3rd Transfer in Neyba!

Wow! Honestly, I know you guys are super jealous of the warm weather over here, but I´m wishing it was as cold here as it is there! We just got transfer calls on Saturday, and it looks like I´ll be staying in Neyba for at least another transfer! This week was good! Fernanda and Joanna are learning lots and they're still progressing towards baptism! 

So, one thing that isn´t so fun about being so far from the capital is that it takes us a while to get certain materials. Like the lesson pamphlets. Hopefully we´ll be getting some at transfers, but right now, we are out of the restoration, and the plan of salvation which are the two best lessons to start teaching with usually. So we´ve had to do so many contacts using the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if we don´t get some more, we´re going to have to start contacting with the word of wisdom, or law of chasity! Lol. 

Another thing that´s not so great about being way out here is the fact that in a couple of weeks, Elder Neil L. Andersen is going to Santo Domingo, and those in the capital get to go listen to him live, and meet him, and us out here are watching it by transmission. So it really doesn´t make a difference for us that he´s on the island. Oh well...

This week we had a really cool lesson with a family that aren´t even our investigators. So, we were out teaching with a recent convert. A 12-year-old kid named Leomar. Well, we were trying to teach, but we walked from house to house for an hour and a half, because all of the appointments that we had fell through. So finally, we asked him where Mariangel and Christopher live (investigators of the other companionship here in Neyba). They´re awesome, but their parents won´t let them get baptized) So, we went to their house, and started talking to them. Then just as we were about to leave, their mom came home, and we started talking to her. Then, we saw Elder Robinson, and Elder Capellan coming over. So, without planning on any of this, we had 4 missionaries, the 2 investigators, and their mom, all in a spur of the moment lesson. And let me tell you. The lesson was straight fiiiiire. We started talking, and then when one of us was finished, another would start. It was like having 2 Almas, and 2 Amuleks all in a lesson.

So, it turns out that the reason the mom didn´t want to give permission to her kids, is that she is a member, but she told us that she never was really converted, and she thought the missionaries were nice, and never really had her own testimony, and she didn´t want the same thing to happen to her kids. 

Elder Bednar said in a missionary broadcast that we had once, that sometimes, if you learn something while you´re teaching it, that´s probably the Holy Ghost. So, I definitely think that it was the Holy Ghost helping me teach in that moment. I told her that conversion was not a destination, but a path. That if you are increasing your faith, then you can say that you are converted. It´s not where you are at, but the direction that you´re moving. Then I shared in Mosiah 18, when Alma is preaching, and says that if it´s your DESIRE to be baptized and to follow Christ, that´s all that you need.  God gives us everything when we truly have a desire for those things. Not because we´ve earned them. Because we can´t earn salvation. We just need a true desire.

Well, I think our lesson worked, because those 2 kids now have permission to be baptized! It´s fun to see how the Lord works, and how much I´m learning while I´m teaching others. Anyway. That was the highlight of my week! I hope your weeks are just as great. I love you all so much!

Love, Elder Anderson