Hey all yall! I hope you had the best week ever! It has been a great week here as well! I have so very much enjoyed this week! We ended up haveing some very awesome lessons, last night especially. We were able to teach a less active lady who just had her baby. She is so sweet, and her daughter is adorable. We ended up catching her mom who is inactive as well. We visitied and also shared a short lesson and talked about the pre earth life. We spoke of her desires for her daughter, the lesson went great and then Elder Haderlie bore testimony of eternal families. She looked and rolled her eyes at first, Elder haderlie started out with her setting a goal for the temple and then he shared a story about his sister getting married outside the temple first, then when she was married in the temple her son was there and when they were being sealed he put his hands on theirs and elder haderlie was crying ashleigh and her mom started crying, oh man the spirit was so so so powerful and the spirit told me to keep my mouth shut, and so i did, and know now, that when I do feel the spirit saying do or don't do, we need to do it no matter what. Elder haderlie started talking again and I just was in awe as he spoke with such power. Oh man I love my companion! He is so awesome!!! Our mission is growing alot! We are doing so much, we have 46 baptismal dates mission wide now, and President Jensen is talking about how much we are growing as a mission, so much is going on. I think I might be getting transfered next week, if so thats what the Lord wants for me. I am grateful to be here, I love this time I have. The church is true. Remember that. :D Love yall have a great week, thank you for what you do!

Hey Yall! SO...the world didn't end! Yippee! haha! This has been another exciting week in Pensacola, FL! The work is doing great! Things are moving forward. Elder Haderlie says after this next transfer I will be leaving and training again. AH! If so it might be a good idea, I sure do need to develop patience. Elder Haderlie calls me out on it. But I did learn a great lesson this week, actually Saturday, and that was, to always be thorough. Never missing an opportunity. If we ever see someone who needs help, or someone passes by, we must always open our mouths or run and help. One experience I will relate is from Saturday, we went to go and visit a potential investigator who was not home, while we were knocking on the door their neighbor gets home, we walk away to go visit a member and then I look back and see the neighbor getting groceries my mind immediately thought of the movie the District which is the life of a few missionaries its a training video, well some missionaries stop and help someone with groceries, and well as I contemplated, "will it matter? She might just be mad. " Etc. During my thoughts she dropped some flour on the ground and it hit me, "go help" so i ran over and helped her pick up the flour and asked if she would like help bringing the rest in, she said no, but agreed that I would walk her flour to the door and set it down for her so she didn't have to walk all the way back, she ended up letting us in and asking alot of questions, turns out the only thing she knew about mormons was what she learned from watching south park, so we helped her understand the truth, she also told us the only reason she let us in was because on the way home she was praying for some kind of help, we met her husband and invited them to church, we have a return appointment and well she was interested. They didn't come to church but also another experience was just after that we went to go visit another potential investigator and they weren't home either, we did have a refferal to visit a less active about 2 or 3 houses down and we thought...no, we need to be focused on finding new investigators. we drove away and after about 2 minutes said, nope! turn around. We went to the refferal and found him home, turns out he is a truck driver and is only home two days outa the month, if that. Also he is married and has a 15 year old daughter. We visited with the family and it was awesome! The wife opened up and pretty much told the husband to go back to church and become active again, I could see the excitement in her eyes to make a change, she is catholic but doesn't believe the church, and oh my! We are going to return and teach her more, she is so awesome! That family could become eternal! :D That filled me with joy. Tony, our recent converts mom is sick and she is paralyzed and the other day she fell and broke her arm. when we went to see Tony she wanted us to come and see her, we did and she talked to us as if she was about to die, it was hard to listen but she expressed her love for tony and her husband and asked us to pray for them. We have informed the ward and have asked that they come in and be a huge support for them in this time. I pray they do so. The work is great, it is true. I can't get over our last Zone Conference it was awesome! We are here to be bold! Yes! We have two baptisms coming up June 4th and also June 11th (if they come to church again) then one scheduled for June 25th. I hope these come through, these folks need to be baptized to enter into the Celestial kingdom. Thank you all for the support! I love yall! Have a great week!

 

Love,

Elder West

Hey yall!

 

