Transferred To A Trio

Hey guys!

Thanks Grandma Nielson and the Lawrences for the emails! Hopefully I'll have time to respond to you guys. Sounds like you guys have had a way cool week. And yeah, I can't wait for Jordan to get his mission call! That would be so cool if he went spanish speaking too! Also, I'm super sorry, I was planning on sending some pictures today but I got transferred today and didn't put my camera in a very easy place to get to... Now I'm in the North Salem area in a trio, since I'll be leaving next week. I still haven't really heard much else about the travel plans though. Super excited to get to Argentina, but I'll miss the people here too. They're so great! Haha whenever latinos do their impression of an Argentinean accent, I can't understand anything there saying...but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. Haha yeah it would be easier to send stuff to me now, but I don't really need anything, and I still have to make sure my bags won’t be overweight for my flights to Argentina, so I'm fine.

Mom, that’s way cool about the stake missionary thing. It reminds me of something said at church this past week. He was talking about how he had never been released from a calling until he was released as a full-time missionary, and he was expecting them to do it by laying their hands on his head and everything, but that’s not how it works. So he's technically released, but he says he never really felt released, so he still feels like a missionary. That was like 2 years ago, but he still acts like a missionary and he loves coming to lessons and teaching and stuff. He's way cool. He was talking about his mission in Mexico and how he baptized almost every week.

Jade is still hesitant. She kind of just shuts off whenever we start talking to her about church stuff. Armando still wants to procrastinate. I mentioned Isabel before right? We went by this past week and she had read half the Book of Mormon in a week and told us she believed it all and now she has a baptismal date for Nov 2nd! So that was pretty cool. I'll be long gone by then, but still super excited for her. Other than that it was a pretty slow week. Only taught 8 lessons... which is the lowest I've ever had, and the lowest my companion had ever done too (which is saying something, since he’s been out for about 16 months). But it was still good. I'm trying to think of other cool things this week, but honestly it was more walking around looking for people than actually doing things, unfortunately.

But yeah, I got transferred. I'm actually serving in the spanish branch I was in at the beginning, but they have 2 sets of missionaries in this branch, so I used to be in the other area, and now I'm not. So now I have a week to meet these people and learn my way around the area. I'm in a trio with a visa-waiter going to Brazil (so he doesn’t really know spanish, just portuguese) and a native spanish speaker (well, bilingual). So should be fun. Haha I wonder how long it will take for me to start considering myself bilingual? Because even though I speak spanish to people and understand what they say back (generally), I don't really feel like I know spanish yet.

So for a verse for the week. I was thinking of Ether 12:27 (pretty sure thats it, I don't have it written down with me). Normally I read that and see how it talks about how weakness makes us humble, but this time I focused on how it says that God gives us weakness. I know only good comes from God, so I was just thinking about that and trying to see what good there is in weaknesses. Cool stuff. 

Speaking of cool stuff, I don't remember if I told you guys or not. This mission is starting to do this "strengths assessment" thing. It’s like this online test that tells you your top 5 strengths. Not gonna lie, stuff like personality tests make me skeptical. But it’s still cool and it’s been really accurate with like everyone that’s taken it here. It says my top 5 are learner, intellection, achiever, responsibility, and belief. There’s like a page long description of each of them, but, you get the idea. Except for maybe with intellection...not sure if that’s even technically a word. Haha, whatever.

Anyway, super glad to hear from you guys as always! And I really am sorry, I was going to send you some pictures today but I don't have my camera with me right now...probably could have planned that a bit better. I'm looking forward to my week in this area, meeting the people, sleeping on the couch (3 of us, missionary apartments have 2 beds...), and being a missionary. Sounds like some cool stuff has been happening at church over there, have fun inviting the missionaries over for dinner. Oh and thats way cool that you were with Chris and Sherie! Hope they're doing well, and have them tell hi to Josh for me if they can!! They're so cool.

Que vaya bien

Elder Webster