Email March 25, 2013

Dear Mom

Sorry I have no time today. Thanks for ruining the surprise... I thought we had settled it last week... But that is ok. I will see you when we had planned with Nate!  The Killers are here in Paraguay. Brandon Flowers is Mormon, that means I can go, right? Hahaha just kidding. But I am going to the temple on wednesday. They remodeled the inside and put a huge mural of the falls of iguazu I heard. Should be beautiful. Love you all. Have a great week. 

Forgot to tell you that the hour changed here on Sunday. So we should only be 2 hours difference now, if you already changed in Utah. Love you Mom.

Love, Elder P Naegle

Hector manda mucho saludos y que yo me porto muy mal y soy un malo misionero. Hahaha he is great. Wish he would get baptized.

Email March 18, 2013

Hello Mom,

That is really cool about all the missionaries from the ward! Tell them congrats for me! Good work Niglet on the baseball team. Keep working hard. Tell Dan hello for me. Steve too. I think he gets home this week? Today I bought a nice big old hammock. Big enough for 2! So if there are still any girls that aren't married or on a mission when I get back... A nice snuggle session is in order! haha

So, no baptism this week. Long story, but her mom wigged out a little bit. Maria José is 37, but lives right next to her mom, so it just didn't work out. But she is all good still, we are preparing for the 30th.

This week was good. Our investigator Norma is starting to really progress. She is reading a lot and went to church! Maria Jose was in church as well. Also a man showed up on his own. Fernando visited the Santiago Chile temple and got some sort of lesson there from someone, and liked it. So when he came back from vacation he decided he would stop in. He is more mature... Probably 75 or so, but is super lively and loved the meetings.

I called Hugo and Natividad last night, from Paso de Oro, and they are doing great!!!!!! They both have callings and Hugo received the Melchizedek Priesthood yesterday! It was super great to talk to them.

I am learning many many things here in my mission. I am really loving it. There are a few difficulties here and there, but that is all part of it. I love the story of Samuel the Lamanite. I was reading it these past few days. He got rejected and the Lord told him to go back. He got up on the wall and cried repentance! That is so legit. Quite the missionary. I am doing my best to be even half of the missionary that he was. 

The Church is true. Joseph Smith was a prophet. But most importantly, Jesus Christ is our Savior. I love testifying of Him. My relationship with my Savior is growing a lot and I couldn't be happier about it.

Hope you all have a great week. Hope someone in the ward gets called to the best mission in the world!

Love, Elder Naegle

Email March 11, 2013

Hello Mom,

So we got changes today. This was only a 4 week change. We are both staying. So I will have 3 and a half changes with Elder Palacios it looks like. 4 areas in my mission with 8 comps, not counting the MTC. Assuming nothing changes. By the way, I am going home when we had planned. Everyone is going home on their normal return date, at least until the new mission president comes.

So life is good. We are having the baptism of Maria Jose tomorrow. I am pumped! It should be awesome. She is going through heck with her family right now, so please keep her in your prayers. All of the new missionaries are going to be there, so it should be pretty special. Hopefully we can get lots of our investigators to go as well.

This week I did a division with Elder Barker in Mburucuya, and they live with the office elders. And 2 of the office elders are training their replacements right now, so that house is crazy! Haha it was super fun. I talked with Elder Wing and Elder Horrocks for a while. Pretty sure I will be good friends with them after the mission. Horrocks is just like James Wagstaff, it kills me.

So last night I was going over some of the numbers with one of the district leaders. He is in an area that has always been known as a "tough area". Here in Asuncion, we have a few of those. We were talking about it, and how it is great to go out with excitement, but often that just isn't enough. I brought up Nephi, and the idea of if Nephi and managed to take a fortune to Laban every single time, but just been more excited each time and more convinced it was going to work, he wouldn't have been successful. He had to try new things. Be creative. President Madariaga has made us promises regarding contacts and other things, but if we are doing those things in the same old boring ways, we probably won't see the results. We gotta mix it up. This was some good revelation for me. I know I said it to a district leader, but it was what I needed to hear. Super cool how God answers our prayers.

Enjoy the pictures. Those are my original eccos. They will easily make it to the end of my mission. I am pretty excited about it. That is Gilberto, he is hilarious.

