Hey yall, its been a solid week! I found out I come home on january 17th! President Jensen confirmed flight plans this week. Love yall!

We had some fun this week! Lots of new experiences.

Flood:

-We had the creek rise up again one morning we had to run out and sand bag the bottom doors to make sure they were blocked. It wasn't as bad as it was before.

Member Splits:

-An elder from the ward came out with us on splits and we went to see an investigator couple and the wifes brother. We had a powerful lesson about the restoration. The brother with me bore powerful testimony and was sharing how he got his answer that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Wow! It was incredible. We hope to see good things come out of this family.

-Saturday we met up with them and the guy who was on splits with us at the church to do a church tour. They loved the building, the Spirit was strong. We shared with them the Book of Mormon, they are great folks! They again said they believe it is true.

The South Paddles:

-We found out last night that they still let teachers or principals paddle kids in school!! haha Elder Franchino got a kick out of that. Good ole' southern living.

Lawn Mowing:

-On Friday we helped a sister we have been working with do some yard work. She owns about 4 acres, we had about 1 1/2 to 2 that we mowed. I started out with the push mower, we saw that her riding mower was out of oil and not working, her super kind neighbor actually works on mowers and he has like 15 in his backyard. He let us borrow two so we drove them down the hwy back to her house and got to work. Our high priest group leader was there cause we needed him to go inside and have lunch but since we were late getting things going we asked him to help out, so we had two riding mowers, and me with the push mower and it took us about an hour and a half to mow it all. I got super burnt! My neck was as red as one of those kids butts in the south who gets sent to the principals office for a paddling! I was beat that day, alot of sun and alot of biking. We ended the day at 30 miles on the bikes too. In PEC Sunday morning the High Priest group leader was getting a heck of a kick out of seeing us ride down the road on those mowers. Awesome day! We also found a yellow jacket nest and had to burn it. We poured gas in and lit it on fire real fast. It was sweet!!!

Last minute talk in church:

-In PEC sunday morning we were also asked to give last minute talks, they were only for about 7 minutes so it wasn't bad. We talked on the need for revelation. I tied it into how we can receive the witness from the spirit that what the prophet says is true.

Baptismal Dates:

-We met with the family of 4 this week, they fed us an awesome corn beef and cabbage meal, super good, we also read 3 Nephi 11 with them, they have been reading and doing great, its hard to get them to church, the wife has bad back problems. They are reading the Book of Mormon though.

-The other girl who the member brought to church is doing good, she is going to be baptized on Sept 15, we are really looking forward to that. She is such a good girl. Great members to support her. She feels the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful to be here to witness it.

Preacher:

-The preacher that we met last Sunday, we got to meet with on Thursday, had a great visit. He has no real intent to join the church but he does want to understand. He said he knew an apostate member in his last church he worked at and they told him alot of things. He is a real nice guy though. Smart.

Awesome splits:

-Another awesome experience with our Elders Chorum President, he is from good ole' Mesa town. He rocks! We had some fun lessons. It reminded him of his mission and how awesome it was. His wife also ran into us during the week at sonic and bought us sonic! Yumm yumm!! I felt like such a chunker though. Oh and that night he was on splits he bought us ice cream!!!

Eye Doctor and Regular Doctor:

-I was having a hard time hearing out of my ear again, so I went to the doctor and they cleaned out my ears! Ah that felt so weird! They have a mini super soaker water gun thingy ma-jig, and they just shoot water in your ear, they found a couple gnats in there! haha just kidding. I can hear again though, I feel totally better! Elder Franchino got some pictures. I will send one, it was gross!!! The doctor wasn't a big fan of us being LDS he was very angry looking. Not kind at all.

-I got my eyeglasses from the doctor, love em, they take care of business.

Goals for Members:

-We are making it priority to see members often, to make sure we have good uplifting contact with each active member each week. I think this change of focus will bring more success and better trust. I love this ward, these members are awesome!!

