Last Email

Pretty good week.

See you Wednesday

Love, Elder Webster 😬

Cecilia and Felipe

Golden Gate Bridge

Melara Family

T Minus 9 Days

Hey family. I'm about to go to Golden Gate Bridge. Not to brag or anything....

But I don't have much time for emailing today unfortunately.

Big stuff:

My 2 year mark was last week. I've officially been a missionary for 2 years and 2 days.

Our President challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days as a mission. Sooo... I've started to read the book of mormon while focusing on Christlike attributes. I'm on day 4 right now.

Veronica Zepeda (a less active lady) was debating switching churches one day in the passed week, and even though we've met her a couple times with little progress... we felt inspired to visit her one day. THE SAME day. and she accepted our visit as an answer that she should come back to church. and she did! :) it was awesome.

Any ways

Yep, I miss you all! -especially the family! :) Super excited to see you in a couple weeks!!!! I promise I will try not to be weird. haha

I've Got Like Zero Time To Write This

This last weekend was the GAY PRIDE PARADE! So.. serving in downtown San Francisco as a mormon missionary was a little hectic. I saw more body parts than I would have liked to. President just told us to stay inside as much as we could, but we had so many appointments, we were still basically outside all day.

I baptized somebody on Saturday! It was super last second. He wasn't one of our investigators or anything, but I was asked to give his baptismal interview on Thursday and we just sorta hit it off together. We went to his baptism on Saturday and the person that WAS going to baptism him couldn't make it, so he asked me to do it instead! :)

On Wednesday, I'm pretty sure we walked a total of about 15-20 miles. I've been super sun burnt all week long.

I went to my LAST Porque Yo Creo on Sunday and they asked all the departing missionaries to bear their testimonies, so I got up and bore my testimony on the fly. And a couple of my converts spoke as well! They just told their conversion stories. It was Yera (from Oakland) and Felipe (From San Francisco).

Love you all! See you in a few weeks, sorry for the short email, but I'll tell you more when I get home. haha

PEACE! <3 o:p="">

Elder Broman fighting against bedbugs.

Remember when I had bed bugs back in the day? hahaha too bad.

My President Letter

Some of you will think this story is cooler than others of you based on how familiar you are with missionary culture... Here's a copy of the letter I just wrote to my President:

We have this investigator that has been taught all of the lessons, and has been to church consistently for a few months. Her 13 year old son just got baptized a couple weeks ago, but she has declined each baptismal commitment we've left with her.

This upcoming Saturday, the Sisters in our ward are having a baptism for one of their investigators.

Last Friday, during our weekly planning session, Elder Broman and I looked at her situation and decided to set the faithful goal of 1 baptism this next week. If we could somehow get this investigator to commit to baptism, we could do a joint baptism with the other sisters on the same day. We texted her on Saturday and said "In preparation for our lesson tomorrow (Sunday), we would like for you to read from the book of mormon and pay attention to how it makes you feel. Please pray about it and ask Heavenly Father if it is true. We will see you tomorrow!"

Elder Broman and I decided to have a companionship fast in preparation for our lesson for us to be in tune with the spirit as we challenge her to be baptized the following weekend.

I have never felt the spirit so consistently. Typically in my mission, I have truly felt the spirit for a few minutes at a time a couple times a day. But the moment we set those plans in motion, I felt the spirit. I felt it all weekend long. Most strongly during our lesson on Sunday afternoon.

She was in tears. Her brother was in tears. It was a powerful lesson.

And no, she didn't accept the date. But I now have a very strong testimony of how setting faithful goals that make us stretch will help us to work more effectively and more by the spirit.

Elder Runco (One of my best mission friends) came back to visit the mission last week and we ran into him at Betty's house!

Me and my district hanging out at Pier 39 last pday

Bus Surfing

Elder Broman and I decided to try out a finding idea that I'm pretty sure is crazy. But it worked out great, and was a lot of fun! Usually, the biggest downside to working in San Francisco is the travel time. On bus, sometimes it can take an hour and a half to get to some appointments... BUT, this week, we set aside two hours JUST to travel. We had NO destination in mind.

we just Jumped on a bus, sat by two different people, and started to teach them whatever we could. When they got off the bus, or it was clear they weren't interested, we would get off the bus and get on the next one! It was super fun, almost like a game. AND we got like 3 or 4 new potentials out of it, including an 18 year old Columbian that Elder Broman found. He's looking pretty promising. We'll probably keep doing that for a while.

Also, Felipe got Confirmed a member of the church yesterday! The Young Men's President confirmed him, and it was super powerful.

We challenged him mom to be baptized, and she said she would be too scared to change from what she grew up with (Catholicism). which is totally natural. Her brother converted to the church a few years ago, and he talked about how hard it was for him to make the change as well. Actually, he was kicked out of him home when his parents found out he had been taking discussions. He prayed and asked to know what the right path for him was and he received a clear answer that the LDS church was the route he should take and that the Lord would provide a way for all those that follow Him. IT. WAS. AWESOME. He is such a great support for her. We think she'll be baptized once she prays about it sincerely. We're not rushing her, it's gotta come from the heart for it to have any impact on her, but we think she'll be baptized in the next month or so. Pray for her! #CeciliaCruz

YUP. Love you all.

ps. I found out there are a lot of members in my mission that read my blog. haha shout out to you!

Thanks for everything!

Elder Webster

List of Miracles

This week was great! Here are a couple cool miracles this week:

1. We had a second appointment with a new investigator, Jorge, and we had challenged him to read the Restoration Pamphlet. When we went back this last Saturday, he told us that he's been in an overly happy mood all week long, and it has something to do with us. He said he read the whole pamphlet (even though we only challenged him to read 2 pages) because he liked the feeling it gave him. We explained that he was beginning to recognize the Holy Ghost, and explained that the Holy Ghost helps us find spiritual truth. He opened up his pamphlet and had answered all of the "Additional Study" questions in the back of the pamphlet, and asked if we could give him the Book of Mormon. He said if a small pamphlet could help him feel like spirit so strong, he wants to read the Book of Mormon.

He's totally in the House of Israel. (That's not funny to anyone but me... sorry.)

