La Misión de Elder Steven Neher: Week #25 - An Interesting Week (Bellavista Branch)

Buenas a todos, familiares y amigos!

Well, like the title says, it was an interesting week. We had interviews on Tuesday with President Veirs, who is awesome! Hna Veirs is so sweet and I love talking with her. Well I was the last one to have interviews, after my comp. Mainly we talked about Elder Contreras and the problems that have been occurring out here. One problem was that the AP’s said we weren’t allowed to eat at our cook’s house anymore, but we started eating there again and Elder Contreras talked to me about it. He said he wanted to continue eating there but take the food to our house, which I agreed to, but we ended up staying anyways. Well my comp told President that we weren’t eating there, and I said we were, because I don’t feel good about lying to President (I don’t know if that’s just me, haha!) Well at the end of the interview President told me to wait 48 hours while they figured out where to send Elder Contreras.

After interviews we went out and worked. We've been teaching Pedro, the husband of a member. We passed by his house when Elder Elison was here, but he didn’t show any interest back then. Recently his wife has been having Hno. Vega (1st counselor in the District) pass by and visit with him and then a couple days later we contacted the house. It looked different before, but I was surprised to see that Pedro was receptive to everything and apparently Hno. Vega set a baptismal date with him for the 26th, but we taught him everything and put the date for the 5th, and he accepted it! So we had his baptism this past Saturday! He asked Hno. Vega to baptize him, but Hno Vega was a little apprehensive because Pedro is pretty big, haha! But it all worked out and Sandra, the wife, was extremely happy. Yesterday she bore her testimony saying how grateful she was and how she was looking forward to going to the temple to be sealed, so that was really cool!

Well we also have Mari and her daughter Vanessa, who were not able to go to the baptism, but went to church yesterday, and they loved it. They love Sunday School and Mari was participating like crazy, haha! It was awesome! Mari had to go home to cook lunch for her mom, but Vanessa and her daughter Alison stayed for Relief Society and Primary. Alison loved primary, which was great because the last time they came she was crying (she's 4). Vanessa loved Relief society too. We went to their house at 5pm after church and watched the movie on the Restoration, which they loved as well. They have accepted everything, BoM, Word of Wisdom, everything, and Vanessa told us that she had to been to other churches before, but she never felt like she did when she came yesterday, which was awesome to hear! We tried putting a baptismal date with them, they were a little apprehensive. They said it’s a little too soon, but we are going to work with them and hopefully get them baptized this week!

Well, Thursday night we went a little late back to the house, and got a call from the ZL’s, saying that Elder Contreras had an emergency change. He was pretty upset about it so we went and he said goodbye to the cook and family (the only people he knew in the area) and Friday I spent 12 hours in a bus… 6 to SPS (our bus left at 3 in the morning) and 6 getting back. I went to go pick up my new comp and they lowered Elder Contreras back to junior comp. My new comp is Elder Mendez, he is from Guatemala and he knows a lot more English than I thought. He's a little goofy, but he’s funny. I guess I’m supposed to teach him the area in 15 days now, which I think means I’m leaving here this change.

Something that made me happy was that we were sitting in branch council yesterday and I apologized for what had happened these last couple of months, but no one blamed me for anything. Our branch president (congregational leader) had actually called President Veirs and told him that none of the members saw us and that everyone was basically worried about how I was doing with the given circumstances. (President Veirs even told me he didn’t feel a good spirit coming from Elder Contreras, which I could agree with.) Anyway, we got 2 references and everyone actually seemed excited that Elder Contreras left, so this week we’re going to visit with a lot of members to get more references and so that my comp knows where the leaders live.

Yesterday we had 120 people at church, and at least 10 investigators, some of which I have never seen before, so it looks really promising here! President Veirs also said we need to work with recent converts, because we are the highest baptizing mission in Central America, but we have the lowest retention. This was something I’ve been wanting to do, so now I plan on passing with a lot of people these next few weeks.

Well grandma asked what I normally get for food. Every day I have rice, but the main course usually changes because my cook told us that she thinks variety is important because we can get bored by eating the same thing every day. So some days we have baleadas, fried chicken and tajadas (fried guineo verde, a bland relative of the banana) and various other stuff. But I have lost a lot of weight which makes me super happy! Now I just need to add on the muscle! :P Well I hope everything is great back home. All of the mission calls are super exciting! I can’t believe some of them haha!

Que tengan una semana maciza!

Elder Neher

(p.s. Enjoy the pictures!)