Emergencia

So, I don't remember how much I talked about last week, but one of our District Leaders ran away from his companion a couple weeks ago. it was kind of a big deal, because.... that just doesn't happen. I don't even think I've been out of sight of my companion in like a year and a half. So hearing that one elder ran away from his companion was ground breaking. Elder Wells and I were asked to do a rescue mission to find him like a week ago to no avail. But our President took care of the whole thing last week... and it was pretty much a done deal. RIGHT? no.

This week, our Saturday was interrupted because we were asked to "Emergency Transfer" these two Elders. along with like... half of their district. everything got changed around. It took up most of our day just because of rides and stuff... but that was exciting.

I feel like I talk too much about the missionary side of things, which is the boring side. So I'm gunna move on to my AWESOME investigators.

We seriously have the most solid set of investigators ever. They love learning, they read, they pray, some of them have testimonies already. The only thing that is preventing them to get baptized is their church attendance. We still have a few baptismal dates set pretty soon, but it's been sad lately because the ones we used to have set have all had to be pushed back or canceled. Which would usually be very upsetting, but they have made a lot of personal progression and a few of them have as much of a testimony as your run-of-the-mill member. So it's just a matter of getting work off. Which is hard in the Oakland Latino community for some reason.

Love you all!

Thanks for the videos you all sent me this week! :) I love those things. They're so fun. Keep em coming.

Have a good week!

Elder Webster

This Week Went "Well"

The subject line is a pun... but let me explain.

This was my first week with my new companion, Elder Wells! I know him a little bit better than before. He's from Nebraska, he's been out for 23 months, he like to read and spends most of his free time reading or listening to conference talks. He's also a very intelligent person, just in terms of practicality and strategy.  I feel that our week together has been a very focused and productive week! He's very non-confrontational, so I can't imagine us getting in a fight or anything. plus, we usually just tend to agree on stuff because it's the most logical thing to do anyway! :) I actually like him a lot. We're gunna kill this transfer. Plus, he likes Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and Psych. Soooo... we tight.

I don't know what to write about. I have some bad news though.... :(  a couple weeks ago, we set like 4 baptismal dates. But none of those investigators are on track to get baptized when they said they would. SOOO... That's a little upsetting. One of them actually ran away drunk to Hayward and no one has seen him since. So... We had to drop him. It's been a bit depressing. I guess that's what you get for serving in the most liberal city in the world!

One thing Elder Wells and I trying to work on is teaching clearly and simply.

I remember one time at a "Bring-your-son/daughter-to-work-day", they did an activity where one person draws a picture. (something simple like an apple tree) and then explains to his partner how to draw that same picture. It's harder than you would think because you have to take into account much more than you'd think when you want someone to understand something the way you understand it. For instance: The color of the trunk/leaves/apples. How many apples? The placement of the apples? the size of the apples? the thickness of the trunk. The trunk/leaf ratio. The thickness of the ink you used. The placement of the tree on the paper. ETC. It can be hard to explain yourself clearly enough for someone to understand EXACTLY what you are imagining in your head. Even more so with abstract concepts like the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Wells is a very smart person. We have been working on finding the balance between explaining things CLEARLY and explaining things SIMPLY. We actually used that activity^^ in one of our companionship studies. :) I guess Bring your kid to work day WAS spiritually significant. Thanks dad. haha

Anyway, that's what I got for the week. Thanks a lot for the emails!

If you want to make me a happy Elder, you would send me a video blog of a funny story or a life update. Ethan sent me one this week, and I loved it. :)

Love you all!

Conference Weekend!

So just a little bit of follow-up from last week: Operation Sabbath Jackhammer finally paid off! We had 2 investigators join us a conference this week! :) And conference was pretty good this time around. Everyone's been asking how they translated "Ponderize" into Spanish... hahaha The word they used was "Meditizar" combination of "meditar" (ponder) and "memorizar" (memorize)

I watched it in the Oakland Temple chapel this time!

