HEY THERE FAMILY!
About my week :) Lala is still moving along great :) We taught
her with the zone leaders this week and helped her out with a lot of
the doubts that she had and things are moving just swimmingly for THIS
Saturday for her to be baptized :) She also came to church yesterday
ALL BY HER ONESY!!! Nobody brought her, she just said she'd come and she
came :) That made me so happy when that happened :) So everything is
going great, we've just got to get her committed to pay tithing (and teach
it to her ha ha) and she'll be all set for Saturday :)
Also, things are getting serious with Doña Tina. We're talking
marriage and baptism with her almost every cita and she's looking pretty
good. The biggest thing is her family, her kids don't really want
anything. She's just trying to figure out if she wants to commit or not,
if she wants the responsibility of being baptized. I feel like she
knows she needs it, she just needs to decide if she WANTs it. But she's
reading and praying and talking to her "husband" and we'll see what
happens this week :)
The family Calderon. They're doing great. We taught them on Tuesday
and Saturday of this week and they really like what we teach . They
have strong desires to follow God and to do what is right, they just
don't know how. They say that they're confused because of all the people
that come to their house to pray and tell them what's right and they don't
know how to know. So we taught them about prayer, fasting, and the Holy
Ghost. How all we ask is that they ask God. They said that they like
our church better than all the rest they just don't KNOW for sure. But
we testified to them that once they receive a testimony, nobody can take
it away from them.
Last, the family Gomez, they didn't come to church yesterday but
that's because they still have commitments in their other church and
they don't know how to leave them and they're scared to stop attending
over there. They, however, are still super positive. We're going this
week to talk to them about their commitments and how they can try to get
out of them. They too have a lot of desires, they just need a little help
:) I think that's pretty much the news from this week, everything is
good, life is a good thing and I'm happy to be living it :) Have a great
week everybody and I LOVE YOU ALL!!!
-Elder Westenskow
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Don't Worry Family...I'm Alive!! 4/16/2012
Hey, don't worry about me. Skimming just a bit of the emails everyone is
freaking out about last week, that wasn't my intention (and I did NOT
know that that stuff was used to treat Anthrax ha ha) But I'm all better
now, I don't know what I had but between an antibiotic that can heal
Anthrax and a priesthood blessing I'm doing 100 percent now :) Sorry for
the worry, the nanobots and flamethrowers were just an attempt to make
y'all laugh, sorry! :)
Anyway! First, I GOT THE ECLAIR PIE PACKAGE AND THE 6 POUNDS OF CANDY THAT WERE IN IT!!! Ha ha, that was so much candy but OH IS IT SO GOOD! Also, y'all sent enough for 2 pies, that's legit :) Thank you so much for doing that, for going to the trouble to do that for me, LOVE YA FOR IT! Also about eating Walter out of house and home, tortillas cost like, nothing. And they're delicious :) so no worries about that :) Also to answer the last of the conference questions, we just watched it in the church, Elder Wimmer and I just happened to find a room that was empty with a TV in it ha ha. So we aprovechard (took advantage of it). ALSO, nobody told me that y'all were going to Disneyland... oh well, we spent Nicole's 6 months in Disneyland so I guess its cool if y'all celebrate my year mark there ha ha. We just now HAVE to go Christmas of 2013, its not a choice. We must do it now. Hope that works for y'all :) Also, that's crazy that y'all are doing Insanity. I've heard rumors. P90X and Insanity are big hits in the mission but I avoid them like the plague so ya know, I wouldn't know. But I've heard its CRAZY ha ha and ANYBODY who does it WILL drop weight ha ha. So good for y'all, you're more motivated than I am, and you're not even eating tortillas. ;)
This week was a bit different. President put the goal that each companionship would do 40 positive contacts (basically find 40 future investigators, someone that gives us a time to come back or a phone number to get in contact) and HOLY CRAP HOW I HATE TO CONTACT! But we did it!! We did our 40 contacts, it was tough but we did it and we actually had some pretty cool experiences this week! First off, we found a less active! Which believe it or not we have a shortage of in this area. People are either active or apostate (breaking celestial laws with no intention to change or meet with us) but we found a new less active, the mom of a member that's not in the registries of the ward. So that was a blessing :) ALSO, we found a guy, two of his daughters are members of the church and he's actually been to New England to visit church sites ha ha. So he was a little hesitant to let us come back but we managed to convince him to accept another visit "vamos a tener una plactica"(we're going to have a chat) he told us so we'll see what happens there :) Also, we found a guy who I suppose was an old investigator, there's no registry for him but he came to church twice back in the day. He also isn't too interested in receiving us again but we'll bug him again :) Also, I had a really cool experience with prayer :) Last night we needed two more contacts and it started to RAIN! We had both forgot our jackets so we couldn't just go out in the rain. So we were on a street contacting and running from cover to cover to get to different houses but then we finished the street and had nowhere to go. So I just said a prayer and I was like "we need to get these contacts but we can't do it with this kind of weather, please make the rain stop or slow down" and like 3 minutes later THE RAIN STOPPED! It was crazy, just like that, it just stopped! We managed to get our last two contacts and finish the goal :) It was legit!