2. We were waiting for a bus, and when it came, it was just us and the bus driver. He turned around and asked us what we can do to fix a broken heart. He had been through a lot of rough life changes lately. His Girlfriend cheated on him, he has health problems, his family is falling apart... etc. He told us it was no coincidence that we showed up on his bus at that time. We said we wouldn't be able to teach him on the bus, but we know how to help with a broken heart, and that if he would give us some contact information, we would send missionaries to his house to teach him. He said he had been praying for some sort of sign, and we were the answer.

(background information, we only got on that bus because Elder Broman and I felt prompted to visit a member that brought us close to his bus route. We had no reason to visit that member, but both decided to check up on him for whatever reason. Traveling to his house brought us to that bus driver. We were way far from where we had planned to go... But that's where we were needed.)

3. We had a baptism yesterday! It was the first baptism in this area for 3 years. We have two more coming up this month. The rest of our mission calls San Francisco "Sodom and Gomorrah" because it's know for being ridiculous, but we've seen nothing but miracles for weeks.

Love you all

Betty's cute puppy!

This Week

Temple day was splendid this week. I took my study topic to the temple and ended up with more questions than I had at the beginning, but I did have a lot of cool things stand out to me that I didn't know before! :)

The Cruz family came to church again, and then drove all the way up to Oakland with us to go to the Visitors center and watch Porque Yo Creo, at which one of my converts and Oakland was asked to bare testimony. So we got to see the Carrada's family share the stories of how they got baptized and what there testimonies are. WHICH WAS INCREDIBLE! Their lives have completely changed from the time they got baptized till now. People claim that happens, and I think we typically just write it off as not a big deal, but I was there every step of the way with the Carrada family, and I saw them pre-baptism, mid-baptism, and post-gift of the holy ghost, and there is actually quite a big difference. They were just a normal family filled with bickering and disagreements and disunity, but now, they are always smiling and seem to be happier with and around each other. Must be one of those "had-to-be-there" things, but for me personally, I now have a strong testimony of the gift of the holy ghost and the fact that living the gospel blesses families.

In Other news, this is the last week of this transfer, so if I get a new companion I'll know by next week. so... I'll keep you posted.

That's pretty much all the stuffs for this time.

Not too eventful this week, lots of meetings within the mission. We're putting a big focus on member work.

in other other news, rule change says that we're aloud to wear sunglasses now. (about time) just kidding :) but seriously.

So, a few months ago, Elder Struve and I put a big focus on finding FAMILIES. We works with the Primary, we visited formers that had children listed, we tracted in areas that would hold families, we've been praying for families, and I might have mentioned this already, but I'm really happy to report that our teaching pool is now full of families. :)

One family in particular has not only "agreed" to baptism, but has "COMMITTED" to baptism. They've been studying on their own, praying to be ready by their date, asking great questions, and this last week they even came to Stake conference at 9am in an unfamiliar chapel. and LOVED it.

The odd part is that this was clearly an answer to our prayers... But didn't come from any of our actions. They just showed up out of nowhere pre-prepared. This was a testimony to me that this is the Lord's work, not our work. It is THEIR time to BE BAPTIZED. Not OUR time to GET A BAPTISM.

A little picture I drew on my window in front of my study desk.

Elder Webster logo

Innkeepers

Hey everyone! So in response to all the emails I got about coming home soon: A lot of you asked if it's hard for me to focus, or if I'm looking forward to coming home. ---Nope. It barely even pops into my mind throughout the week. But thanks for reminding me.

In other news, I'm going to the temple tomorrow and Elder Struve and I decided to make it as special as we could. It's been in our prayers/fasts for a few weeks now, and we each picked progressive studies we've been working on for a few weeks in preparation, we did some family history last week to find some family names, and I'm super excited. Elder Struve's been focusing a lot on the Creation (way more in depth than I've EVER gone into it. Example: What did God do on the 7th day of rest?) And I've been focusing a lot on the role of the Devil and the need for opposition. My studies are going AWESOME, and I'm excited to finish them up tomorrow in the temple.

In other other news, we're going to baptize a family in 2 weeks. I know I say that a lot, and then we have to drop a lot of dates, so you never see pictures, but mark your calendars this time. Cecelia and Felipe Cruz are a mother and son, and they are probably one of the most sold investigators I've had in terms of faithfulness. They're right up there with the Carrada family from Oakland. Props if you remember who that is... The Cruz family takes an hour long bus ride to the chapel every week and prays about the day they can be baptized, they're willing to turn to the book of Mormon to find answers to their questions and then pray to know the truth of what they find. Most members don't even do that. Their awesome.

We just got a new bishop assigned yesterday. His name is Bishop Kitchen. I haven't really met him yet, but Elder Stuve and I are going to go over and have a Pupusa party with him and his family tonight.

Side note: one of the 70 came to our stake conference yesterday and challenged us to be "Luke Chapter 10 Innkeepers" as opposed to "Luke Chapter 2 Innkeepers". Extra points if you can find out why one is better than the other.

Love you all! :) See you in like 2 months ish!

-

Elder Webster

President Frandsen Knows Betty!

This week was good.

Got to talk to my family yesterday. That was cool.

They heard a lot of the updates already, and I don't really have a ton of stuff to say this week anyway, BUT Here's a kinda cool story:

On Friday night, President Frandsen (Our Mission President) called us and asked us if we had any dinner plans for Saturday night. He was planning on going to a baptism in our district that night, and since we don't have a car, he offered to take us out to eat and give us a ride to the baptism afterwards. :)

We already had a dinner scheduled with Betty (A super loud/funny member of our ward), BUT she's a single woman, and we aren't aloud to eat alone with women unless there is a third male present, SO we decided to invite President Frandsen to her house and eat dinner with us there! :)

One does not simply dine with the President at Betty's house. It was legendary.

Other than that, things are going just dandy. Elder Struve finished his "training period" of 12 weeks last week, so now we're just normal companions. so that's cool.

Love you all!

Que Grandioso es su Llamamiento!

Such a good week. We found 6 new investigators this week! Most of them are new families, and we were able to set dates with a couple of them. They look pretty good so far.

Here is something exciting that only Return Missionaries will appreciate:

Elder Struve and I invented a 2 minute lesson plan about the Book of Mormon (menant to be used in tracting) that is informative, interesting, engaging, answers popular misconceptions d only takes 2 minutes! It's worked wonders for us in our area.

