Hey yall!

Absolutely crazy that this is my last email home to everyone. I am really grateful for all each of you have done to support me being here. It has gone by really really fast. We were really blessed by Our Father in Heaven this week to have an incredibly successful last week. This has been a fantastic ward, and will continue to be.

I'm leaving!

-It didn't hit me until Sunday when after our stake conference broadcast our elders quorum president walked up to me and said, " I have some people that wanted to say bye." I looked over and saw his kids come up and it struck me. I really am leaving these people. I will miss them so much. It really has become like a family here. I love these ward members and all the people we are working with. I will miss them, I sure hope I can come back soon to see them. Especially some of these peoples baptisms.

Testimony:

-It being my last email home, I only feel it appropriate to include a few words of testimony. My mission has been great! So many wonderful experiences and feelings flood through my mind and heart as I say that. There have been great difficult times and at the same time tremendous tender experiences I hope to always hold dear. You don't know what you got, until its gone. I will miss the full time service in this calling. It yields such great satisfaction I am assuming only next to having a family and raising children. I know absolutely that this work is of God. I know of God's love for us that He is completely mindful of us individually and collectively. He answers prayers. I know Jesus Christ lives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is His church, and He himself leads it. I wanted to come on my mission originally because I knew it was what I should do since He had done so much for me and I knew it changed my life, so it would change others lives. I also wanted to progress and learn and grow and I figured the mission would do that for me. It has, my heart has been more changed by the grace of Christ. He has made me more capable of serving Him. I hope to always serve Him. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, it will safely guide us through this difficult life, it testifies of Jesus Christ and His divinity. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God through whom the Priesthood was restored. Thomas S. Monson is a prophet to lead us today. I testify that it is through Jesus Christ that we can become clean, and thereby receive a fulness of joy, in the life to come and sweet peace and happiness in this life.

I love yall! Look forward to seeing yall Thursday! :D

Oh, remind me to tell yall how we got four baptism dates yesterday! :D

Love yall!

-Elder West

...signing off...

Great week!! Awesome experiences! Happy New Year Yall!!!

Things are fantastic here in Dothan. Loving it. It is much nicer today than last week. It's finally not freezing!!! We had a busy week. Always seemed to have appointments planned. Lots of cool littler service experiences led to finding new people to teach.

Baptism:

Another 5 baptisms!! haha well they were all for one person. Her dress had a little air bubble in the front that came up when she went down. We finally got some white fabric belts and used those to tie them around her to keep them down. It finally worked!! The young man who baptized her and who has been involved in some other missionary work got up yesterday for testimony meeting and said he is going to go on a mission. When before he was kind of shaky about it. Great experience!

Service:

-We had some very little but very neat acts of service to do this week. Helped a lady bring her dog home, picked up a lid that fell out of a car passing by while we were on bikes and gave it back to the people when they flipped around to get it. Helped some people struggling to get a couch into their house finally get it in. Little acts of service like that will change the world if the millions of Latter Day Saints engage in doing so, according to Elder Ballard. We feel better too.

Coming Home:

-Found out my flight plans, in case anyone didnt know or wants to know that hasn't heard. I will be at the airport on Thursday the 17th of january at 4pm my flight lands. See yall then! :D

Great things to come in the next week or so before I go. Lots of work to do. Lots of people to see. I gave my last testimony in a fast and testimony meeting on my mission. Also my last sacrament meeting was yesterday. We have stake conference via broadcast from UT this weekend. Look forward to seeing what is talked about and said.

Love yall! Have a great week!!

