Exchange Week

OKIE DOKE!

So. I have a little more time this week, so let me fill a few of the holes I left out last week.

The sweet Zone Activity was called "The Amazing Race". And we split the zone into groups and had a big race to finish a list of objectives. You had to collect certain objects, and take pictures next to things, and do things like "Reenact Samuel the Lamanite" and we were aloud to run around anywhere in Berkeley. It was super fun because everyone got into it!! You'd be in the middle of taking a picture next to a hipster and see an opposing group taking a picture of themselves planking on random objects. It was such a blast. :)

Upcoming Baptismal dates:

Kevin Rojas - 8 year old son of a part member/less active family -October 4

Beto Nunez - Recovering meth addict, brother of our recent convert - October 17

Ricardo Rodriguez - 24 year old boyfriend of some members of our ward - October 17

Cezar Martinez -  boyfriend of our other recent convert - October 17

We're super excited but still need to help them gain the motivation to take the step!

THIS WEEK WAS EXCHANGE WEEK!

EXCHANGE 1: Elder Atkinson - Assistant Exchange

So succesful. We were doing so much. We had one lesson with a guy named Alex, and he has slight Autism, but not too bad. ANYWAY! mid lesson, he just stopped our discussion and looked at me and said: "Are you a geek or a nerd?"

hahahaha It was so funny! He explained to me the difference, and we decided that I'm a nerd! :) haha he's such a funny guy. We also taught a guy who debated with us for like 20 minutes why the word "Mormon" is bigger than "Jesus Chirst" on the front of the Book of Mormon.

EXCHANGE 2: Elder Marcello - Chinese Program

We seriously spend like 3 hours talking to people in the streets in the rain. He had to do most of the hard work, because we were in china town and I only know like 2 sentences in Chinese. But I would go up and say hi to everyone and if they didn't speak English, I'd juts be like "My friend speaks Chinese and has something to tell to!" in my gringo Chinese. haha Good times.

EXCHANGE 3: Elder Runco - My District Leader

He is such a spiritual example to me. He relies on prayer for everything, and he helped me feel the spirit even when we were doing things like exercising. Seriously, it felt like every choice we made throughout the day was directly related to helping be more effective or productive. Super good day.

Last thing:

We had Stake Conference this week and we ended up translating it for them.. I've decided that I don't get as much out of church meetings when I'm translating. I end up focusing too much on the language and not enough on the content (which is the best part). But a good meeting nonetheless!

Love you all!

Thanks for things! :)

White People Are The Worst

I just want to set the expectation that this will probably be a very short email. We planned a Zone Activity today, and it was a blast, but we finished later than we thought. SO!

1. We had exchanges this week, and I went with Elder Cuevas into the English Program in Lafayette. This was SUCH A CRAZY EXCHANGE! There was this weird old guy we taught that would not stop talking about how good looking Elder Cuevas is, and he asked to see a picture of our families, but then commented (rather crudely) about how attractive the female members of our families were.... And then fell asleep 4 times while we were teaching. Such a weirdy.

2. (Same exchanges) We ate dinner with this CRAZY family. The Dad kinda talks like the guy from blues clues mixed with the balloon animal guy from Despicable Me... he made us this dinner that was essentially 10 corn tortillas with (not melted) cheese in between each layer covered in Enchilada sauce. he put it on our plate and gave us a knife and fork and told us to dig in. I about died. It was the most flavorless thing i've ever eaten and he claimed it was mexican food, but After a year in the Spanish program and sharing the meal with a native Mexican, Elder Cuevas, I'm about 110% sure it's not authentic. Bleh.

3. This upcoming week, we have THREE consecutive exchanges. Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, and I'm leaving the area for all three. I won't teach any of my investigators in quite a while.

4. Speaking of investigators... I have 4 baptismal dates coming up. Super stoked. :)

Thanks for all things!

Happy Birthday Hailey!

