Letter from 10/27/14

There´s just never enough time to write! Mexico is fantastic! It´s hot, but the people here are so kind! 


Since I´m running out of time I´ll jump right to it. This week has been fantastic We had four baptisms and four confirmations. This family was ready change when they were found. Really wanting to change, they just wanted to know how. They´re awesome. Their last name is Dominguez. They got married on thursday and baptized on friday. It´s awesome. 


We found out that our ward had the most baptisms this month and this year in our zone. We´ve had 54ish baptisms now. It´s really awesome. Not all of them are active, but the ones that are really have testimonies. My companion and I have been working on keeping people active and reactivating others. We´ve had really good success. 


The food here is incredibly flavorful and good. Seafood actually tastes good here. One thing that´s really hard here is that we´ve been working in a new area with TONS of people, but we haven´t had much success. It´s called Los Lagos of Puente Moreno or Lagos. And we´ve spent almost entire days out there with almost no success. That´s really stressfull, but the people that we do find come because we work and it´s not completely about the baptism, it´s about being the warning for them. Sometimes we have to tell people that their salvation and their eternity is real and that they should put forth a little bit of effort, We raise the flags and the people get to make their own decisions. 


I love the work and I love how people change because of it. I know that our salvation is real and is attainable for every one of God´s children. This really is a marvellous work.


Guarden la fe,
Élder Neal

I got this picture from a member in the ward Elder Neal is serving in.

Letter from 10/20/14

I asked Elder Neal a few questions. Here are his responses:

Tell us about your area.

In my area, it´s pretty normal. We´re in Reforma, our area is over a place called Puente Moreno, Los lagos de puente moreno, and Las vegas, 1,2,3, and 4. We´re in 3 different cities, one´s veracruz, one´s Medellin, annnnd I can´t remember the other... 

Have you been cooking and do you need any recipes?

Nope, just "hot cakes" -Pancakes and quesadillas and cereal and avena bars. and cookies. and bananas. because they´re cheap and we´re poor.

How is the washing machine working?

I only was my garments in the washing machine, and i guess every night I´ve been washing this shirt because I took all of my shirts and socks, minus the shirt and socks that I´m wearing to the laundry place and we haven´t had time to pick them up. so I´ve been wearing the same socks and shirt for 4 days in a row. I´ve had to iron my socks (I think he means shirts) every day... it´s awful.

What is your schedule on P-Day?

pday, get up study, do things that we need to do like get birth certificates for the people getting married and go get their marriages set up and everything, then go back and take care of laundry, do email, go back, study or sleep, eat, then work 6 - 9. I want to send back my pull up bar. all of the door frames here are like inside. they don´t protrude, so... 

LOVE YOU!

Elder Neal

A picture of my area.

Some food. That´s a whole fish and camarones.

Woke up and found my scriptures altered.

This family is from the sister missionaries, but we worked with them and taught them about 5 lessons too. My companion and I baptized the children. The mom and dad aren't married but are getting married this Thursday and the mom´s getting baptized this Saturday. They´re really cool! I baptized the little kid in the front. Chrisma Jaime. He jumped into the font and swam around and dunked his self before i had baptized him. Haha!

Letter from 10/13/2014

Current investigators for me have been jumbled and stuff and in Floresta, my assigned ward, and since someone in my district had surgery, his companion was in a trio with us and my real companion would go with a member to teach and I would go to Tejar and teach with the other Elder. His name is Elder Rodriguez and he doesn´t know any english and he´s really cool. The zone I´m in is called Reforma, we take taxis and busses most places, my assigned area I think is called Medellin. It´s a really safe place where we are. 

We have one family that doesn´t have a lot of money, but they love the Gospel. They aren´t married, so we have to do that before they can be baptized. But it costs money. This is a trial of their faith and we´ve been working with them and getting them papers for marriage from the Civil building in downtown veracruz, which is a long way away, but it´s been worth it. They really are awesome and I love seeing them change. They´re names are German, Margarita, Juan Carlos, Leonardo, and Bryan, but Bryan´s only 6 years old. I contribute quite a bit, but I don´t control the lesson.  