-Elder West

So, we had an AMAZING week, it was memorable for so many reasons. Since it was the "week the world ended" I will base all of the events that happened around some of the signs that proceed the end of the world, so this week was the week of "tempests" and "floods" and "ice" and "fire" and "false prophets" and to just make everything more fun and interesting we can add that it was the week before Christmas. So the week began with "tempests", we had a MAJOR storm come through with driving winds and huge amounts of rain. We realized that it was more then just a thunder storm when the whole city was filled with the sounds of the tornado sirens blasting! Meaning a tornado had touched down within 15 miles. So we opened the door and admired the powerful storm pounding our house to the backdrop of the ominous tornado siren... that lasted all afternoon, making for some very wet and cold missionaries. The second sign that it was the end of the world was "floods". With that huge storm and several others this week, what we have nicknamed "the floods of Noah" returned to our backyard. The creek rose 10ft and flooded out big time, but we were untouched because of our 2nd floor apartment, so with these floods we realized yet another sign had come, lol. The next was "ice". Yes I realize that ice is not mentioned as a sign of the end of the world, BUT storms and extreme weather are, and for two days here in Alabama we had "extreme" weather causing it to freeze over, in SOUTHERN ALABAMA!!! That definitely qualifies as extreme. With these three signs now behind us we wondered what else could possible happen during this, the last week of the earth, and it came in the form of "false-prophets". We were sent to meet a man that we were told "would love to talk to us", we got there and we were promptly invited in and then... BOOM! We were instantly under the rage-filled attack of this man raising his voice in anger and frustration about everything under the sun having to do with our church. Every single bit of our faith was torn apart, Joseph Smiths name was slandered and our faith in "the devil" was presented to us. The man would not allow us to say even a single word, so I finally got the chance to bear testimony when he paused to catch his breath after a particularly long and profane attack on our own personal sanity and mental capacity. To which he responded with a long winded explanation of how his church (Catholic) was the only true and living church established by Christ himself, etc... At that point we prepared to leave and I subtly started an audio recording of about the last 5 minutes of this conversation, I will attach it below.

And now with those four signs of the times behind us we thought for sure, "now the world can truly end!" But we never expected the final sign to hit us first thing in the morning... "FIRE!" We awoke to quite the commotion outside and I tore open the blinds only to be greeted by the flashing lights of an ambulance, cops, a Pumper Ladder and 5 Rigs stuffed in the parking lot in front of our door. The building across the parking slots from us (about 50 ft from our door) had gone up in flames early that morning, the laundromat and the two adjoining apartments had been nearly completely destroyed and the whole building suffered smoke and water damage. Luckily no-one was killed, one lady suffered burns to her leg but nothing to serious. Once it was all put out and the dust had settled a much more somber spirit hit us when we realized that for these two particular ladies living in the lower apartment they had lost so much just 3 days before Christmas. We volunteered our time to help retrieve what could be saved of their possessions, we had to avoid the back room where the ceiling and the above apartment had burned all the through to the roof and was in danger of collapse, but we along with some of the staff moved them into a vacant apartment in a different building, there was no coverage for their possessions because they had no insurance so all that was destroyed was a complete loss. We felt so sorry for them as we moved in soaked papers, furniture and electronics and loaded 12 bags (55 gallon trash bags) full of clothes, some were burnt, all were soaked, and most suffered heavy smoke and soot damage. All of these clothes were going to be a complete loss by the end of the day once the mold damage set in, and for these two ladies it was a hopeless prospect. They had no transportation and no money and no place to clean clothes (the laundromat had been completely destroyed in the blaze). Realizing that we could be a blessing to these two poor women who were so overwhelmed by their loss we made a few calls and in about 30 minutes our Relief Society president was on scene with a pick-up truck, we put about 9 bags in the bed, filling it up, and took 3 back to our apartment to start sorting and washing and drying with our own machines. She then took them around to different sisters in the ward and delivered the nearly destroyed clothes and then hit the nearest laundromat herself. We sorted and rinsed and washed and even ran a few loads of hangers and other stuff through the dishwasher. By the end of the night (and many loads of filthy clothes later) all of the clothes (with a few exceptions) had been saved. We continued working into Sunday with the sacks we had taken and then after church filled our car with all of the now clean and folded clothes all the sisters had cleaned. Our living room is now full of all the clothes and it is wonderful to see them all saved from being a total loss to these two women. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to offer that service and sacrifice to these women right before the day we celebrate the birth of our savior and to see the service networks of the church come to their aid at the drop of a hat, just like he himself would have dropped everything to relieve their suffering and loss. We all felt a powerful spirit of love and gratitude in serving this Christmas season, and I can personal understand now why so much of the direction we receive through our church leaders calls us to service. It truly is a wonderful memory and I am grateful that I got to be a part of it. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Hi there everyone! :D

Merry Christmas Eve! Excited for tomorrow! We have had a very eventful week. Elder Franchino has typed up a report of some of the major events. It will be contained herein.

For today's email, to keep it short.

