The Finale: Homeward Bound

Where has the last year and a half gone? I don't even know what to say about my mission. So I decided to put my mission down into 18 points.

1. Vanderhoof: Where I was able to grow my roots. I was able to learn that I can do hard things. Whether it be freezing to death outside in -40 and tracting or knocking the same doors over and over and over again. I found my mission families (Allreds, Fawcetts) I will never be the same after being in Vanderhoof. "I had a honking good time in Vanderhoof"

2. Spring Fawcett: Thank you for being one of my favorite mini missionaries. also for teaching me about personal revelation.

3. Sister Dexter: My eternal life long companion ;)

4.Tracting (knocking door to door) Dracting (driving ranch to ranch vanderhoovian style) See spot run (see a person. stop. and run to them and talk) street contacting Van city style

5. Abbotsford: Pushing me to really learn the Bible

6.President Tillman: Strict obedience, learning the higher law

7. My cheerleading team back home: I cant thank you all enough. I loved being able to get onto my email and have 30+ emails every week THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT!

8.Vancouver: Where I grew my wings and learned I could truly fly

9.The Book of Mormon: Proof that God loves all of his children

10. Heidi Mak: One day an investigator the next one the best recent converts ever!

11.President Burt: How to follow the spirit, eternal lifelong principals

12.Sister Sheilds: (my Victoria landlord) Teaching me new and amazing mind blowing crazy spiritual things everyday.

13.My testimony: The chance that I have to bear my testimony each and everyday multiple times a day

14.My companions: Thank you for teaching me how to love and learn and have fun and everything. Love you all!!!!!

15:Victoria: My lovely retirement community full of people I love and adore

16:Joseph Smith: He was an amazing prophet of God and was meant to bring in the last dispensation

17. Jesus Christ: For being the most perfect example and striving to be like him everyday

18. Heavenly Father: He never left me helpless or hopeless. Truly a loving Father.

I know these are super random points. But my mission has truly been the greatest experience of my entire life. For sure one of the hardest as well. This week really put me through the ringer. I have a testimony that Heavenly Father will only give us what we can handle and he knew I could only handle this lesson if it weren't for the fact that I am going home next week. I am so grateful for these lessons and the chance I have to be able to be made stronger.

    I just want to share my testimony with you that I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints is the true church on the earth today. that Joseph Smith was called of God to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will never abandon us. We just have to learn how to put our trust in him and never forget that He is always there. Heavenly Father Loves us so much that he gave us the Book of Mormon. It is a record of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. I Know this gospel is true. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

   I love you all so much. I will see you all so soon! Just know how much I love you and how this gospel truly changes lives!!!

Sister Emmaline Neubert

Spiritually filled

What a wonderfully spiritually filling week!!

   This week we had our spiritual cup filled time and time again. It was like a million thanksgiving dinners. So wonderful!

   We had a Vancouver island zone conference this week and it was great we were able to focus on becoming our own golden convert. I love my mission president. He really focuses on the eternal principals and becoming a lifelong member. We watched an amazing clip about never giving up and never quitting. I just love being a missionary. But I sometimes feel selfish because I feel like I am becoming my own best convert. The gospel is so true.

Then later this week we had Stake conference. We had Elder Johnson from the 70 come and speak to the stake. Holy cow, he is such a bold man. I loved it. He basically told everyone that everything in the gospel starts in the home. With family prayer and scripture study. Then he super focused on the temple and he asked everyone to raise there hand if they want to live in the presence of God. Then he said that how often we go to the temple is how much we want to live in Heavenly Fathers presence. Everyone and myself included super reflected on how we are going to make things happen. I couldn't take notes fast enough. Such an inspired man!

   This week we also had some amazing lessons. We taught Ruby(recent convert) this week all in Tagalog. Thanks to our wonderful member. We talked all about the into to the book of Mormon and dissected it. You should all do that!! its really amazing! Then we taught Silvia (investigator) right after. Then entire lesson was in Spanish, thanks to a member. I have no idea why I have been gifted with this weird gift of tongues/understanding and I am able to know what they are talking about the whole time and I can use my pathetic broken Spanish in response. My companion is always so shocked because we will walk down the street and I will talk with someone about the gospel in Spanish and the next in Mandarin and the next in Arabic or something. keep in mind its not great. But I can totally give them a card and introduce myself. its basically the greatest blessing ever! 