If you have a blue Book of Mormon with you, this will make more sense..

1. Offer to teach a 2 minute summary of the Book of Mormon

2. State the 8th Article of faith (We believe the Bible to be the word of God, we also believe in the Book of Mormon.)

3. Read with them the (full) title of the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Ask "What does 'another testament of Jesus Christ' mean?" (check for testimony)

4. Turn to first Picture of Jesus Christ. Testify that it will help us follow Jesus Christ

5. Turn to Picture of Lehi/family. Explain that the Book of Mormon is a record of Prophets in the American Continent in the same time period as the Bible.

6. Turn to Picture of Joseph Smith. Explain that it was translated to English by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the 1800s.

7. Turn to Christ in the Americas. Explain that the resurrected Jesus Christ visited the American Continent to teach the Gospel.

8. Offer a Book of Mormon pass-along card. Set a return appointment to explain in further detail the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Gold I tell ya.

Anyways, all is well in the hood. We just went shopping at Costco with one of our members... So I can't complain. :)

This is Kind of a weird request, but I've been doing this comprehensive study for the last few days about Satan in preparation for my next temple trip in a couple of weeks. and it's been super interesting! If any of you have any insights about Satan, let me know! haha

Fun Fact: Lucifer (satan's name before the rebellion) only appears one time in the entire Bible. Lucifer was one of the spirits in Authority in the Premortal realm. He didn't take on the role of the Devil until he opposed God's plan. Up to that point, he was just Lucifer... Our spirit Brother.

Deep Doctrine, but interesting huh? Let me know if you have any cool facts about Satan!

Love you all!

Primary Missionary Initiative

Check this out,

So a while ago, we had the idea to hold a "Bring Your Friend to Church" day.

We went into the Primary and I told the story of Derek Funkes and how Jace helped him be introduced to the church and now he's not only baptized, but on a mission! We challenged them to think of friends that they can invite to church and we would bring them and their friends candy if they come. Yesterday was that day, and we were amazed at how much of a success it was! Our goal is to teach families, and every kid is part of a family, so we thought if we can get more kids to church, we can teach more families! It worked like a charm. We're hoping to add a few of them as investigators in the next couple weeks.

In other news, this weekend we had a "Mini-Missionary" with us! He stayed with us from Friday night till Sunday night. Basically just spent the weekend as a missionary. He's 13 years old, he lives in the Tongan Stake of San Mateo, and he's awesome! He helped us tract, taught a couple lessons with us, studied and worked like a missionary and was even willing to eat ramen and macaroni for like 3 days straight. He liked it a lot.

^^as a "Thank-You" his mom gave us these homemade Tongan Leis when we met her Sunday night. She had tears in her eyes and was super grateful for us. It was all very heart warming. I felt really close to the kid! I got his address and phone number, and I'd be happy to keep in touch with them. :) Heres some pics.

Other than that, it was a pretty standard week. Things are going great. We're preparing a lady for baptism in the next few weeks. If everything goes well, she'll be baptized on May 29th. *Sonia

Love you all!

Mini Missionary

Tongan Lei

I'm Running Out of Clever Things to Put in the Subject Line

I just realized that the majority of my recent emails have been cool insights and spiritual thoughts, that I haven't given you much of an update on how things have been here lately. haha

SO! Here are some general updates about my mission:

1. The last three months, all of our mission-wide trainings have been focused on teaching effectively from the pamphlets. We just dedicated a whole month on learning to teach the Restoration, Plan of Salvation and Gospel of Jesus Christ from the pamphlets. That's been a big focus.

2. We have never tracted in my mission. It's just not something we do! But in the last few months (along with the pamphlet focus) We were all trained on how to tract! So we go tracting a lot now. I actually think it's pretty fun.

3. Elder Struve is the most obedient companion I've ever had. :) I'm so happy he's my trainee. He's just super willing to take correction and wants nothing more than to be consecrated. :) We've had a great couple of transfers together.

4. They're changing the amount of time that english speakers spend in the MTC, and as a result, the last couple transfers have been unusual. typically, each transfer is 6 weeks long, but we just had a 7-week transfer and a 3-week transfer back to back. From here on out, it should be all back to normal.

Sooo... I guess you're up to date on all the big stuff now.

in other news:

TRANSFER CALLS CAME IN!

I'm spending a third transfer with Elder Struve! :) Usually, you're only with your trainee for 12 weeks, but since the last 2 transfers have been weird, we've only been together 10 weeks, so we'll probably spend one more together and then get separated. Just a prediction. I wouldn't mind just having him forever, it's been smooth sailing. We are planning on spending the next 6 weeks together at least, but then I'll be in my final transfer after that, so who knows what'll happen.

This week in our area was a little rougher. From Monday to Wednesday we had 9 set appointments scheduled, but EIGHT of them didn't answer the door. That's pretty common, but not to that extent. When that happens in our area, it's like the end of the world because traveling takes hours because we ride the bus everywhere... So we did a lot of travels. BUT! We did see this miracle where a stranger offered us pizza in the street, and we declined but kept talking to him. We ended up getting an address and he agreed to let us share a message with him the following day. We show up and he and his wife invited us in for DINNER! :) We ate with these 2 super nice new investigators and invited them to attend a baptism the following day and happily agreed to spend 45 minutes on the bus in order to attend a baptism at an unfamiliar church for a person they've never met. THEY'RE AWESOME. We're seeing them tonight.

Pictures are my favorite thing to get in emails, but I didn't get any this week. :( Even though my dear sister had a dance recital. Hmmph 😒 There is still time to repent! :)

Love you all!

Grrrrreat!

Sometimes I feel like Tony the Tiger, because every week I always just say this week was Grrrrrrreat!

But yup, another great week this week:

I was doing a study about being Consecrated this week and I read a part of a talk that said that we must give up our own personal desires and do what the Lord would have you do.

Previously I had interpreted that as: "We must give up our unrighteous desires and follow the Lord."

Which is good! as a missionary, we do give up our desires to see movies, and sleep in, and swim, and hang out, and we choose to do missionary work instead! That is a great start. BUT that does not mean you are consecrated.