Some of my study time has brought forth fruit. Something I read in Jesus The Christ was really awesome.  Jesus said "I partook and finished my preparations among the children of men." That´s something that I hope i can say at the end of this life at the Judgement. One more quote from right after the atoning in gethsemane "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my father, and he shall presently give me more than 12 legions of angels?" EXACT OBEDIENCE. Brings blessings. It works.

Close to a train, we were walking on the tracks and i happened to look back and it was coming, pretty cool.

Elder Rodriguez. He's our trio companion.

Our fridge on Sunday before P-day. The orange juice is actually gone.

I was Elder Rolly (Riley Rolly) for about 3 hours.

Elder Neal's Addresses

Addresses

Letters:
Elder Riley Neal
Mexico Veracruz Mission
Apartado Postal 103
91700 Veracruz, Veracruz

Packages:
Jesus Andres Rodriguez Gonzalez
Calle Rio Soto la marina 108A Las Vegas II
Boca del Rio, Veracruz
C.P. 94297

Cell phone of him is 2293060699

Letter from 10/6/14

Our house is apparently the nicest house in the zone! Holla! Bathroom´s interesting... There are 15 elders in the minivan, 8 are in the trunk. MY COMPANION´S AWESOME. His name is Elder Melgar. He´s been out 13 months and I´m his first son. And he knows english pretty well. The purple and white cylindrical thing is a washing machine. It´s one of the best parts of the house. The BEST part of the house is the AC. The only other house with ac is the hermanas.  The mud... I wasn´t looking where i was going. Some members bought us burgers. It was fantastic.

Letter from 9/24/14 - Four Days Left!

I can't believe that it's been a month and 4 days! Crazy! The MTC's been great, but we're all anxious to leave and to go to Mexico! 

On Sunday, we got to go to main campus for a devotiional and afterwards, we always go and watch a movie of either a devotional or something about Joseph Smith's life. This time, they were offering a talk by Elder Holland given at the MTC a few years back and it was fantastic. It had a bunch of great advice for the mission field. I took a ton of notes. Then we got to hear from Elder Russell Ballard on tuesday. He had some great advice too. He talked quite a bit about setting goals and that we'll be able to teach if we keep a journal that talks about what works and doesn't. 

My mom asked me what the best part of the MTC has been. Besides hanging with 12 Elders all day every day, and being told that we're a lot better behaved that the last 12 elder district because the teachers literally had to put their noses in the corner, the best thing overall was probably having so much inspiration from so many people. Honestly. Our teacher, Hermano Holman, Is FANTASTIC. He is such an inspiration for all of the Elders in the district. Before his mission, he wanted to be an artist and a hippie kinda guy. Within the first month of being out in the field he wanted to go home. He had packed up and everything, but something happened. He didn't tell us, but he stayed and got transferred to a place with Miskito people in Nicaragua. He had learned and adapted to how they teach, and he set a goal of 30 baptisms a month and he did it for 3 months and then the mission pres. talked to him and told him that he wants him to set up and organize the priesthood there. So he did that. Then, when he got back, he was asked to translate the Book of Mormon into Miskito. So he's translated portions of it. And now he's studying Bio-med and he has goals to cure diseases and it's awesome to see how he's changed. It great to see how he's changed because of his mission. I couldn't be more excited to get out to Veracruz. 

Love you all!

Elder Neal

We may or may not have found the Pillow room. It is absolutely the most comfortable room I've ever been in

The pillow room is awesome!

Our district at the temple today

Letter From 9/17/14

All of our district has their visas ready. And we get our flight plans on friday. Just 12 days left at the MTC. It's crazy how fast time has past since the first Sunday.

Our district discovered this new game called "what are the odds." Basically you pick a range of numbers and if you both say the same number you have to do whatever you asked what the odds were to. We played it for one whole day and it was insane and crazy fun. The next day, we just didn't play it, I guess we were just burnt out. 

Elder Richard G. Scott came and talked to us! We finally got our apostle. It was awesome and he talked about prayer. When he walked in you could feel the difference in the room. Just looking at him you could feel the spirit so strongly. It was awesome. 

So glad to have this opportunity at the MTC. I love my teachers and my study Journal. I've only done a  few lessons worth of study so far, but it's so helpful and fantastic. 

Love,

Elder Neal