Christmas Play:

-One of our Bcd's put on a play at her dads church so last night we caught a ride with her boyfriend who is in town from BYU down to the church to watch. It was so funny! Ole southern Assembly of God church. Everyone had real THICK southern accents. Great play! Lots of laughs. A few strange looks when people saw "mormon" missionaries walking into their church.

Baptism Saturday:

-One of the ladies we are working with is getting baptized this Saturday. She came down with strep throat but will be better by Saturday hopefully. She is awesome, we taught the Word of Wisdom and also Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and she said she would quit shopping on Sunday and no more tea and coffee. There were no hesitations about it. So neat to see that!!! Great faith.

12 Days of Christmas:

-Mom has officially spoiled me. She went all out even though she said she wouldn't :p I got this amazing package Tuesday morning from the "Fruit Company" filled with an assortment of holiday treats and the best part was fresh pears and apples!! yumm!!!! I have been eating them up. Elder Franchino has been getting spoiled too. I am about to rap up his 12 days of Christmas. It has been really fun to do these for him.

Christmas:

-Christmas is really a special time of year, I didn't realize it in the years past. So many great blessings and such a sweet spirit. The significance of it all is often overlooked by the ribbons and bows. I am grateful, for my Savior who has come into the world to die for my sins. We are teaching, (to the best of our ability) two girls from Thailand who are foreign exchange students. They have a hard time understanding "why" Christ died for us. It is very difficult to describe in words why it is personally meaningful. We literally, through the grace of Christ, can become new. We can become clean. A real deep refreshed feeling. Relationships can be healed, broken hearts knitted back together. Feelings of love, peace and joy can be restored. Lives changed. Only in and through Jesus Christ. By His grace. I know He lives and I love Him. From the little babe in Bethlehem to the ressurected Lord. His life was one of service to others and sacrifice for others. We can turn to Him for comfort, for strength. A cool note, both extremes of classes bore witness of Him. The shepherds in their lowly state and also the Wise Men, with all their worldly class and wealth. Jesus died for all mankind. No particular bloodline. We are all beggars looking to the same God for forgiveness. Merry Christmas everyone!

Love,

Elder West :D

Good Afternoon Yall! :D

It is pouring rain out here today! We got soaked first thing this morning as we left our apartment to go to Walmart. We headed there then realized we will need jackets, THEN after we got our jackets went back that way and very shortly realized we would not be able to make it there and back without getting hit by a car probably. SO we decided we would go to Publix which is right behind our apartment. Worked out well, now all our clothes are drying. Supposed to be like this all week though. Oh well!

1/2 Mission Zone Conference:

-Woke up extra early Thursday morning and drove our way to Tallahassee for our Christmas party. One of our investigators gave us coupons for free donuts and coffee at Krispy Kreme so we got the donuts and asked if we could get hot chocolate instead of coffee and they let us! Delicious way to start the day. The Christmas party was tons of fun. Lots of really great talents were shared. Elder Herr is a missionary I served around in Mobile zone, he played guitar and sang a song it was awesome! Then I saw a family from Crawfordville there, it was so cool to see them all! President Jensen surprised us with letting us watch the movie "Brave" haha it was so cool! Funny ole movie! I am going to get the soundtack for it when I get home it sounded pretty awesome. Right after the movie was over the missionaries going home shared their farewell tesitmonies. Funny transition, going from watching a movie that you haven't been able to watch for two years back to spiritual. So yes, I said my final testimony at a zone conference. Sad day. I have really learned and grown alot though! I still have alot to do before I go home. :D

Ward Christmas Party:

-Santa came to visit us! Elder Franchino and I sat on Santa's lap, I asked him for a plane ticket home. :D He said it is on it's way. lol Had a great turn out! Delicious food, not any of our investigators came sadly though. Our recent converts were there! :D Found out "Daughter Awesome" was asked to give a talk Sunday(yesterday) she did great!! The Christmas party was a good turn out.

BCD's:

-we have two absolutely excited for baptism, one on the 29th and one on the 5th of January. The 2nd we are supposed to have on the 29th of January went with her boyfriends family to pick him up in Atlanta this weekend. She didn't tell her family yet that she wants to be baptized...She really needs to get to work on that. Looking forward to it though, she will come around I pray.

