " This is your mission, if I had wanted to send you to another place where the circumstances were different I would have done it, don´t think that I dont appreciate your efforts or that they are ´not good enough´, I put you here because you are the best I have for this place"  The other feeling that I had had to do with my patriarchal blessing, which tells me that with time i will be able to associate with people who are committed to the standards and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I feel that the Lord is very pleased with my work, and that he only asks that I keep trying to be better. 

I love you all! 

Elder Neff 

Sicuani 5.6.13

I have bad news..... today was WAY  to stressful... and i am not going to be able to send you guys hardly anything. I have to send our numbers to the secretary in the office... so i can only tell you about the mothers day call you will be getting this sunday!

I plan to call you guys at 5 oclock, our time. That means you will get the call at about four o clock in the states (I think check for sure) I will be using the old skype account that i had. WOW I LOVE YOU ALL SEE YOU IN 6 DAYS! 

Elder Neff

p.s. there will be no pre-call... just be ready. 

SICUANI 4.29.13

MOM AND DAD.... dont forget to fix up the email and send it to everybody XFa gracias.. You da best :)

I want you to send this to my friend feed.... idk if you can even see it... actually thinking about it you definitely cant so... well I am going to think about how we can fix it up... for next week.

Well the changes came and went. We have a sector in the zone called Espinar, I´m sure that I have told you about it once already. It is about 2 hours away from Sicuani in car and much of the road is a dirt trail. It is a super cool sector, and it is a WARD with a chapel and about 80-100 asist every sunday, that gives you an idea of how strong the members are... but the missioneries tend to become a little relaxed working in this sector. We had to help them get their focus back about two weeks ago and then gave our informe to President and the Asistants. I thought that as we fixed the problem, the missioneries could have another chance... Unfortunately they got sent far away to another zone. Later I realized that it was 100 percent inspired as the missioneries had done NOTHING to fix the problem practically with the week that we gave them to better everything before the changes. I don´t think I have ever been really mad in the mission but I almost blew a top with that one. If the missioneries don´t decide to change when they are given a second chance how can they expect to teach people about the atonement. Sometimes missionaries think that the mission rules dont mean anything in the long run but they really do reflect what we think about the savior and his atonement, and how important it is to learn the principle of obedience. (RM´s please don´t call me a ruler ;)

not to much more to say. We had a conference with president this week... This man has influenced my life so much in just the short time that he has been my mission president... june 30th enters President Harvardson.

Love you all, more pics of Machu Picchu!

Elder Neff

 

 

 

 

 

MACHU PICCHU! 4.20.13 (and Happy 20th Birthday to Sam TODAY!)

WOW! It has been an amazing week. I truly am grateful for the cool opportunities that I get to have here in the mission... especially because this week I went to MACHU PICCHU! do you know what that means in Quechua? It means old mountain.. and yes it is super supa OLD!  Probably the coolest experience of my life to date, meaning, it is talked up a lot and there is no bull in just how cool it is, I hope the pictures do it some justice.

Right now I am sitting in the mission office. These last two days have been a very good amount of traveling and fun. Today we have changes and I think that after that I am just ready to get back to work. 

The answer is NO I do not have a change, my companion doesn´t either so I will be chilling in Sicuani at least until june, and possibly july. Up until now I have loved every minute of my time in Sicuani so I would be very pleased if they let me serve they for a few more changes. The time passes just too quickly and every moment in your sector is precious. Up until now we have three couples that are progressing very well. (I think that I sent you a photo of one of them and their extended family who are members... we are outside one of the chapels in Sicuani) they are named Percy and Soledad. The only challenge that we have with them is getting them prepared for a marriage date and then they will be ready for baptism. I am super, SUPER excited. I have not had the chance to marry a couple and have them baptized yet in my mission... it really is a special feeling when you prepare a family to receive the gospel. Even their three year old son is excited! He always asks us at the end of our lessons. "elderes, oracion?" and there is a funny story that comes with this. We were sitting with the family in sacrament mtg, and a sister was going up to the pulpit to give the benediction. The son of the family was all ready with his arms crossed for the prayer, when all of the sudden his cousin ( who is the son of their member extended family) yelled from the front of the chapel, "Saith (name of the kid) veng!" There was a moment when I looked at the little kid and he looked at me... I totally mouthed "NO" (there are some parenting problems here sometimes I feel like the parent haha) and he smiled... and then got up and started running wild through the chapel during the whole prayer.... and it was like a 5 minute prayer given by a panai.... oh my goodness que verguenza... But my investigators seemed to feel fine about it... haha so it turned out ok. 

What can I say about machu picchu? Check out the pics... they are beautiful i think I took about 70 and a bunch of videos.

 Thank you so much! I have to end but I am super happy, yes all of the packages came. When you get a medical bill about my eyes. dont have a super freak out. There is a very good opthamologist here in cusco... he helped me out because the pressure was a little high in my eye. I have medication its all good. Love you! (sorry the internet is super slow in the office.... I will send my card with all of the photos)

Sicuani 4.15.13

My goodness I am suffering, Dad send me an email! You may not think that your normal everyday life seems interesting to me, but I would love to here from you :) ( dad I just got your email so forget i said that ;)

We´ve had a wonderful week here in sicuani. Actually... I spent a good part of the week in other sectors of the mission. Firstly, this week we had the Zone leader training mtg. with president. It´s always an amazing experience to have a training mtg with president, and even more on this occasion because he spent a good amount of his time talking about his personal feelings about being called to be a seventy. (Did you pay attention in conference? President is going to be a seventy!) It was super enjoyable the whole experience. The first thing he told us was his reaction when the area office called him.. he told us he though " uh oh, surely they are calling me to burn me about something" hahaha but instead of that they were calling him to be a 70! I am so happy for my mission president, this man has taught me more with his words and examples than I could ever thank him for. This training mtg he said a few phrases that really impacted me, a few of which were "obedience is the base of all success in life" , and " a mature man is one who learns to have emotions like a child". These phrases impacted me and i have tried to put them into action in my daily proselytizing life haha. 

 I especially had the chance when we went to go and do a work visit in the sector Espinar. Espinar is a mining town HIGH up in the Andes, but it is a WARD and there are many strong members who live there. The problem was that the missionaries who are serving there began to be very relaxed in their work... and we didnt know anything about it because we were pleased with the indicatores that they were giving us ( I learned that in life we always need to be vigilant even if the situation seems like it is OK) and everything seemed to be fine. We interviewed all of them and reviewed their planners... well everything was not fine and I called the assistants to give a report, happy we fixed the situation. 

The rest of the day I spent helping the elders get some good work done in their sector. We placed a baptismal date and got to know a lot of members. I am amazed everytime I go to work in another area to know that the principles of missionary work are constant... even if the situations change a little according to the situation. It is great to serve the missionaries, no matter where they are serving. 

On to my sector, I am working SO HARD with our investigators.... I am seeing many things that we can improve in our sector, pray for my investigators, especially Percy and Soledad, they are a couple that we plan to baptize this month of may. Wonderful people but there are a few challenges that they need to overcome. 

 I love you all! Enjoy the pictures! The letters I am trying to send home are backed up about 2 months because I dont trust the mail system in sicuani... sorry... just know that I love you all. 

No we didnt drive the moto

My shoes are dying, time to find someone who will replace the sole with AIRPLANE TIRE! 

sunset

various others...

P.S I got no information from you about the bank! IAM going to take out the money ANYWAY! because i am going to MACHU PICHU! 

Elder Neff