Love you all. Tell Dan hello for me. That means Steve gets home soon. Give all my friends a hug for me! and a kick in the pants!

Love, Elder Naegle

Email March 4, 2013

Hello Mom,

It is nice and cool in Paraguay today. Such a blessing! Congrats to Niglet making the team. That is cool that Dan will be helping out on the coaching staff. Congrats to the boys in the ward getting their mission calls. I still want someone I know to come here to Asuncion North. It is awesome! Half of my areas will no longer be in the mission, but... That is ok!

So... No baptism.... This week... But we do have a baptism a week from tomorrow. Maria Jose. Elder Richins found her. We dropped her, picked her up  again. She is awesome.  Really progressing now. The Lord works in mysterious ways to prepare people. I will explain everything that has happened another time.

Quick note. It shouldn't be Open Mike Sunday. It should be fast and testimony meeting. I was actually quite glad that many of our investigators didn't go to church yesterday because of some of the things that were said. Let us not say things about other churches..... True or not, it can offend people. May I add, many times it isn't true. Good thing Maria Jose is so prepared.

Today we heard from Elder Viñas of the 70 in our zone leaders council. The district leaders were invited as well. Not much time, so I won't go into much of what he or President Madariaga said, but I do want to say that it was a super spiritual experience. 

Hope you all are doing really well.  I love you lots. You are in my prayers.

Love, Elder Naegle

Email Feb. 25, 2013

Hello Mom,

I'm walking on sunshine, oh--oh, and don't it feel good! 

How are you Mom? I am doing excellent. To answer your question, my comp was with one of the assistants, and Labra's comp was with the other assistant. With us 6 and the temple workers there were a whole lot of black name tags in church that Sunday!

The mission changes will be affecting our mission. And 2 of the 3 zones I have been in will be taken.... Haha. Good thing it will happen a week after I leave! President Madariaga has a lot of work ahead of him because he already had to open 25 areas by that time, but now he is losing 25, so that makes 50 areas he will have to open by July.... Should be fun. Good thing he receives lots of revelation.

This week was good, but it was full of appointments falling... That means a lot of contacting, and scratching your head trying to figure out what you are going to do next. But it was a good learning week. I did a division with Elder Lewis in San Jorge. He goes home a change before me. It was good to get to know him better and work hard in his area.

Then we did some splits in my area and I went with Hoguer, as in Shrek. He served in Utah, and he has a picture with Elder Larson, from Nate's group, in the MTC. So... Pretty sure he met Nate. But he can't remember. Elder Guillen is his name. Maybe Nate remembers him. He is super cool and we had a good time. He wants to study in Utah, and I rekindled that fire! So we'll see if he can make it happen.

Sunday was good. Maria Jose came to church, and Felix as well. Felix should be getting baptized this Saturday and I am excited for him. He is a super smart kid. I also taught Gospel Principles, this week it was about the Gathering of Israel... Yeah... I know... Super interesting for new and reactivating people... haha but at least I was able to learn something, right?

Well. Hope everyone is doing great. Elder Naegle is doing great. He is now back up to 165 pounds! Oh yeah! Turns out that the worm diet takes a few more pounds than I had planned... 

The good news is that worms can't take away a testimony, which is as strong as ever. I love my Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the fullness of the gospel was restored through him. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. These things I know through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Love, Elder Naegle

Email Feb. 18, 2013*

Hello Mom,

Well I wrote this all in word, because the internet is down. But I am using a laptop of Hectors with personal internet, so it is all good. Sorry no comments about your email.

Well it was a good week. I got back with my comp on Wednesday when Labra went home. It was pretty good to be back with my comp and be able to work like normal. It is nice having a good teacher by your side.

