New Suit, Baptism & BUGS!! 9/24/2012

First up!  I got the suit done! AND I've included pictures ha ha. I sure do hope y'all like it because it's totally calidad as the say here ha ha. It's not really something for everyday use but it is something LEGIT to have ha ha. It's the traditional dress from a place called Todos Santos Cuchamatan here in Huehue and they ONLY wear it there but EVERYONE wears it ha ha. The ladies have their own separate corte but hey, I'm not gonna buy that ha ha. But I included pictures of me jamming out, scriptures, and missionary! With a tie and everything ha ha. Pretty crazy but seriously it's so legit!

 

How was the dedication of the temple? I've set a goal to go to every temple in Utah so now I've got one more on the list ha ha. But I'm assuming it was just great, temple dedications always are :) Who did it?

Now, I'll tell you right upfront, apart from a few events, we had a fairly uneventful week ha ha. We did go to Huehue and have an EXCELLENT conference on Thursday morning. We learned a new way to get baptisms. It's a plan that president has and it seems LEGIT! It's kinda in depth so I won't explain it here but just know I have a lot of confidence in this plan ha ha. Now, on top of everything would be the baptism of Ogler! Saturday, September 22, 2012 Ogler was baptized by Elder Vega and he was so happy! He was excited and ready and all of it. His mom even came! There's not a lot of details to say but the service was great, right there on the shore of the river. The spirit was strong as a few members shared their testimonies and even stronger as Ogler shared his. Great day all in all. On top of that, Edvin, from forever and a half ago, came to the baptism.  He came and said that seeing Ogler there he had desires to follow him, that he had reached a sort of crossroads in his life and that he needed to think about who he wanted to be and where he wanted to go with his life. So hopefully something good can come from that too.

 

  

Also, we had a good cita with Pablo in which he told us that he was almost ready to get baptized. Then on Saturday, we talked to his son and he told us that Pablo had said that he wanted to get baptized! So we might be doing that on Saturday, but I'll let y'all know.  It seems that after much time of nothing, things are looking up in las Huistas.  

Other than that, I just have a fun story.  So! I have a pair of speakers. This last week they started acting a little funny so I decided to open them up and see if I could figure out the problem. The problem turned out to be 9 problems. And the problems were about 3 or 4 inches long each. Cockroaches! 5 in one speaker and 4 in the other. They had entered in through where the air enters and made a nice little home there ha ha. Problem: Both my comp and I have  a HORRIBLE fear of cockroaches. And we couldn't get them to leave. SO, we soaked a few paper towels in bug spray, threw them in the speakers and shook them around a little bit so the cockroaches would get super mad. Then, as we took the back of the speakers back off, the bugs came RUNNING out. We had to chase them around and stamp on them and it was just super duper horrible ha ha. But I'm happy to report that my speakers now work very well ;)

Now, just a thought from the scriptures. I encourage y'all to go read the story in 1 Kings chapter 18 verses 17 - 39. The story of Elijah where he calls down fire from heaven. But put emphasis in verse 21. Hardcore. Read it and you'll see.  

LOVE YOU ALL!!! The church is true, y'all are great!

Elder Westenskow

Good News!! 9/17/2012

I have good news, our good friend Walter (y'all should really remember him haha) was officially ordained an Elder in the church last Sunday.  SUUUUUPER excited about that and we should all congratulate him. Entonces, Walter, se que ud recibe esta carta, por parte de todos, le felicitamos bastante por haber sido ordenado Elder en la Iglesia de Jesucristo.  Ahora tiene la responsabilidad y privilegio de bendecir a su familia, a sus hijos, y a todos los que lo necesiten.  :) Felicitaciones.  

Now, reading a little about your idea for the Guate trip, I had an idea. If we did it from like a Friday or Saturday until a Monday or Tuesday.  That way we could attend church twice as a family in Guatemala, once in the area of Nicole's choice and the other, my choice.  Just an idea that I had :) Also, y'all had an AWESOME!!!!!!!!! week haha.  But for reals, super duper adventures from last week, glad y'all could get out and de-stress a little bit and just have a good time (even though the plane had super duper issues haha).  But ya made it!  (PS, as I write this I'm trying to send photos of our pday adventure today which was to go to a cave and it was actually pretty cool but internet again is slow, sorry we're in San Antonio).  

