Week 5

Hey Mom! And everyone else that reads these!

Is week might be a kinda small letter cause I don't have a lot of time.... We have a zone play day thing! So this week has been ok...

I'll be honest it's really hard and I get home sick a lot but I do love the people we teach and it's always fun to go to lessons! The people are super nice! We got 3 more baptismal dates this week! That's crazy considering the last transfer this are was whitewashed and we only had 2 dates up until now! I hope that we don't have to push the dates back... They are or are going to be set for October 12th, but I know the people were working with might have some things we need to work with to help them be ready for baptism... Dan and Stacy are still together after an elder told them they would get back together if Dan read the Book of Mormon and prayed, Ty and his stepson Stephen are both progressing pretty well, T is hilarious and he's the one with the possum named Damion. Story!! The other day Ty showed us this hot sauce that is 6 million scovials! A ghost pepper is 1 million..... And anyway I had some and it was like burn all the way down your throat!

But my companion doesn't like hot stuff so he said if Ty read the Book of Mormon he would try some, so we went back a few days later and Ty had read some so my companion tried it, and he didn't show he was in pain until we got in the car and then he showed his pain haha, it was hot! And the best part was then on the way home the hotness subsided so he wasn't thinking much of it and then he had an itch in his eye..... You see where this is going? So he itches his eye with the finger he used to taste the hot sauce! And his eye lit on fire! I told him milk was best for hot foods and so we decided to pour milk in his eye.... We put a little in the milk lid and held it on his eye hahaha, I felt bad that he was dyin but it was also kinda funny.....

Hey mom you should get on Amazon and order a car sticker that says "salt life" apparently it's like saying I love Florida or I'm a Floridian, so I thought it would be cool if you put one on the car on the back windshield.... And anyone else that wants to! It would be really cool of you did! Cause the stickers look way cool and nobody in Utah would know what they are or even have one!

Mom thanks a ton for the package!! It had everything I could've wanted in it! I love the cinnamon rolls sooo much and the home made Oreo cookies are the best ever! I've trying to be careful with what I eat a little bit cause I don't want to get fat....haha, so the hard part for me is not eating the whole freaking bag of cinnamon rolls and cookies, I miss being at home when we would make those and I could just eat the whole pan of cookies, and hen Daniel and I would eat cinnamon rolls for lunch for days! The quotes were awesome I like them a lot  I put one on our family picture that sits right by my bed all day!

Thanks for all the letters and emails you all send I really try and wrote something back to all of them but I don't have a ton of time so Im really sorry if I don't write back.... Thanks grandma and grandpa for the letter that history of our ancestors who have served missions is really cool, there's lots of us that have served in Florida! And mom that card was freaking hilarious;) I got and invitation to Bethany's wedding this week that was awesome! I'm so happy for her!

So I met this elder named elder hall his name is Avery hall, his my zone leader and I told him I was from kaysville  Utah and he said he had an aunt in kaysville he said Julie white and I was like Juleen White? And he said ya and her husband Scott..... He's bishop whites nephew!!

Thanks for all your love and support back home it's really what helps me keep going, I miss you all a ton and think of you all day everyday!! I can't wait to see you in 1 year 11 months! I hit my month mark Saturday!  I love you all a ton thanks again for everything!

Quote for the week: We are made of the stuff of eternity.

-Grateful in Any Circumstance by President Uchtdorf

Love,

Elder Neel

Week 4

Possum of investigator                                                   Ward Mission leader - Christian

Mom! And all my family and friends that read these!

So this past week has been crazy. I've had times where I'm loving every minute of it and look forward to the next to years and I've had times where two years seems forever away and I'm not sure how I'm going to make it. But I just keep working and the time flies by. They call it "missionary time" and it's really weird because the days seriously seem to go by like weeks but the weeks go by like days it's crazy! Some days seem to go by really slow but I can't believe it's already P-day again, it feels like I was just writing you yesterday!

The next two years will be over before we know it and in no time life will go back to normal!