Now, on to other things! Lala is still progressing, a little slow but she's progressing. She raised some concerns about being able to keep the baptismal covenant, if she was going to be able to do it and if she was going to be like, worthy. Shes worried about that. But she came to church yesterday and we have a cita tonight so I'll keep y'all updated, but as of right now the 28th is the day! Also, the family Gomez came to church yesterday! THE WHOLE FAMILY! We stopped by Saturday to find out if they were going to go and the kids said they would but the mom had gotten four teeth taken out that morning so she said she couldn't. But she fought through the discomfort and pain and CAME TO CHURCH!!!! YEAH!! They're pretty positive, they really have the goal of the temple :) Also, two people from the Family Calderon came to church. The dad has gone back to the states to work for like 2 months but the goal is to get the rest of the family super excited about everything so they motivate him when he gets back but I'll keep you updated as always :) We really did less visiting this week because of the contacts but this week went EXCELLENT for us :) I love this work, the Lord is always helping us and we're never alone. I hope I gave enough details this week, trying to do better for that. LOVE YOU ALL! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!
-Elder Westenskow
Anyway! First, I GOT THE ECLAIR PIE PACKAGE AND THE 6 POUNDS OF CANDY THAT WERE IN IT!!! Ha ha, that was so much candy but OH IS IT SO GOOD! Also, y'all sent enough for 2 pies, that's legit :) Thank you so much for doing that, for going to the trouble to do that for me, LOVE YA FOR IT! Also about eating Walter out of house and home, tortillas cost like, nothing. And they're delicious :) so no worries about that :) Also to answer the last of the conference questions, we just watched it in the church, Elder Wimmer and I just happened to find a room that was empty with a TV in it ha ha. So we aprovechard (took advantage of it). ALSO, nobody told me that y'all were going to Disneyland... oh well, we spent Nicole's 6 months in Disneyland so I guess its cool if y'all celebrate my year mark there ha ha. We just now HAVE to go Christmas of 2013, its not a choice. We must do it now. Hope that works for y'all :) Also, that's crazy that y'all are doing Insanity. I've heard rumors. P90X and Insanity are big hits in the mission but I avoid them like the plague so ya know, I wouldn't know. But I've heard its CRAZY ha ha and ANYBODY who does it WILL drop weight ha ha. So good for y'all, you're more motivated than I am, and you're not even eating tortillas. ;)
This week was a bit different. President put the goal that each companionship would do 40 positive contacts (basically find 40 future investigators, someone that gives us a time to come back or a phone number to get in contact) and HOLY CRAP HOW I HATE TO CONTACT! But we did it!! We did our 40 contacts, it was tough but we did it and we actually had some pretty cool experiences this week! First off, we found a less active! Which believe it or not we have a shortage of in this area. People are either active or apostate (breaking celestial laws with no intention to change or meet with us) but we found a new less active, the mom of a member that's not in the registries of the ward. So that was a blessing :) ALSO, we found a guy, two of his daughters are members of the church and he's actually been to New England to visit church sites ha ha. So he was a little hesitant to let us come back but we managed to convince him to accept another visit "vamos a tener una plactica"(we're going to have a chat) he told us so we'll see what happens there :) Also, we found a guy who I suppose was an old investigator, there's no registry for him but he came to church twice back in the day. He also isn't too interested in receiving us again but we'll bug him again :) Also, I had a really cool experience with prayer :) Last night we needed two more contacts and it started to RAIN! We had both forgot our jackets so we couldn't just go out in the rain. So we were on a street contacting and running from cover to cover to get to different houses but then we finished the street and had nowhere to go. So I just said a prayer and I was like "we need to get these contacts but we can't do it with this kind of weather, please make the rain stop or slow down" and like 3 minutes later THE RAIN STOPPED! It was crazy, just like that, it just stopped! We managed to get our last two contacts and finish the goal :) It was legit!
Now, on to other things! Lala is still progressing, a little slow but she's progressing. She raised some concerns about being able to keep the baptismal covenant, if she was going to be able to do it and if she was going to be like, worthy. Shes worried about that. But she came to church yesterday and we have a cita tonight so I'll keep y'all updated, but as of right now the 28th is the day! Also, the family Gomez came to church yesterday! THE WHOLE FAMILY! We stopped by Saturday to find out if they were going to go and the kids said they would but the mom had gotten four teeth taken out that morning so she said she couldn't. But she fought through the discomfort and pain and CAME TO CHURCH!!!! YEAH!! They're pretty positive, they really have the goal of the temple :) Also, two people from the Family Calderon came to church. The dad has gone back to the states to work for like 2 months but the goal is to get the rest of the family super excited about everything so they motivate him when he gets back but I'll keep you updated as always :) We really did less visiting this week because of the contacts but this week went EXCELLENT for us :) I love this work, the Lord is always helping us and we're never alone. I hope I gave enough details this week, trying to do better for that. LOVE YOU ALL! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!