 

Elders Vega, Garcia, Westenskow and Dautel

 

Now, my week.  I fear this email may be a little short but it's just packed full of great info and good news so I hope that'll make up for it :)  First off, Pablo.  FINALLY, we're getting down to it.  We just busted out a bunch of doubts that he has and finally just challenged him to ASK God during the sacrament at church on Sunday so hopefully he did it and we'll find out tomorrow :)  But we're feeling pretty good about it :)  

We also had a really cool Noche de Hermanamiento.  We had an open air cinema with 'The Testaments'.  People came to paint the church without much notice so last minute we threw it together and it turned out great.  We made popcorn and did it in the patio of one of our members, it was super great :)  Everyone seemed to like it.

Now, Ogler.  This kid is LEGIT!  I've met quite a few young men who come to meet the church through a girl and they all the sudden become very "interested" in the church.  And initially, I'll admit, that's what I thought here.  But no, this kid is LEGIT!  I don't have a lot of details because there's not a lot of details to tell.  But after the first lesson he came back and was like "I read what you said, I prayed, and I got my answer" he then proceeded to describe to us the feeling of the spirit that came to him.  It was GREAT!  Now, we met with him on Saturday and tried to put for sure the fecha for the 22nd.  He told us, "I'm not sure, I feel like I should wait, and my mom says it's fast" stuff like that so we're like "okay, we know that you can be ready and prepared for that date, if you put your part.  If you strive and do the best you can, you will get to that day and know that its the right thing to do.  But ask God, ask him if you should be baptized that day and he'll tell you" so he left with that.  Came to church on Sunday and told us that he had gotten his answer and told us that he knew he needs to be baptized on Saturday.  SO WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BAPTISM!!!!! After more than 3 changes of working hard and having sooooo many people sooooo close, something is finally going to go through.  It's an incredible feeling :) We're very excited if you can't tell :)  

Apart from that were still looking for positive people and having kinda a hard time finding them but I'll always keep y'all updated, sorry for the lack of pics LOVE YOU ALLL!!!!!!!!

Elder Westenstorm

Gracias A Dios!! 9/10/2012

We went to HOYO CIMARRON (I think that's how it's written) we went and it was AWESOME!!! I took some videos which can't be sent via email so wait 10 months and I'll show them to you but holy cow.  It was probably the most spectacular thing that I've ever seen in my life.  I think I want to bring y'all when we come back because really words can't describe it.  It's a hole.  In the earth.  Supposedly it's like 150 meters deep, not sure what that is in feet but goodness, its HUGE!  We spent like an hour throwing stuff in to it haha.  You would throw a rock, wait about 7 seconds and then hear the most spectacular noise you've ever heard in your life with the craziest echo you can imagine.  We went from San Antonio to a place called Cuatro Caminos, from there to Nenton, from there to Gracias A Dios and from there to the Hoyo.  Apparently we were like 6 seconds from Mexico haha.  I'll let y'all google earth all of that but I've included some pics of all the cool stuff we saw on the way.  Seriously, it was one of the greatest things Ive ever seen in my life.  The craziest part of all of it was the silence.  It was complete silence.  Not a person, not a car, not an animal (minus the silent birds that flew around in the hole) and it was just completely silent.  Just an amazing experience.

 

But as for missionary work, Elder V and I are staying together.  haha.  Three changes is a long time to be together with anyone, the longest I've been was 2 and a half with Ronfeldt (ps, Ronfeldt is getting married on the 9th of November haha), but well make it all work, life is good and my mission president is inspired, so if he felt inspired to leave us together, it was the right move.  However, one of the Elders from Santa Ana does have changes which means that Dautel is going to bring me my package from Huehue yay!  

