Hi Mom!! I am so sorry I am horrible with letters, I am super glad you enjoyed the letter! I have made a goal to write you once a week kay? Hold me accountable on that! I have been worried about you the last couple days is everything okay? How are you doing? What can i do for ya? Let me know your okay please. Elder Dame is back to being District Leader and our first district meeting Elder Dame talked about goals and accountablility so we all set some goals, earlier he taught me about setting goals just me and him so I set 3 goals One: Wake up and work out every day at 6:30 Two: Have an effective study Three: Get to bed on time. Goals are great I am enjoying the push to be better! So this week we did some inspired tracting, Elder Dame's allergies were really bad so just Elder Vaughn and I were going out, what we did was start by praying together and asking for forgiveness and inspiration, after that we looked at the map and looked in a general area we each chose 5 to 10 streets and then showed them to eachother and we had one in common, we trusted the Lord wanted us to go there, so we did, and as we tracted the street, we found 3 people we were able to talk to. Not new investigators, but some to chat with, the first lady was catholic and wasn't interested but was willing to take some literature so we gave her a book of mormon and taught her about its history, then the next one was a guy that walked out and first thing he said was YOU FOUND ME!! Elder Vaughn and I walked away from that just giddy!! Then the last house was done on that street but I had a hunch to do the next house on the other street. So we did and thats when we got our new investigator, her name is Margo, we didn't get to teach her but we have a number and we are going to back soon! Elder Johnson and I were tracting the other day too and we found two folks, one lady Maureen she is a sweet heart from New York who we will be seeing Wednesday. We met a guy Robert Savage that same day we found Maureen and he is an inactive member, who used to live in mesa, and was baptized out there, he said he worked for Bob Jones, it sounds familiar to me, do we know him? Well we met with him Saturday and told him about church and taught a quick lesson, he was sharing with us some experiences and he was talking about the Holy Ghost and his eyes got red and watery! It was very powerful to see him remember the witness he received from the Spirit before, the even greater news is.....HE WAS AT CHURCH SUNDAY!!! Oh it was so good to see him! He is a really good guy going through hard times. He says he will be coming back for now on. He better, we'll be keeping up with him. So flea market turned out pretty well, we got alot of refferalls for other areas we had 8 missionaries there with us, and talked to everyone! We were all over that day, from 8 30ish til 2 o'clock we were walking. I was kinda planning on my goals for the transfer recently and I have a hard time with some of these guys, they are pretty cranky on occasion so often Elder Dame or Elder Vaughn get snappy and it really grinds my gears and I don't help it by opening my mouth back, you know that well :p but this transfer I have two very important scriptures to follow, one is Alma 38:12 be bold, not overbearing, bridle all your passions that ye may be filled with love ( thats paraphrased) i looked up in the dictionary what bold and overbearing meant, and it translates to be, be courageous but not arrogant.  haha i got a kick outa that. The next one is Proverbs 15:1 a soft answer turneth away wrath. I am gonna work on just being gentle like Christ. I love this work so much, I love working and feeling the Spirit when I teach, studying is so wonderful, I learn so much, studying the Book of Moses has been great, we've learned alot. I am so glad to know this church is true, the Atonement is in full force all around us, I have so much to improve on, but I am a disciple of Jesus Christ the Son of God, I have been called of Him to declare His word among His people that they might have Everlasting Life. 3 Nephi 5 :13  Mom thank you so much for your prayers! I love you so much! The Miles sent me a letter it was from Hannah and Emma, it was really cool I enjoyed it. Thank you Momma, I was pondering the other day and thought about back home, I thought about what you told me before I left if anything happened to you, Mom you're the best, I love you so much. You have been such a miraculous blessing in my life. I am so grateful for you Mom. With all the love a son can give, I give.

Sean :D

Hey Yal!

Hi Momma!

 