Heck Week!

This was heck week, but surprisingly went very well!! We had our "Missionary Leadership Council" on Wednesday and our (Awesome) President made a few big changes to our mission, including the banishment of future "Zone Focuses" ....you don't care about that. But for us, that's big news!

Then on Wednesday night, we actually went on splits with the mission President!! for those of you that don't know, he's the boss. He's pretty much the one that receives revelation for the mission and makes changes as directed by the spirit. In other words, sometimes it's nerve racking to be evaluated by him. BUT! Our splits was AWESOME! He didn't understand anything that was going on because he doesn't speak Spanish, but we went to 4 lessons in 3 hours, and set 2 new baptismal dates! He unknowingly witnessed a very successful night!!

We also had our stake correlation where we accounted for the efforts of our zone members, and worked with the Stake Presidency. Which was very stressful last transfer, but this time, we were much better prepared, and it went fairly well.

One exciting story happened this week was when one of our District Leaders wen missing! Like... ALL DAY LONG! He never showed up to our Tuesday morning conference call in the morning, and then no one saw him all day long, and he wasn't picking up his phone, so we called some other zone leaders to "drop into their apartment" and they WEREN'T THERE!! It was actually kinda scary. They waited in the other elders apartment until like 10:00 until they got home. (Way later than they were supposed to) and they called us and we had to handle the situation... I felt like a worried/frustrated father waiting for his kids to get home after curfew. (Side Note: it makes me think about how God must feel when He watches us delay our obedience.) All in all, it was an unnecessary headache.... Silly Elders.

Last story- Elder Ah Hoy (One of my former companions, who is home now) visited the mission field on Friday, and called us out of nowhere and invited us to lunch! That was fun! :)

That's pretty much it for the week. Keep in mind Kevin Rojas, Ricardo Rodriguez, and Gisel Olivera. They're getting baptized soon if all goes according to plan. Thanks again!

Love you!

Elder Webster

This is Elder Castleberry and I in our pillow fort watching Meet the Mormons after a long day. (pretty much the only movie we can watch in our mission.)

Elder Ah Hoy!!

 Our odometer is my birthday!

Getting some planning done at Subway.

 Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Awwww. Pugs.

Save The Best For First

This was just a typical normal week for us... EXCEPT FOR IT WASN'T AT ALL! As the first week of transfers, we had to help out a lot of missionaries with travel details and figure a lot of things out for this next six weeks.

But aside from all of that, we had such a productive week this week! We actually beat our record for most number of lessons taught together, and we've decided to focus all of our studies on "Preach My Gospel" which has really had a positive effect on our teaching skills. Each day, we choose a couple pages from PMG to study during our comp study and I've decided that it's one of my favorite study materials. It's got the most basic and plain explanations to EVERYTHING! I wish I was as good of a teacher as PMG.

TWO STORIES for this week! But before I tell them, I want to set the expectation that these things NEVER happen... These were both pretty rare occurrences, but unfortunately in Oakland, things like this DO happen some times...

#1 Two sisters in our zone: Sister housekeeper and Sister Wirthlin are SO innocent and kind. They're both blonde and perky and nice to everyone. Sister Wirthlin actually just arrived to the mission on Wednesday this past week... And on Thursday, they witnessed a murder!

It was a public shooting. They were stopped at a red light and it happened right next to them. She's basically terrified of life now...  :(

#2 Elder Castleberry and I were visiting a less active member (who shall remain nameless). We were just around the corner from her house when we ran into her daughter. We asked her if her mom was home, and she gave us a weird look. Almost like she didn't want us to know. She eventually said "Yeah, but she's... umm.. cleaning the house right now. It might not be a good time..."

we asked her if we could pop in and say hi, and she said "....um. sure!"

So...

Her front door is one of those doors with a see-through gate right in front of it, but the wooden door behind it was wide open, so we could see into the house totally fine.