-Elder Westenskow
Friday, April 13, 2012
Happy Semana Santa!! 4/9/2012
First, I'll answer ALL the questions :) For conference, Yes, I did see
Skyler and my reaction was pretty much what you thought it would be
"hey, I know her ha ha!" Does anyone know where she's going? Somewhere
English speaking. We watched it in the church with all the missionaries
in English :) As I like it ha ha. And Walter LOVED conference, he
thought it was the greatest thing ever :) As for which missionaries do I
spend time with. Right now its mostly Wimmer, Weight (Nicole knows
him), Austin, Franco, and Petit.
Now, response, I'm glad y'all had a good time in Florida and that you enjoyed yourselves, we might have to go back to Disneyland sometime, maybe Christmas 2013 ;) ;) ;) But yeah, glad y'all enjoyed it :)
Now, this email will be short, why? This week was weird. First of all it was Semana Santa which is just weird in itself, but also I was in bed until Thursday evening with this horrible horrible thing that caused me to take the most horrible, horrible antibiotic known to man (Ciprofoxacina, maybe Nicole knows it). Basically what it does is implant little nanobots into your body to torture you from the inside out with little flamethrowers. Plus it makes you really, really, really constantly hungry and you have to eat or the little robots with flamethrowers gets worse but this is all while the sickness that I had made the act of eating make me want to throw up, fun combo! But I'm all better now, finished the meds last night and they stay in the system 72 hours so I should be 100% normal soon :) But that was most of my week ha ha.
On top of that, Semana Santa, this place goes NUTS ha ha. But yeah, for that nobody came to church yesterday, all they wanted to do was party ha ha. BUT we did manage to have a cool experience with Lala. We talked to hear about conference. Before she has been feeling like she can't be close to God, like he's just really far away even when she prays, that he doesn't listen, and more importantly that he doesn't answer. But she told us before going to conference she just said a little prayer to be able to receive an answer and the session she went to answered all her doubts and she felt like the people were talking to her face to face! It was so cool, she put her own baptismal date for the 28th of April ha ha. Really cool experience. :) We also managed to meet with Gerson again and his parents DEFINITELY don't want him to get baptized, they took away his Book of Mormon ha ha. But we really just told him that he might have to wait til 18 years old :-( But yeah, I'm really sorry this email isn't exciting, neither was our week ha ha. But just know I'm feeling better, I'm excited for a normal week and I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! I hope y'all got Walters messages and Nicole was able to translate to respond :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
-Elder Westenskow
Now, response, I'm glad y'all had a good time in Florida and that you enjoyed yourselves, we might have to go back to Disneyland sometime, maybe Christmas 2013 ;) ;) ;) But yeah, glad y'all enjoyed it :)
Now, this email will be short, why? This week was weird. First of all it was Semana Santa which is just weird in itself, but also I was in bed until Thursday evening with this horrible horrible thing that caused me to take the most horrible, horrible antibiotic known to man (Ciprofoxacina, maybe Nicole knows it). Basically what it does is implant little nanobots into your body to torture you from the inside out with little flamethrowers. Plus it makes you really, really, really constantly hungry and you have to eat or the little robots with flamethrowers gets worse but this is all while the sickness that I had made the act of eating make me want to throw up, fun combo! But I'm all better now, finished the meds last night and they stay in the system 72 hours so I should be 100% normal soon :) But that was most of my week ha ha.
On top of that, Semana Santa, this place goes NUTS ha ha. But yeah, for that nobody came to church yesterday, all they wanted to do was party ha ha. BUT we did manage to have a cool experience with Lala. We talked to hear about conference. Before she has been feeling like she can't be close to God, like he's just really far away even when she prays, that he doesn't listen, and more importantly that he doesn't answer. But she told us before going to conference she just said a little prayer to be able to receive an answer and the session she went to answered all her doubts and she felt like the people were talking to her face to face! It was so cool, she put her own baptismal date for the 28th of April ha ha. Really cool experience. :) We also managed to meet with Gerson again and his parents DEFINITELY don't want him to get baptized, they took away his Book of Mormon ha ha. But we really just told him that he might have to wait til 18 years old :-( But yeah, I'm really sorry this email isn't exciting, neither was our week ha ha. But just know I'm feeling better, I'm excited for a normal week and I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! I hope y'all got Walters messages and Nicole was able to translate to respond :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
-Elder Westenskow
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
GENERAL CONFERENCE!!!! 4/2/2012
Hey there family :)
We found 2 families this week! The family Calderón is an old investigator family of the sisters. The problem with them was the husband wouldn't give permission for the sisters to visit, but with us he let us in and met with us and told us we were welcome. The problem we have now is that the member that's helping us isn't the best member to help. He's really overbearing and likes to talk and cut us off, so we've got to figure out how to deal with that but it should be good, they could be positive :) Also, the family Gomez. The parents are members but the dad died so the mom stopped going. They have a bunch of kids that aren't baptized. But she had a dream and as far as I can tell it was from the spirit lol. She described a bunch of stuff and all of it sounded like the temple. She told us that it made her think of the temple and how her husband always wanted to go get sealed. So we're taking them to the temple on Wednesday with a member to teach them :) Good stuff there!
