Lincoln Mission January 7-13 2025

This was a great week here in Ukupa. We found some good new people
with potential and were able to do some good work

New Village
On friday, we went over the the site where they want to build the new
village and worked for hours clearing it out to be able to build
houses. We cut down a ton of trees, bushes, and cleared out all the
underbrush. We weren't able to finish everything, so this thursday and
friday, we'll go with 250 people to finish. We still don't know the
timeline of when the new village should be started and finished, but
hopefully when can get it going soon.

Demons in the water
There is a bunch of sitting water left over by the flood, and this
morning we saw a bunch of women placing plants around the water to
"get rid of the demons." They're super supestitious here, so this
isn't an event that's out of the ordinary. Someone probably had a
nightmare and took it a little too seriously. That's usually the
reason behind the madness.

Baptizing Laban
There is a kid here that was taught a while back that shares the same
name as one of the antagonists in the Book of Mormon, and this week we
finally got permission from his mom for him to be baptized. His mom
doesn't live in Ukupa and was impossible to get in contact with, but
then she showed up one day and we were able to get a lesson in with
her. The Spirit was really strong as we explained the importance of
baptism and recieving the Holy Ghost in our lives. She is a baptist,
but still gave us permission to baptize her son. Laban should be
getting baptized  this upcoming saturday.

Wifi
This week one of the main data providers stopped providing data,
meaning most of the village was without signal. The only place where
anyone could make a call was in the church, because we have a wifi
router. That led to the church being filled every night by people
trying to call their family back in Panama. We definitely will need to
change the password once the signal comes back.

City Trip
We just found out we're going to the city again this transfer for a
suprise visit from a general authority. My comp Elder Dobson basically
willed this into existance. Hes been talking about going to the city
again ever since the flood and now, by some miracle and his prayers,
we'll get to go to the city 2x in a transfer.

Spiritual Thought
I love studying the covenant we make at baptism. This covenant is the
first of many that we can make with our Heavenly Father and offers us
a stronger connection to him. Being able to serve as a missionary and
help others make their first covenant with God is a super special
experience. As we take more time to understand and keep our covenants,
we will be able to come to know God as we should: our loving Heavenly
Father.

Well, thats basically it. The living conditions here aren't ideal, but
I really love it out here. I would love to stay here another transfer,
so we'll see what God has in store. It's such a great opportunity to
learn to look outside yourself and focus on serving others. I love
these people and this work.

Elder Nali (Lincoln)

Josh Meets Ella (Palmer and Ella go to Las Vegas)

Palmer had plans to take Ella to a Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey game. Josh was in California during the wildfires and a snowstorm kept him from coming home and he needed to go back the next week, so he went to Las Vegas and met up with Shane, Palmer and Ella. 

Shane is such a good friend!

Fun to finally meet Ella!

2025 Snow Day

It has been a while since Georgia had snow. We were so excited to get a snow day this year!

I was worried it wouldn't snow because that has happened before, but we got some!

McKay was so thrilled to go out and play in it. We have all sorts of snow clothes, but he had no interest in being warm and dry...

All the kids in our neighborhood came out to sled together. It was so cute! They all had so much fun!

Josh got this tube on clearance one of the years that it didn't snow. It was used like crazy and ended up popped. It was a great buy. 

The kids all traded their sleds around. 

After the kids got done sledding on the road, they went to the side of our house. I was praying they wouldn't hit any of the weird stuff that's in the backyard...

At the end of the day McKay just sighed and said "today was the best day." So cute. So glad we got a snow day!!
 

Lincoln Mission December 31 2024-January 6 2025

 

Just for family:

This week was a crazy week and Ill detail it more in my regular email.

This part it just for the family. I just wanted to let you know that I
love you and that my phone fell in water...