Elder Franchino's Twelve Days of Christmas:

-I decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for him, it is going really well. The First day I made him a really great breakfast, and a note telling him what would happen over the next several days. Day 2 was a bundle of Butterfingers I had bought him. Day 3 I used a fancy thing to dry clean his suit at the apartment. Today I Shined his shoes. It has been really fun for him! Today he got a package from his dad with the twelve days of Christmas too. THey even sent me a gift too! I don't knwo what it is yet though.

My Twelve Day's of Christmas:

-I am loving it! Awesome gifts!! Day 1 was a bag of peanut m&m's, delicious! Day 2 was a really cool Christmas tree ornament of a missionary riding his bike! Day 3 a really coole Christmas tree tie I wore to church that day! Thanks momma!! I think day 4 got left out though, I can't seem to find any day 4. Thats okay! :D I am loving this Christmas year. It has been a phenominal past 6 months and will be the greatest last 5 weeks of my mission. The best last two years of my life so far.

Word of Wisdom:

-We taught the word of wisdom to one of our bcd's and she was so commited to quit drinking tea, she gave it all up and has been doing great! We heard her yesterday telling someone she was going to be a Mormon and bearing down in testimony. haha so cool!

Prayer:

-We were about to leave the apartment one day and we wanted to knock a few doors, as I prayed a picture of this house came to my mind and I felt like we should go there. We went and no one answered, we kept doing some finding around the area, by street contacting and tracting. Then we passed by the house again on the way to the church for our next lesson and saw the house I invisioned had a car there. We knocked again and found an awesome family. We go back to see them Tuesday and we are really looking forward to it! :D If we follow our impressions we wont go wrong. :D

It has been a great week! Thank you all so much! I look forward to seeing yall next Tuesday at 11:30 your time on skype! The miracles of technology! :D

Love yall! Pray you each have a safe week! It is the best time of the year! :D

-Elder West

Hey Everybody!!!

Hope yall are ready for Christmas and everyone has a Happy one! It's coming fast! Thank you all so much for all you do. Love yall!

The baptisms are coming along pretty well, one of our BCD's (baptismal commitment date) didn't come to church so we are still working with her on telling her parents who are very opposed to the LDS church. She will come along though. The others came, we taught one of them the Word of Wisdom and she was so willing to quit drinking tea. It was awesome!

Christmas Skype:

-I am hoping again this year we can skype, we have it set up to do it around 12:30 our time. So I think that would be 11:30 yalls time. We can't call a few nights before to figure it out so here is the plan, please let me know if there are any concerns with that.

Do you have any ties?:

-This saturday after doing the chaplain work we went and did some tracting as we were doing it we saw a yard sale and walked up to look for neat items. I went to the lady whose house it was and asked, "excuse me ma'am, do you have any ties?" .....she responded, "I am putting everything up right now, I can't talk"....with a puzzled look I asked, " So you are not selling anything right now?"....she said, "I am really busy trying to take care of all this, I can't talk."....understanding the whole time she thought I was trying to talk to her about the church. Finally, I came out and asked plainly something along the lines of.."I am trying to purchase ties, do you want my money?" Then she had her lightbulb moment and realized what I was asking and we got a really good deal on some nice ties. haha funny little experience! As we walked away I thought maybe she misunderstood me and thought I was asking for "tithes" haha Elder Franchino and I had a good laugh about it.

Surprise Christmas Basket:

-Our incredible relief society got us a basket full of goodies on Sunday. They had all come together to make it. We got soap, delicious bubble gum flavored toothpaste, candy, laser pointers!! Even a really nice "ALABAMA" t-shirt! Homemade fleece blankets, awesome stuff!! We were so stoaked! So grateful for super kind members. It is really true what my missionary trainer told me, "if you show them love, they will show you love"

-Sunday my heart was so full of tenderness and love for the whole ward. Something in my heart just opened and felt like it was all too big to fit in my little ole chest. I am so thankful to be here I love this ward, I love this work. I love the Lord. He is so good and so tender to us.

Blessing:

-Last night we went to see the "Awesome" Family again! Ahh!! I lvoe them they are so awesome!!! Sis. Awesome isn't feeling top notch and is going to the doctor Friday to get something checked out. She asked for a Priesthood blessing and Bro kelley our Ward mission leader gave it to her and we assisted. The Spirit was strong and the things said were very moving. It was another tender experience. I love that family so much, I can't wait to see them get sealed in the temple next year this time. It will be so incredibly special.

