The End

 Well, this is it. Two full years in serving God. I can't believe it's over. This last week I've been reflecting on my mission and the events I've experienced and who I've become. I'm honestly sad to leave it all behind. I have those memories and will forever cherish them. There will be no more proselyting, zone conferences, district councils, P-Days, exchanges, MLC, or even that dumb device that monitors our cars. It's over. But on the other hand, I'm really excited to see my family again. I'm so torn apart in so many different ways. Las Vegas has become my home. It's cliche but up until now, these have been the best two years of my life.

My completely destroyed shoes

A couple things happened this week. First of all, I had my departing interview with my mission president. It was amazing, a moment I will never forget. We basically just asked each other questions about what's next for me and things like that. He talked about be finding a wife and all that jazz. I told him that was the plan haha. President Nielson has quickly become one of my heroes. What an amazing man. Sister Nielson is just the sweetest person ever. She's been a great leader and friend as well. President Nielson in 40 years has personally studied almost every day. He's only missed enough to count on two hands. He told me he wishes he could say he's never missed personal study but then he told me that I could say that. I have the choice right now. I pray and hope I can say in 40 years I've never missed a personal study. He then gave me a booklet of all the areas I've served in and all my companions, that was nice to see. 

Another amazing thing that happened was bringing a member to our inactive members lessons with the Coleman family. They became best friends and boldly invited them to church again. After 5 years of inactivity, they have now come to church two weeks in a row and then set up an interview with the bishop to get a temple recommend. What a miracle. I'm so glad to see a family return to activity.

All my posterity at transfers

Me attending the temple

We went to Sandy Valley for one of my last days and I had the one of the biggest miracles of my mission. First of all, there was absolutely no reason for us to be in Sandy Valley, we just felt like going. We have no cell service out there and we only have it at the local library in the town. We just happened to be at the right place at the exact right time to receive a referral notification on our phones. That meant someone wants to missionaries to contact them. We called them right away and one of the first things they said on the phone when we called was "wow that was fast". On the other line was Brenda, an amazing lady who had a desire to learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints only because of a freak "come to Jesus" moment that led her to us. After a random encounter with senior missionaries the night before, they contacted us and were the ones that sent the referral. Brenda was humbled and was in the prime opportunity to accept the gospel and she for sure needed it. We called her and set up a lesson. We then got to know her and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson which includes the necessary principles of faith, repentance, and baptism. She expressed how she wanted to be baptized again as an adult and how she really wants to learn more about our church. She was in fact elect. She later told us as we were teaching her about the Holy Ghost she said "wow that's super interesting. You know I experienced that today actually. When you called me and the phone rang, I never answer calls from anybody I don't know but a voice in my head said answer the phone... and now I'm here with you guys". Elder Muraski and I just looked at each other with wide eyes. What an incredible miracle. 

I'm so glad to have served a mission here in Las Vegas. I know God is real. He is our loving Heavenly Father. I know Jesus Christ is the son of God. This is the church of Jesus Christ. It's led by a living prophet. 

Thank you for all the support you have all given me on my mission. Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

The Future of Missionary Work

 Hola,

I have one last week left in the mission. Two full years in service. Looking back on it I still can't believe I just did that. But it's not over yet. One more week. 

It's finally cooling down again. Today it was like 50-60 degrees, and I wore a sweater because it was actually really cold. Yesterday had a crazy dust storm that made everyone's garbage bins fly everywhere and sand get all over in my hair and eyes, that was awesome. Another thing that happened today was that the sister missionaries called us and apparently someone had requested a blessing in there ward. We went with them to the ICU in the hospital and gave an unconscious man a blessing. He had his family there, so it wasn't super weird. But apparently, he was on his death bed, and he wanted a blessing but went unconscious later. I think that was either my first or second time giving someone on their death bed a blessing. I think the last time was when I was with Elder Mcgee in the Cheyenne ward. 

Elder Muraski, my companion, is doing really good. Him and I are having fun and working. Our teaching pool is still garbage but we're trying. I'm very excited to not have a companion anymore though haha... anyways... we brought an inactive family named the Colemans to church which was awesome. After 5 years of inactivity, they came back. It was nice to see them there and see fruits of our labors. I know I was in this ward for a reason and one of them was for them. We liked brother Coleman so much we even tie traded with him which was awesome. 

