It's Christmas - but you only get 40 minutes :)

December 24th, 2012

Dear family,

          First of all we are planning on you calling me on my phone at 12 noon MY time and 3pm YOUR time.  I hope that is ok but if not we will figure something out.  The number that you will call me on is 559-270-2898.  The call can be NO LONGER THAN 40 min, sorry no hour and 40.  As well please just get rid of the number after we are done talking cause I know you know but we can't talk or text obviously until mother's day.

           I have got your packages and I love them.  I have gotten the card from Sarah and Robbie and can't wait to be able to redeem them after the mission haha.  I also got the family Christmas card and was just shocked to see how mature everyone looked!  2 years certainly changes a lot.  We have such a super star family because the Lord has blessed us with talents and success due to faithful living of the Gospel.  That is one of the greatest things is that we will "prosper in the land" or rather physically as well as spiritually as we are obedient even in the little things of the Gospel.  I know it is true.

           We have a baptism of 2 girls this Saturday and I am so excited for it!  It is a family of 13 just like ours!!  And they are half black and half white and they have adopted several kids and I feel right at home.  They are so unified and loving as a family and clearly they look at each other all the same just as we do.  I love that family and I fit right in with all their craziness haha.  I do miss you all so much and grow more greatful for an eternal family every day.  I love you each so very much I can't put it into words but I feel my heart is full as I look at your card.  Let's all be more faithful to the covenants we made in the DC temple so many years ago when we were all sealed.  That is still my favorite memory of my life and I want to be with you all forever.  Keep being a missionary every single day! LOVE YOU!!!!!!

-Love Elder Neeley

Christmas Dream: toothpaste and deodorant

Dear family,

           I love being a missionary so very much and it saddens me to see it coming closer to an end and it seems to just come faster and faster.  I do miss all of you and know that there are very important things for me to do at home but I do love this stage of my life and I know that the church is true and that the teachings are perfect but not the people.  I love working with so many people though.  In my new area we work with just white people and it is a lot different but the process for conversion is the same and the members are AWESOME!  They work so hard and we are seeing a ton of success.  We should be having some baptisms here with in the month.

            Being an assistant is a VERY busy life but I love it.  I take nothing on myself but am just very happy to serve and it is SERVICE.  A ton of service and I love it.  I as well love getting to be around President much more and I love him so much.  He is like another parent to me (NEVER to replace you both, of course).  I absolutely love him and the missionaries that are here in the mission.  I love the assignment for that too, that I get to see all the missionaries in the whole mission periodically for conferences and such.  We do a lot of planning and preparation for meetings and all the behind the scenes work so everything runs smoothly.  We also have to do lots of different training and reports and work with missionaries as well.  Elder Riboldi has been an assistant for 2 transfers or 3 months now and he is a great missionary.  His father is from Argentina and that is where the name comes from although Argentina was mainly occupied by lots of Europeans so they are usually more white.  So I would imagine if you trace back far enough, it is Italian.  He goes home one transfer before me in April.

             If you would like to send me something, a watch would be great cause I gave my other one to a recent convert of 10 years and a cheap one is fine but just classy prefferably, like metal but not expensive at all.  But what ever you get is fine with me, I will not complain one bit.  Maybe some more toothpaste and deoderant just so I don't have to keep buying it.  Not a ton cause I don't have that much longer left but some more.  Other than that what ever is fine.

             We are teaching a family of 11 people and half of them got baptized before I got here but 3 got home from college and are now there for a little more than a month so we are working with them and they are great.  They have had 7 children that they adopted and half their family is black and I just feel like I am home haha.  I love working with them and the 3 older girls are really interested and are most likely going to be baptized this month.

               I love you all so much and am greatful for all your love and prayers and letters and gifts that you have been sending me.  Please share the Gospel, especially in this time of year when we have so much to be greatful to are Heavenly Father for.  I love being a missionary and know again that this church is lead by Jesus Christ and is His only true church on the face of the earth not as discrimination at all but as invitation to all to come and drink from the fountain that has no cost but gives forth life eternal and happiness.

