Goodbye President Reese

 Hola,

Wow and just like that... President Reese left. This week has been absolutely insane. Monday and Tuesday were pretty normal. Our mission president came after district council on Tuesday however and hugged us and said goodbye. It was actually mega sad. I wish I had him sign my Preach My Gospel but that was the one time I didn't bring it. I feel so stupid. But whatever, I guess. Glad I got to give him a hug one last time. His hugs were always so weird. We called it the Reese wrap. He literally grabbed the back of your head and smashed it into his shoulder. Awesome. But I love the guy and I'll miss him. It's time for a change, however.

I remember Wednesday morning our roommates the assistants left pretty early to pick up our new mission president, President Nielson. They picked him up and drove him to the mission office and showed him around. That day, Elder Dawson and I told our zone we had to meet at the chapel. We had around 22 missionaries in the chapel waiting to meet President Nielson for the first time. It was cool because we were the second zone he was going to meet. I remember watching him pull up in his car with the APs and I was holding the door for him. I just thought, "wow... this guy is short". He is a really short guy, but he makes up with it in the spirit. We walked over together where all the missionaries were and they all stood up and sang, "I'll go where you want me to go." It was cool. Then we had a meet & greet with President Nielson and got to know him pretty well. He is WAY more interesting than President Reese was. President Reese was all business and kind of boring. Nielson is pretty funny. He has that straight out of MTC fire. He also speaks Spanish fluently which is awesome. Reese didn't speak any Spanish.

I remember sitting down and listening to President Nielson talking with some other missionaries in the distance. It was so weird because he's wearing the mission president tag, but I barely know this dude. It was really wack. Like this guy is supposed to lead us? But as he was talking, the comments he made helped me realize that this guy was going to do a great job. The spirit confirmed to me that he was called of God and that I should be excited to work with him. 

So, it's Wednesday night and Elder Dawson and I get the opportunity to go teach with president on his first night in the mission. The APs told us last week that we'd get the opportunity to teach with him, so we better set up lessons at 7:00 pm on Wednesday. We set up 3 different lessons all at 7:00 pm and they all fell through! So, we took president tracting. It was so fun and cool. We found a guy and president bore down in pure testimony and made this homie cry. It was lit. We told president about the zone activity that every house we knocked we would ask for and collect water bottles, then we would build a huge tower with all the bottles we collected at the end of transfer. Then we knocked another door and got invited inside, it was unfortunately a member door that we didn't realize. President leans over to us and whispers, "watch this" Then he asks the member if she had any water bottles even though all three of us had our own bottles in our hand that were full. It was hilarious. She comes back with Gatorade, and he asks, "will this work?" And were like these will work great haha. It was pretty fun tracting with him and a memorable experience for sure.

I went on exchanges with Elder Streckfuss and took him tracting like 5 hours straight. That was fun. We had to cut the exchange short though because Elder Posadas and I scheduled a temple trip with a recent convert named Zoila. She is Cuban and super cool. She has been having dreams of her father in the next life, so we decided to take her to the temple to do baptisms by proxy for her family. It was an awesome experience and I loved seeing my friend Elder Posadas again. The temple is always the best place and I love the peace there. The font in the Las Vegas temple is insane. Hopefully Zoila doesn't have any more weird dreams of her father anymore haha. 

That was pretty much the entire week. I had a great time and we also found like 2 different families which is good. We're finding a lot because all the people have been dropped or have gotten baptized. I love the mission and I can't believe I've already been out 19 months. Soon I hit 20 months. Very wild. I'm in no rush to end it though. I get the rest of my life to do adult things so I'm going to enjoy these next four months I have to talk to people about Jesus. 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

New companion, gets Covid.

 Hola,

Alright quick email because I have no time today. Pretty sure I have covid and my new companion Elder Dawson gave it to me uggghh. Being sick is awful. 