To be Consecrated, we must not only give up our unrighteous desires, but ALL of our desires. Even our Righteous ones. (Let me explain...)

So, Lehi, in the Book of Mormon is a good example of this.

He was commanded to leave the wicked Jerusalem and travel with his family to uncharted territory.

What if he had decided to stay there in Jerusalem and just invite the people to repentance instead? That would be a very righteous desire... BUT it was NOT the will of God. For him to be truly consecrated to the Lord, he would need to obey the commandments and the promptings of the spirit regardless of his own desires.

That can be applied to a lot of different things. Think about that if you'd like.

Also, good news! Remember Yera? The girl I baptized in Oakland? Well... She has family here in San Francisco, and she just gave us a referral the other day, and now were teaching her cousins!! A family of 5! :) We've been looking for families for the longest time, and though we didn't find one from our own schemes, I think the Lord has seen our efforts and decided it was time to lead us to this new family.

Our area is really picking up!

Love you all!

This is my current district. Elder Wride=District Leader... Sorrry, My comp got cut out of the picture... :/

A member gave me this sweet jacket this week. #best members.

Josafat (bottom) and Brother Bonilla (top)

They're some of my favorite members

I Love Conference :')

Up to this point in my life, this has been my all-time favorite General Conference. Like, I had trouble sleeping on Friday night because I was so excited for conference. And I spend like 3 hours last week studying ways to receive inspiration in preparation for this General Conference. I blocked off 5 pages in my study journal (one page for each session+priesthood) so that it would give my notes a little bit of order, but I ended up taking up 14 pages by the end of it all. Seriously, so good.

Here are a couple of my favorite parts:

1. Did anyone notice how quickly Elder Holland brought the spirit by expressing his love for us? Simply telling us how much he cares about us helped me feel the spirit quicker and stronger than any other talk.

2. Elder Uchtdorf taught in the Priesthood session about "Search and Ye Shall Find" as it applies to marriage. If you are constantly looking for negative qualities, that's what you will find. On the converse, as we look for the good in others, those are the attributes that will be most prominent in our spouse. Search, and Ye Shall Find

3. Jesus Christ was the perfect example of "Leader" AND "Follower". I personally have had many opportunities to both lead AND follow in my mission. It's always good to work on your leadership skills, but it's equally important to be a good follower. As we follow the example of Jesus Christ, we can improve in both.

4. The General Relief Society President taught about the difference between knowing something, and believing it. I thought about how many times I've recited the first vision. I KNOW the first vision. I've studied it. I know where to find it in the restoration pamphlet, and in Joseph Smith History, I can say it word for word in 2 languages. I can use it in context. I KNOW it! But knowing it is not enough. For it to have any lasting effect, I must also believe it. And the way to believe it is through prayer, and by gaining a personal testimony through the Holy Ghost. **along similar lines, the spirit testifies of TRUTH. If you were to stand up at the pulpit and state that you know the Book of Mormon is true, you better believe it. other wise, the spirit will not bare witness of that statement. There is no use baring testimony of something you haven't received a witness for.

5. My future wife will stay late to pick up chairs after general conference without a direct invitation.

6. I like the idea of a family council. It made me think of all of the effective councils I've been a part of in my mission, and how simple they are to throw together, but how much it helps us as missionaries be unified and feel the spirit. I can't imagine the applications it can have on a family.

7. Language is best learned in immersion programs. From experience, I know that the more time you spend speaking and listening to Spanish, the easier it is to pick up on the complicated grammar patterns and less frequently used words. You just become more familiar with how the language works. In Conference, they taught us that recognizing the spirit works the same way, and if we could turn our home into an immersion program to help children know how to understand the spirit by helping them feel it more often around the house, they would be more apt to making good choices as they move out. (Side note, missions are kind of like a spiritual immersion in a sense, and I know a lot more about following spiritual promptings based on my mission experiences.)

I don't have my study journal with me today, but these are a few of the big ones that called my attention. I'd be happy to hear some of your insights!

Love you all (sincerely!)

Easter

This week was Easter, and my bishop gave us each a cute little Easter basket filled with chocolates and fake grass. which led to him saying "What's Easter without Grass?" which was the header of that first email.

We went to Porque yo Creo yesterday and we had one of our members bare testimony at it, which was great. He did a great job, and his conversion story involves gangs and drugs and now hes an awesome member that comes out to lessons with us all the time. It was a good story.

Sad news is that a lot of the mothers we found a couple weeks ago are now Formers. We dropped a few of them this week because they weren't that interested, but we are still holding on to Sonia Rivas! :) We have high hopes for her.

I had exchanges this week with Elder Wride, my former companion, and that was awesome to see how much we've both changed. It was great to catch up with him and I was happy to work with him. We taught two whole lessons with people just by talking to them in the streets. Good stuff.

Yeah, so this week really wasn't all that exciting. haha Like, my happiness level is still pretty high, but I can't think of much going on. I'm still a missionary, I'm still walking around spreading the gospel, and it's still good times.

Here are some pictures, because pictures=1000 words.

This is our district! :) Elder Wride, Elder Galaz, Elder Struve, ME, Sister Myers, Sister Gogarty, Sister Abernethy, Sister Vargas

This is the extent of my cooking. Some days I feel like making a BBQ chicken meal with my companion, and some days I throw macaroni and raman into the same pot and call it a meal.

Today's District activity.

"WHY Would You LIQUEFY Rice?"

I'm not sure how much I've told you about this, but Elder Struve and I have been on the search for a FAMILY to baptize. We have this thing going for us when people keep allowing us to come back, but not keeping any commitments.. and we have people that agree to be baptized, but then don't make much effort to come to church or pray. SO! We've been dropping a ton of our investigators. :)

When you drop people, it's kind of a big leap of faith, because it means you temporarily won't have anyone to teach, which makes it feel like days are much longer and harder, and your numbers don't look very good, and it makes you struggle for a few days or so... BUT you do it all in the faith that in that free time, you can spend more time finding someone who is even more prepared, and then you get to work finding new people!

Like I said, Elder Struve and I have been really searching for a family. Not any specific family, just a family in general that would be interested and blessed by the Gospel.

