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

The Beginning of My Last Transfer

 Hola!

I only have 10 minutes so I need to speed run an email as fast as I can. Basically, I've built a habit of doing an email every week because I use it as a sort of journal. Of course, I write in my journal a little too, but I like writing emails.

I'm in my last transfer as a missionary. It goes by so fast. People always ask how I'm feeling, and I always say the same thing, I'll be ready when it comes. Right now, I'm going to work. I'm not ready to take the tag off but when it's time then I'll be ready to move on. Game's not over til the buzzer dings. 

Getting ice cream on exchanges

This last week was fun. I got a tie signed by my ward mission leader brother K. He is so fun and strange. I love him so much. 

So, what happened at transfers? Pretty much nothing. We lost the Huntington Cove ward which sucks. That's the only ward that we have people were teaching in but now we are going to work more in the Coronado ward and the Sandy Valley Branch. I hope I can get at least one more baptism before this transfer ends. We're teaching people in Sandy Valley and Coronado which is cool but Huntington Cove we were teaching a lot more. 

We also moved apartments and now I am living in a four-man apartment with Elder Maner and his new missionary. I'm excited to live with them because Elder Maner is a really smart and hardworking Elder. He will help keep me going so I don't get lazy this last transfer haha. Elder Muraski is still my companion and I'm glad because he's super fun. He's awesome. One of my first friends I ever met in the mission and now he is going to be my last companion. We were in the same zone when we came out.

Me and Elder Muraski

We made a cake for another missionary's birthday. It said, "you are old as dinosaurs!"

A huge army of statue ants at a gift shop

Can't believe it. I guess I was more of an English-speaking missionary too than a Spanish missionary throughout my mission because I only served 4 transfers out of 16 in Spanish wards. Kinda crazy. Can't wait for the miracles ahead in these next few weeks. I hope they don't go too fast

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack   

Cave Spelunking

 Hola,

So, this week was awesome. Just awesome. Let's start off with the stupid stuff and then we'll get into the spiritual stuff.

So Elder Muraski and I did something kind of dangerous and probably shouldn't have but it was super cool, and we didn't die... but we could've. So, we went to Sandy Valley again, the wild west town in Southern Nevada, and all our lessons canceled. So huge bummer, we went to a funeral for a member there and had dinner with the branch president but other than that everything else canceled. So, we decided to do something fun, kind of disobedient but I was really looking forward to those lessons, so we found online some mines nearby because Sandy Valley was an old mining town, and we went mining. We think it was called Azurite mine, but we drove about a mile or two away from the town and parked our car then hiked up this mountain. Then we entered the mine in the top and explored. It was really cool.

I have lots of videos and pictures. There were straight up bats and stuff. Lots of old mining equipment and structures. Super interesting and cool. So, we went actual spelunking. It went further down but we decided not to go too far down. So cool.

Okay so the reason why we went to Sandy Valley again is because we are teaching Cynthia and Jacob. They are a family that wants to join the church. They are super cool, and we're referred to us by the branch president. We had a lesson with them last week and they are super awesome. We were going to have a lesson in person in sandy Valley but then they were sick, so we had a lesson over zoom the next day. They are so elect and both lessons were legit perfect. What's fun about teaching Cynthia is that she has no idea what church even is and legit knows nothing about Jesus Christ. Teaching their family is so fun. She texted us last week that they read and prayed about the Book of Mormon and God answered their prayer, exactly what we said would happen did happen and now they have a testimony that's true. Very cool. We tried to put them on date but both of them want to attend the church for several months before they are baptized so we told them that could potentially be baptized in two weeks if everything goes right since they need to attend church two times beforehand. I am hoping and praying that they can be baptized before I go home in 6 weeks. I'm a little worried but we have a plan to go in person next week and pray together on our knees about baptism and then it'll be GAME OVER. Satan has no chance. So please pray for Cynthia and Jacob.

I just want to take a moment and point out that a nonmember family prayed about the Book of Mormon and received a spiritual witness that it was true. If this church was not true, then a family with absolutely no reason to believe and just keep living the way they are living, prayed and had those good feelings. If we were making up the spirit in our minds, then that doesn't make sense because they have no reason to do that. It just proved even more to me that all my spiritual experiences are true, and I need to trust in God. This work really is true. 

Other things that happened this week, we had the MLC meeting again. Very cool. We discussed fasting from unvirtue as a mission. 

As well there was a funny story from Sandy Valley. We pulled up to a member's house and this stray dog that was following our truck ran onto their property. It starts scaring the kids who were outside and stuff and then the dad came out with a pistol and just started screaming at the dog and then he disappeared into the wilderness with this mangy stray. We didn't hear any shots but apparently, he shot him a couple times. I'm sure that dog got absolutely wrecked. But that pretty much sums up life in Sandy Valley. Pretty epic. Another epic story that happened this week was during our zone council meeting a random dude walked into the building and walked into the room and announced to everyone, "do you guys have any holy water?" Elder Muraski and I make eye contact and were like "sure we can help you man" then when we're outside of the room we tell him we don't really bless water and then we asked him what he needs to water for. He said he wanted to bless his home because apparently there were demons inside. So, we got his address and went to go bless his home. Elder Muraski and I felt completely fine in there and there wasn't anything spooky so we dedicated his home and then taught a little bit about the priesthood and how faith and love can cast out all fear so hopefully no more wack stuff happens. He also wasn't interested in meeting with missionaries either which was a bummer. 

Well, I officially have one week till the transfer ends, then I'll be in my last transfer of my mission. It goes by so fast and I am definitely enjoying it. 

Sincerely,

Elder Neil Pack