Anyways, so yeah my new companion is cool. He gets us into some interesting situations. He's funny and cool though. My new roommate is named Elder Moa and he's from Hawaii. He's hilarious. He's the only brown guy in there which balances out us annoying white people haha. There are a lot of new missionaries in the zone now which is cool. They're super fun. 

We're doing a zone theme for everyone to collect water bottles while knocking a door. Then we're going to build something at the end of the transfer with all the bottles. It's going to be fun. 

Fun story, we knocked a door and bunch of ladies came out and said to go away. Then as we were walking away, they invited us back for a Bible study. There was like 8 old women in there and we had a pretty cool Bible Study. What's weird is that I didn't see any bibles out except for Elder Dawson and I's but its whatever lol. It was fun.

Lastly, I'm in constant pain from covid

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

Are You Single?

 Hola,

Can't believe another week is down and another transfer is gone too. I'm going to miss these days. Anyways today is transfer day so I need to write this speedy quick!

This transfer was a 5 week transfer instead of 6. This means that the next one is 7 weeks long! That is definitely going to feel mega long. It's going to be fun though. Our new mission president is about to come in and everyone is super excited. This is going to change the mission for the better... I hope haha. Anyways life has been good. We got the same old stuff going on. Visiting members and tracting. All that fun stuff. We had over 110 members show up to the sacrament meeting which was awesome. This tiny ward has grown so much. Love to see returning members come back especially in a Spanish ward that was struggling so hard. Our teaching is getting smaller now as we had to drop some people, super lame.

The district is super awesome. The elders and the sisters here are so fun. It's too much fun sometimes haha. It's sad to see some of them go on. Transfers came up so it's time to spice this up. Lots of people in our district are getting transferred. Now that I help lead the zone, I got to call everyone and tell them about where they will be going for transfers. It was super fun to hear people's reactions. Some of them were not happy, one of them even called our roommates (the APs) and chewed him out. It was hilarious. I'm staying in rainbow Vista and so is some other missionaries. Elder Posadas is leaving, and my new companion is Elder Dawson. I'm super excited for that. He was in my online MTC workshops before the mission, so I knew him from there, now we get to serve as companions. That's super cool! I'm sad to see Elder Posadas go, he was an incredible missionary and an even better friend.

Funny story from the week, so we got to join a mission wide zoom call and get a virtual tour of the Hill Cumorah. That was pretty cool. A sister missionary who was serving her mission there was giving us the tour, she will finish her mission out as a proselyting missionary in our mission later. During the tour we got to see lots of cool stuff, but my favorite part was afterwards. There was a Q&A portion where we got to ask all these questions. Some dingus missionary who accidently left his microphone on during the zoom call was speaking to his companion without realizing that the entire mission could hear him. So what's hilarious is that he told his companion that he should ask her if she was single. So the entire mission hears are you single in the Q&A and we all start dying. Then our mission president says "easy fellas" over zoom. You'd just have to be there, it was so great. 

Anyways that's basically the entire week. Nothing really happened. Also here are some pictures of my district that a member took of us.

Sincerely, 

Elder Neil Pack

Let's Hide a Body

 Hola,

It's super-hot outside. Obviously, it's not even the hottest part of the summer but it still is super-hot. Like around 108 degrees right now. It's going to get to around 115 later which is just ridiculous. Right now, is still terrible though. You just have to plow through it and pretend it doesn't exist. Pretend that it's not mega hot outside. Atleast this year I have a car. 

Funny story, we went to 'noche de hogar' which just means family home evening in Spanish. It's an activity that we have every once in a while, where families in the ward get together and have a spiritual thought and hang out together. Anyways, we're just chilling like 10 minutes before it starts, and some lady comes up to us and asks if we can help her with something. We're like sure. She's saying that this is something that we've probably never done on the mission before. We're like uhhh.... so, then she tells us we need to dispose of a body and gestures to a flippin dead cat next to the eating area! So yeah, that was gross so we got gloves and threw the cat into the dumpster. Everyone in the ward was just watching us. We thought we were so cool but we just looked so stupid. That was super fun and now I can say I disposed of a body on my mission. 