This week nothing too exciting happened, but it was good. Friday I was able to do a baptismal interview in Mburucuya. It went really well, and afterwards we had one of the coolest lessons of my mission. We went to a part member family that we have been trying to teach for a long time. The dad, is member. His wife isn’t, his 15 year old daughter isn’t either. They also have 2 more kids that aren’t quite to baptismal age yet. Well we were finally able to teach them last week, and Friday was the 2^nd visit. As we were talking about their experience with their commitments, it was incredible. We had committed them to pray as a family, and they had prayed every single day together, except for one. The daughter had read about 12 chapters in the BOM and loved it. She shared a great experience, she said that she had been wanting to go to Germany as an exchange student, but it didn’t happen. 1 Nephi 9:6 answered her why. It wasn’t God’s will. As she shared this, she broke down in tears. The Spirit was so strong. Her dad took over from there. He explained that they had tried to do everything to get her to go, but in the end everything just went against them. They had tried to console their daughter like any good parent would, but it was the scriptures that were able to do it! Oh yeah!!!!!!! The Spirit was burning! Personally I think it was because God knew that we would be stopping by to teach the family… But God knows why.

This week in church we had a miracle when Maria went to church. She was an old investigator that Richins had found, but stopped progressing due to family pressure and doubts. Well when I was with Labra, I felt impressed to stop by and visit. It was weird because I knew that she usually studies English at that time, but we went anyway. She was home because she was recovering from Dengue. She has been super humbled and prepared for baptism. A member died recently that was like her mom. She had a dream with that member and felt that it was time for her to be baptized. Also Elder and Sister Spencer, temple workers, had visited her and her mom and softened up to them a lot. All of these things combined, and well…. She is now preparing for baptism. But she is making a trip to New York first, in March. Hello Natali! She is going to go to church while she is there! So she will need to find Natali and go to church with her. Except it would be better if she went to a Spanish ward, because her English isn’t super good… hahaha.

Well. Love you all. Alma 41:8 hit me pretty hard this morning.  The Lord’s decrees are set, he who wants to walk in the Lord’s ways will be saved. Pretty simple. Can’t remember exactly how it is and I read it in Spanish… Sorry… Haha go ahead and look it up.

Have a great week. Love you all.

Love, Elder Naegle

This is a lot of rain we got today. Good thing it happened after I went to TGI Fridays... Haha. I bought lunch for my comp for his birthday. Just so you know Mom.

Love, P

Email February 11, 2013*

Hello Mum,

Sorry if some of the Austrailian comes out of me in this email... Elder Labra is rubbing off on me. His dad is chilean, that is where the name comes from. I have been with him since saturday. He goes home on wednesday. I still haven't gotten the call from the assistants about changes so I am not sure what is going to happen. But odds are that I will be with Elder Palacios again here in Moroni.

This week was pretty good. We had our zone meeting where we were able to teach our zone all of the things that we learned in concilio. President Madariaga came to ours again, so we did a demonstration with him. It was really fun, I always enjoy doing practices with President. After the meeting I started a division with Elder Staker in Zeballos. We had an awesome lesson with someone we found.  She is going through depression, basically going through hell with the ex-man, and her step daughter is a less active. The Spirit was super strong and she committed to being baptized on the 2 of March. We gave her a blessing and we left. On Saturday when I went over there to do a baptismal interview, I saw her outside her house and she was pumped. She told me she was reading and she wants to get baptized even earlier (turns out you need to go to church a few times... hahaha). She feels a ton better. Sunday after church was great when I got a phone call from Staker saying she was in church and she loved it.

Saturday, like I mentioned, I did a baptismal interview right before a wedding. The kid was pretty prepared, and the Spirit was so strong. The highlight of the interview was when we talked about tithing. Not even sure how it happened, but I felt the Spirit so strong as I bore my testimony about the importance of it. I could see the Spirit working in him as his understanding was taken to a whole different level.

We did have Felix come to church. He is a friend of a youth in the ward that we started teaching this week. Super smart and progressing very well, but his mom isn't interested at all. Fortunately the member friend, Pablito, is the most active member in the ward, so we got some good member help. They are both 15 I think.

Well. I love you so much. Hope everyone is doing great. I have realized how important it is that we change a lot and don't come home the same person. I love my mission. I loved eating with the Price family yesterday too. American gravy..... mashed potatoes.... Pork cooked in the crock pot.... I about died... hahha

I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. He suffered for each one of us. I love Him so much.

Love, Elder Naegle

p.s. This is a picture of my zone. Sorry I didn't want to deal with the all the other cameras in the middle. Also a picture from zeballos cue, looking at asuncion. Took it today at our barbecue we did.