Elder Neel: 3/13/23

Doesn't get more Texas than this

 I love Jesus Christ

Spencer Neel <spencer.neel@missionary.org>

HELLO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!! How are ya!? What an amazing time it is to be alive. I am so thankful to be a missionary and a representative of Jesus Christ. It is humbling to wear His name and life is just so good because God is so good!

What a week it has been! We found 6 more friends this week and it was a huge miracle. We just kept running into situation after situation that just lined up at the right time and the right place. We’ve basically restarted our teaching pool here and I am excited to progress with these new friends. I am so thankful for all your support and prayers back at home and if you could please pray for our new friends to have the desire to learn more and grow their relationship with our Savior. Their names are Raul, Danny, Erik, Rafael, Ricardo, and Martin. I love them all so much and good things are coming for them.

We had such a cool experience with our new friend Raul. He’s from the Dominican Republic and is so proud of it. Shout out to my primo Elder Patterson who is serving there. It is amazing and humbling to know I am teaching someone from the same place that one of my family members is serving in. Raul thought that it was so sweet that I had someone in my family preaching the Gospel over there. We met Raul for the first time on Wednesday and he is so ready to learn. He invited himself to church and we were like “Let’s gooooo!!” 

Come Sunday church is about to start and no one’s there. We had a lot of potential people for this week but most don’t show up and it’s sad sometimes. Church started and none of our friends were there. But about five minutes after Raul walks in with his son! We didn’t even know he had one that lived here 😂 but they loved church and after Raul showed us his Book of Mormon we gave him. He was already in Jacob and had marked up chapters in Alma. We’re meeting with him this Tuesday and he said he’s got a lot of questions for us so we’re ready to answer them for him. He speaks so fast though. Raul is putting my Spanish to the test but he is super patient with us and loves helping us to be able to understand him and improve our spanish. He’s seriously the coolest person ever. 

We had zone conference this week and it was fun to see all the missionaries in the Lubbock zones! I absolutely love these conferences because they get you on such a spiritual high and everyone’s ready to go out and baptize nations. We do a lot of role plays and it was fun to be able to connect with Elder Kitchen on a deeper level. When you're on these spiritual highs you get tight. We didn’t do every role play together but when we did our unity was fire. You’ve got another dangerous duo out here in West Texas. 

I’ve been thinking of blessings a lot lately. It is interesting to really break down and see how they work and what they’ve done for me. Some blessings come right when we need them and are in such a dire need. Other times we see way down the road the blessing in the long run. And sometimes we don’t even see the blessings but they’re there. What I do know for sure with all my missionary heart is that we have a loving Heavenly Father and Savior who cannot wait to bless us. At times it is hard to think, feel, and know this but I promise it is true. I would not be where I am now without knowing this. The mission has really been changing me and I am able to see these blessings a lot more in my life. But I am also able to see that some aren’t coming yet and that I must trust in my loving Heavenly Father that they will come and that He is holding me the whole way through. This week I want you guys to read Elder Holland’s talk “A high priest of good things to come” This talk has brought me so much peace and a newfound desire to trust always. I love you guys so much and I know each and every one of you’ve got this. Whatever you are going through at this moment you’ve got it. I’m cheering you on and I can’t wait to see how much you will know of our Savior’s love for you.

Until next week 

Elder Neel✊️