I really like the 3 new apostles! They're awesome. :)

Transfer calls came in this last week! I was pretty surprised actually! Elder Castleberry goes home tomorrow... :( So I knew I'd be getting a new companion, and I had my guesses of who it might be, and I basically narrowed it down to 1 of 3 possible elders. Whoever I would get, I would have to teach them how to do Zone-Leader stuff.. My new companion is Elder Wells. I was not expecting him. He's been out for about 23 months, which means he's coming to a NEW area with a NEW companion and a NEW calling during his LAST transfer of his mission. Usually, that makes people not want to try as hard because the end is so close in sight and it feels useless to get to know all this new stuff because you're ending soon. (It's called getting "Trunky")

Honestly, I hope it's not like that. But I'm excited to get Elder Wells! He's a big goofy guy who no one could ever get made at, and he's a wiz on piano, so I'm excited.

Oh, before I forget. Look up my mission on Facebook! California Oakland San Francisco Mission. We have our own page and they post pictures and stuff. So you can add them or follow them. :)

Most of my weeks are full of meetings now-a-days. So I'll spare the details of MLC and Stake coordination meeting... But the preparation for those meetings took up a big chunk of our proselyting time this week, which is unfortunate. But it's gotta be done. :) I've found out I'm actually pretty good at using Excel! But... that's more like a post-mission skill. haha

Thanks for everything! I finally sent my mom/sisters gift home this week. I hope you like it.

Happy Birthday Grandpa! Love you!

Today, pday, we drove through a cemetery! Kind of an accident... haha

E. Castleberry, E. Webster, S. Nistler, S. Diaz, E. Runco, E. Broman

Operation Sabbath Jackhammer

This week was pretty good! We went on 3 exchanges again this week! this is the good stuff:

Wednesday - I went with Elder Pululasi into Berkeley. He's from Australia and is suuuper relaxed and cool. Everyone likes talking to him in the streets because he's got such a sweet accent. I was on bike again... humph... and we had did service with this pot smoking guy and we went into his bedroom and it was basically like a "hot topic" store. a little bit scary and overwhelming, but he's got so many collectors items and video game memorabilia, it was just sorta cool looking around! Then the guy bought us some pizza! So... good day! :)

Thursday - I went into the Chinese program with Elder Zhang. I swear, every time I go into the Chinese program, all I do is walk around and talk to people. the thing is... most of Chinese culture is Buddhist, and slightly rude to strangers. They have such a hard time finding people to teach... I was grateful to go back to my lovable Spanish area afterwards. But the Elder Zhang is just the most charitable person in the worlds. He was found, taught, baptized confirmed and retained in 48 hours while on vacation in Washington. Apparently there was a district of missionaries that tag-team-taught him all of the lessons in one single day and he got special permission to be baptized that night! Then he went back to China with his non member family and he remained active and then served a mission a year later, and he's good at it! He's the best.

Saturday - Elder Allison came to my area. He doesn't speak spanish, so I did most of the heavy lifting by myself... But we had a fairly successful day! Elder Allison is relentlessly positive..... toooo positive.... But I love the guy. He's got great taste in music, so we tight.

Operation Sabbath Jackhammer is a covert operation that we initiated this week to get our investigators to church. It has four phases. It's not meant for the public eye, and meant to be top secret... But I trust you.

Phase One: contact and invite each investigator to church on Sunday.

Phase Two: resolve any concern or problem they may have about coming. (find a ride, give the address, reminder text in the morning, etc.)

Phase Three: help investigators have a spiritual experience at church.

Phase Four: follow up with those that didn't come, even though they were invited, (consider dropping the investigator if necessary) and re-invite them to the next week.

IT. IS. FOOL-PROOF.

We unfortunately ended up dropping a few of our investigators as a result, but it's all in an effort to weed out those that are not interested or prepared to make a change in their lives. So we thought it was productive whether or not people came.

This next week will be Elder Castleberry's last week in the mission field. Pretty crazy. He had his last "Prque Yo Creo" yesterday (monthly spanish testimony meeting at the temple) and he ended up conducting it, and I translated it. It went well. I should be getting a new companion next week. Weiiiird.

Thanks for all the emails and the love!

Webster Street!

Chinese exchanges

Golf on pday

Oops

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.