New Branch President, Same Pueblo

Ke Lo Ke familia!!!! I can´t believe it´s already Monday again. The weeks are flying by here in Neyba, and it looks like I´ll have a fourth transfer here! This could be my last transfer here, but then again, it might not be. I´ve heard that since President and Sister Nuckols are leaving, and President and SIster de los Santos are coming in June, that the next transfer will only be 3 weeks long, and that the transfer after will be 9 weeks. So we´ll see how long I stay for. All I know is that I want to stay as long as possible because I love Neyba. I just got a new companion though! His name is Elder Souza, and he´s from Brazil, so I´ll be learning some Portugese this next transfer! He was my zone leader, but our zone is HUGE as far as distance goes (the smallest as far as population of missionaries) so I never met him before, but he´s a cool dude! Also, he´s the new Branch President here, but since I already know how to do the Branch President stuff, it´s my job to teach him, and show him the ropes, which is super wierd, but kind of fun!

The rest of the week was really good! I went on divisions in Duvergé again, and we talked with this SUPER rich family that lives there, and have always been pretty good friends of the missionaries (they´re catholic by tradition, and aren´t interested in converting) but we were trying to get a job for a future missionary in Duvergé at the dude´s business. We talked with them for a while, and honestly it was SO enjoyable.

Also during the week, a member came to the house and took back all of the dishes that were his that I guess he had lent to us... And we were left with just about nothing. I didn´t even have a pan to boil water in. And we had 1 fork. Just one... So I called the mission office, and they approved for us to buy some new dishes for the house, so now we have a pot, some plates, and 4 forks! haha, the only problem is that we haven´t had water since Tuesday night, so now all of our new dishes are sitting in the sink, unwashed, and we don´t have anything clean. What a joy, right! 

Investigator report: I got Books of Mormon in Creole for Givelord and his brother Millord and Millord is almost done with 2nd Nephi, and it´s been about a week and a half! Those two are gold! Also, we had 2 baptisms planned for this past Sunday, but we postponed them due to the fact that one of them didn´t have very many times in a row coming to church, and I´m not going to baptize a less active, and the other told us that she REALLY likes coffee, and she had a hard time understanding why we can´t drink it. So those two will come along I think, they just need a little more time. I feel really good about having them wait though. This country has such a bad problem with less-active and Inactive members, and I´m not going to add to it. I´d rather have zero baptisms, and have my investigators be baptized when they´re ready by the next missionaries that come, than to baptized a hundred people, and have them all go inactive.

That´s why before I baptize someone, I like to read Mosiah 4-5 with them, which talks about the peoples reaction after King Benjamin speaks to them, and the results of their changed hearts. When Elder Andersen of the Quorum of the twelve was here, he told us that before baptism, every investigator needs to have two things:
1. A love for the book of Mormon
2. A personal experience of repentance with the Lord 

I realized that those are also the two of the things that we need if we are to becomemore converted ourselves. But one of my favorite parts of Mosiah 5 is verse 7, that says:

7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

Basically, when we are "Born again" (Baptized) we are becoming sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, and how do we do that? With a change of heart (Repentance), through Faith on his name.

It´s a pretty cool theme, and I really love studying all the connections through the 5 points of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyway, that was my week, and I hope you all have a great week as well. ¡Les Amo!

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Love, Elder Anderson