EDEN IN ECUADOR: CCM 9.18.14

MI FAMILIA!!!

WOW boy do i love you guys! This week FLEW BY. I love the CCM!! I love being a missionary.

I just need to tell all of you that i have learned more things about myself in these last three weeks than ever before in my life!! I am serious. Heavenly Father is telling me new things every day that i need to work on. And what i have realized is... I. am. weak. I am so incredibly weak. I can do NOTHING without my God. I feel so much gratitude in my heart to him for helping me be better ever day.

In these three weeks

i have never felt so incredibly close to my Savior. I love him so much.

I have never prayed so hard

i have never studied this hard

i have never been this impatient

i have never seen so many flaws in myself

i have never felt so helpless

yet i have never felt so strong!

It is amazing because if three weeks in the mission field can do this for me, i cannot imagine what 18 months will do! I love it. I love it. I LOVE it.

I realize that while i am in the CCM. God has been purging and purifying me. I have realized that i need to turn to him with FULL purpose of heart. (see Acts11:23, Jacob 6:5, and John chapter 15)

Read all of John 15 it might be the greatest chapter ever!! I have realized that although i love you guys so much, you aren´t my focus. If i am to be an effective missionary you can´t be my focus. At the beginning of this week, you were my focus. I missed you all and i couldn´t stop worrying and thinking about you. I prayed to know what i should do. I got a very sweet witness that while i was on my mission, Heavenly Father would take good care of you all. I felt so much peace and i truly felt in that moment that i could give my whole self to God for these 18 months. I love him. I often fall short because i am weak, but he helps my every day. My whole heart and trust is with him. And i am turning all my focus to missionary work, though i still pray for each one of you every night.

Ok so on the fifteenth (Monday) it was Mexican Independence day! My roommate Hermana Avila is Mexican and she was SO EXCITED!! But on Saturday and Sunday she was really sick. She got a blessing from our District Leader and by monday she was back to normal!! It was so cool to see! The power of the priesthood is real everybody.

So there´s this spider. He lived outside our window for three weeks on a massive web and he was hideous.

The following is my journal entry concerning this spider.

"There is this spider outside our window and it is big and hairy and i hate it with all my heart. I am so scared of it and i want it to die. But Hermana Avila will not let me kill it... i told her and hermana hartzel to pray that the spider wouldn´t hurt us. i am legit afraid of this spider. ew. it is so gross. hermana avila is mad at me beacuse i keep closing the window. But i really am scared lol! And Mexico is so LOUD right now! music and fireworks"

I am obviously a little scatter brained, but today while hermana avila was in the shower, hermana roach and i went outside and were squirting water on it and throwing things at it. Finally an Elder came and killed it for us. After three weeks of despising that wretched creature (it had all sorts of names.... Hades, satañas, el diablo) i felt a little sad, but oh well! Now i can rest peacefully.

sorry not too many pictures... time flies when you are having fun!

con mucho amor,

hermana neff