Lots of Study Time

Hey!

Wow sounds like everyone had a fun Thanksgiving! I'm glad everything went well! And thanks Elder Webster 2 for all the pictures! San Francisco looks way fun!

We had another typical week in the office. Nothing too out of the ordinary. The next two weeks are full of conferences that we have to prepare for and then right after that we have to have the christmas party ready, so thats keeping us busy enough. Haha and yes, my piano playing is coming along pretty well-ish. I found a book of like 50 "simplified hymns" and I can pretty much play all of those now, so thats pretty cool. I've only really been practicing with my right hand though because, well, I wouldn't want to be too good at piano or else that would take all the fun out of it haha or something like that. I helped Elder Trelease pay rent for his first time so that was...about how you might imagine. We haven't quite finished, but we've gotten most of it ready for the beginning of the month. Plus, we talked with President and got the amount raised that all the missionaries receive every month for food and stuff, so that was different. More than anything I think I've just been helping Elder Trelease with things and daydreaming a little bit about when I'm going to get out of the office...

We got to go out to work a few times this week. All of our appointments with Mario keep falling through. When we call him he's always way happy to talk to us, but he works pretty much all-day, every-day, so he's been really hard to get a hold of. He agreed to come meet us on sunday at the church though, so hopefully that works out. Elder Trelease and I have also taken up a new game while we're out. We work in one of the richest parts of the mission, so we've kind of set the goal of finding the nicest houses we can and then knocking on their door. Haha it didn't really start out that way, we would just go, and anytime one of us said something about the way a house looked, we'd go over to knock on the door. We're also thinking about trying to bring a giant whiteboard or something over to this walking path near the office, and then writing a question on it or something to start conversations with the people at the park/walking path, because there are always a ton of people there. We'll see.

As far as verse of the week, it was a hard choice this week. Training in the office means I have lots of study time, and this week I've been having some of the best personal studies I've had in a long time. This isn't necessarily my favorite thing I learned this week, but I decided it would probably be the easiest to put into words, so here it is: 1 Nephi 17:12. Pretty simple. Nephi was explaining that they hadn't really made very many fires on their journey because the Lord had promised that he would take care of their food. But that made me wonder.....why? Would it really have been that hard for Lehi's family to make a fire that they were in need of that type of miracle? Surely living in the desert didn't involve so many time consuming tasks that they didn't even have time to make fire..? So then I started imagining what that would have been like. Every meal would have been a trial of faith...looking at the meat they were going to eat, knowing it hadn't been cooked...and then eating it, trusting that the Lord had taken care of it. It kind of gave meaning to verse 13 where it says that they would know who it was that was leading them on their journey. It would have been hard to deny the Lord's hand when literally every meal was a obvious reminder of the miracles He was doing to help them. Not to mention it would have been pretty humbling knowing that the Lord cared enough to basically cook your food for you. Kind of interesting how, in a way, the blessing wasn't so much a physical thing, but a spiritual thing that helped their faith and humility.

Well, I hope you all have a great week this week! And I'm glad you all had a great Thanksgiving!!

Elder Webster

Training and Door Knocking

Hey everyone!

Sounds like everyone is keeping busy and is excited for Thanksgiving!! You'll have to tell hi to everyone for me! And I hope mom's jewelry thing goes great!

This week was pretty good. Its way weird training the new financiero. He's been here long enough now that he can do most things without my help...which means I'm starting to honestly not have a lot of work to do...which feels weird. Its not really a job that requires two people...or that can even really be done by two people, and I'm trying to get him to do as much of it as possible so that he's used to it when I leave. But unfortunately, that means I kind of just sit in the back of the office and study and every once and a while I'll help him if he gets stuck. Haha but on the bright side...I hooked up a keyboard that we have here in the office and started learning piano! So thats kind of fun.

 

On the other bright side, having two financieros means that its a little easier for us to go out to our area and work more often. Mario was out of town all week, and we don't really have any other progressing investigators, so Elder Trelease and I got to spend a lot of quality door-knocking time! I can't say we actually ended up finding very many investigators that way....in fact I can't say that we actually found any investigators that way...but I can say that I feel like I've probably been rejected in almost every way that I can imagine. Haha the weird thing about missionary work is that no matter how many (or few) physical results your efforts bring, you always feel good for doing it. I can't think of very many other things that are like that. And then last night we got our ward mission leader to come with us to an appointment...which fell through, so then he came with us to basically every person that we knew that lived by there...and not a single one opened their door. But hey, A+ for effort I guess.

So the verse of the week is actually something that I was thinking about this morning. I was reading in the New Testament when Hebrews10:14 caught my attention. "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." One thing that helps me think about what a verse is saying, is thinking about what the verse is not saying. Of all the words that could have come at the end of the sentence, he intentionally put "sanctified"...which means there are a lot of words that he intentionally didn't put. He didn't put "sinners", even though everyone that would receive help from His sacrifice is a sinner...He didn't put "humble", or "faithful", or "forgiving", even though those are all things that Christ asked us to be in order to be saved...But he did say "sanctified". And then that led to a  search for a bunch of scriptures about exactly what it means to be sanctified and how to become sanctified. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great week and that you have a great Thanksgiving!!! Hopefully all the stuff you have planned for this weekend goes well! Say hi to everyone!