I found a duck egg and its huge compared to a chicken egg

Okay this story isn't super gross. We were teaching Cindy and she mentioned how she felt like there was an uneasy presence in her home so we decided to dedicate the home. It was actually a super cool experience because there was a clear difference between before and after the home was dedicated. The spirit was super strong after the home was dedicated and it felt like I was sitting in a missionary apartment or like I was in my home back in Illinois. It was actually pretty cool. I think Cindy noticed it too. Definitely a spiritual experience to remember. 

Elder Mosis being Elder Mosis

Here is a bunch of short quick stories that you might find interesting. We've started to play soccer every Saturday morning and we got lots of people to come. A lot of people are interested in the gospel too. This will be a super cool finding source because Spanish speakers love soccer. Also, the power turned off in the church so Posadas and I looked for the main power breaker and we found it in the Mother's Room of all places. Then we turned the power on. It was actually more fun than the email makes it sound, it was actually hype. Elder Posadas almost pooped his pants while we were tracking too. That was fun. I drive kinda slow so I think he got mad at me because of that haha. 

We had zone conference and it was actually really good. Sometimes I turn my brain off when it's something I've already heard before since I've been here for 19 months I've basically heard everything and I just vibe. But the theme was not going inactive after the mission so I took lots of notes. It was a good conference and a good theme. Here is the acronym:

P-repare daily to do his will

R-emain a missionary all your life

E-ducation 

S-earch for a companion who is steadfast in Christ

S-tay anchored to family and priesthood leaders

F-ollow living prophets and apostles

O-rdinances 'monthly temple attendance'

R-epent and quick to forgive

W-ork hard but never overlook family

A-sk God what I stand in need of

R-eturn and report each evening to the Lord

D-on't stop doing the fundamentals

Just a funny picture of my mission president

Thanks for reading my boring emails. Love you all so much!

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

Lost in a Thrift Store

 Hola,

Crazy how fast these weeks go. Feel like it was yesterday when I was writing my last email. It's also going to feel extra fast because this transfer is only going to be 5 weeks. It's because our mission president wants the new mission president to come and not be stressed because of transfers. He wants it to be a smooth transition. The new presidents name is President Bruce Nielson, and he's from Texas. He seems like a super great guy. He'll be here in three weeks. Super wild. 

Just chillin' in the President's office

Anyways, so Spanish is going a lot better now. I can speak a lot better. I super wish I was fluent because there are moments where I miss a couple words and I start to lose control of what's going on. My companion is fluent though and helps me so that's nice. Elder Posadas is a great guy. He's just like a big Honduran teddy bear. Everybody loves him. We get along super well. Living in the house is still just fantastic. It's a great time. We're just super spoiled and I love it. Hopefully I stay here another transfer but we'll see where the Lord wants me. Honestly life is just really good right now so I'm worried that pretty soon poop is going to hit the fan.

The massage chair in our house   

We're doing a space theme with the zone and I like making things just so stupid so that's been fun. We keep it spiritual of course but I don't mind having a lot of fun. I also went on exchanges with Elder Spafford the other day. That was super cool. He's the assistant to the president. It was pretty fun. Talked with a lot of people and tracked a lot. 

I had a funny story during the exchange where basically 3-4 hour of our exchange was spent on a baptismal interview. We started out great and visited some people but then we made our way to Deseret industries for a baptismal interview. (Deseret industries is basically a thrift store like goodwill). The lady that was getting baptized was working there and we were going to do the interview on her break. So we get there and Elder Spafford's district leader and his companion were there. They didn't want too many missionaries storming DI so Elder Little and I just stayed in the car while Elder Spafford and Kunz went inside looking for the lady that was on her lunch break. Elder Little and I basically had a great time and just ended up talking about star wars for about 40 minutes. Those guys in DI must have been gone for so long. They literally asked EVERYONE on where this lady was. They even asked for referrals for people would know where this lady was. Eventually someone told them that she must've left to go home so they came back to the car after 40 minutes. Then we drove like 20 minutes to her house, still couldn't find her so then we get in the car. Then a worker from DI somehow calls us and tells us she is working today and that she was in the backrooms during a meeting! So we drove 20 minutes back and Elder Little and I get more time while the others look for her in DI for another 20 minutes. Then they came out after finding her and we go to the mission office since it's attached to Deseret Industries and do the baptismal interview. We then chill there for an hour eating Klondike bars and hanging with the office staff. So yeah, super hype exchange.  

