Late to the Fun Run

 Hola, 

Pues, pues, pues, here we are again. Another week down and now this is my official last email of the transfer. Next email I'll write will be the start of a new transfer. Time sure does fly. Starting next week I will have 5 transfers left. That's not long at all and will go by super duper fast. Let's just get right into business. 

Elder Medina and I have finally clicked and we have been getting along really well. We've both been super obedient and working really hard. That's what I like to see. I'd be down for another transfer with him so we'll see if that happens. I wonder if he'd be down with another one with me haha. I definitely have a love for the area and my companion now. This last week of the transfer is going to be a super good one.

Today we were supposed to have a 5K fun run as a mission (which is like 3 miles) and Elder Medina and I accidently missed it. Apparently it was at 6:45 am and not 7:45 am, we realized we would be super late so we just didn't go. It was genuinely an accident haha. I actually really like running so I wanted to go (especially since our race was with Spring Lakes so Elder Plaster would be there). But we missed it soo.... but hey I still got the free shirt.

My Fun Run T Shirt

Let's see... what else happened this week? I was super sick last week which I might've forgot to mention last week. I had a super runny nose and cough and headache but I still did the work anyways because I'm super stubborn. I also had exchanges with Elder Barney. I love that guy alot, we've known each other in the mission for quite a while so going on an exchange with him as my zone leader was awesome. He's such a great guy. We've served around each other a lot so hopefully I get to serve with him again. Nothing really too special happened in the exchange but we did have mega fat miracles in tracting where people kept inviting us inside and stuff. 

We ran into this guy named Jeremy who was super cool and let us inside. He was really digging our first lesson until his wife came home who was actually an inactive member of our church (we didn't know that because this was our first interaction with the family). It was actually hilarious because you could here her walk in and set stuff down, and then walk into the living room right in the middle of the lesson. Her face was PRICELESS. Her eyes were huge and super surprised and like uh oh. She then instinctively said, "Hi Elders." We were like don't mind us just about to set your husband on date to be baptized. Her husband was really enjoying our lesson. Like actually but she quickly shut it down. We tried to finish as fast as we could and we invited them to pray on our knees together to know if it was true and Jeremy's wife was like "I don't think that's something we plan on doing." Then we got booted out. Kinda lame. I was really hoping she'd be willing to pray with us but I guess that wasn't in her schedule or something.

Another funny story this week is when we got visited by Elder Greenstreet, our housing coordinator. Elder Greenstreet is a older gentleman who is a little shorter than most people and a bit more goofy than most people too. He told us that basically our apartment needed to be closed down again and we'd open a new one next transfer. Uggghh... this literally has happened 2 times already on my mission and now I have to do a 3rd. I'm really not feeling like closing down my apartment again but I guess we have to do what we have to do. Also super randomly, after 15 minutes of Elder Greenstreet explaining this to us he looks around the room and checks it to make sure we were alone, he leans in closely and quietly whispers, "Elders, do you know what the printers manuscript is?" We say no. Then he tells us to sit down and he proceeds to explain the entire translation process of the Book of Mormon to us in vivid detail and shares his testimony of the Book of Mormon, which takes around a half hour. Now don't get me wrong, his testimony was very touching but just so random and out of context to explain the entire story of the printing manuscript in the Book of Mormon translation process in our apartment without warning after explaining that we are getting kicked out of our apartment. You'd just have to be there to experience it, it was heartwarming but hilarious at the same time. Then he says, anyways Elders, I'll catch you later and he just dips out immediately. Wow, I love the senior missionary couples.

My desk

A picture of our apartment

We had a pretty cool lesson with a guy named Robert where we put him on date to be baptized. It was pretty awesome. A lot of our other part member families fell off date so it's cool to have another guy in our area that we can look forward to getting baptized. Robert was in Logandale so the lesson was in English. We don't have a lot of progressing people that we are teaching in Spanish.

To be honest, I think the driving force of my happiness as a missionary is love. When I realize my blessings and express how grateful I am for them to others, I developed a real love for the events and people I am around. Then when I love what is happening even if it may not be the prime circumstances, I start to be happier and less stressed. I love the mission, love my companion, love the area, love the work, and most importantly I love the Lord. He's impacted me so much that I can't even describe how grateful I am. You see? When you love all those aspects, then of course you are going to be happy no matter what happens. 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

 

Shrek Selfie