Lost Letter Found

The letter was lost in cyberspace and Travis re-sent it with this week's letter, so it's a nice bonus.

Hello Everyone,
Getting right to it, this will be my last week in Sansar.  This upcoming Saturday is transfers and I'll be headed to Kailist which is an area comprised of only ger (yurt) districts in the very north of the city.  It's actually the area Elder Jolley came from before he became AP.  Elder Jolley will head to Selbe, the only area without a ger district where he will be zone leader.  He'll be companions with Elder Quinton from my group.  Everyone in my MTC group is staying put this transfer.  All but one (Elder Williams) have new companions.  My new companion is Elder Bayartsogt, who entered the mission just a few days after we did.  He's part of my "group" in that we'll leave the mission at the same time.  I've met him a few times and he is an amazing Elder.  Extremely hard working and extremely humble.  I can't wait to tear it up with him.  I can't wait to apply all of the amazing things that Elder Jolley has taught me this last twelve weeks as I begin in this new area.  Both my self  an Elder Bayartsogt are new to the area (some say "whitewashed") so it's going to take some extra effort to jump start the transfer. To be continued .  .  .
This past week went something like this

On Monday we had an FHE (Family Home Evening) at the Church which was attended by many of the young people.  There were about 40 people who came and half of them were investigators.  It was amazing to see everyone participating in the games together as if they had been best friends forever.  We played several charade games where I was judge for who raised their hand first (about all I'm good for in a super fast Mongolian game).  And then we played "Do you love your neighbor?"  We ran from that event out to our ger district to meet with a young girl at the family of a church member.  We had planned to teach all 5 points of the gospel of Jesus Christ but quickly realized that anything more than a  discussion on faith was going to be over the top.  It was great as we talked through their knowledge of the Bible and Jesus Christ.  We asked them to read Alma 32 and are working on a follow up visit before we transfer to  our new areas.

On Tuesday after district meeting we had a tuna fish party at our house and then taught English at Elder Jolley's hotel (his visa sponsor).  Wednesday night we made pizza at the Elder and Sister Hunt's apartment with Elder Quinton and Elder Wilson.  I'm pretty sure I was laughing about 75% of the time.  We were just cracking jokes across the table the whole time.  And then I shared Matthew 24:44-48.  Progress and salvation come through the doing.  We're either moving closer or further away from our celestial home.  There is no idle on the vehicle to heaven.

On Saturday we worked on getting the transfer list out to all of the missionaries. It took a while to rearrange the phone list and what not.  But we were still able to get to Purev and Nymsuren's house to teach about temples and family history work.  We brought two of the ward missionaries with us which was a really good fellowshiping opportunity.

We ate pancakes and then steak for our last Sunday in Sansar. We bore our testimonies in ward missionary meeting and Elder Jolley gave all of them some really good instruction on reactivating and retaining members.  I bore my testimony the best I could and we sat the rest of the meetings.  Even though I don't know half the names of people in the ward it was kinda of sad to be leaving a place.  Sunday night we tried three different plans that all fell through.  However, we did get to cross a frozen river and climb a few sweet hills.

I'm so grateful as this transfer quickly comes to an end for the wonderful people in Sansar.  I'm especially grateful to Elder Jolley who has been the greatest trainer that anyone could ever ask for.  In teaching though companionship study and through action he has shown me what it means to be a true representitive of Jesus Christ. I'm excited to go and try to be the kind of missionary that he continues to be.

I hope everyone is having a great new year in what I've heard is a pretty warm winter.

Love
Elder Neuberger