We've worked with the Primary President to see if we can get a "Bring Your Friend to Church Day" going. We've looked through our old records to find families who USED to take lessons. We've changed the way we ask people for referrals so that it's all geared toward making them think of families and children. We're making a mix-tape of cool hymn arrangements for all the young men to get them thinking about missions. And we've been praying an awful lot for opportunities to run into Spanish families.

This week, it worked. :)

This has never happened before for me, but in one single week, we found THREE entire families. One of whom has a very solid member friend and a history of coming to church! The other two have very little church involvement, but were happy to hear more about our message.

miracles eh?

We've been staying pretty busy and trying to be creative in our finding, and it seems to be paying off super well. But of course, we don't get to decide who's prepared and who's not. That was all thanks to the Lord. :)

Now, for This week's "Had to Be There" moment:

The quote in the caption of this email comes from something Elder Struve said after a meal appointment that about made me die. We had just eaten Horchatta and Arroz con Leche, which are both Rice-based foods. (Arroz con Leche is essentially Mexican Rice-Pudding, and Horchatta is like Chocolate milk, but instead of chocolate, it's made with rice and cinnamon) Elder Struve didn't finish his food. He barely touched it. The member asked him if he liked it and he insisted that it was delicious, he just didn't feel well... After we left the appointment he told me it was the hardest meal he's ever eaten. I've seen him eat rice before without a problem so I was a little confused why he had such a hard time with these specific foods... This was our conversation:

Me- "I didn't know you didn't like Rice!"

Him- "I love rice"

Me- "But you don't like Horchatta?"

Him- "no"

Me- "Or Arroz con Leche?"

Him- "....WHY would you LIQUEFY RICE?!!!"

hahahahah classic Elder Struve

So. Love you all! :)

BYE!

♫And the Rain Came Down and the Floods Came Up♫

I've had to wear a different pair of shoes like every day because they keep getting soaking wet and have needed to sit out and dry pretty much every day. It's just been SUPER rainy this past week. I guess we're in the middle of a big storm called "El Niño", so its been storming all week. But the work must go on! :)

My umbrella broke, so I cut it up and did some sewing, and made myself a water proof bag-case during a couple of my lunch hours, so now I'm well-equipped.

We saw some good things happen though! We had set up a lesson with a less active member right after our Zone Conference and were originally going to teach about the Sacrament, but on the way over we decided to change our plan to the Plan of Salvation based on the training we got. We met him at our meeting spot and then were going to walk to a park to teach him, but he asked if he could make a quick stop...

On the way to the park we stopped to go pick up a friend of his that he had invited to the lesson. (A non-member friend). She just so happens to have had 3 or 4 family deaths in the last couple years and has literally been searching for all of the answers that the Plan of Salvation teaches.

We had one of the most powerful Plan of Salvation lessons I've had so far with Elder Struve. She accepted it very well. We invited her to be baptized and she said she's hesitant because she doesn't want to make a snap-decision out of nowhere. But she committed to read the pamphlet and pray about it. We've got high hopes. :) Her name is Daniela.

We had exchanges this week as well! I went with Elder Galaz. He's from Mexico/Colorado, and he's been out about 4 months. He's good. He set the example for me to talk to everyone once again. He's just got no fear. Sometimes it's hard here in San Francisco just because there are a billion people, so you literally can't talk to everyone, but he has no fear and just goes for it. :) We had a lot of fun doing it!

That's pretty much it for the week. Things with Elder Struve are going great. Thanks for the letters (Grandma and Grandpa) and I'm pretty sure my parents said they sent something, but I haven't seen it yet. It might be sitting in the mission home. haha Thanks for everything.

Fun fact. to type an " ñ " you need to push "alt 164". it took me 164 tries to find that combination of numbers... but I finally found it. These are some of my failed attempts....

♀ïêCN▼▲++6▼ªlL‼@A▼aA0◙♂○♀☼◄☺-- ╫╪╓┌┘█◘"%¡τ£ÄæÆôîìÄïï5~Ä╘τ§█┌╪┘∞#╚{à.→╜f£~{↕Y↕╚♀. @╜[b4☼¥♀♫☼‼ùùÿ☼3ÜÖ£Üùû¥₧ƒ£τ◘○♀◙☼♠o↓Aïwsrts☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙♂♀♪♫☼►◄↕‼¶§▬↨↑↓→←∟↔▲▼" !#$%&'()*+,-./0123456879:;<=>@ ABCDEFOPZ[\]^_`abcdstxwyz{|}~⌂ÇüéâäàåçêëèïîìÄÅÉæÆôöòûùÿÖÜ£¢¥₧ƒáíóúñ

Love you!

Elder Webster

Basically Just a Big Spiritual Thought

This week was awesome! Yesterday, we literally walked up hill for a mile in the dark, in the rain, in our suits, without an umbrella just to contact a referral that wasn't home! I felt like a real missionary! :)

I had the best study about Agency the other day!

"Reinforcement" is a psychological term that means:

If you choose to do something, and receive a positive outcome, you are reinforced to choose that thing again.

(for example: if you choose to study for a test, and get a good grade, you are more likely to study in the future because you enjoyed the outcome)

Alternatively, if you choose to do something and get a negative outcome, you are less likely to do that again.

God's Plan for our Salvation involves the freedom to make our own choices. (Good and Bad)

Essentially, whether we choose good or bad, we should ALWAYS learn SOMETHING. It should teach us whether we want to make that choice again based on the outcomes we see from it.

In essence, the more choices you make, the more you will learn.

Satan has always sought to destroy our agency. He doesn't just want us to choose poorly. He wants us to not choose at all!

His plan for our salvation was for us to just be idle. Not making any choices! We literally wouldn't learn anything because we can't learn from our mistakes OR successes.... which would never have worked.

That's why he wants us to sleep in through studies... more time sleeping and less time choosing. That's why he wants us to drink alcohol. If we're addicted, the choice is made for us... That's why he wants us to watch TV all day. More time zoning out and less time CHOOSING!

I hope to apply this principle more frequently with Elder Struve. I fear sometimes that I make too many of the choices for the both of us. I've been making an effort this last week to let him make more of the important decisions and then to analyze the results with him to decided if it would be worth repeating. It seems to be really helping him so far, and I'm going to continue with that strategy. Thanks Doctrine and Covenants!!