Now, as for my week, it was super super busy but it's hard to give details because we spent the whole time contacting, turns out dropping all your investigators gives you a lot lot of time to look for new ones haha.  So we're looking and I'll let you know if anyone comes out of the woodwork.  We did have a super great branch activity in which we showed the members small and simple things (ask Nicole or Brad about that) and then had them all write their testimony right there in the activity and address it to someone specific in the same.  Then we had them do role plays to how they were going to give them away and we gave them one week to do it, so we'll see what happens there :)  

The most positive person we have are two people.  Two jovenes that are 18.  Clementino, who is well known already, and Ogler. They both are just super great, friends of members and ganas.  We put a fecha with both of them in an excellent lesson we had yesterday for the 21st of this month. They both accepted to prepare themselves for that day and to pray and ask if they needed to be baptized THAT day.  Really really excellent.  :)  We really just had a great feeling week, we finished it feeling super great and all that stuff :)  I hope y'all enjoy the photos.  I love you all a TON!!!!!!  LOVE YOU!!!

-Elder WEstenskow

Good Week!! 9/3/2012

How is everyone doing today? Great I hope. First off, to answer questions, I haven't gotten the package yet because I haven't gone to Huehue, but next Tuesday I am going to Huehue because it's changes so I'll get it there :)  You asked who went to the hole. Me, Vega, Elder Dautel, Elder Salgado, Edvin, Carlos, and Lacho. Just the Elders from my district and some jovenes from San Antonio. I know everyone was super stoked to see photos of an even bigger hole but we have to go next week instead haha.  So, patience ;)  Now to explain a bit the geography of the area. Huistas is the region. The two main cities are San Antonio Huista and Santa Ana Huista so that's the difference :)  Where we use internet depends on Pday activity.  If we're doing something in San Antonio we use it there, if we're in Santa Ana we use it here, luckily we're here today :)   

Also, how are we going to do the Guatemala trip, quick after I get back or what? Y'all aren't planning on coming to pick me up, right?  

Now, on to our week.  We had a good week, after dropping pretty much everyone we had a really hard time finding but we did get some news :)  But first, Pablo, we had a great cita with him in which we found out that he actually has a really good friend that had to give up a lot of things to be a member of the church, drinking, drugs, sabbath day, a bunch of stuff way more difficult than what Pablo has to do.  We also found out that this friend doesn't know that Pablo is going to church or anything, we encouraged him to talk to this friend this weekend in Huehue and to let us know more about him, his experience (hoping that the friend will animate Pablo a bit) I feel like it's a good plan :)

Johana, she's still kinda doin' the same thing, she'll get excited but then she gets bummed out.  She finally expressed some of her doubts this week to us about how she doesn't like how people from a lot of churches don't live their religion and we explained a TON of stuff to her about that and how it shouldn't matter what other people do and all that stuff, so hopefully we can see some progress there.  We are still feeling alright about it, waiting to see what she does.  But yeah.  She didn't come to church because some huge catholic bishop or something like that came to San Antonio and she went to sell... odd combo haha.

Now, we do have a surprise, last night we got a call from Marvin Marroquin, he asked us to come over.  We went and he apologized for the way he acted and the things he said and asked us to keep visiting them.... so that was unexpected but welcomed haha.  

We did have some news this week, a family of 4, the family Lopez that seem pretty positive. And a young couple, Diego and Juana.  Family Lopez don't go to any church but are looking and Diego and Juana have been going to the evangelical for like 5 months so they're not too deep in there :) So we're excited about that :)  There's not a whole ton to tell except for that they exist but I'll keep you all updated there :)

Finally, we had a GREAT Noche de Hermanamiento on Friday.  We played the game mom sent me "the best" and it went very very very very well :) Everyone loved it and had a great time and we applied it to the talents that we all have, that sometimes we have hidden talents that can help the whole move forward.  The best part was that the teams tied in the end and so we got to show that if we all work together, everyone wins.  It was great :)  

I guess, on paper, it seems like we didn't have the most exciting week but I promise it was great :) We're feeling good and looking forward to the last week of the change, we're going to find find find :) I love you all and hope you have  a great week :) LOVE YOU!!!!

-Elder Westenskow

Pictures are of me, creepy crawlies and all that good stuff :)