Just a dumb license plate

   

Elder Smutz climbing a building  

Elder Little wearing a
Mandalorian helmet

Another good story while we were in the car this random member guy rolls up to our car and is like, "y'all are missionaries right?" And we were like, "yeah." He says, "what day is it?" We respond with "Tuesday." Then he says "so you're here at Deseret Industries... this must be Monday for you guys?" I look at Elder little, "no... it's still Tuesday..." Then he was like, "cool" and left. Our Preparation day is on Monday so he obviously meant that but the way he said it I think was funny. We had a good laugh after that.

Here's another story that happened. So we get home one evening and some other elders are at the house and we're talking. Someone tries to do something funny and prank Elder Spafford by putting something on his bed (I can't remember what it was, and it really doesn't matter). Anyways after some Elder did that, we're just chilling in the living room on the couches. Elder Frazier comes in and we tell him to go check out Elder Spafford's bed. So he goes in and comes out laughing, he says, "so it's funny what you put on Spafford's bed but... who pooped on elder Gunter's bed?" Were like what... so we all come into their room. We see this huge pile of poop right on Elder Gunter's rug next to his bed. We're like bruh what? Anyways apparently the dog from the neighbors came in a pooped so that was awesome. 

The dog poop

So that was the week, looks of stupid stories involving poop and whatnot. Love you all and hope you have a great week.

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack

Truman House After Hours

 Hola, 

We almost exploded our Traeger smoker last night. I mean probably would've been fine, but you never know. Sunday night we decided to fire up the smoker out back and smoke some chicken. It was so windy that it didn't quite work like we wanted it to, so we turned it off and unplugged it. Then went inside and cooked it in the oven which was kinda sad and lame but whatever. After we've finished eating and everything we were just chilling inside when we noticed there was lots of smoke outside. We ran outside and there was smoke everywhere coming from the smoker and Elder Gunter walks over to the smoker and opens it up. A huge burst of flame jumps out and we are all like YOOOOOO and slammed it shut. It took us a little bit but with some wind and water we're chilling but it was kinda fun in the moment. 

Living with the APs is definitely interesting but cool. Elder Gunter and Spafford are super cool guys and hilarious. Elder Gunter goes home this transfer so he's just a little tired, so we talk a lot about that with him. I thought that they would have more meetings and stuff, but they work in their area a lot actually. Also, it's kinda awesome to have exchanges here because all of the zone leaders go on exchanges with them and so we get to see literally everyone. We also get insider information on transfers and what the president thinks about everything. I've been learning a lot of really cool and pretty hilarious stuff. 

I went to the temple this week again and did an endowment ceremony. Always good stuff. I really do love going to the temple because it's a super peaceful experience for me. It's just nice to sit in the celestial room. Our whole zone got to go which was great. Our mission president was there and then took us around the temple and we saw a sealing room. Then he gave us the big spiel about how we need to marry in the temple and be sealed and that everything we do in missionary work leads to this moment across the alter. I'm pretty sure the elders just took that as we should be thinking about the sister missionaries because we were all right next to them. haha.

Fun fact, my mission is notorious for setting elders and sister missionaries up after the mission. Just since my time being here there has been like 10 marriages. And like 5 of them are couples. It's honestly just a little weird but hey I mean if they like each other. There is a lot of drama in the mission too. It's just because we're super close together in proximity that some of this stuff can spread. I mean if we have 6 missionaries in the same ward and we are always meeting together no wonder couples are getting set up after the mission. I of course don't have my eyes on any sister because I'm super consecrated *hard flex*.

