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!)