CUSCO 9.23.13

I am going to write you all more tomorrow.... I was having P-day but now I have to go and help a companionship in another zone.... kind of an emergency so I have to get going here pretty soon. What I do want to do is give you some pics of my trip to the real JUNGLE. It was amazing and I had so many great experiences that I will tell tomorrow... for now just a spiritual thought. 

 Read a talk from Elder Holland from the Ensign of last month about the difference between justice and mercy, freedomand captivity.... it made me reflect so much about my time as a missionary, and howthe greatest blessing has been my understanding of the importance of the commandments. My whole concept has changed of my relation of my Heavenly Father and of what he expects of me... every day things are getting better because I am trying to give myself more and more to him. 

President has talked to me a few timesabout how when I go home, if I haven´t changed, I have missed  the whole point.... I have realized that as I try to change, I am learning more, understanding people better.... the whole gospel of Jesus Christ has taken on a new meaning in my heart that I never ever want to lose. 

And that means that these changes have to be permanent. And I know that it might be a little hard to always do, but its my new goal forevor and always!!! 

I love you more tomorrow,

Elder Neff

CUSCO 9.16.13

Well hello my family!!!!!! How are all of you!? I got a letter from quite a few of you so I assume that everything is going really really great! I am doing great as well :) 

Ok, so as you can see I sent you a boatload of photos! We went to Quillabamba this week and were able to have a training mtg with the missionaries and do a work visit with the zone leaders. I was able to have a great visit with my old companion from the CCM, Elder NOLAN!  I was more than excited to have that oportunity.  

The trip to Quillabamba in itself was quite the adventure, going up to over 4000 meters and then dropping down quickly into a valley at 1000 where it is basically the " seja de selva" o sea, eyebrow of the jungle was quite chevere. 

The work visit with Elder Nolan was so great. It was such a cool moment to remember how we had taught together in the CCM knowing hardly a lick of spanish and then having this oportunity about a year later to see how far we had come. He is a wonderful missionary and am so glad that he is trying so hard to help the missionaries in Quillabamba. 

Mom I read the newsflash about elder Cook in Perú and I couldn´t help but think about what his reaction would have been to visit Quillabamba. It is a small district with three branches and a family group.... i feel like the area could just explode with a little more leadership and a good focus on reactivation as well as teaching non members. A city where 600 people are more or less "active" and there are over 3000 people registered as baptized on the records of the church. I believe it is time to rescue! And while we were there we talked a good while about all of that. I hope the missionaries can embrace the new focus of the work of salvation and be able to find even purpose in this new type of focus. 

As for me and my companion we are doing sooo great! Elder Castro is from Lima and he is the kindest person. I can´t believe how much he has served me in just the few short weeks we have been companions. I hope to learn so much from him and I am assuming that we could be companions for a good little while. I expect to enjoy every minute of it! 

I love you all soooooooooo much. I feel blessed more and more everyday for my service. I am getting off now trying to be more obedient with the time rules.  But I cannot believe how much has been able to change in such a short time of my life. 

Loves

Elder Neff

CUSCO 9.10.13

Great week. here are some of the great things that happened. 

We taught the first lesson to a member family and their two nieces who are not members. (references;)  It has been a great experience teaching member references. Can you imagine the difference between someone who is surprised with missionaries on their door step and with someone who has been carefully prepared by members to recieve the gospel! It is a very big difference. 

We explained the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, and I think few times in my mission a lesson has gone to smoothly. It was great to take a moment just to think and realize that the Lord has given me such a blessing to learn and understand the language, and I feel so good being able to express myself easily to explain the gospel. 

The two investigators had already seen the video of the restoration of the gospel, but I felt the need to go over again the first vision, and tell the experience of joseph smith looking for the true church. 

As I was finishing telling the acccount of the first vision, I felt the strong impression to look into one of the investigators eyes until I finished speaking. I was on the part of "one of them spake unto me calling me by name..... ) so I felt like I still had a ways to go before I finished the lesson. BUT I KEPT EYE CONTACT, I listened to the spirit and it was the right thing to do (its always the right thing to do) she looked intently into my eyes too and i know she felt the spirit.... she seemed to be affected after I told the acount and the rest of the lesson was much more receptive to what we taught. 

Well.... tomorrow we are traveling. It is and exciting but difficult part of being an assistant. Pray for my investigators while I am gone from cusco because I get back on Saturday and they need to read the Book of Mormon! 

I love you all so much, and will talk to you soon! 

Elder Neff

Pics of the trip to pisac.

CUSCO 9.2.13

CRAZY!!!! week! but so rewarding. The visit that we had from Elder Grow was something else and I am so happy that we recieved such a great blessing.

He talked about many important things, among them how we need to change our focus from just missionary work to, the work of salvation. It was explained to us many times how important it will be for us to take care of less actives and recent converts.

The whole week was spent with many mtgs and for me SO MANY different things to learn... honestly a little stressed and I am going to enjoy this p-day tooooooooo much! haha, but I love you all, Im sorry the letter will be better next week.

Closing thought, Elder Grow said something very special, he said that this moment in the history of the church is a moment tan significante (sorry I can never think in english) as the first vision, or as the restoration of the church, the priesthood etc. and that everyone will look at this moment and say " that is when everything changed!"

Can you believe this? What a blessing we have to be at the forefront of this great change.

I love you all! Que el señor les bendiga

Elder Neff

CUSCO 8.26.13

Ok... so I bet you are all a little surprised to be getting an email from me on a saturday, the truth is I am a little surprised too.