:D Things have been great, the Lord brought us another good week. It has been busy and we have an even greater upcoming week. I am doing great, loving it, my companion is still super solid! I really hope we can stay together for awhile, I wouldn't mind finishing with him. Had a great birthday! We had a member feed us dinner, they grilled out oh man it was so good!!! I ate too much though. Another member fed us brunch which was super super good too! loved it! Yumm!!! Yumm!!!! Yumm!!!!

Elder Franchino bought me Loyless donuts that morning, a really good and really unhealthy apple fritter.

So here are the main points:

BCD's:

-A girl that was brought to church last Sunday by some members, we had our first lesson with on Wednesday, this girl is super solid! She feels the Spirit so strong, she has never felt it at church before. She loves it and wants to be baptized super bad. September 15 is the day. Right before a missionary leaves for the MTC. They are friends. She said she feels welcomed and loved and all the good spiritual feelings at church.

-Our other family didnt make it to church but we saw them during the week and had a good lesson with them. The daughter who once wasn't very open, is now alot more open. It went great!!!

FLOOD!!!!!!:

-We had a few days of crazy weather this week, on Wednesday actually we came home for lunch and we were going with a member right after so he joined us for lunch, it started raining about 15 min. into lunch and about 15 min after it started raining we looked out side to see that our little foot high creek about 60 feet from our buliding has raised up about 2 feet. We had never seen it that big before. It kept coming and coming, it eventually got up the hill towards the apartments underneath us, and we ran out to take pictures. We saw management and they were getting ready to out down some sandbags to try and keep the water out of the doors so we offered to help. Took only a few minutes but we got it done. The water by the walk ways in between the apartments was about knee deep. All nasty swamp water full of bugs and stuff. We were filthy with the staining Alabama red sand on our shorts and t shirts. Fun experience though, the management really earned some trust with us which was solid!

FORTUNE COOKIE:

-A member in the bishopbric has a buddy who he brought to UT with him to hike MT Tipanogas( I don't know how to spell it). Well while there they checked out temple square and all so his non member buddy loved it. Then last Saturday night he text his friend and asked him to come to church and his friend responded with a picture and a text saying I just opened a fortune cookie that said something along the lines of " It will be wise to explore new possiblities with close friends." haha it was so cool! The Lord works in mysterious ways.

B-DAY PARTIES:

-There were 4 awesome members that had us over for some form of birthday celebration. One member shared his bday with me and made a cake that had FTM and NOM on it, cause he is going to the Nebraska Omaha Mission and i am in the Florida Tallahassee mission. It was tons of fun. Another sister made us cakes actually and had basically a mini ward function at her house. IT was super sweet! She knew I loved Tide detergent and she bought me a little bottle of it. Way too nice.

PASTOR:

-After church yesterday we were biking away and I saw a man who was slowly mee-andering(don't know how to spell that either) around and he checked his mail box. I felt impressed to go talk to him so we rode up and said hey, turns out he is very interested in our church, and wants to meet with us. We are going to be going to see him Thursday, whipp-ee!!!! It was such a neat tender mercy of the Lord.

20 PEOPLE AT CHURCH:

- We set a goal this week to have 20 people, less actives and non members to church. We are super pumped! It is going to happen! We have alot of people to back up those numbers and lots of fantastic members to bring their friends. This will be higher then I have ever gotten! Stretch our limits!!!

Health Binge:

-I ate way too much on by birthday and a few times recently so i am on a health binge and I feel super good. I am trying to live the word of wisdom more fully. Lots of yummy fruit, spinach, carrots, oatmeal. Yummies! I am loving it!!!! Elder Franchino is really happy to because he gets all my candy. He is a super chunker!! haha

Its been a great week, the Lord has given us alot! I am so grateful for Him. The Atonement is real, it is what makes this work so important and possible. God lives and Jesus is the Christ. If we have the love of God we will be a good people. Miracles are being wrought. God bless yall. Thank you so much for all your support!

Have a great week!

-Elder West

Hi Yall!

I have gotten a little less gramatically capable since I have been down here. UH OH!!! :D

Its been a great week! We may need to push back a few bcd's to be sure to teach them everything, but so far things are looking good. We met some new families this week, one actually lived in Washington, the wife or girlfriend was baptized there but they moved here and don't go to church. That was cool.