12 Days of Christmas:

-Little does Elder Franchino know....I have a surprise for him...I am putting together a 12 days of Christmas thing for him. I am really excited! Still trying to come up with some little goodies.

Christmas Party x2:

-This week we have our ward Christmas Party and also our Mission Christmas party. I am really looking forward to it all. It's going to be great! We will spend pretty much all day in Tallahassee.

Biking in Rain:

-So it is really warm here still, it is finally supposed to cool down but the last while has been really warm during the days. Like were talking 80 degrees. But Saturday we got caught in the rain about a mile and a half away from home. We came strapped though, we had coats, pancho's, umbrellas, etc. We were walking to the apartment and holding the bikes but decided to speed up the process by riding our bikes with our umbrellas. Actually it was really really fun!!! I still got totally soaked though!

BCD'S:

-We should have 2 on the 29th of December and another on the 5th of January! Yippee!!

Things are great, the Lord is good. I love yall!

-Elder West

Hey Everybody!!

Want to hear the best news ever?!?!?!!? I will tell you at the end.... :p

This has been a great week!! We had some great experiences, not a whole lot of funny stories but the people we are working with are progressing very well. :D

Church:

-We had 11 people at church sunday that we brought. A mixture of both less active members and also investigators. Our ward mission leaders family from Birmingham also came so the chapel was pretty packed. A member who recently had his baby blessed him on Sunday and he invited some friends. It was poppin!! :D

Christmas Devotional:

-We had an awesome time at our devotional last night, we had a pie and ice cream social and more members brought their friends and had a packed chapel to watch it. Our recent convert the teenage girl "daughter awesome" was being followed by a young man in the ward making it really akward. haha I felt silly but I had to tell him to knock it off and pull him away from her. Teenager kids are so corny!! haha

Baptism:

-The ward we share a building with had a baptism on Saturday. We invited one of our progressing investigators and she said she would come, but she was late she came after the service. But our 2nd counselor in the Mission presidency came and we had a solid lesson with her. Spirit was so strong!!! She is on for the 22nd of December but we might have a mass baptism on the 29th depending on some variables.

Okay heres the big news and I then gotta go:

-Transfers happened!!! I am leaving to.....JUST KIDDING!!! I am staying here with Elder Franchino in Dothan until I die! Hip-hip-hooray!!! I am very excited to stay! So many good things are coming! Love it! Elder Franchino is a great missionary! Love serving here with him. Maybe one day though he will understand that Arizona is WAY better then Washington state.

Something:

-I wrote this to CJ originally but wanted to include it in the mass email as well. Love yall!

-Just found out I will be here with Elder Franchino for the next transfer!! I am dying here!!! :D Thats so awesome we have alot of baptisms coming up, at least three before I go, hopefully four or more. Yippee!! This ward has totally changed around! When I got here Elder Franchino had done a great job at serving and working hard with members. When I got here him and I really put our shoulders to the wheel. We did things differently than in all my other areas too. We really made the focus on the members, we were very inexperienced with member work, we had both had negative experiences in the past with asking for refferalls and members not wanting to help. But we made it a high priority to get to know EVERYONE in the ward and become a part of their lives. We would make the effort to greet and introduce ourselves to as many members each week. Just did everything we could to go out of our way to show them love. Over the past 6 months things have totally changed. Our Bishop originally didn't want anything to do with missionary work and wouldn't give us the time of day really. After our first baptism we had here he warmed up a little, then when we baptized the family a couple weeks ago, the next day he was totally changed. His encouragement to the Priesthood body was to do missionary work. He was blown away with the Spirit that permeated the baptism. Now we are on the wards side and so many good things are coming. Members are working hard to invite people, fellowship has increased. We had 11 people at church yesterday less actives and investigators included. I know that it is all by the grace of God this has happened, I am so grateful to just enjoy the piece of the pie He has cut out for me. He has been so merciful. In my last area it was pretty hard, I loved it but the work was slow. I prayed the last bit of my mission I would have a great ending and He has answered my prayers.

Love yall! Have a great week!

-Elder West