This area we are in is kinda hard sometimes, because it's so hot in Florida nobody goes outside during the day, so when we go contacting, or walking around looking for people to talk to there is hardly ever anyone around sometimes! And we're not allowed to just go knock on doors, so we do a lot of walking and biking around.

So crazy story I didn't tell you last week. There's this couple named Dan and Stacy, and before I got here it was Elder Crowley who's been out like 20 moths and Elder Lake my companion. They were over teaching Dan one night and he talked about how his wife Stacy just left him.

Well Elder Crowley apparently told him that if he would read the Book of Mormon and pray that his family would get back together. Well, 2 days later his wife Stacy and their daughter came back and they've been together ever since! I hope one day I can be close enough to the spirit to have the courage to tell someone something like that. That's the reason Dan has been so in to learning about our lessons is because a 20 year old kid told him his wife would come back. It's sooo cool how the spirit works!

Grandpa emailed me and said he remembers all the cool lightning storms down here, and he is right! There is lightning storms close to every day, and the weird part is that there will be lightning but no thunder or rain, which is pretty cool! It rains a ton here, and this past week we had the hardest rain storm I've seen since being out here! I tried to take a picture of it but it's hard to tell from just a picture.

This week we were driving home and I heard one of the loudest thunders I've ever heard! It sounded kinda like a bomb on top of our car.

We teach a couple named Paul and Nancy and they are devout Catholics, their a ward members neighbor and he always goes to the lessons with us, and a lot of time when we go teach them it just turns into kind of an argument.... But we have been teaching them how we pray and Nancy gave a prayer just like we taught her and didn't even realize it, and we were like great job! And she prayed that we wouldn't argue and we didn't, it was the most spiritual lesson with them yet. We showed them the Mormon Message The Hope of Gods Light that I talked about back when I was in the MTC, and I think it really touched them, i think they almost cried. Just almost though.

So another thing I have noticed about down here is that no guy anywhere hardly, wears a shirt. Every guy just walks around their house and works in their yard without a shirt on, it's really weird.

The other night we had a drunk guy stop and talk to us while we were walking around at like 850 and it was dark and he told us all about his religious philosophy and that he works with horses all day, and some how he managed to tie those two things together.......

Another story! So one night after dark we pulled into the main area of our apartments and I went out to go get the mail out of our mail box which is like a PO box like the ones at the post office, and as I open the mail box I hear my companion just start laughing and I was like what the heck? What is he laughing about over there all alone? I didn't think much of it and I just closed the box and turned around to head to the car and there was a freaking raccoon standing behind me trying to sneak up on me thinking I was his dinner and My companion just sat there laughing!  I was like you tool! Luckily he got scared away and just ran off haha. But it was crazy!

I found out yesterday that we have what's called a short transfer in December because the transfer lands on Christmas and so they make that transfer only 4 or 5 weeks instead of 6. Which means I will actually come home in July of 2016! Probably on the 19th or 26th! Hooray! It's still a way away but July sounds a lot closer than August. And that'll give me time to get ready for school. The part that kinda stinks is that President Cusick goes home on July 1st 2016 and so I'll have a new mission president for like 3 or 4 weeks, it'll be weird to get to know President Cusick so well and then he won't even be the one giving

me my goodbye interview:(   O well....

My companion and I are getting along a lot better now though! We still have ups and downs but we work through them and I just focus on the people and the work. The people make it all worth it, I love them a ton and they don't really know how much they help me without knowing it.

What do most missionaries eat? Do they all eat as bad as me? Haha.

Stuff like Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ramen and cereal and eggs for every meal.... Not the same meal,but throughout the day.....

I don't wanna get fat.....   But meat is expensive and bread is

cheap...

My spiritual thought for the week is from a General Conference talk from April. It's called "Fear Not I Am With Thee" by Jean A. Stevens.

It's awesome you should all read it if you get the chance! It really helped me feel better and not be so homesick.

Quote of the week: "Be the change you want to see in the world." -Mohammed Ali

I love you all and miss you tons! Email me and let me know what's going on back home and what everyone is up to.

Love,

Elder Neel