Productivity x 3

Sounds like a pretty crazy week back home. Sorry about your truck, Dad . Hailey, you look really pretty in your dress! and Jaxon's got a sweet new hair do. Mom, I love you to death, and Jace, I'm glad you killed it on exchanges! :)

This week went really well. :) As I said in my email last week, I am in a trio with my Zone Leaders, and so we combined our 2 areas. As part of that, I sort of inherited all of their investigators!

One of these investigators, I've met at church a few times, and she is AWESOME! She is 19 years old, has a 3 year old son, Diego, she was found because she randomly found Mormon.org and then requested that missionaries come over and teach her! She's kind of a miracle! Anyway, WE BAPTIZED HER YESTERDAY! :) Her name is Jimena Salazar! Elder Ah Hoy was the one that dunked her, and it was all really spiritual and grand. :) It was kind of funny, because she's pretty tiny, and Elder Ah Hoy is a 300 pound Samoan, he could wrap his fist around her waste if he wanted. haha After the service, we went to the temple's visitor's center with some of our ward and (our new recent convert) Jimena, and we got to watch "Meet The Mormons" with them! It was a good day! And I'm really excited for her Confirmation next Sunday!

We also have a baptism set for next week. A lady named Jenny. I've gotten to teach her a couple times already, and she's ready. :) We ALSO have a baptism set for February 1st for an 18 year old girl named Nayeli. :) So this is going to be probably one of the most productive months for me so far.

Working with the Zone Leaders has been such a blessing. They are so much fun to be around, and what I really like about them is that they can be obedient and spiritual without being uptight and critical about it. So we ALWAYS have fun, and joke around, but we can do it without becoming lax with the rules. So thankful for this change!

Another cool thing about this week is that we had our Stake conference, which was way good. One this I learned was about how to improve my studies! One of the speakers gave the example that when we pray for food, we ask that it "Nourishes us and strengthens us". and how great it would be if we do the same with our scripture studies! Before sitting down to read from the scriptures, ask for it to nourish us and strengthen us! I think if we ask for the scriptures to be able to help us have the energy to work throughout the day, and ask for the humility to apply them to our lives, we will be able to grow a lot faster from them... I liked that.

Anyways. Thanks for all the support and love in these last few weeks! :) I got the "Dear Elder" package in the mail this week!! :) Thanks Mom and Dad! You rock. I hope everyone's doing good!

Love you all!

Elder Webster

Elder Ah Hoy, Elder Runco, and our RECENT CONVERT Jimena Salazar.

Elder Gleason before he left to get his surgery.

The Back of my planners. First five transfers spell "ELDER" and the next 7 transfers are gunna spell "WEBSTER"

This is a picture of a few of my planners. Just so you know what a typical day looks like out here. Notice the Goals v Actuals... :( sometimes it's a let down.

This is Nayeli. She's the Girl we're going to baptize on February 1st! :)

EMERGENCY TRANSFERRED!!

So, this week was... Totally crazy.

But you're probably curious about the whole "Emergency Transferred" thing, so I'll talk about that first. :)

So remember how I said last week how difficult my  has been? Well, I've kept being nice to him and stuff, and he actually told me that this has been his best companionship so far! So we were actually kinda getting along a bit more lately. But then on Saturday, we were playing soccer at the chapel with some of the other Elders at like 6:00 am for our morning work out. and he kicked the ball sideways, and it caught the ground weird, and long story short, HE BROKE HIS LEG! So we rushed him to the ER and went to the Doctor's again this morning, and it's definitely broken. Like... Way broken. He's gonna need to get surgery, and for that, they're going to send him back home (to Florida). So I'm getting Emergency Transferred! Tomorrow, I'm gonna be with the Zone Leaders: Elder Ah Hoy from Samoa, and Elder Runco from Uruguay. But it's all been pretty crazy. Saturday, and Sunday were spent in the apartment so that Elder Gleason could elevate his foot. So, we cancelled all of our appointments and Elder G spent the day sleeping or reading the Book of Mormon, and I spent most of the day calling our Less active members and watching "The District DVD's" in Spanish. So it was pretty boring.