It wasnt entirely my fault

We were trying to go to magebgandi to hold church there and our
regular boat guy was busy. We havent had church there for weeks due to
big waves, the flood, etc. so we decided to go looking for another guy
who has a boat. Theres only one other guy, we asked him if we could
go, and he said it was ok. We got everything ready and went to the
beach only to find a large glorified canoe with a motor on the back of
it. Having taken sketchy boats in the past, we didnt think too much
about it. We had only a little trouble getting it out into the ocean
but once we were out it seemed all was going to work out.

About 15 seconds into our journey we hit a large wave and landed hard
back in the water. A large CRACK filled the air. No water appeared to
be entering so we continued towards our destination. We then hit
another even larger wave (that a normal boat would usually withstand
with ease) and when we hit the water again another large CRACK filled
the air. A large seam in the boat opened up and water started to flood
in. We tried our best to scoop the water out to no avail.

Suddenly, a wave hits us from the side and spills us out into the
ocean. We all did our best to keep the boat right side up and call
someone to help. I was tasked to swim to shore to get help. I left
elder dobson with my dry bag (holding my phone) and swam the quarter
mile back to shore. Once I got to shore, I turned to see a boat towing
ours back to the village

Longer story short, water got into my dry bag because it was too full
of hymn books and copies of the Book of Mormon. The dry bag broke, I
lost my glasses ($5) and I also lost one of my good mola ties (I tried
to use it to plug the hole, but then I accidentally scooped it out
into the ocean. I was going to jump for it, but I was told not too.
Now in hindsight I wish I had jumped...)

And thats why my phone is broken. Its currently sitting in rice to see
if it can miraculously survive. I should be able to call, but on a
computer

Regular email:

This week was good

We worked a lot on houses and tried to serve as much as possible, from
big projects working on houses to carrying a grandma's bag to her
house.

We were also able to find some people to teach. A girl came up to us
and asked to be baptized, and the little brother of another recent
convert also wants to be baptized. Balancing lessons and service has
been fun, and we've been able to see the Lord's hand in each day.

The lowlight of the week is that on our boat ride to magebgandi we got
a little more than our usual amount of water in the boat and my phone
got wet. We're still waiting to see if it's salvageable, but it's not
looking too good.

Right now, we are in Irgandi for our day off with some of the other
elders. We had to cross a river that was a little higher than usual,
but nothing crazy.

Spiritual Thought
Life consistently feels wild and out of balance. The truth is we will
rarely be able to maintain balance. What brings direction to our lives
is allowing Christ to be a part of it. There's an amazing scripture in
Matthew 11:28-30 that talks about the result of that decision

That's it. I'm sorry if I don't get back to you if you wrote to me.
Once I have a phone again, I'll try and respond.

Love yall
Elder Nali

Hunter Mission December 31 2024-January 6 2025

 Whats happening fam and friends! Hope yall had a great new years and have some high expectations for how thus year is going to go for yall 

This week was pretty awesome, we have found a solid amount of people and have been able to get them to complete some of our invitations so we are hoping to get a few of them on date this week so prayers would be really appreciated 

But the best miracles that we have seen this week have been from our recent converts, Felipe had our bishope give his little boy Leif a baby blessing which was absolutely awesome to see, again we had a bunch of his friends supporting him in the church and they even got to see him bless the sacrament for the first time which is crazy, he is absolutely an angel sent to this ward and every single member loves seeing his progress

Then we have Juan Camilo who passed the sacrament for the first time and also had his family friends in the congregation to watch him do it, they are the ones that we are hoping to put on date this week and they definitely seemed to like the church and all of it. Juan will also be leaving to FSY this week which will help him a lot with strengthening his testimony and help him find friends so that is going to be amazing. 

Besides that it was a pretty amazing week just working hard for the Lords work and seeing his hand in our life which is pretty awesome 

Quick scripture that I is absolutely amazing,

9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul

Prayer is something that we often take for granted, we have to power to tall with hour Heavenly Father and get personal direction for our every day life but often we don't seem to pay attention when we pray and seek this guide so that is my invitation to everyone of you in the beginning of this year, pray intentionally with that mindset that you are going to change you actions to what God has for you 

Love you all so much have a great week!