We definitely caught the mom off guard.. long story short, I've seen way too many topless Latina women on my mission..

This next week is our "Heck-Week". We've got like 4 different monthly meetings that all happen to land on the same week. So we should be running around quite a bit this week.

Thanks for everything!

Happy Birthday mom!!

Love you!

Elder Webster

Six More Weeks of Winter

Transfer calls are in!

I'm staying in Oakland for six more weeks with Elder Castleberry! No big changes really.

Just a little interesting tid bit: He was my first companion last year, and I'll be his last companion this year! :) He goes back home to Spanish Fork at the end of this next 6 weeks.

This last week, we beat our record of lessons taught together! We taught 15 in one week!! I know it's different in every mission, and some people probably think it's pretty pathetic to get anything less than like 30 a week. But here in my mission, 15 in a week is pretty solid... It's been a great week for us!

Yesterday I got to conduct this month's "Porque Yo Creo"! Last month, I was the translator, but this month we switched and I got to conduct the meeting while Elder Castleberry translated for me. (Which means, I stand at the pulpit and speak Spanish while he sits in the back corner and speaks English into a little headset.)  It went really well! Toward the end, our mission president got up and shared his (English) testimony and asked me to "live translate" it for him (which means I was basically the "parrot" to his "pirate". repeating everything he says one sentence at a time.)

Good times.

I filled up my memory card with pictures this week. I might be persuaded to send it home soon. I have a spare, so I'll probably send the last one home and start a new one.

PS. Thanks for the letters and gift cards! :) I love getting them. I haven't been writing back very well, but y'all are da best. thanks!

I don't know if I ever mentioned this or not, but our new(ish) president made us a new rule where we can only listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir/ Conference talks. Which at first was kinda hard, because I only have like 10 songs from them on my flash drive, so i had to put it on repeat... but Now I kinda like it. It really helps you to feel the spirit. :)

do it.

just kidding.

Thanks again for ALL THINGS.

Love you!

THE OAKLAND ZONE! (morning sportz)

The most "oddball" companionship in the mission.

X-changes

I went on Exchanges again on Monday night! I went with Elder Dotimas. A 25 year old Filipino character who enjoys folk dancing and cooking. It was actually a pretty good exchange! His area is basically the ONLY concern within our zone, because they've been struggling with a ton of different things. I had very low expectations going into his area, but we had a pretty decent day. No lessons or anything, but I studied more for his investigator than I have studied for my own investigator in a long time. I got very acquainted with her needs and our plans. I want to take that back with me and improve my study habits. :)

That's pretty much it. Transfers are this Saturday, So I'll has some exciting news next week! :)

Love Elder Webster

EXACTLY a year ago, Elder Castleberry and I became companions for the first time on THIS EXACT SPOT on the day that photo was taken. It's like our anniversary!

This is my zone.

Stake Reports? More Like Stress Reports!

I'll admit, not my cleverest subject heading...

This week we had to do monthly Stake Reports! Just a little fun fact:

Every day, missionaries keep track of how many lessons they've taught,

and how many people they've talked to, and who comes to church, and

whenever they add or drop investigators, and every Sunday they send us

the weekly totals of all that stuff. Every month, the stake asks us to

make a report of the monthly totals and account for the missionary

efforts within the stake boundaries. Including who's been baptized,

who's good, who's not so good, our concerns, our efforts to solve

their concerns, and of course, some good ol' fashion spread sheets and

graphs. It's a whole big thing. It took us a couple days to finish

everything, and then we had to present our report to the Stake

Presidency.

Fortunately, our zone has been on the rise since I've been here. So

the presentation itself was pretty easy. :) And it turns out, my

"Excel" skills aren't too shabby. But it did eat up a few of our

valuable proselyting time.

We also had a few meetings this week, some where we were being trained

and some where we were training others.. But those on top of our stake

reports made this week a bit of a headache.