But yeah! Starting tomorrow, I'll be in a trio with the zone Leaders. I'm so excited.

We also had our New Years Eve party this week! We were aloud to watch 2 movies, Frozen and Maleficent. It was a blast. I've seen them both already, but it was still funny, nobody wore their proselyting clothes, so it was kinda weird to see all the missionaries in their normal clothes. I found out my companion dresses up like he's going to a wine tasting. hahahaha classic Florida. Right?

We have dropped a lot of our investigators because they were too hard to contact, and it seems like they weren't really interested. SO we've been focusing on reactivating our less actives and finding new referals and street contacts. But some big names are Amanda Gonzales and the Pacheco family if you wanna pray for them.

That's about it this week! We didn't leave the house a lot because of New Years and elder Gleason's leg. But this next week should have lots of big changes!

Holi-daze

Happy Holidays! :)

Honestly, this has been one of my hardest weeks so far. It's kind of a mix between having my first Christmas away from home, and working through various companionship issues... It's just been a crazy week. But I did find a scripture that basically made me burst into tears like 6 times. D&C Section 31 talks about a missionary named Thomas, and talks about the blessings of having his family back home. You ought to read it when you can, and you might like it, and you might not, but it was exactly what I needed, so I thought I'd share that with you.

I had to give a talk in my ward yesterday! Brother Schwartz (2nd councilor) kinda just announced that we will be having the pleasure of hearing the testimony of our newest Elder, and then gave me the look that said "I hope your spanish is good enough to understand what I just said, because you have to get up here and start talking now."

So I just got up and said what was on my mind, which included some lyrics of the song we sang that morning with my companion that I realized I liked a lot. It was a song called "Senor, yo te seguire" (Lord I would follow thee).

So I talked about how the fourth verse (at least in spanish) talks about how Jesus Loved EVERYONE and how if we want to be like him, we need to love everyone too. That hit me because I wear a name tag with Jesus' name on it, and sometimes, I don't feel like I love everyone. So I told the ward that I'm excited to know them and love them, and that I'd be happy to serve them and their friends and then I gave a quick testimony!

That's pretty much the only huge update for the week. The highlight was definitely the skype call home. I love my family so much. :)

Merry Christmas! :)

Love you all!

Transfer 4: Richmond

So I'm in Richmond now! It is so cool here. I guess it was the 4th most dangerous city in America for a little while, but it hasn't been too bad since I've been here. I like it a lot, but I think I got really lucky! I live in the sister's old apartment called "Bella Vista" right off of "Richmond Parkway" and I-80. It is not even comparable to my last apartment. My complex has every luxury in the world. We've got a fireplace, a balcony, a weight room, some tennis courts, like 3 swimming pools, a clubhouse, and basically everything we could ever need within a mile. We also have a car now! Which is such a blessing! (No more waiting for busses or getting sneezed on!) I don't cover the Iron Triangle, thank goodness. (The Iron Triangle is rediculously sketch) But rest assured. My living conditions are incredible now. So no need to worry. :)

My companion, Elder Gleason is probably the hardest working elder I've met so far. His spanish is flawless, he's outgoing and MEGA obedient. Which is great. He can be fun too, but the thing I've really liked about him is that he doesn't lose focus, and knows the gospel inside and out.

This morning, we found some left over hair dye in our bathroom (left over from the sisters that used to live there) and so I convinced him that he should dye his hair black. :) hahahahaha I helped him do it and everything. It's black as night. haha

My ward is SOOO cool. No doubt, the best ward in the mission. Everyone is a fellowshipper all the time. I love it.

This has already been more productive finding than my last 3 transfers combined. In San Fran, people are kind of anti-religion for whatever reason. Here, people have been much more willing to talk to us. :) Elder Gleason (and I) are convinced that we're going to get a baptism this transfer.

I love this area. I'm so confident that we are going to have tons of success here. Especially with Elder Gleason's diligence.

I love you all! :) Merry Christmas!