Something my companion and I have been doing is printing out and taping up countless QR codes for the Book of Mormon app. For those of you that don't know, if you scan this code, it will take you to the free Book of Mormon app and you can download it and start reading. You can even find the nearest chapel near you on the App and meeting missionaries in your area which is mega cool. We even have stickers for the QR code now and we've been putting it everywhere. This really is the future of missionary work haha. Now people will see this random QR code and scan it for fun, but then it'll take them to the book of Mormon. Kinda cool! 

For my last cool story that happened this week, I got to see and hold a 1st edition copy of the Book of Mormon. There are only 5000 of those in the world! The one I saw and held was Elizabeth Cowdery's personal book of Mormon. She was Oliver Cowdery's wife. We even got to see her 200-year-old handwriting in the book of verses she liked and other interesting things. Some mega rich member bought it and now has it just chilling in his house. Apparently, the church wants to buy it from him but I'm not sure what he's going to do. It was honestly super cool and being able to hold it and read from it was awesome. Since that was the wife of a close friend of Joseph Smith, I'm sure at one point he held it. Kinda cool! Back in the day apparently the Book of Mormon costed 1.50$ because Martin Harris had to mortgage his farm to pay for the printing. So, they needed to pay that money back somehow haha.

These past two years have been a ride. I will have one more week left and one more email after this. My very last one. 

"thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean... even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father."

Ether 12:37 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

Back in Pahrump

 Hola,

I hit 23 months today. Very cool. We are honestly not teaching that many people now which is still a bummer but hey we're working hard and grinding which is good. We're working through the members and finding through our own efforts, so God knows I'm trying.

We had zone conference this week and the theme was ASK, SEEK, KNOCK which was fun. I gave my departing missionary testimony to everyone which was fun. I spent my whole mission watching others give theirs during zone conference and now it's my turn. Elder Muraski and I also gave a training which was fun about finding people to teach. We made a talk show thing and then talked about good finding practices and how to always teach in everyone scenario. 

Zone Conference

I went to Pahrump on exchanges last weekend. Pahrump is basically a dump town next to Las Vegas. There is a whole district of missionaries over there that we needed to check up on. I went with Elder Plaster and Campos. It was mega fun and a lot of crazy stuff happened. We got into lots of houses and had lots of lessons. Tracting there is like tracting trailer parks so it's kinda cool. I had a crazy lady release her dog on us and the dog almost bit us which was wild. Somehow he didn't and instead just stood right in front of us and barked at us. Glad I didn't get attacked. Then we had a recent convert feed us dinner and that was the most wack dinner of my mission. I cannot even explain it, it was so wack. Basically, he just made fun of us and the church the whole time. We also went off-roading and Elder Plaster got an 'aggressive driving' which means he was going crazy. 

After our several Pahrump exchanges, we went to the Sandy Valley Branch and spoke in sacrament meeting. That was super fun, and the congregation really liked our talks. Helping and serving that branch is super fun. The branch here is awesome. 

Love you all

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack 

Get Dropped LOL

 Hola,

This week was overall good except for one thing. Cynthia dropped us. Now she doesn't want any more lessons for a little bit which is a huge bummer. I was a little frustrated, but I got over it. Now I guess we have to find a new progressing family. Even though she prayed and got her answer it was true she still couldn't give up certain things.

We had MLC again. Pretty much nothing got done but it's alright. We had some great trainings and discussion which was needed. But really no good action items were set. But I got to see old friends before I go home in a couple weeks which was good.

Me and Elder Dawson on exchanges

They finally changed the music rule in our mission. It was pretty strict and now it's super loose. Wish this could've happened sooner but I guess I'll take 3 weeks of the new music rule. We were only allowed to listen to the sacred music app but now we can listen to whatever we want as long we'd feel comfortable with Jesus in the car or to play it at a baptismal service. So, this is pretty epic. 

Khaki Thursday

Lately we've been printing out QR codes for the book of Mormon app and have been handing them out. That's been pretty fun.

We had exchanges with the assistants the other day which was fun. I went with Elder Dawson who was my previous companion and now he's the AP. It was really fun to reminisce on old times. He's a good missionary and is a great leader for the mission. We tracked alot and had a decent number of lessons.

