Él Tiene Un Plan

HOLA HOLA!!! 

hey yall! There's SO much to unpack from the week, but before I get ahead of myself...

TRANSFER NEWS 

hermana jackson left me for lexington kentucky aka horse country:) I'm so excited for her, she was trained here in jasper so this will be her first big change, but I already know how blessed the people of lexington will be. This girl taught me true diligence and how to push yourself outside your comfort zone. She gave her all day in and day out, and I'm grateful God put her in my life right when I needed her the most. I can't wait to see all the good she does, gonna miss ya girl!!! 

My new comp is hermana romero, she's the sweetest, funniest person I've ever met, and she was trained in my baby area hurstbourne:). You already know how much we've fangirled over louisville, I still miss that place, it'll always be like a second home, but jasper has definitely stolen my heart. Hermana Romero spoke spanish as her first language, she speaks perfect English, but her Spanish is incredible and I'm already learning a ton. My dad just challenged us to speak spanish for a whole week together and then he will buy us dinner, so we said done and it starts tonight hahaha, hopefully I'll be fluent by the end:).

Ok I don't know why, but these past two weeks of me and hermana romero have been absolutely crazy, every day is an adventure in the life of the jasper hermanas. That's the only way to put it. Monday and tuesday were pretty tame, wednesday was the best because we got to have the McGinns at our district council. And we had interviews with president which always makes my day. Both of them are just spiritual powerhouses and have hearts of gold. I love them so much! But later that day we decided to go finding at a latino store in Huntingburg (a town south of jasper), I knew there was a lady there who made homemade papusas, so I drove over so hermana romero could try them. The papusas were 10/10 and we got to talk to this guy Ricardo for a while about his life and family, and invited him to church! Then we had dinner with the LeCleres which is always crazy, the ZLs were blitzing with the Jasper elders, so we were all there at their house and just having the best time. Sister LeClere gave me another guitar lesson after and she gave me one of her guitars to borrow so I could learn!!! You know what that means: I'm on my way to becoming a cowgirl. Later that night we did some cold calling on Facebook, pretty much we just choose some random people who live in the area to friend and then call, and a lot of people answered surprisingly! Hermana Romero introduced me to doing facebook cold calling, and I was a little doubtful at first, but now it's become one of our daily finding methods hahaha. The first time we did it though was way funny because I just didn't know how to even talk to this guy, we were both busting up laughing and so was the guy. He asked us how we knew where he lived, and I said uhhh we saw it on your profile, I couldn't look at hermana romero cause she would just start giggling and then it would get me started. It's a common occurrence with us lol. 

Then come thursday oh my, that day started with me getting lost per usual. We drove to Sister Denton's for lunch, but I accidentally drove past her place a little ways and we saw a woman standing in her doorway in another duplex, we thought she looked latina, but didn't have time to stop and talk, so we finally got to Sister Denton's home and had lunch, and afterwards I wanted to go back to that lady we saw. We came up to her house and the door was open so we just called in, the lady came to the door and definitely was not latina, and not interested, but really nice, she told us where some complexes were we could try knocking. We said thanks and started on this goose chase to find the complexes, the first ones we got to I realized that our new member Claudia lived there and we had already knocked some of them. But then hermana romero saw this latina lady getting into her car further down the road, so we ran up to her car window and talked to her. She was a little weirded out, but opened up and took our card and then pointed out some more doors to knock. So we kept knocking up and down these streets inviting everyone to church and handing out english class information. There was even one latino man we had to run across a busy road to help load his table into his truck, he said thanks, took one look at our tag, and said he had to go cry. But we knocked some more around there and found a few more people. The cool thing was we had driven down this road many times and never tried knocking these other duplexes, and there were so many people who were interested, that was the first miracle. THEN, our lesson with our friends Diana and Hermides.