Transfers Came Flooding In

Transfer calls were this last Saturday night (two days ago) and the GOOD news is that my area DIDN'T get shut down like I thought it would be! and the bad news (except it's not really bad at all) is that I am moving to Richmond!! Whooooooot!

You all asked lots of questions about the specifics, so I'll try to remember all of them. 

1. My new Companion is named Elder Gleason. And Yes, I have met him once before (When we saw Bednar). He is also the Ex-companion of my current Companion! So I've heard a lot about him. He's been out a little more than a year, and his last companion just went home early for some back problems, so he's been in a trio for a few weeks. He sounds alright. But I can't make a judgement yet, because I've only talked to him one time. 

2. I leave this Tuesday, (tomorrow) and I've never been to Richmond before, I hear the apartment is pretty small, and it's a pretty scummy city. But I'll find out more before next week.

 3. Elder Curay is staying here in San Francisco.

But Elder Webster, How does this affect Christmas? Yeah, it's sad. I've been in San Fran for almost 6 months, and I really got close to the members here. And the area. And the District. And I kinda wish I could stay for Christmas.... But The Richmond Spanish ward is apparently the best ward in the mission, so I think it will turn out alright.

There was this "Crazy" rain storm this week. It wasn't even really all that bad compared to monsoon season in AZ, but since the ground here is basically just concrete, with earthquake-broken sewer pipes... There was some pretty scary floods. My apartment almost got flooded, we had a little pond outside our front door, but thankfully, Elder Curay just took a little brush and cleaned off the sewer drain, and then the water levels went down. So that's pretty much all that happened. The Zone Leaders told us to stay inside all day if we could, so we went over to Betty's house and ordered pizza and hung out with her family for a few hours while her power was out. Good times.

We had 2 Christmas parties this week! The first one was a white elephant for the missionaries all over the West side of the Bay. that was pretty fun, I gave someone a little sudoku rubiks cube thing that was laying around our apartment, and I ended up with a lil' Magic set and a Calandar! The 2nd party was for my ward. we had the choir sing some christmas songs and had a nativity and then we ate sandwiches and just hung out in the Gym. Basically your average mormon Christmas party I think. Except none of our investigators came, even though they said they would. :(

A Face-Full of Changes

So, there is this lady, (Norma) who runs a private spa from her house. It's kinda like how at Grandma and Grandpa's house, they have that Hair salon room. But not quite as big.. ANYWAY! We were talking to Norma a couple weeks ago, and she offered to give us free facials, and we sorta took it as a joke, and blew it off, but she called us last week on PDay and asked if we were doing anything and if we wanted to come over and she would give us facials! haha So.... we did? haha It was a bit weird, yeah, but she gave us massages, and recommended us some good face wash stuff that should keep our faces pretty... And it was... Actually super relaxing! She said she always used to do it with some of the old missionaries, and she offered to do it again in a couple weeks. haha #noregrets

Ysenia Huesso (A less active member in my old area) just moved to Concord on Saturday, and she invited the ward to help pack all her stuff, and so we went to help out and then all of a sudden, we see one of our less actives there! :) His name is Orlando Umansur, and he's this SUPER cool guy we've been trying to reactivate. He's pretty fun and normal, and he has a great testimony and everything, he just doesn't like our ward, so he never comes. But I was super excited to see him at the service project, because he definitely bonded a bit more with the ward, and then HE CAME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY! So that was cool.

Unfortunately, none of our investigators are putting in a whole lot of effort unless me and Elder Curay are with them. So we have to drop a couple of them unless we see some effort soon. Which is sad..

Also, This next transfer, there are a ton of spanish speaking elders going home, and none coming in... So I hear they're going to shut down a few spanish areas. and I'm not sue, but since I live in a super chinese neighborhood, my area MIGHT be shut down next week. But I have no clue yet. I'll know for sure before next PDay.

Scripture of the week: John 3:16 God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son. Ponder that... When God wanted to change the world, and change the course of history forever, so that all mankind may be saved, he simply sent a tiny defenseless baby, and then waited.

Merry Christmas! :)

Elder Webster