Chik-Fil-A:

-We had an appointment to meet a member and his friend at the church to teach, and a couple hours before we were going to meet the member called and offered to buy us Chik-Fil-A for lunch, so we quickly accepted and started walking there! We come close to it and see that it is jam packed!!! Lines coming out the store and the drive thru backed up into the main highway in town slowing down traffic. We figured it was just lunch time and everyone loved chik-fil-a! When we got there we were told the real reason, which all yall know I am sure. hahaha it was a surprise. There was a line of traffic backed up about 2 or more miles. Delicious spicy chicken sandwhich though! yumm!!

Chaplain Service:

-This saturday we did chaplain service like always and this saturday was especially awesome. In the waiting room just outside the CCU I saw a member I knew from Nashville ward, he moved down to Bainbridge which is real close to us. Well, his sister in law had a heart attack and they asked us to go in and see her. They were going to be in shortly to give her a blessing, so we went into the CCU and told her. She was happy to see us. It feels so good to lift others spirits when they are down or sick. Also when we were leaving the waiting room, we saw a lady walking and just really felt the need to ask her if we could do anything for her. So we did and she asked us to see her father who just had a 5 bypass surgery. We did and he was very grateful. We prayed with him and there was a wonderful spirit there. We went back out to report to her and she was very thankful. Then as we left, again I felt impressed to give her our number since she would be there for the whole week and when I went back in, she said thank you and that she was just wondering which church we go to. It was a really sweet experience. I enjoy doing that service, we definately are able to be a blessing to those peoples lives.

Bike Wreck:

-It rained a little bit earlier this week and one day we were riding home from an appointment, we have a bridge that we cross over (theres a creek right behind our apartment) to get home, and I was cruising along. I didn't think that the bridge would be slippery, but oh I got lucky! As I entered on it my front wheel slid and I ran into the wall of the bridge. I just was able to land on my foot and not fall. The picture attatched was taken right after the incident.

Taught Baby To High 5:

-We have a less active sister who we have been working with. One of our baptismal dates is her daughter, and she has an almost year old baby. He is so cool. I have been trying to teach him to high five and successfully the last few visits he gives a high five withour reservation. haha I mark that on my list of accoplishments. :p

More Tennis:

-Another beautiful pday of tennis last week, oh man it's so much fun! But I got terribly beaten by....a girl!!! :p One of our ward mission leaders brought his boss from work to play and she beat me. It was fun though. Tennis is addicting!

Scriptures:

-We as a mission are still memorizing lots of scriptures! I just finished the Book of Mormon scripture mastery! I have about 60 scriptures total memorized and this coming transfer I will memorize all of NT and OT scripture mastery.

Spritual:

-One of our investigators who we gave a baptismal date to (well the whole family has one) was working with our ward mission leader and said, they were really looking forward to getting baptized and decided thats what they want to do. Super excited!

-A recent convert here gave his testimony in church yesterday and it was awesome! The Lord does prepare people to receive the message and if we are worthy and in tune He will put us in positions to find them.

Companion:

-He is awesome! Hard worker, we always shoot back and forth jokingly about which state is better, Washington or Arizona! Which is silly because everyone knows that Arizona is the best!

OH!!!! I can't forget this:

-I got a package from the Trimm's a convert family in Nashville! It was so so so good to hear from the., They sent me all sorts of candy and star wars stuff!! haha it was awesome! The best part was the letter from Shelly, the mom, she said that they are still faithful! She has a calling! The girls both are about to be in young womens, and she said to tell everyone that our work is not in vain! We don't fully recognize how much of a blessing sharing the gospel is. She was very grateful that we got to teach her. I am very grateful the Lord let me taste just a little bit of the joy that comes from watching people experience the Atonement. It is real, I know it is real. Thanks be to God for it.

Love yall!

p.s

I also determined that AZ is way hotter than here! It is for this fact: when we get a breeze here it feels brisk and moist which is refreshing, a breeze in AZ is hot and just burns. Therefore, I am living here forever! Love yall! Have a great week!