Elder Neel: 12/12/22

 I'm officially a Spanish Elder 😎

Spencer Neel <spencer.neel@missionary.org>

Hello everyone!! I hope it’s been an amazing past two weeks for you, it definitely has been for me. Elder Allphin and I have been able to get our area up and running and it has been a huge but amazing learning experience. 

There’s been a lot of firsts in opening an area and even better, a SPANISH area. I got to do my first Spanish lesson, Sacrament meeting, dinners, basically everything in Spanish. I love it so much!!!! I still don’t understand much yet but I know the Lord has me here and the Spanish will come! We didn’t have an area book for the first week because for some reason it wasn’t in the system, so we basically became errand Elders for everyone else. Whenever someone needed something we didn’t really have much going on so we did it. We stayed busy but a different kind of busy. We were finally able to get area book this past week and have been able to do so much more missionary work! I absolutely love this area and especially our branch. There are so many amazing and wonderful people who are always looking out for us and so fun to be around. I’m in a larger branch this time and we have about 40 to 50 people come each week. It feels like a big family every Sunday. We have our branch mom Hermana Sala who doesn’t leave sacrament meeting until she makes sure we are fed, she is an angel!! 

We had Zone Conference this week and it was a lot bigger being in Lubbock. They combine the Lubbock and Lubbock North zones and there are a ton of missionaries. But it’s been so cool getting to know a lot more people in the mission and I was even able to see my MTC comp Elder Grummertt!! He is still as amazing as ever and is absolutely killing it in Portales. President and Sister Child have been focusing a lot on the different names of Christ and I will share more on that later. Anyways I am living the dream out here. I am doing the Lord’s work and inviting people to come to Him and make the necessary covenants to have peace and joy in this life and eternal life in the world to come. There is not a greater thing I could be doing!! There are definitely hard days but Jesus had hard days too. Knowing this gives me the strength to press on through His strength and grace. Philliphians 4:13 says it best “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

Since both Elder Allphin and I are new it has been so fun learning how to get this area running together. He is an amazing example of how to work hard and he is always looking out for me. I have been blessed with such amazing companions. 

A sweet miracle that happened yesterday was we were given a referral at dinner of someone we should go visit that the members had met selling. We ended up knocking on a few of our other friends houses first and we knocked on the wrong house. We met Praxedes and were able to find a new friend! We taught him about God and Christ and invited him to Church on Sunday. Fast forward and we knock on the right house and the guy wasn’t home. His friends invited us in and we taught them a lesson about the Book of Mormon and found another friend! We then went to the referral and he wasn’t home but his parents and brother were and they invited us in and we found EVEN MORE FRIENDS!!! In all we found 5 new friends last night and it was such a cool experience that God gave us. We were expecting to talk to certain people but it led us to finding other children of our Heavenly Father. God always had a plan and it might be a little different than what we thought it would be but it always turns out to be amazing in the end. 

I love you all so so much and thank you for all the support you’ve given me. I feel strengthened and loved so much. I couldn’t do this without my friends and family, and especially Christ. He has so many unique and amazing names and I invite all of you to study His names. Elder Rasband said he’s found over 200 of them so there’s no rush. Sister Child’s promise to us is the same promise I give to you. As you study the names of Christ you will more fully understand His divine mission. This in turn will help us become more like Him. Names are everything. They are given to us so that we may know who we are talking to and who they are. The greatest names of all are the names of our Savior. Have so much fun finding His names and the reason behind them, I know it will bless you. 

I love you all and I can’t respond much through email but I would love to hear how any of you are doing!! Until next time,

Elder Neel