This week we had Zone Conference, and President Jensen had mentioned or asked something along the lines of: at the end of each book in the Book of Mormon, what did those prophets leave behind that they felt were most important to the future generations and their families. I contemplated on this myself, what is the most important thing I could leave behind for my family and others whom I love. We ended up reading in Zone Conference the 31st chapter of 2 Nephi, which covers baptism, we are here to teach the doctrine of Christ. Baptism is the doctrine of Christ. As President Jensen spoke and taught, my mind was filled with spiritual insights, but I wanted today to leave what I feel is the most important things I can offer. This Saturday the 21st of May, a small religious sect known as "Family Radio" has claimed this day as the end of the world. Now is it? I don't know. Only God knows what day that is. But whether or not that be the day is irrelevant to my leaving you all with this, my testimony. The only thing I truly have to offer, is my testimony, something that wont fade with time, but can diminish without proper care, the greatest and most valuable gift I have obtained. The sure knowledge which I have and only have through the power of the Spirit, that God our Heavenly Father lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, and He lives today. He suffered for our sins, He took upon him the pains and sicknesses of us His people, that we through Him may be healed. I reitterate the words of the prophet Isaiah that were so beautifully uttered by the great prophet Abinadi as He spoke to the wicked King Noah, " Surely He has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." - Mosiah 14:4-5 It is only in and through the Savior Jesus Christ our Spirits and bodies may be reunited. I solemnly testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and was called to restore the Lord's truth, in its fullness. The Book of Mormon is the word of God, it testifies of Christ and contains the fulness of the everlasting gospel. "...Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also." - 2 Nephi 29:8 Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of God here, on the Earth today. He holds the keys to act in all offices of the Priesthood, he leads us and guides us through prophecy and revelation. This is the true and living church of Jesus Christ. He is the head of this church, and He is our Lord, and He lives. I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

With love,

Elder West

Hey everyone! This week started out so awesome! We were planning on 3 baptisms this weekend and lots of great stuff! On Thursday night our District Leader came down on exchanges and was to interview two of our investigators for baptism, sadly while at dinner Catherine the one who quit drinking coffee, smoking, and has been doing great, called and actually cancelled her and her daughters baptisms. That was so sad to hear. We were with our bishop and he was very understanding and comforting toward us. It was hard to originally hear but it is her choice so we'll leave it at that. Our other awesome investigator Tony Elpers was interviewed and found ready, so on Saturday May 7th 2011 at 6:00 pm he was baptized by Elder Jordan Haderlie. It was definately a sweet experience, his father an inactive member almost started crying it seemed. It was great though! We didn't get any pictures due to the fact we had to find him something other than his jumpsuit to wear cause it was a little snug on him. So we had to begin the baptism. Sadly Sunday Tony didn't come to church and has not been confirmed a member of the church. This coming Sunday is the day he will be coming, (hopefully) its so hard when people are doing great and slip up. It hurts to see them do that to themselves. We do however have a baptism again this weekend, Chelsea Brackette! She just got married about two or three weeks ago to a member who was inactive and has since come back, he received the Aaronic Priesthood after they were married and will be doing the baptism! She is so perfect and ready, in the baptismal interview questions it asks, Do you believe in God, Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith and then it asks you, What does this mean to you? We asked her that the first time and she said she had to get back to us haha, then we asked her that yesterday again and she gave us the most sincere answer, it was awesome! She told us essentially that she wants to be able to tell her son when he is older that this is what she believes and knows, she wants to follow it to help her family be better, she is great! Hopefully we find some more peopel to teach soon as well. A talk given in Sacrament meeting yesterday mentioned something I really liked, I felt like I had done something wrong and had done something to mess up Catherines baptism. So I was very repentent on Sunday well in one of the talks, Brother Hendrickson says, you can't go back and start over, but you can start now and move from where you are now. I loved that, its so true, well gotta go Haderlie is ready to leave! Love yall! Have a great week!

 

-Love Elder West :D

This has been another great week! We are at 6 BCD's (baptism dates that are set) now, our baptisms will be here this Saturday! We met with a family that was taught about year ago by one of our AP's now, and they are interested again in hearing the gospel and coming to church! I was reading my Patriarchal blessing this morning and it said that the Lord would prepare people for me to teach and oh man he is preparing them. People just fall into our laps! On Sunday our investigator Tony who originally didn't want to wear fancy clothes to church said he wanted to get a suit! How awesome is that! He is really moving into the ward nicely!! This ward is great! So helpful members. Our bishop is still the bishop and 2nd counselor in the Stake presidency, I don't know how someone could do that. so much to handle, all three in the presidency are still bishops actuallly! We had a big stake wide service project on Saturday and that turned out to be great! We had so much fun! We helped clean up and repainted a park, i got paint everywhere, including the bishops daughters hair :( I felt so bad, i was above her painting and a big ole blob came tumbling down on her. We all had a great time, I was also singing that hymn i can't remember the name, it goes "fear not though the enemy deride, courage for the Lord is on our side, we will heed not what the wicked may say but the Lord alone we will obey" and i was walking by some people painting and after i had walked by a guy came up and asked if that was me singing and i said yeah, then he asked me to give him a blessing! I did and i guess the thing to learn from that was to, "BE HAPPY!" :D cause at any moment the song we may sing the words we may say or the Spirit we carry will help someone else out, he was havng a hard time and he needed help and I had no idea, but because I was happy, the Spirit spoke to him. So everybody be happy! :D After all thats what the gospel brings right? I love you all, Happy Mothers day to any and all moms who read this! I love yall! Thanks for your support! Have a great week!