Oh my goodness I am so happy to hear about Vietta surprising you at church! She said your expression was PRICELESS!! Kodak moment? :D Aryan and his mom came too! Yes! Ah I am so happy to hear that! Thats great! Things out here are great! The ward is awesome! The area is ripe! The work is here for us to grab! We had an awesome planning session on Thursday and covered alot so we will work hard this week and reach our goals! Its the new transfer and no one left, we are all still here, we think Elder Dame will be going next transfer and it might just stay us 3, until Elder Vaughn leaves for Brazil. We are expecting so many people at church this coming Sunday! I think about 7 is what it was, not all investigators but less acitves too! Elder Johnson and I had a great lesson with this family the Ledbetters, the wife was gone but the husband was home alone, so we came in and chatted for a few then shared Lesson One, when I was quoting the 1st vision the Spirit just hit him! He served a mission but has become very less active, he is in the navy and working hard so he sleeps on weekends. It was so incredible to see! Sadly though he didn't go to church the next day, but his wife did! It was great to see her there! We have a new family who moved in the ward, the husband is a member the wife isn't, they called Bishop and said they wanted to meet with the missionaries, she is golden! I haven't met her really yet, Elder Vaughn and Elder Dame taught her Lesson One and thats it. But she is so ready from what they say. Catherine is still working on quitting smoking, we threw away her coffee machine for her, so she has been free from that as far as we know, she went through alot of lengthy court cases during her divorce and she was really messed up by her ex husband, she finally won and got her daughter but wont let go of those ill feeling towards her ex and the judicial system for how they treated her, which is understandable but she is not able to progress because of it! She is moving forward though, little by little! We met this guy Tod on Saturday we were tracting and he came out and talked to us, he was raised Penecostal and was taught to hate mormons, but he wants to know what we actually believe in. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and I am gonna try to set an appointment for Wed. the bad part is, he is going to join the army and go to bootcamp in about two weeks, so he said when he gets back he will want to come to church and learn more. Great kid, very kind! We also got another investigator, her name Emma Walke, this was Johnson and I again, we went there for our Thursday night splits with Ward Missionaries, Victor the husband, is an inactive member, Emma is not, I guess a while ago she was so close to being baptized but something happened, it was two missionaries in particular, she loved them! I think that she really likes us now too! She is a sweet lady, she is a smoker and we'll have to work with her on that, but so much potential. The beach was fun last week, my kite didn't fly for nothing. :( haha but it was a good day! I have a picture I will send! I am really bad about writing, Pday is the only day I have to write, we are really busy the rest of the time, I love it! Being busy is great!  But I will finish my letter I already kinda started and get it to ya! Sorry I am slow! Well things are great here! Glad to hear  you are well! Thank you so much for the cookies! They were delicious! I really don't need anything at all though mom, so no need to send me more junk food k? We did have a blast with those jelly beans! I wrote about it in the letter! Thank you very very much! I love you! Have a great week!

News from Pensacola, Florida

Hey Mom!

Thank you so much for the package! The cookies smell delicious! So much junk food though! haha it will be good! Thank you for the letters as well! Things are going well, continually growing! This past Wednesday we had a pop up Zone Conference talking about mormon.org we also had a few pop up tornadoes! Nothing near us really, the navy base we do service on had a tornado there though, we were lucky to be at the stake center when it happened. A few missionaries were driving to the conference and had a tornado on each side of them but they made it safely there! Mormon.org is an incredible thing, will help alot of people understand the church and a great missionary tool! It was very informative and some of the info was not needed but interesting to learn about how it came to be and what the statistics are. The 'sweep' I was telling you about will be coming through here pretty soon I am thinking! Can't wait! We needto prepare! Oh and I found my patriarchal blessing too! Ha I had hid it somewhere I guess! So last week at the beach was fun I bulilt a little mini ghetto sand castle got a picture I will be sending you. Ooh so we teach this inactive member every once in awhile and he works on Sundays so he can't go to chuch, but we were teaching him and he has a 14 year old boy who hasn't been baptized and we got him to join the lessons and he is enjoying them. Were gonna keep teaching him and get him ready for baptism! Also it was Elder Dame's last week in physical therapy and I have enjoyed going cause I get to talk to people about the chuch there while I am in the lobby, and this last day I just didn't feel like talking, I should have been of course, but while I sat there this lady sat next to me, and I was reading my scriptures and she asks me about the bible and if I have something that she could read to help her understand it, hah! it was perfect, I introduced to her the Book of Mormon, shared with her part of the restoration, and we set an appointment for later that day, turns out, she is out of our area :( GOOD NEWS! The area she is in, will be whitewashed this week, so President gave us permission to go to that area to teach her, BAD NEWS, she wasn't home :( and she hasn't called us back either, she seemed really humbled by her afflictions, she had some horrible things happen to her recently and really needs the healing power of the Atonement in her and her daughters life. We will get ahold of her though! :D Also, I bellive I have told you about Chuck, a lady we met at the flee market who wanted us to come to dinner, but she is out of our area as well, well....WE GOT PERMISSION TO GO! President loves Elder Dame, I can't wait to go over there, she is so sweet! We also got permission to set up a stand at the flea market every saturday! That will be really great with finding new investigators. Our new Asst. Ward mission leader asked Elder Dame and I to participate in his childs baby blessing! That will be neat! He served out in AZ on the indian reservations out there! He is the one who killed and cooked the snake for us! Also we went to dinner at what we thought was a members home, but turns out only the wife is a member and the husband isn't so we established a great relationship with them, they are so much fun! Sis. Myers made some delicious chicken alfredo too! When we taught our lesson, Elder Dame and I had talked about bearing testimony more to invite the Spirit more, so I read from Alma 32 about faith and planting the seed and I shared testimony, the Spirit came in really strong, I loved that lesson, we will be going over there more often now too! The work is great here! Companions and I are working better, I am really trying! Also this morning, I read Mosiah 4 again, and I love that chapter, its about Faith, Repentance, and Enduring to the end, Mosiah 4:11-12 they helped me alot! Everyone check them out! :D My talk went great. A really sweet sister visiting her son in the ward was very pleased to see me talk, she said you would be proud mom, she thought of her sons on their missions, she was so sweet. The Lord helped me alot, we will be working alot with members to invite their friends to hear the gospel! Good things are coming! The church is true, people need to learn that. :D I love you momma! Thank you so much! I love you all, anyone who reads my blog know I love ya! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder West