 

Companion study and handing out QR codes

We taught a family the Plan of Salvation which was cool. Later we saw a bunch of homeless people do some drugs in a field which was also another highlight. LOL

Well, that was pretty much the whole week, love you all! 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

Lone Mountain Temple

 Hola, 

This was a very good week. Saw lots of miracles and had more really awesome experiences. The heat is cooling down now and it's no longer blazing hot. I survived two Vegas Desert summers! That's so awesome. More people are outside now and it's actually enjoyable to be outside, I hope this means our finding and other efforts will increase. 

We had general conference this week. This will be my fourth and final general conference in the mission. We watched with a bunch of different members for each session and one of them was an inactive family. After watching a session, they mentioned how they would like to start coming back to church. Very cool! We also watched it with our investigator Cynthia in Sandy Valley, and she really liked the Sunday morning session. The talks really helped her out a lot. It's super amazing to see these experiences go on in people's lives and be a part of this great work. Not going to lie I definitely gained like 10 pounds from how many cinnamon rolls I ate during conference with the members. 

Watching General Conf. with a member

At the very end of conference, they announced that they will build a temple in Lone Mountain Nevada, that's in my mission! Very cool to hear that in my last transfer of my mission. Finally, a Las Vegas West temple. The east is cool but west is the best. Lone Mountain is a random mountain in the Westside of Las Vegas just chilling there and so it's super cool to hear that there will be a temple literally right next to it. That Lone Mountain hike will be even better now. I'm looking forward to attending that temple one day. 

Lone Mountain Temple site

The rest of my week was good. We had lots of experiences where we prayed and felt prompted to go to an area and then we found someone to teach. Very cool. We found a part member family not on record who wants to start coming back to church. We just got their records moved in so now the ward can start ministering to them and stuff. It's been a productive and good week. Being in the service of the Lord is always amazing. I love the mission. Cynthia also fasted with us last week so she could go to church on Sunday and get a new job. A new job then opened up to help her out and now she will attend church soon. Very cool! 

Also, we found out that there was a reason why those mines were closed up. Apparently, there are large amounts of radiation and uranium so we will not be attending the abandoned mines anymore.

Anyways so that was pretty much the entire week, I love my mission and my area. This is an amazing time to be serving.

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack 

Me on Lone Mountain with the new temple site behind me.

Stay Out, Stay Alive

 Hola,

I've been thinking more and more about my life after the mission. I'm not trunky or anything like that. Trunky is just a term that means you want to go home. My thoughts are this: the day I leave will come when it comes. I'll be ready but I'm still going to work as much as I can these last few weeks that I have. Sometimes it's difficult with my companions. Lately my companions have been pretty lazy which is a bummer. Elder Muraski will grind if I grind but if I don't choose to go out or plan well then nothing really gets done. I love him haha but this is the life I'm in, I guess. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I feel like I work really hard and sometimes others don't have that same drive which is fine. I'm in my last transfer and Elder Muraski is in his second to last. His end is coming up around the corner. 

Anyways so what happened this week. Well, it was the first week after transfers and our roommate picked up his new missionary Elder Burns. He's a funny guy that is excited to work. I'm glad to live with Elder Maner and Elder Burns in my last transfer. It's kinda interesting to see the generation of missionaries that will live on after I leave. It's pretty surreal. I guess that how life goes though. I've started a program called 'MyPlan' for missionaries going home. It helps people transition to the real world. It's also super boring. Each zoom meeting for the MyPlan thing is on a different subject. One of the upcoming ones will be about dating which might be cool. :)

A tarantula some Elders in my zone found and now have as a pet.

Group picture at transfers

Elder Muraski and I also went to Sandy Valley again and taught our two investigators out there, Michelle and Cynthia. Cynthia is struggling to get time off from work on Sundays, so we fasted with her on Sunday for her to get work off. Hopefully she will soon. I'd really like to see her baptized before I go home. Michelle is attending church and progressing, she could be baptized this transfer as well. In Sandy Valley we saw a lot of more cool stuff, like abandoned mines and helicopters with turrets flying around. Basically, there is this helicopter tour place where you can pay to ride a helicopter and shoot from a turret at a mountain. I took a video of it but didn't get any pictures, it was really cool. It flew over our truck then just started going ham on the mountain. 

We didn't go into any areas that were marked DANGER.

A sign outside the mine. Stay Out, Stay Alive

Arial view of parts of Las Vegas

This is going to be a fun transfer. It sure is going to go by fast. I hope it doesn't go by too fast. 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack