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