Ten Confianza, Levántate, Te Llama

Hey howdy hey!!!

I think I'm qualified to say that now that I'm in LEXINGTON!!! Horse country, more like horse heaven. We're one week into a new transfer already, new area and comp, but it's been about 3 weeks since I last wrote eek lets run it back.

First of all, need to say that I love and miss jasper with all my heart. That ward and the friends we taught made a big impact on my life, so so grateful for the time i got to serve there. Also I love hermana romero so much and I already miss her a ton. She was just coming out of training when she came to jasper, but you would not be able to tell at all. She's got missionary work down, amazing teacher, loves the work, and knew how to have fun. That girl was constantly making me laugh:) love you chica!!! My new comp isn't actually really new hahaha, me and Hermana leebert are back together serving in lex norte! We were comps back in the old days of Louisville lol, it's been SO much fun being comps again and seeing each others growth. She's an incredible missionary and were both just so excited and ready to work hard this transfer. Neil and beebs back at it.

This past week was a blur, this area is crazy busy but I love it!!! Started with some really good videocall lessons our first day with our friends William and Juanitto who are both so elect!!! Both of them have such great questions and aren't afraid to ask:). That night we had english class which is kinda struggling over here so we've been working hard on advertising and spreading the word. Hopefully we'll get a good size by the end! When we got home we climbed our three flights of stairs to our door and saw a dead rabbit on our rug. We were a little confused cause no cat was gonna climb stairs and drop that on our doorstep, we thought it might be a neighbors welcome present lol, kinda concerning tbh. But we told the elkhorn elders who live in the same complex and they came over to bring our bikes back (they brought them from transfers). They took the rabbit and threw it over the fence and as they were leaving I called out and was like hey was that actually yall who left it and Elder jeffs felt so bad cause they could tell we were worried and he finally admitted it. They got us good, we were freaking out a little hahaha, dw they made up for it with brownies.

Next day we decided we were stuck in the house for too long and went to Starbucks to do our weekly planning. We door knocked for an hour and met a really sweet lady Carmen from Puerto Rico who were now teaching! That night was sports night which is combined with the frenchies (french elders and their friends). Got to meet some of our new members eduardo, markony, and junior!

I was nervous for sunday because im back in a spanish branch and it's been a while since I've served in one. But camino branch is the best and the people are so kind, already feels like family. Our friend Melklin came to church with her kids and she seemed to love it! Church here is a little wack because its classes first and then sacrament meeting, so we had Relief Society and then sacrament. After sacrament we stayed at the church to do personal studies to save on miles and then we drove to the Bobadillas for lunch. It's funny cause I've heard about the bobadillas since I started my mission, so it felt like I was meeting celebrities or something. And of course I knew about the habanero challenge so that whole day I was prepping myself for it. Hermana bobadilla brought out the bag of habaneros and I was like oh no, im so dead. I'm a lot better with Spice than j used to be, but habaneros was pushing it. Three of us were new so we all took one and ate them at the same time and YALL. I thought I was bouta throw up fire or something, it hurt so badly haha. We were just pounding I've cream and ice for thirty minutes until we could breath again. Elder bellon looked like he was going to pass out we were all really concerned for a sec. But I survived initiation yay. The rest of the day we had some really great lessons with our friend Juan and then with Rosa and her family about the Restoration.

Monday was probably the best pday of my entire mission. There's this place called Keeneland where the jockeys practice racing their horses on the tracks and anyone can go watch, so naturally we had to go. We ended up walking around and came to the stable, this worker said we could go pet the horses so we got to spend an hour just petting horses and taking pics. It was heaven yall. That night we had noche de hogar (fhe) at a members house and we talked about the come follow me reading in Enos, everyone had really good thoughts and a couple people shared their testimonies which brought the Spirit so strong.

Tuesday we had service with this lady Gloria. Shes like a 92 year old cubana who one of our members takes care of, we pretty much just go spend time with her and talk with her. She loves it:) the only problem is she's kind of out of pocket and says a lot of things she probably shouldnt, but she's really cute and has tons of stories. We had a lesson with our friend Teresa after that and she is seriously amazing. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and she just kept coming up with so many good questions and we were able to answer all of them! She really wants to come to church but hasn't been able to yet so were working on getting her there.

Wednesday we did a lot of door knocking and found our friend Alexander! He recently moved there so he didn't have much and felt bad that he couldn't invite us in, but he was so nice and let us share a short message. We introduced the Book of Mormon and gave him a copy, he was really interested and wants to come to church!

Thursday we did some weekly planning again library versión and contacted like crazy people. We went to our friend Santa's house for a lesson and her son Herman ended up joining us. We were introducing the Book of Mormon and her son all of a sudden just raised his hand and started asking aboit how it's related to the Bible and what the differences were between our beliefs. We got to talk about our beliefs about the Godhead, baptism by inmersión at the age of 8, and the priesthood. I'm really grateful that my parents took me to lots of different churches growing up because it's helped me to connect with a lot of different people and share in their beliefs too.

Gonna be honest Friday was a little rough. I was a little down on myself and was just not feeling the motivation at all. We had our district council and then went out to start putting up english class flyers. God started blessing us with some little tender mercies. We came to the first few tiendas and the people were so kind and let us put them up in the Windows. We wanted to put more up but we needed tape and the dollar store was back the way we came. We were about to just head out, but then I looked over and there was this other dollar store right in front of our faces so we bought some tape and went up to the taco truck, the people were nice and let us put one up which really surprised me. I was starving because I didn't eat breakfast but I just happened to have this dutch bros gift card from forever ago and somehow there was one on the road we were on so got some stuff to keep me going. And then we went out to go door knocking and we had all these engoush class cards we'd made to give out to people but they needed to be cut out. We looked around in the car but we definitely were not expecting to find any, and then we open up the console and there were scissors. All of the random little things throughout the day, even though they seemed like simple things, felt like God was watching out for us.

The next day we had to run an errand for the elkhorn elders because Elder purcell was sick and needed drugs. It was supposed to be our language hour but instead of practicing spanish we just ended up talking in english accents the whole car ride lol, very effective. After that we door knocked some more and met two new friends Ene and Diana, both really cute. For sports night everyone been working hard to get our friends there so that someday we can have our own soccer night and we were able to get two friends there thanks to Eduardo being the best chauffeur ever. Also I scored a goal, proud moment.

Yesterday church was so good! Eduardo taught his first lesson ever for sunday school and did a really good job. I will be honest I was completely distracted by thus really cute latino baby and making him laugh. He's so precious. Then we had sacrament meeting and our new member Aldo gave a talk! Also did amazing! He's getting the priesthood so he can go to the temple which btw the temple opens up next month!!! Can't wait to be back! We had lunch with the bobadillas, tostadas 10/10 and then we had a videocall lesson with Juanitto and the Munguias. Hes been keeping the word of wisdom for the past week which is so good! Hes from an area of mexico where they drink a lot of coffee so it says a lot that hes willing to try to keep it. We talked about law of chastity and Temples and it was a really cool lesson, the Munguias bore powerful testimonies about covenants and the Spirit was really strong, all of Juan's questions were answered and he said he was willing to keep living the word of wisdom and law of chastity! After that we had a lesson go through so we decided to go door knocking in this random complex. We ended up knocking this one door and she barely opened it, we told her who we were and I asked if we could share a short message, she said yeah! I opened the Book of Mormon, wed been sharing this one scripture a lot but I felt like sharing Alma 37:37 instead. After I read it I looked up and saw tears coming to her eyes, then she just broke down and I gave her the biggest hug. Her name was yosefina, she told us how hard it's been coming here and trying to be strong for her kids, she's got a lot of faith, but you could tell how tired she was. We ended up spending an hour just listening and when we were going to leave she told us she didn't want to close the door and have us go. We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and she held it like it was the most treasured thing she ever had, she said she would read all of it. We gave her our number, she doesnt have a phone number and said they may be moving because that apartment didn't belong to them, so we are praying we will be able to go back and see her again, but seriously such a miracle!!! God is SO good!

Random stuff

- met Adventist missionaries who were also door knocking, they wanted a pic lol

- almost had a videocall with a guy from Egypt, he wants us to fly over there

- been eating blueberry belvita biscuits nonstop

- slide tackled a guy in soccer haha

- lexington drivers are giving Louisville a run for their money

- spoke in french to some African people while door knocking, one of them took hermana beebs phone and we were freaking out

- watched a horse get shoed??

Spiritual thought time!!!

During personal study this week I listened to the talk by Elder Massimo de Feo "Rise! He Calleth Thee." The whole talk is so good and I invite all of you to go listen to it, but the part that really hit me was when he talked about how Bartimaeus acted instead of being acted upon. Not letting your circumstances take control over you, but instead taking off the "beggar's coat" and rising above it. I think that's something I struggle with a lot, I say well this is the situation im in and there's not much I can do about it, its an easy trap to fall into. After I listened to this talk I turned to the Book of Mormon and as I read I came across a verse that said "For behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free." Helaman 14:30 Sometimes life gives us circumstances that are not favorable, that test us, that make us feel stuck. But my mission is teaching me that despite whatever circumstances you are placed in, there is always a choice. In attitude, in word, in thought, how you treat those around you. You can choose to let the situation pull you down, or you can use it to rise above. There's a song I love by Micah Tyler called Different, at the beginning of the song he talks about all of the struggles he's been going through and how much he just wanted to change the situation he was in. But I love what he says after:

"Sometimes the best question is not Jesus can you change these things around me but instead God can you change me so that I can handle the things that You're walking me through."

God can use the situation you are in to change you for the better, let Him make a difference in you. He can change weaknesses to strengths, He can soften hearts, He can teach you to bear with patience your afflictions. But we need to choose to let Him.

I love you all!!! CHOOSE to make it a good week!!!

- hermana Neil

Photos

- library weekly planning sesh

- belvita obsesión

- whatsapp calls tee hee

- HORSESSSS

- keeneland=heaven

- selflie at the tracks

- idk it's cute

- Starbucks for the win

- last pic with hna romero