   Well my days are slowly coming to an end but I am excited for the new adventures that await me. Happy 2 weeks left!! See you all soooooo soon :)

Love

your island princess

Sister Emmaline Neubert

Random Week

Well, as I sit here contemplating what I wanted to tell you happened this week I am drawing a total blank. I was going to try to sound all smart and like a scriptorian this week... but alas I left my scriptures in the car. Lame, I know. What is a missionary without their scriptures! Actually this whole week I kept forgetting to put my nametag on. Sister Evans keeps telling me it must be a sign that I wont be doing this for much longer. I just know I am going to be in the depths of despair when I am not wearing my nametag anymore.

   This week has been a beautiful sunny week and we talked to lots of people. Its baby season in our ward. We have like 6 ladies that had there babies due the same week in our ward. So we have been running around and doing service and helping our relief society president.

   Also this week we had a giant service project for our stake. We were assigned to tear out giant bushes and trees... But right before we went to the service project Sister Evans received her "death" packet (basically tells you when you leave...usually an emotional breakdown follows). So of course she was like a wild woman at the service project just tearing out tree stumps and bush roots with her bare hands. I just sat back and told everyone I was with her hahaha

   Oh Also we went to the empress this week. Sadly the 50% off was last week so the afternoon tea went back up to an arm and a leg. SO we just danced around the ballroom instead haha. Note to self. I am kind of a princess. Beware of ballrooms and places that hold afternoon teas. I turn into Giselle off of enchanted ready to jump into a Disney Princess Movie.

   Sorry for the super uber random email. It was a slow week. Hopefully everything picks up this next week. Its Spring Break ere right now. So everyone is gone.

I love you all sooooooo much!

Love your island princess

Sister Emmaline Neubert

The spirit of God like a fire is burning.

Another fantastic week as a missionary! The cherry blossoms are out in full bloom. All I have been wearing for a few weeks now is a light jacket. Sorry to all of my friends serving and living in the northern abyss.

   This week was amazing. We met with Jemana and her daughter again this week. We are teaching them from the ground up. They don't really know much about God and Jesus Christ. So for their lesson this week we decided that we would take them on a church tour and talk about all the pictures throughout the church. It ended up being the greatest idea ever. We started with a picture of Christ and talked about faith and how its like a seed and taught them how to make the seed grow. Eventually we came to a picture of Christ being baptized. They both got teary eyed and asked where could they be baptized. We told them right here and we opened the baptismal font doors. They both said they want to be baptized they just want to wait and learn more about Christ first. We were so excited!

   A few days later we had 5 convert baptisms in our stake. Jemana came to the baptisms. It ended up being one of the most spiritual nights of my entire mission.( next to meeting Elder Christofferson) The baptism started and they had the talk on baptism and the holy ghost given by recent converts that had never spoken in church before. They did such a great job at explaining everything slowly and clearly for all of the non members there. Then we proceeded to the baptismal font. We guided Jemana up to the from so she could see everything. The first baptism went perfect. The second baptism was of a YSA Chinese boy and his greatest fear is water. He has drowned multiple times when he was 5 years old so he has never been able to be in any body of water only showers not even baths. He was baptized with the help of 3 elders. Jemana asked why there were 3 people in the water so I explained that he was scared of the water and drowning. After he came up out of the water he just burst into happy tears and started hugging all of the Elders. All of us in the audience were in tears. Even Jemena. The other baptism were great. They showed that we needed to have our whole body under the water and that the prayer needed to be said perfectly. We were all in tears. After the baptism were preformed everyone went back to the chapel and jemana just stood there crying asking questions about the feeling in her hear and why she and everyone were able to feel the same feeling. We of course explained the spirit to her. The rest of the night was amazing. We watched a video on making it through lives trials with Christ's help. Then all the newly baptized people stood and testified of Christ and starting their new life.