Fin.

Besides all of that, we had a great week! Tons of blessings. We still haven't done our street performing yet. We're working with the members of the ward to see if we can do a "joint effort" thing. Recently we've decided to fast and pray for finding a family, and one thing we are going to do is organize a "Primary Missionary Initiative". We figure... Primary kids have friends, and those friends are part of families. So if we can get those families to come to church, we've found a family! We've already spoken to the Primary President and we're working out the details right now. But I'll keep you posted.

Sorry this is so long, it was one of those studies that really affected me, so I was excited about it.

Love Elder Webster

When In Rome

So, this week went really well!

We found TWO new investigators in one week, and we got to teach a lot more! which always makes you feel like your doing something useful. :)

Elder Struve and I have been brainstorming ways to find new people. I didn't realize this when I was being trained here, but San Francisco is nothing like any of my other areas. It's busy. Lots of foot traffic. And people don't really like stopping to talk to you out of a whim. Most of the people we can have full conversations with are people waiting for the bus or people we sit next to on the subway.  But it hasn't really been working out for us.

Elder Struve and I were brainstorming the other day of ways we can increase our finding, and we thought of a couple new things we're going to try:

Street Performing!  We both play guitar, and our singing isn't too bad, so in the next couple weeks or so, we're going to ask around the ward to see if we can borrow some guitars, set up a table downtown somewhere and just play some hymns and pass out some pamphlets! :)

We'll probably try to get some other missionaries involved too so that as we're playing, they can be talking to people and getting addresses and phone numbers.

No Idea if it's a good idea or not. We haven't tried it.

We're also going to work through Taquerias! (that means Mexican restaurants) We already tried this this last week and it worked really well for us. Basically we're going to go into a few different Spanish restaurants and ask if we can put our pamphlets on display with a "Free" sign by it. We did it this last week and all of the pamphlets were gone by the end of the week. :) So this time we're going to put our phone number and the church address, so hopefully it will turn into some new investigators!

We figured we had to adapt our typical finding techniques to more of a "city" method, and so far, it seems to be working. When in Rome, right?

Any ways, like I said, last week was great. We added a new baptismal date, so if you can include Juan Cortez to the list of names you are thinking about. That'd be good. He needs some help quitting drugs, but we made a nice little plan with him. I'll keep you posted.

This email gave you like... no real updates. haha I just realized that. That's why I threw in the thing about Juan. Woops

Just know that I'm doing great and that my feet are kinda tired. But that's normal now... :) Love you all!

Drats!

What a week. My feet are so exhausted. Lots of walking. I kinda forgot what it was like to not have a car... but we had an alright week.

This was one of those weeks where we felt like worked hard and took preparations and did our best, but things didn't work out. Which is ok! One of the big life lessons I've learned here is that if you do everything on your part, you don't need to beat yourself up for other people's agency. :) So Although we had a lot of lessons fall through, and not too much luck tracting, we feel like we had a pretty good week.

Why? We had a different member come out with us almost every day, we practiced our lesson plans super well during our studies, we arrived on time to the appointment we had set, so kept in contact with our leaders, and we relied on the Lord to help us.

And yeah, this week, we didn't see too much progress with investigators, and we didn't find anyone new to teach. But Elder Struve and I are SET for the next time we are blessed with an investigator to teach. :)

Little update, we had to drop Raul Arteaga (our baptismal date) as an investigator. He's interested, but his "wife" isn't willing to marry him, and he's not willing to move out of the house. So until he makes some sort of change, he won't be able to be baptized.. Ana looks good for it though so far...? the only thing keeping her is her church attendance. She's doing everything right, but if she doesn't get work off on Sundays, we'll have to push back her date. We're aware of that and working with her pretty close to motivate her to do it. :)

Elder Struve is doing great. He's pretty timid and quiet, but he's got the doctrine DOWN!

I wrote a song about him this week! Some of you might be able to understand this....

En la calle yo anduve.

un bonito dia fue.

un cierto Elder Struve

es lo que encontre.

Pense que fue un arbol

o un nopal de gran altura.

Me di cuenta que fue el,

me mando a mi sepultura.

Cuan largos son sus brazos?

Son dedos o serpientes?

y que peculiar

que el no muestra sus dientes...

su voz es algo suave

como si fuera un flor.

Cuando hable, el convence

a los a su alrededor.

Aunque me da miedo

estar en su proximidad,

es dificil no amarlo

porque yo soy his dad.

If you Google translate that, it's not going to rhyme or be nearly as clever... so... sorry if you don't understand Spanish...

Love you all! Thanks for the emails and the support! (and the valentines day stuff!) 😁

Latin Blood (this is out of order - written January 11)

Something must be happening in the world of Latinos.

I swear, our investigators are unstoppable. Last week I was all excited because EIGHT of them came to church. Man... I was so young back then. I didn't know anything about church attendance.. This week, we saw NINE investigators at church. That's what I'm talking about!

Ok. Obviously, I'm just being dramatic. But I didn't even know what to do with myself on Sunday. I'm so happy that the ward recognized them and gave them a big welcome. There was no way I was going to be able to talk to all the investigators there yesterday, especially because there were men, women, boys, girls, and teens. They all left to split up into there classes and then it was all up to the ward.

In other news, in this last week, we went to MLC, and a lot of it was focused on doing creative things that aren't necessarily "Normal" or "Common" as long as it's for somebody's benefit. (Specifically talking about callings in the church.

With that in mind^^ we have a companionship that pretty consistently complains about their assigned ward.. So we decided to break the mold to fix the problem. We planned to do an exchange on a SUNDAY! Which basically never happens... But it gave Elder Wallace a chance to go visit their ward and get some eyes inside to examine what exactly the problem is. It also meant that he went to an English ward for the day, and my temporary companion didn't speak Spanish, but went to a Spanish ward! It was SO HELPFUL! Elder Wallace came back to me super confused. He said their ward was awesome. It was just the missionaries attitude that needed to change. We would never have known that without the unusual exchange.

This next Saturday we're planning on going on another unusual exchange. We'll be switching companions for the day, but ALL FOUR of us will be working in the same area (their area). We chose to do that because they mentioned that they were struggling to find and didn't seem to have enough time. This should fix the problem right? That's our hope. :)

We just feel blessed in our area. We're really just trying to help out the zone as much as we can.  And I think this whole "Creative solution" thing is inspired. Oakland's going to kill it.