-Love Elder Neeley

"You won't need that anymore..."

Dear family,

                This week has been great and very exciting.  We just had 2 baptisms on Saturday of the 10 and 12 year old brother and sister named Rodolfo and Claudia.  Their mom was just so happy and pleased to see her children baptized and confirmed and she will be soon too.  She is needing to fix up some worthiness issues but she wants to be baptized.

                 I did get transferred and now I am in Fresno and I am one of the assistants to the President with my new companion Elder Riboldi.  I am really excited and happy to be here right now.  The first thing that the assistants did was they looked at my bike and said "you won't need that anymore".  Well we are short on time and I got to go but I will send pictures from the baptism next week.  Tell Quintin that I am excited to welcome him off the plane.

             I love you all so much and hope you are being missionaries every day.  LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Love Elder Neeley

2 baptisms this week!

November 26th, 2012

Dear family,

           Thank you so much for understanding my desires and for giving me your cooperation to let me extend.  I love being a missionary and I know that the Lord has very important things to be done with me in that time I will be here.  I will give you the exact date as I let President know that I will be able to extend.  SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT will be to change my defferal.  You will need to call the register office and they will tell you how to do it and there is no resistance or anything with it.  You just have to make the call and let them know that I will be moving to my defferal to Fall instead of Summer because of my mission and they will be fine with it.

            I am really excited to talk to all of you for Christmas!  I hope that all is going well and I can't wait to hear all your voices.  Grandma some tiger fudge and rasberry tarts would be great but really anything will be good.  I love all your baked goods!

            We had 2 baptisms this past weekend and it was a great baptism.  We had to fight really hard though cause things kept coming up and then the day before the baptism the daughter was talking the mom out of the baptism and we had to step in and remind her of the Spirit she felt and the testimony that she recieved already and she looked at us and told us that she knew it was true and that this was what she wanted for her and her family.  It was a relieving and powerful moment.

           I will send pictures this next monday with my email cause I forgot the cable this week.  Sorry!  I love you all so much and hope that all is well in the ward and at home.  Keep being a missionary every single day.  LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!

-Love Elder Neeley 

Attention! Extension Ahead! :)

November 19th, 2012

Dear family,

            This past Sunday I got to confirm the girl who got baptized the Sunday previous and as well I got to bless the sacrament for the first time in spanish because we were a little short on priesthood when the meeting started so they asked me to help and it was a great experience.  It was interesting to really think about what I was doing where as when I was a priest I would just tear the bread as fast as I could and almost race the other priest.  As I thought about the Saviour dying and suffering I really felt the Spirit strongly and it was one of the best experiences I have ever had in sacrament meeting.

            This Saturday we should be having 2 baptisms and 2 more on Sunday so we are very excited about that.  We will send pictures and all the goods.

            We taught this one family about not worshipping saints and we read in Mosiah about the 10 commandments and told them we only pray to God.  They later told us that other people had come before and any time they told them that the saints were bad they had just tossed them out but since we read from the Book of Mormon about it and they felt the Spirit and accepted it completely.  They then followed by throwing down on their own catholic religion and they think it is apostate now by their own doing.  It was just neat to see how the Book of Mormon softened their heart and allowed them to accept something they had rejected so many times before only cause they felt the Spirit through the Lord's scriptures.

            Ok now for some different thoughts.  I would like to extend my mission and I want you to move my defferal for BYU til the fall instead of the summer so that I can extend for a month, get home at the end of June and then have 2 more months to spend with you all.  That way we would have a little more time together and I could extend my mission for a little longer that I may help the Lord.  I have prayed and talked to my mission President and I know this is what the Lord wants.  I know that I can change even more lives and help a lot more people by helping missionaries become who they should be.  A missionary recently extended and from the reports of the mission Presiendent, he saved that missionary's mission and life.  He was able to be an instrument in the Lord's hands to change that missinaries life.  I want to serve the Lord that way.  I will have all my life to go to school and do those other things which are important but I will only have this time to be a fully consecrated missionary and representative of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Please let me do this.  I love you and ask you to pray about this and let me know for next monday.  I love you all so much!!!