   We all left that being so spiritually fed. I just love the spirit so much. That its able to touch everyone at the same time. What an amazing gift out Heavenly Father has given us here on earth. I love being able to see people change right in front of my eyes. That they are always trying to change their life and become better. I love this gospel!!!!

I love you all!!! I hope you have an amazing week this week. As for me I am spending my P-day having tea at the Empress (that's where the Queen of England has tea) I know, Dreams do come true!!!

Love you all

Cheerio

Love sister Emmaline Neubert

rope swing adventures on the beach!

The beginning of the end.

Crazy week this week and yet not so crazy. We had a week full of finding. Victoria is still my promised land! I am so happy to finish my mission here. Its so beyond beautiful here in the spring. We drive down the street and there are cherry blossoms everywhere. We call all of those streets white way to life (Anne of green gables reference) We were out finding last night and it was pitch black. The street we go street contacting on all the power had gone out. So everyone was just hanging out outside! I have no idea why, but then we were able to find like 4 people that wanted to learn more. Also since the power was out they didn't have any technology to distract them. SO we taught like 4 lessons just right there on the street. Note to self power outage=best finding ever!!!!

   Sorry not a lot to report. SO I will just send tons of pictures.

Love you all!!!!!

x o x o x o x o x o x o x o

Love your island princess

Sister Emmaline Neubert

Trying to eat healthier...

Cooling down the water in the baptismal font.

The blossoms. 

Valentines

Holy smokes, I cant believe the time has come for my last transfer. I thought I was going to be an eternal missionary for the rest of my life. I don't remember doing anything other then missionary work. I don't remember how to have a conversation that doesn't include the gospel of Jesus Christ. Also I used to think that missionaries that were coming to the end of their mission were crazy people, because they were always so up and down emotionally. Yea, I have now turned into that missionary! Hopefully I normal out a little bit in the next 6 weeks.

   Valentines Day this year was wonderful! We had an amazing time with a new fun way of finding. We went with another set of sisters to downtown Victoria. Sister Black and I walked up to everyone and asked them "What do you love?" We had they write the response on the white board and then we gave them a cookie. We shared with them that God loves them. So I was holding a bright neon pink sign that on the front said "For God so loves the world" Then on the back it said "For God so loves you" It was so much fun and we got to talk to so many fun people! I just love serving in a place right now where the people are SO nice and not yelling at you. I've been in some of those areas. This place is the promised land!

   The cherry blossoms have been in bloom everywhere!!!!! They are so beautiful! I Love that everything is in bloom. So basically mom, dad, this is where we need to live for foreeeever!

   Jamana and her daughter came to church this week again. It was weird because we could feel that something was wrong within two seconds of them sitting down. Jamana told us that it was a rough week for her daughter. (her daughter has brittle bone disease) her daughter kept telling us she was fine, that she just wanted to sit in church and feel peace. When they finished passing the sacrament Jamana and her daughter lookedup at us and told us that she was in so much pain that they were going to leave. We walked out in the hall with them and they were telling us that they were sorry and that they wanted to stay. Sister Evans and I just looked at each other and just got the biggest feeling to explain priesthood blessings to them. They both asked for one. SO we ran in and grabbed the Elders out of the sacrament meeting and asked if they could give them a blessing and explain it a little more. We were able to gather in a room together and they gave both of them a blessing. The spirit was illuminating out of that room. I just sat and held Jamana's hand as the blessing was taking place for her daughter. Then she also received a blessing. By the end we were all crying. We walked Jamana and her daughter out so they could walk to there home down the street. The elders walked up to us after church and said "there is something about those two, you can just feel the spirit so strongly when you are around them"  Then when we were in relief society we got a text from Jamana saying "I am so happy to be part of this church" I feel so unbelievably blessed to be continually teaching them. I can feel the spirit so strongly around them.

   I am so excited for whatever God hold in store for me in my last 6 weeks! I am so blessed to be a missionary and see these amazing miracles. I love this gospel So much!

I love you all!!!!

Sister Emmaline Neubert

x o x o x o x o x o

Photos

Don't worry after 15 months I have still got it 😜

My release package!