You probably don't care about most of this stuff. haha But that's what I've been up to lately.

Side Note. My Personal Studies have been awesome. I've been reading the book of Mormon. We committed one of our investigators to finish 1 Nephi before the end of January. (something we're calling the 22 day challenge) (22 days=22 chapters) And we're reading it along with her. Even the first verse of the first chapter of the first book is full of some awesome principles about Family History and Journal-writing, and fathers. There is so much to learn.

That's pretty much it!

Love you all!

Have a good week!

Elder Struve & San Francisco

This week has been crazy!

First off, I met my trainee, Elder Struve. (It's spelled like stroove, but it's pronounced like struvie) He's from Virginia, but has also lived in France and Austria. He's great! I can't really see us getting into any arguments. He's just very easy-going (and kinda soft-spoken). He's taken five years of Spanish in high school, so he has a big head-start on the language. plus, he's already super familiar with Preach My Gospel. He's already memorized the lessons in order. He basically came pre-trained. So far, this is looking to be a pretty good transfer for us! :)

Being back in San Francisco is pretty weird! I've been able to meet a few of the members I knew from before, but most of the people we work with are all new. So I'm still a little bit lost as far as names/faces goes. Plus, I've almost completely forgotten the bus schedule/routes... So we've gotten lost a couple of times. :) It's been fun.

When we got to our area, we replaced the other two elders here. They both made it a point to tell me that San Francisco is dead and that it's been a hard couple of transfers for them. But I didn't want my trainee getting that impression about his first area right away.. So when I picked him up, I gave him the best review of San Francisco, and how fruitful it is, and how great our investigators have been lately. And then we just went to work!!

Well, this first week definitely showed some results of the combination of an optimistic outlook and willingness to work!

In the last 4 days, we've set 2 new baptismal dates! :)

One of them is with Raul Arteaga, who has been an investigator for a few months now.. We read on his teaching record that he "can't get baptized because he has been living with a woman for 30 years, and they're not married." But we went ahead and re-invited him and after some discussion, he committed to get married to her so that he can be baptized! :) WHOOO!

The other date is with Ana Villanueva, who is a lady in her 60s who works 2 jobs and is living in a tiny apartment with 4 other people. Super poor, and can't get work off on Sundays because she needs the money to pay rent. Well, we set a date with her, and committed her to ask for Sundays off within the next week. So we're hoping she pulls through with that. We plan to have our own little mini "Family Home Evening" with them tonight and we're hoping we can really commit her to it with our lesson tonight.

Elder Struve and I have really put a focus on Member Trust. If the members trust you, that makes missionary work so much easier.. But we've been talking a lot about how having members "trust" you is different than having members "like" you. And how they need to be able to see us as obedient, personable, doctrinally sound, competent missionaries, rather than the "fun" missionaries or the "cool" missionaries. He's so good though. Little bit quiet, but he's great. :)

We're gunna kill it.

Love you all! Thanks for the email!

Straight Outa Oakland

I've basically got 2 big updates this week.

1. Last week I mentioned that we could have anywhere between 2 and 4 baptisms. Well, I'll send pictures of everyone that ended up getting baptized. All together, we had Rita, Meani, Lupe, and Jasmine! Elder Wallace and I have just been super blessed this last transfer. Hands down the fastest couple transfers I've had, and we've just had so much success.

2. Transfer calls came in this weekend! I've been released as a Zone Leader and have been asked to train a new missionary in San Francisco!! THAT IS SUCH A COOL CALL! I'm literally so excited to train. I've never done it before, but I'm excited for a few different reasons. 1. I just happen to be training a new missionary in the same exact apartment that I was trained in about a year and a half ago by Elder Castleberry!  2. I can kind of speak Spanish now, so if I return to my first area, I'll be able to communicate with people I couldn't talk with before! 3. I never thought I'd train a missionary at this point. I've been in the same place fore about 7 months, and I didn't feel like I was leaving any time soon. But President called me up on Thursday and asked me if I'd be willing to "shotgun train" in SF. (That just means train in a place where you aren't currently serving. also called "white-out" in some places..)

So, I didn't really want to make a big deal out of me leaving the ward.. but I did tell a couple of my converts and bishop that I'm leaving and 1 family invited us over and something seems fishy, and I'm like 50% sure they are throwing me some sort of going away party...? Which is awkward.

Honestly, I love Oakland. It has been one of my all time favorite areas, and hands down my most successful, but I'm not sad to leave. It's just part of my mission to be transferred away, so I haven't really spent a whole lot of time getting closure with people yet, but I'll probably visit a few people tonight and tomorrow so that they don't hate me. haha

Those are all the big things. Should be a good next transfer. I'm not sure what my new companion's name is yet. I should be picking him up on Wednesday.

Here are some pictures of our baptisms yesterday.

Love yall

Yesterday's baptism

#checkmeout

Just updated my mormon.org profile. #checkmeout you might have to look up "jordan steven" that's the only way it comes up for me.

Some of my missionary buddies I'm leaving here in Oakland

My zone

Here are a couple of my converts and family members. They're the bomb!

Angelica Yeraldin Ramirez Nunez

So. Here is the story of Angelica Yeraldin Ramirez Nunez (Yera). Her family got baptized last March, but she lived in Sacramento at the time. She's about 20 years old with 2 kids, and has recently come back to live with her family is Oakland because she wants to get her high school diploma. We originally started teaching her as an investigator about 5 months ago or so just because she wanted to learn about the religion that her family was a part of. she personally had no intentions of joining it or anything, she just wanted to understand the culture and the beliefs. But she's really cool.

WELL! Exactly 22 days ago, we invented something called the "22 day challenge" where basically you read one chapter of the Book of Mormon every day for 22 days and then by the end of January you would have finished the whole 1st book of Nephi. We gave that challenge to all of our investigators we were teaching at the time, and Elder Wallace and i agreed to read along with them, so that we would all be reading the same parts at the same time.

Yera was the only one that accepted the challenge. So she's been reading the Book of Mormon every day. (She's awesome). She's also been coming to the church every week for over a month.