That's pretty much all the big updates for the week! That's what's

been keeping me busy!

on a random note, I started writing poetry this week! "The Rap of

Salvation", "Gay Pride Nation", "Elder Rojo" and "Castillo de las

Moras" are some of my favorites. But I don't have them with me. I

might send them next week if I remember.

Thanks for all the support.

Love you all!

Elder Webster

This is a picture of some graffiti. It's everywhere. I haven't taken a

whole lot of graffiti pictures, but this is pretty much how everywhere

looks.

Our lunch for the next two weeks!

Shum Shtuff

This week, I went on exchanges with one of the District Leaders in the

zone, Elder Shaeffer. In honor of this experience, I thought I'd make

a pun-reel. See if you can guess why...

At first, I was totally 'spoked' for the ex'chain'ge. I really wanted

to help 'steer' the area in the 'right' direction. One 'road'block

that I was 'tred'ing was the fact that they don't have a car. But I

was 'pumped' to join Elder Shaeffer, because he's got a good 'handle'

on things.  Our daily planning was 'wheel'y great 'bike'cause we had

so many solid plans. 'Schwinn' the actually day started, we were both

pretty 'tired' because we were 'locked' into conversation the night

before. But we kept 'pedaling' on through the day and eventually got

into 'gear'. we knew that if we decided to take a 'brake' through the

day, we would just 'kick-stand' around for a while and it would be a

total 'race'd of time.

but after we 'buckled' up and took life by the 'seat' of it's pants,

we made a great 'tandem' team.

And that's basically all I got. I hope that all made sense. :) The

exchange was actually pretty good. I just hate bike areas. haha

We found a new investigator this week! His name is Guillermo, and we

found him while he was gambling over checkers with one of our other

investigators. He's great. He asks all the best questions just like a

good investigator should. At one point, he literally asked "What steps

do I need to take to be happy in this life?" We've got high hopes for

him.

I've read this "consecration" talk about 7 times this week. It's been

a big focus within our zone, and so I've been studying that talk

inside and out. It's be Tad R Callister if anyone wants to look it

up.... BUT if you're too lazy or you just don't care enough to read

it, that's ok. The principle of consecration is dedicating all your

efforts to the Lord. Which sounds intense, but He's really not asking

too much. Especially from full time missionaries. Personally, I see no

point in serving a "Full Time" mission if you only plan on working

"Part Time". I happen to know several missionaries that seem to think

they can accomplish their goals by sliding by at the minimum... BUT it

didn't really work for me in Highschool. and it doesn't work for them

now. In order to accomplish what the Lord wants from us, we have to

work HARD and then rely on the Lord to make up the difference.

That's a very very basic description of my studies this week.

ANYWHO! Love you all. My weeks been pretty average, so not a whole ton

of new updates. Sounds like things are going well back home!

Shout out to those of you who started school this week. That's the stuff..

LOVE YOU!

Elder Webster

OAKLANDISH

Oakland is growing on me! It has potential to be my favorite area so far, even if I've only been here a couple weeks.

So one interesting "Mission Culture" thing that I've learned from my experience in the last year is that NOTHING EVER GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN. In fact, there has not been ONE SINGLE day where EVERYTHING goes EXACTLY according to the plans that we make for ourselves each day. There is always something that goes wrong, and there always will be something... whether it's people not being home when they said they'd be home, or ending up teaching a different gospel theme because you realize the one you planned isn't applicable. or not finding the house you were looking for, or showing up late, or dinner falling through, or whatever it may be. Generally, we plan on having about 6 lessons a day, but by the end of the day, regardless of what we do to help our case, we might only teach 2 or 3 lessons. sometimes none! and that's just how life is! :) It's best not to get upset or discouraged because that's how life is in the real world as well. So now, it doesn't even phase me.