-Love Elder Neeley  ps i will make an email for the ward next week.  LOVE YOU!

"Like a laser drew a line in his head"

Dear family,

 

          We just had a baptism on Sunday of Indra Canchola who is 13 years old.  Her sister Deyra was supposed to get baptized as well but she has some nerves to get over first.  She is 9 years old and loves church and has friends there but she is just nervous about the baptism so we are working with her.  The mom also came and she started crying during the service and really felt the Spirit so we are hoping to set a date for baptism with the mom and daughter tonight when we see them.  We have another family of 3 who I mentioned last week who are preparing for baptism for the 24th of this month and the 10 year old son named Rodalfo followed us over to his neighbors house to teach them with us and he taught them how to pray.  It was really funny and he just thought it was normal that he was teaching people with us and told us how he wants to be a missionary some day too.

           Tell Quinton that he needs to get gel and he might as well starting parting his hair now since it is a rule in our mission.  Lots of missionaries fight it at first and have these half done parts and stuff and then you see as the missionary grows more in obedience and humility and they just have nice clean parts.  It is pretty funny but just tell him that when he gets to the MTC he should start parting it with gel so it is like a laser drew a line in his head.  I am really excited he is coming and know he is going to love the mission!

           I love you all so much and hope you like the pictures.  The one of the sign is a recent convert who is 27 and is really goofy and is running for mayor of his city and painted one campaign sign and put it in the main enterance for the city and it says "vote 4 troy" hahah.  Well I love you and pray for you and hope that you are being a missionary every day because you have people that are READY to hear the Gospel and are just waiting and on you, so stop making them waiting and invite them everyday.  

 I LOVE YOU!!!

Killer Dogs? No problem...

Dear family,

 

               That is crazy that Quintin is coming here!!!!!  I can't believe it, that is so awesome.  He is going to love it here and if I get to train him it would be my last two transfers with him.  That would be pretty cool.  Wow!  I am really excited about that and just about all the missionaries coming out in general.  It is amazing to see such desire in all these future missionaries.  We will have an increase to about 275 total missionaries and 250 will be young missionaries.  We have 190 young missinaries right now so it will be quite the leap here.

               We had two families come to church this week and they are preparing for baptism this month.  We have a baptism this sunday of two young girls, Indra and Deyra, and their mom will get baptized the week after and then their neighbors, which is a family of 3 will be baptized the week following.  It is amazing to see these miracles every day and we are starting to prepare for December right now so we can keep baptizing like crazy.  There are so many people prepared but we need to find them now.  The family of three that is going to get baptized on the 24th found us as we left from her neighbor's house after an appointment and we started playing football outside in the street with their youngest son.  Then she said that she wanted us to give her children "classes" so we started to teach them all and they all set a date for baptism for the 24th.  Then later we were walking and these two big dogs started to chase us but they got close and just stopped and sat there and we walked away.  The Lord definitely watches out for His missionaries.  That is the 3rd time that someone has had a killer dog that didn't bite us and the owners always get amazed about why they don't bite us.  It isn't quite being thown into a furnace but we are protected all the same.

                 I love being a missionary and I love sharing the Gospel with others.  I hope that you are all missionaries everyday.  Read your scriptures and pray daily.  Don't watch trashy TV, R rated movies or even bad movies that aren't R.  "If it would poison a Lamanite it would poison a Nephite"  so if it is bad for a 5 year old to watch it is bad for anyone.  Don't waste your time with filth and garbage.  You are never too old for poison to be poison.  I love you all and pray for you all every day.  Sorry I didn't send pictures.  My camera is at home so I can charge it instead of the car so I forgot to grab it.  Next week for sure!  LOVE YOU!!!

 

-Love Elder Neeley