 

How has your week been? Sounds very busy! Glad the spaghetti wasn't a mess! So you want to know everything? Okay here it goes! Last week we didn't get in weekly planning which was horrible, upside though I see the difference of what happens if we don't plan. So we did 34 lessons last week and this week we only got 28 not a big difference but not enough, we shoot for 40 and haven't gotten it. We'll be working hard this week. We had Elder Packer come in this past Tuesday for Zone Conference and that was cool! President Jensen and the Zone Leaders set mission goals for us which I know were inspired and can and will be reached if we are but faithful! The goal is 300 baptisms a year, that equals 6 a week mission wide I think he said. But the statistics of the mission show that about every 30 new investigators we have 1 will be baptized, so the goal for our area is, 30 new investigators a transfer, which should be 1 new baptism, and 20 member present lessons each transfer. It is mission wide goal now to read from the Book of Mormon everyday with intent to help investigator, as well as study each and every lesson personally and as a companionship each transfer as well as set 1 personal self improvement goal each transfer. I'm excited to get to work! We need to focus alot on finding! None of my companions want to tract, which I understand, but we have no others means at the moment for finding people, so we need to do it. We are working on getting a sports night every week for everyone to come and play ball or something and have members invite friends so we can meet new people in a non threatning environment. Our ward mission leader is still a pretty recent convert and doesn't know what to do very well. He is still learning! We will be starting a Preach My Gospel class that were gonna teach each week for Sunday school so we can help show people how to introduce the gospel to their friends. I think it would be a great idea! My talk is coming along...well not very well! I kinda have an end goal for it, I want to get the members to bring friends over to dinner when we come, not a surprise attack thing though. Still trying to figure out what exactly. So there are the mission goals. :D We have two baptisms that will be coming up this next transfer if all goes well. Catherine and her daughter Macy are still working through some things so we pushed the baptism back to april sometime. Elder Johsnon and I were teaching this member Tony who is completely inactive and works Sundays, Elder Dame has been teaching him for awhile before I came, but his wife and son are not members, we made some progress with them though, the son never sat in with the lessons before but Elder Johnson and I  asked him if he'd like to join and he did, so we were able to get him interested and we have a return appointment! YEA! We go to the flea market everyweek to contact and I met this guy Jared who has a stand there selling stuff and turns out he is a member but inactive and we talked to him about coming over and he wants us too! He is a cooll guy, my age. We also met this guy Terry who has a sunglass stand and we talked with him the first two weeks, he is a great guy we chatted with him and turns out his daughter is a member! he and his wife aren't but they love us! We met the wife about two weeks ago she was there and he wasn't so I started to talk to her and turns out she is a sweetheart!!!!! She is so Christlike already, full of love! Elder Vaughn and I listened to her and did very little talking ourselves for about 40 minutes then we got her number and address, she really wants to have us over for dinner but she isn't in our area so she demands we call president and ask him, haha she is great. before we left she came up and gave us big huge hugs! There was really nothing we could do about it! haha but I was rebuked by Elder Walesby our senior missionary neighbor when I told him the story. :( haha he is right though. The worst part is, she gave me a kiss on the cheek too! AH!! SHe is just a loving older lady! She has 9 kids! She needs to be a member! haha this week has been hard for lack of planning last week but we planned this week so this coming week should be wonderful! We need to do lots of finding. 5 investigators a week is the goal! Oh mom! I really need to get my patriarchal blessing too, I dont' know what happened to mine. So could you please send me the other copy, or the laminate one you were talking about making? I also need my Priesthood lineage I don't have it.  We are going to the beach today! I will be sure to take lots of pictures! I have a feelin I will be building a sand castle, :D Well I love yal! I am so grateful for you! Thank you so much for your support! I love you all! Take great care! Momma thank you for everything you are great! Oh the Whites are moving away this Saturday, the family I met when I first came out here, they are doing better, saying prayers together and what not, we are going over for dinner wednesday with them so I am really excited to be with them again before they move. Love you so much! Please take care yal! :D