BUT! This last Tuesday, July 21st, 2015. Will forever go down in the history books as the FIRST (possible only) GOLDEN DAY OF MY MISSION! For the first time in my entire mission, we had a whole entire day filled with appointments and errands to do, and not a single one of them fell through. It.... felt.... nice. :) What a blessing.

At the end of the day, it's less important to have "OUR" plans go through than it is to have "God's plan" go though. It's definitely more important to follow the spirit and help God finish the things in his daily planner... but for the first time, we both seemed to write the same things in our planners! So that was exciting!

In other news, Elder Castleberry and I led our first Zone Training this week and we were asked to teach "The Basics" of teaching. SO! We ended up preparing a training of how to teach the Restoration while explaining each key point in EXTREME clarity. And it went very well! :) Our zone covers the Assistants to the President, and they told us it was a pretty solid training, so that was good to hear. :)

Also, we led Porque Yo Creo yesterday, and I was in charge of translating, and there was this one guy that spoke for like 20 minutes straight about the most complicated story of all time involving bone marrow transplants and becoming inspired by amputees on city busses, and basically, was a VERY hard talk to translate at full speed. I was just sitting in the corner with my little headset and gunna be honest, I sort of had to make up a big chunk of it... haha but other than that, it was pretty good. :)

We're going to start doing some pretty "unheard of things" within the zone in the hopes of helping people be more diligent and enthused. So this week, we are planning on visiting some of the zone members and joining them in their companionship studies. Just to observe how everything is going and see where the strengths and weaknesses are. And we plan on going to a few more district meetings this week. We're excited. There is a lot to be done. We're gonna turn this zone around, yo.

That's pretty much it for this week!

Shout out to Devon for leaving on his mission this week!!

Shout out to Jace for getting his adult life started this week.

Shout out to Preston because he's a total homie, but now it's going to take longer to get letters from him!

And shout out to Gharrett for dominating the sport of soccer.

Love you all!!!

That's me in back.

This is Pioneer Day with Elder Castleberry

This is a zone activity. We hiked up behind the temple. BEAUTIFUL!

Land of the Oaks

So I've officially finished my first week in Oakland! Every one talks about how ghetto it is and how scary it is here, but I've had a pretty pleasant week. :) In my opinion, San Francisco is 10 times nastier in every way. But Oakland has potential to be one of my new favorite areas!

I've had to do A TON of administrative stuff this week, which has made our schedule totally unpredictable. Last night we were up at the mission home till almost midnight with the Assistants because we had to record everyone's key indicators into excel files.. Staying out past 9:30 is basically un-heard-of in our mission. But apparently it's pretty normal for Zone Leaders. Who knew...? The whole week has been full of stuff like that. We had to go to the DMV one day because some of our elders asked us to escort them, and we had to lug around some of our sisters' bikes because their area got converted to car, and we were just constantly running errands for people all week long. It didn't feel like it, but at the end of the week, we realized that through all of the admin stuff, we actually had quite a lot of teaching appointments! Our area is looking great! We just need to work a lot more on our investigators... When I got to the area, I found out very quickly that nobody had updated our area book in like 2 months... SOoooooooo. I don't really know anything about our investigators... :(

This ward also asks missionaries to "live translate" all of our sacrament meetings, so this week, I sat in the front with this microphone set-up and I translated the whole sacrament meeting into English for those who would rather listen to it in a rough English translation. It was so hard actually! But it's a weekly thing, so I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

Elder Castleberry is still one of my favorite comps, so everything's going pretty well with us. Even though I'm bitter about our area book. haha jk. But seriously, all is good in the hood.

Love you all!

Thanks for the emails!

Last moments with Elder Wride in our BRAND NEW MISSION SHIRTS!

I've NEVER been able to solve this puzzle... And I try fairly often. And Elder Castleberry solved it within the first 5 minutes of the transfer... grrrr. (this is the one you sent me for Christmas)

This is one of my favorite songs. Props if you can read it.

This is my favorite Licence plate. :) props if you can read it.