Bishop Bland joined us in that lesson and it was honestly one of the best lessons I've had on my mission. We started by talking about what they'd learned from the Plan of Salvation pamphlet we had given them and they had some great insights from that. We had a conversation about what it means to have an eternal perspective, how sometimes in life we become so focused on what's right in front of us, we need to take a step back and see the bigger picture. We read 1 Nephi 8 together about Lehi's dream and helped them understand the symbols of the tree and the rod. Bishop bore a powerful testimony that connected their journey to the united states to the path in the dream. As we talked about keeping to the path, holding on to the rod even when we couldn't see the tree, having the faith to continue forward, the Spirit got stronger and stronger. After Bishop's testimony, Diana looked at us and said that was beautiful and she had no words. She was just smiling and you could tell she felt it. Hermides told us about how in the past, he's had experiences that he didn't realize until now were the Spirit, and that yesterday he received some bad news and he wasn't feeling great, he was going to cancel our lesson today, but then something in him told him not to, to let us come. He said what we'd talked about was exactly what he needed to hear. How everytime we have our lessons, he just feels peace. Both him and diana thanked us for coming and visiting, they both felt God had put this in their lives, starting with the day we knocked their door. Diana came up to us afterwards and showed us her arm telling us she had goosebumps, we invited them to church and Hermides said they would walk if they have to. There's a lot of challenges that come with a mission, but lessons and moments like these make it all so worth it. I've said it before, but I'd never felt the joy I feel as a missionary before my mission. It's just this pure love for God and His children and it fills you up in ways that nothing else can.

That night we did some service for Sister McCrady, except I misunderstood her when she said cooper needed to be put away and I just walked in to the house and got tackled by a golden retriever, I had to body slam him into the cage. Then we had a lesson with Jexabel and our member Brother Lopez, he's really good at handling all the tangents she goes off on, this lesson was actually going to be kind of a stop teaching, but it turned into one of our better lessons with her. I tried to start the lesson so many times, but we ended up only being able to share one scripture verse from Alma 32 instead of reading the whole chapter. We had her read it, and after she read it she looked up at us and said this is such a coincidence, this is exactly what I needed to hear. She talked about how she has that seed and she wants to change, she knows there are things she needs to do better. It was just cool because she's really stubborn, and this lesson she just had this humility and desire to listen, so we talked about repentance and learning how to get rid of the weight from her shoulders. It's hard because it feels like the past few lessons we've had to kind of be more blunt with her, but in this lesson as she showed that humility, I just felt God's love for her and I wanted her to feel it too. To know that it's ok to not be perfect, it's ok to fall short, God is proud of you for trying and He knows your heart. I tried to explain that to her and I just hope she really feels it too.

After Jexabel's lesson, we had our DL call with the Tell City elders and as we were talking we got a tornado warning. 🌪Tornado watch means to be cautious, but a tornado warning means there's a possibility of an actual tornado and we need to take shelter. Me being me, I went to the door, looked out, and it was perfectly calm. A couple minutes later after the warning, the wind started blowing and there was this roaring sound, lightning and thunder constantly, and then the sirens went off, all in the space of like five minutes. The storm ended up moving on, so we were safe, but the crazy thing is that with tornados, those five minutes are so scary because either you get the tornado or you don't, as soon as it passes though, you're in the clear. Around eight tornados ended up touching down in the midwest that night, we're thankful we didn't get hit with anything, but definitely lesson learned to shelter during a tornado and don't watch it from the door. Although the problem is we don't have a basement, and the bathroom doesn't seem that safe.

On Sunday, after all the hard work in trying to invite and get people to church, we had three of our friends come! Diana and Hermides showed up, and so did our new friend Ferdinand! We're going to keep working on church attendance, someday we hope to have a spanish group in the ward, it'll take time, but I know it'll happen someday.

Random moments from the week:

- Jenny told us about this lady who makes Venezuelan food, so we texted her and she invited us over to try it, the chicken empanadas were bomb, but she gave us so much that we left so stuffed, someone was going to have to roll me out the door

- dusted off a bunch of declarations of independence for service

- we're on a detective hunt to find this missionary who used to serve here

- I locked us out of our apartment and car in the heat

- accidentally joined a St. Patrick's day parade in Ireland

- visited an Amish mill

- got hugged by a haitian guy

- invited to a karaoke night by our new friend Patricia

Spiritual thought:

Starting off this transfer, I was thinking a lot about things I want to change, goals I want to have, how I could become a better missionary by the time I went home. Then I got the thought, be proud of where you are. Of course there will always be things I fall short on, things that I could do better, but I sometimes don't focus on all the good that has happened and the progress that has been made. And it wasn't me, God carried me the whole way. I just want you all to know how proud God is of where you are, the good you've done. I know it's hard to see it, but God has the beautiful ability to see all the ways we make an impact, and He sees the potential that each of us carry. He trusts you and loves you. He won't ever give up on you. You have good to do. You have hearts to touch. You have a mark to make. God sees the bigger picture, trust Him, trust His plan, it's greater than you could ever imagine.

I love you all!!!

- Hermana Neil

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