Also, updates! Doña Tina AND Lala both came to conference yesterday!!!! So they were able to hear the prophet talk and to feel the spirit and oh man I was so glad that they came! We've challenged both of them to be baptized and Doña Tina is a little skeptical because she says she was already baptized twice and doesn't know if she can do it again. Lala on the other hand has accepted the invitation to be baptized but is sketchy on putting a date because she doesn't feel prepared. We have the goal for the 14th and we're working hard to help her feel ready :) I really think she'll go through with it :) And Luis, we met with him this week and talked about faith. I'm not sure if he'll ever progress and it's slim he'll get baptized (for marriage problems) but at the very least he likes to meet with us, he says he feels good and that he thinks what we say is true :) He's a great guy!
Now, conference! I loved conference! I made a list of my favorite talks! I loved that this conference was very back to basics, nothing complex, no deep doctrine, just a reminder of the simple things :) I loved it! I loved Donald L Hallstroms talk Saturday morning on the church vs. the gospel, I loved Jeffery R Hollands talk Saturday afternoon "step up, its getting late" BOOM! THROWN DOWN! I also really enjoyed David A Bednars talk in priesthood as well. I liked President Uchtdorfs talk Sunday morning, "Stop it!" haha. Also D Todd Christoffersons talk on doctrine. Then Sunday mornings President Monsons talk was awesome! Last, I loved Neil L Andersons talk "What does Christ think of me?" LOVE IT. THe church is true, we have a prophet and that's good stuff if I've ever heard it :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
-Elder Westenksow
We found 2 families this week! The family Calderón is an old investigator family of the sisters. The problem with them was the husband wouldn't give permission for the sisters to visit, but with us he let us in and met with us and told us we were welcome. The problem we have now is that the member that's helping us isn't the best member to help. He's really overbearing and likes to talk and cut us off, so we've got to figure out how to deal with that but it should be good, they could be positive :) Also, the family Gomez. The parents are members but the dad died so the mom stopped going. They have a bunch of kids that aren't baptized. But she had a dream and as far as I can tell it was from the spirit lol. She described a bunch of stuff and all of it sounded like the temple. She told us that it made her think of the temple and how her husband always wanted to go get sealed. So we're taking them to the temple on Wednesday with a member to teach them :) Good stuff there!
Also, updates! Doña Tina AND Lala both came to conference yesterday!!!! So they were able to hear the prophet talk and to feel the spirit and oh man I was so glad that they came! We've challenged both of them to be baptized and Doña Tina is a little skeptical because she says she was already baptized twice and doesn't know if she can do it again. Lala on the other hand has accepted the invitation to be baptized but is sketchy on putting a date because she doesn't feel prepared. We have the goal for the 14th and we're working hard to help her feel ready :) I really think she'll go through with it :) And Luis, we met with him this week and talked about faith. I'm not sure if he'll ever progress and it's slim he'll get baptized (for marriage problems) but at the very least he likes to meet with us, he says he feels good and that he thinks what we say is true :) He's a great guy!
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| Andrew and Elder Wimmer (CCM Comp) enjoying General Conference! |
Now, conference! I loved conference! I made a list of my favorite talks! I loved that this conference was very back to basics, nothing complex, no deep doctrine, just a reminder of the simple things :) I loved it! I loved Donald L Hallstroms talk Saturday morning on the church vs. the gospel, I loved Jeffery R Hollands talk Saturday afternoon "step up, its getting late" BOOM! THROWN DOWN! I also really enjoyed David A Bednars talk in priesthood as well. I liked President Uchtdorfs talk Sunday morning, "Stop it!" haha. Also D Todd Christoffersons talk on doctrine. Then Sunday mornings President Monsons talk was awesome! Last, I loved Neil L Andersons talk "What does Christ think of me?" LOVE IT. THe church is true, we have a prophet and that's good stuff if I've ever heard it :) LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
-Elder Westenksow
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| Four Generation picture |
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