This week we also had MLC which stands for mission leadership council. We had it right after the temple trip so my whole day was completely shrocked. Basically all the leaders in the mission meet up for 5 hours and talk about all the problems in the mission. It was super long and I really wanted to fall asleep. But my companion and I gave a training on power and authority and why missionaries might not feel successful. It was pretty good and apparently it was so good that now they want us doing the exact same training in our All Leadership Training meeting. Bruh this is a lot of meetings. That meeting is sometimes called ALT and it includes the district leaders instead of just the zone leaders. 

Elder Posadas and I are getting along super well. He is a super awesome and loving guy. He's super patient with me as well. He's super humble and teaches super well. Last week we found lots of people but this week we had lots of lessons so the finding wasn't that great. It's the natural progression of things I guess. Our district is awesome too. The theme of the district is really weird actually. Because we have 4 elders and 2 sisters, it's a really small district. Sometimes it feels like there are only 2 elders because the zone leaders do a lot in every district. Anyways so it feels like a double date... the theme is a "double date with two dads." I'm one of the dads and so is my companion. So now you see why elders and sisters are getting set up so easily after our mission. haha.

Okay here is a cool little miracle that happened earlier. Someone that I taught a long time ago named Isaac talked with some other missionaries at the park. He came up to them and told those missionaries about how he wants to be baptized now and that he should've been baptized when I was teaching him. Those elders that found him again were pretty happy. I know I'm happy too. I taught Isaac for a long time and to think he still remembers me is pretty cool. Plus the fact that he realizes now that he made a mistake and he wants to be baptized is pretty neat. 

Our Mission President is leaving so we all went to his house and signed his quilt

In closing, I'd like to share my testimony. I don't know all things but I do know one thing. The Book of Mormon really is the word of God. It's a true record of the people on the American continent. It is another testament of Jesus Christ. I know that because I've read it several times and prayed about it several times. Every time I get the exact same answer. Because I know that then I know everything I need to know. I have a lot of questions, but I don't question that this really is Christ's church. 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

Keeping Up with The AP's

 Hola! 

Well, this week was wild. I don't have much time to write honestly, so sorry about that. Today was an awesome day. Had a district breakfast and it accidently turned into a zone breakfast when all the districts showed up. Basically, we all somehow chose the same place to have breakfast at almost the same time. Really random. 

Living with the APs is crazy! Elder Gunter and Spafford are insane, and they do P-90X twice a day. Bruh my arms are dead. The APs are actually super cool, and I love living with them. We actually live in a flipping Buji house. The members don't live with us in the same house, so we are just chilling in this sweet house. We literally have a massage chair and an Alexa. This is just too good, and I'm spoiled. 

My areabook and Elder Posadas areabook got merged so we are teaching lots of people. If they all got baptized, we would baptize 19 people. My companion is awesome. He is from Honduras, and I love him so much. He is a hard worker and humble. 

Here is a story that happened a week ago. It's also super gross so just warning you. So, we were at this dinner and there were 5 elders there because it's a Spanish ward and we're having a great dinner and all that stuff with the members. Then afterwards someone mentioned the chubby bunny game with all the marshmallows and then we were like well let's play chubby bunny. And so naturally we're all playing chubby bunny but one of the kids of the member family is going absolutely ham with the marshmallows. He's got like 20 in his mouth but because he's a kid one of the marshmallows gets caught in his throat or something and he starts to puke. Then he violently pukes up his entire dinner all over the ground and the marshmallows as well. Everyone starts freaking out and screaming. My companion flipping dives into me to cover his eyes. THEN THE THREE-YEAR OLD RUNS OVER AND STARTS EATING THE PUKE AND THE MARSHMALLOWS! I just about died. Best member dinner ever.

Anyways, love you all 

Sincerely,

Elder Pack