Last week, They threw a little surprise party for me for my birthday, and they bought me a cake and got me some presents and everything, which was AWESOME! But the best gift I got was what happened right after the party. *Drumroll*

Yera stands up and says "I have an announcement....... I want to be baptized!"

After some negotiations of scheduling and stuff, she pushed to be baptized as soon as possible. We decided to baptized her the following Sunday....... yesterday! :)

So in essence, we had a surprise baptism for one of our AWESOME investigators yesterday who basically begged us to be baptized ASAP.

She asked me to do the ordinance for her, which of course I was happy to do, and it all turned out super pretty. :)

Little heads up for next week, we should be having anywhere from 2-4 baptisms in our area. We're hoping for 4, but we have to talk to them about it first, because they've missed the last couple Sundays... Keep the Gramajo family in your prayers!

Love you all! Thanks for everything!

Yera's Baptism!!!

Surprise party! Complete with a cake with my picture on it!

Satan Sucks

I got lotsa stuff for you this week. Oh my goodness.

We were going to have 4 baptisms yesterday. That has always been the plan.

But this week was the perfect example of how Satan works. So check this out:

The Gramajo family: Recent move-ins from Guatemala, hilarious, cool, great desire, they are so redy for baptism.... They were going to get baptized yesterday, but this past week, they had their water shut off and they are at risk of being evicted from their apartment illegally, so they've called the cops on their racist land-lord like 2 or 3 times this week. it was rough. Their lives are just super stressed and unpredictable right now, so they decided to move their baptism back by a few weeks. February 7th.

The Carrada family: We've been teaching them since October, and they have been progressing well since the dawn of time. The 2 parents were supposed to be baptized yesterday, and everything was set.. BUT, they didn't come to church. (Which wasn't necessarily going to prevent them from being baptized, it was just confusing) So we gave them a call, and they said they hadn't left for church yet because their daughter ran away from home, and they couldn't find her.... They were obviously very worried, and were going to search for her instead of coming to their baptism... We gathered our whole district together to say a big prayer for their family, and then ditched our 2nd our of church to go visit them at home. By the time we got there, the daughter had already returned, but the family was super contentious. I guess the reason she ran away was because of a big fight she had with her mom, and they were all obviously very flustered and contentious... They were in no mood to get baptized. Never before in my mission have I ever seen the clear influence of Satan in somebody's life. They were so close to doing something that could change their life for the better, but the spirit of contention (sent from the devil) was the thing preventing them. Smart move Satan.

We had a super emotional lesson.... I may or may not have cried a little bit... And we offered to give them each a blessing to give them peace and comfort. First the daughter, then the mom, then the grandma, (Each one crying the whole time)... finally we gave the father a blessing. The head of the household. And we said we wanted everybody to think of what they really want while we gave the blessing, and then we did it. At the end, we re-committed them to be baptized that day at 1:00.

They happily agreed. :)

That was one of the coolest stories I've had on my mission. It just so happened to happen on my birthday, but seriously, yesterday, I felt like... every single emotion there is. what a day.

Love you all!

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

Shout out to Jaxon for the cool calandar 😂 2nd year in a row. Classic. :) :)

Love you all!

Elder Webster

Here is the Carrada family! My latest converts. They're the coolest.

Here is a message my district leader sent to us. It basically sums up my week :)

East Bay

ALRIGHT!

^^that's a one-word description of my week! haha We had some ups and downs as always. :)

There were like 3 days straight when we didn't teach any lessons..

It was a little bit frustrating because we've been trying to be super close to our investigators because they're getting baptized next week, but we just couldn't find time to meet with them as much as we would have liked. But hey, let me tell you a couple miracles! :)

You might remember in last weeks email, I talked about doing a "Blitz" into one of the struggling areas in our zone. (that never happens) Just a little bit of background, basically, this area hasn't found a single investigator in like 2 months. I don't even remember the last time they taught a non-member lesson. So we started the exchange and focused a lot on faith. We started off by setting the expectation of ENTHUSIASM and EXPECTING miracles to happen. We were all committed to find a new investigator before the end of the day. That was the deal.

Elder Wallace and I split up. I went with Elder Weaver from Las Vegas, and he went with Elder Aiono from Samoa. We asked them to plan twice as much as they normally do, and told them we'd like to focus the day on finding people to teach. So, we showed up before studies, they gave us a run down of the day, we studied together, and then went on our separate ways.

Well, WE FOUND A NEW INVESTIGATOR FOR THEM!! WHOO

His name is Ramsey, and he's the son of the Relief society president. Elder Wallace and Elder Aiono were the ones that found him, but their story is so cool. It was one of those "walking in the dark, in the rain, after using all of our back-up-plans, but then feeling prompted to knock on one last door" kind of miracles.

My day was really good as well. We found a couple of potentials in the streets by a college, but the real success story was Ramsey. :)

Everything should be set for our baptisms next week. We're really excited. :)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I can't think of too much that I really need, but thanks for asking! I always like home-made stuff! wink wink

Love you all!

THE Year

This is the year everybody. Our area is BLOWING UP! Literally exploding! Shrapnel and debris flying every which way. former investigators dripping off the walls and sacrament cups all over the ground.

I don't know how this week could've gone any better. Everything just worked out. Just to give you a rough vision of how things are going... We had 8 investigators at church yesterday. EIGHT. OCHO 🕗. You may recall that that is something we have always struggled in in this area. People just haven't come to church here. BUT THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME! We got to see our investigators like every day and recommit them all to their baptisms and had some great member support at our lessons, and as a result, this was probably the most successful I've felt on my mission. We're just doing work here! :')

On top of all of that, we had to deal with a couple troublesome companionships... It's probably not best to spill all the details.. But it basically includes missionaries who hate each other and one elder who we found out has been lying about his area for 2 months and has now gone home to let other missionaries clean up his mess... We decided to go have lunch with one of our district leaders so that we could talk about how to improve his district in a non-threatening environment, and all in all.... Oakland is the place to be.

Thanks for all the emails and support! Love you all a ton. :)

Things are going super well with Elder Wallace and I.

Oh PS, I passed my 18 month mark this week. Sooo... I guess I'll see you in  6 months!

BYE!