Not too much to say, I guess that I will be able to write more when we go back to normal p-day schedule on mondays. (It will be the monday in two weeks not in 2 days).

I had an emergency change, and now I am serving in the office. I got a call from President tuesday night telling me that I needed to get my bags packed and that i had to be in the office at 7 30 in the morning and that I would be replacing the assistant who went home that same day.

Kind of nervous Mom and Dad, but I am just trying to keep things real and be the same missionary that I have always been.

We are a little nervous as well because in about 3 days Elder Grow a 70 will be coming to the mission and we have to get a lot of things ready for his visit.

I am sure that there will be a news flash or something about Elder Cook visiting us, stay tuned for that on the church web site!

Elder Neff

CUSCO 8.22.13

Ok.... big confession. 

I did not tell you EVERYTHING that was going to happen this past week in my last email... the truth is that we something VERY exciting happen.....

About two weeks ago I was in the chapel where the mission office is located waiting to teach a lesson with a few missionaries in my zone ( they needed a little help) but as I was waiting for the investigator to arrive the missionary who is personal secretary to the president came and said that president wanted to talk to me. 

Uh oh

Mentirita! I wasn´t THAT scared... until I stepped into president´s office. He told me that he had a special announcment and that it particularly had to do with me. UH..... I had no idea what i was thinking at this point, one of my first thoughts was that they were going to open a remote sector somewhere off in the mountains and that he wanted me to go there... or emergency transfer... yada yada who knows. 

I was very surprised when he said that we were going to recieve a visit from a few general authorities..... A few? THREE. Elder Cook, Elder Calister, and Elder Wadell. 

" And Elder Neff, The assistants here tell me that you have a lot of musical experience."

"Thats right President" 

"Elder Cook has asked that there be a choir in the program, and I want you to organize it." 

"Ok, How much time do I have?" 

" The mtg is in 10 days."

"Ok"

...................................

Maybe that gives you an idea of how I felt in that moment. I knew I needed to say yes because there was no one else who could do it, but I had NEVER directed a choir in my whole life! And there were going to be three general authorities in theis mtg. I was at least a little nervous. 

Well faith always precedes the miracle, and that is exactly what happened. Faith + Sally Deford music and a quick translation from spanish to english of "oh my father" and we were good to go.

There were about 20 elders and 20 sisters in the choir. Well, it wasn´t perfect but the Elders and Sisters sang SO WONDERFULY. I was proud, and grateful that they were ready and willing to put something together under such short notice. 

Well enough about the choir, what did the general authorities say! Such wonderful messages, they all spoke and so did everyone of their wives. I felt such a strong spirit, and was particularly grateful for the Apostolic blessing the Elder cook left for us, he talked about all of our loved ones being blessed for our service as missionaries. Elder Calister talked about the apostasy and how important it is that we teach it as missionaries. Elder Wadell speaks very good spanish and bore a simple but powerful testimony. 

I think my spiritual batteries got recharged for the rest of my mission! 

Sorry I couldn´t write on monday, the mtg was that day so we were pretty busy. Mom I promise I am OK. I hope paige and john made it back to UT alright. 

Edna I write you in one week ok? ;) 

loves and bye! 

CUSCO 8.12.13

Hey Fam!!!!! 

What can I tell you all. I am doing so great! Loving the opportunity that I have to be serving here in Cusco. 

Yesterday in church I had to give a talk on Sacrifice and it made me do some real thinking about the principle… and especially how it applies to missionary work.  As I was preparing the talk, I began to think about the many things that missionaries need to sacrifice… Yes I thought a little bit about you guys, and how much I miss you… the things I left at home… my studies, but none of these things stood out as much as one particular thought that I had.  The greatest thing to sacrifice as a missionary or member who desires to share the gospel are our own selfish desires to hold onto the natural man. I thought back to all the many people who I have taught and how important it has been that I could lose my own selfish desires and give all to help them gain a testimony of the gospel.  One of the greatest ways that we can honor the Savior is through testifying of the great sacrifice that He made for us and not just being satisfied that the power of the Atonement has had an effect on us, but that it can have an effect in many other people and bring them the peace and happiness that so many desire to have in this life. 

The other day we had a lesson with a recent convert that is a member of our ward. She is a great convert and always asks very interesting questions. She began to ask us questions about the difference in religions and how she had been to a religious panel the other day where they talked openly about religion and different beliefs. She expressed to us that the feeling from the panel was that in spite of our differences, we all try to reach the same God who loves us and wants us to be happy, and that in the end we would all be united in the same belief. 

To me it seemed like the conference was full of a lot of “feel good talk” about how we all need to be one. Great, I love it. We do need to try to be unified, we do need to love each other in spite of our differences… but a thought came to my mind exactly in this moment of an experience that Elder Packer shared in “Our Search for Happiness” about when he visited a similar religious panel. .. and I think perhaps a similar feeling was present… but Elder Packer was able to testify boldly of the truth in spite of the fact that perhaps there would be a little of resentment or discussion on the subject.

I applied this principle with our recent convert. I told her that we could be tolerant, but that it is ALWAYS important to say the truth… we might have to sacrifice some friendly feelings, but the important thing is that we can be TRUE friends and show that true friendship by helping others understand the one and true way to happiness. 

She was really impacted by what I said. And we saw that change in her this Sunday. She came up to me and started talking about how she now has a desire to serve a mission, where before she had been telling us that a mission was SO out of her plans that she was not even considering it. 

I am happy that the spirit helped me to say the truth in the moment when it was so important. 

Elder Neff