Elder Webster

The Wise Man Built His Family On A Rock

Hey,

Sounds like its been yet another crazy week over there! I'm glad that everyone is doing so well! Shoutout to Elder Funckes for being a stud!!

This week has been pretty good, not too crazy. I'm still training Elder Trelease as the new financial secretary, so thats going well. Haha I like him a lot...which makes me feel a little bad, knowing that he'll have to be here in the office for like 6 months. But I really am glad for the things that I've gotten to learn while I've been here. At the same time, I'm way excited to leave here next transfer. So...yeah.

Honestly, this week has been pretty calm. The president was in Buenos Aires all week, and the banks were all closed/on strike or something for 2 days, so that was sort of lame. That appointment we had last week with Mario fell through, but we got to meet him this week on thursday! He was supposed to meet us at the church, but he didn't show up, and we had his address, so we went to see if he was home. He lives in a small group of houses, so we touched the doorbell that had his name on it...and nothing happened. So my comp said we might as well try another one since we were already there, so he touched another doorbell...and guess who answered? Mario! He's way awesome and super prepared! It was sort of a joint lesson with the sisters from our ward, because they wanted to be there to introduce us to him and explain to him why we were going to be teaching him instead of them. He told us all about how he had grown up planning to become a catholic priest or something, but eventually came to the decision that he didn't like the things he was learning/seeing there. Then he had spent a long time looking for the truth, and said that nothing had ever touched him the way he had been touched when he met Hermana Russell on that bus 11 months ago. He lives sort of a lonely and busy life, and admits that he wants religion to play a bigger part of it, he's just always been skeptical about which religion. He has a strong testimony of the apostasy and is really just looking for something that will help him feel more happiness and love in his life, and he's eager for the rest of his family to find it too. We only had a very short meeting with him, so there's still a lot to do for him. We have another meeting with him tonight, so hopefully it works out.

As the verse of the week, I chose 3 Nephi 14:24-27. I was reading in Preach My Gospel (the missionary handbook) in the section about how the Book of Mormon answers questions from our lives. One of the questions had a reference to this chapter and I was curious about how that chapter answered that question. I found these verses and I started thinking of them differently. They talk of how those who build their house upon the rock will remain after the storms come, but that those who build their house upon the sand will be washed away by the storms. For some reason, changing the word "house" with the word "family" made a huge difference in how I read the scripture. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I hope you are all doing well! Hopefully next week is even better!

Elder Webster

hey sorry, we left early to go to centro, so I didn't finish my email time...plus, unlike every other missionary in the mission, I don't have to pay to use a computer..so I figured I'd take my last couple minutes to send some pics.

Eating some alfajors with my new comp

Elder Arndt contemplating transfers after we helped him update the transfer board at President's house

Preparing the sack lunches for the missionaries that had to travel a long way after hearing Elder Christofferson

The view from President's house... I guess we've been there kind of a lot lately to make all those lunches and update his boards...which was weird since no one was there either time

Phew!

Hey!

Wow sounds like everyone had way cool weeks this week! I'm glad you are all having fun and being awesome!

This week has been way super busy, but way good at the same time. We had transfers this week...and guess who is training the new financial secretary!!! So this should be my last transfer in the office, I'll be out of here as soon as Elder Trelease more or less knows what he's doing in here. This transfer ends the week before Christmas, so that should be when I leave, unless something weird happens.

But yeah this week has been way crazy. I think getting to see how my new comp and how the new secretary have responded to being in the office the last couple days, its showed the rest of the office staff really just how much we've adjusted to being here and how different it is from the field. Its been a mentally exhausting week for all of us, but the 2 new office elders are just dead after these couple days. But we managed to get it all done!! Last night we were still making phone calls at like 11pm and we had to wake up today at 5:30 trying to make sure everything went smoothly for the meeting. Haha needless to say, when we were finally the only missionaries left at the chapel after the meeting, we all just felt a big load get taken off of our shoulders. But it amazes us how much the President must trust us. He left us completely in charge of getting all 250 missionaries to the meeting from all 3 provinces of the mission, renting 3 double-decker buses, renting 2 hotels, and buying like $5,000 USD worth of food for all the stuff that happened. But hey, it all got done! And the meeting today was a great way to cap off the week! Elder Christofferson was way funny and it was way good. His spanish is amazing!

Francisco is still doing good. And we have an appointment tonight with a guy named Mario who is kind of a miracle reference. Long story short, one of the sister missionaries met him like 11 months ago in a different province and just found out that he lives in our area. So she set up an appointment for us to meet him tonight at the church, so hopefully that goes well!

So verse of the week comes from John 8:29. Its pretty self-explanatory, but it came up like 5 times in our meeting today with Elder Christofferson, and I like the self-applications we can make. Could you imagine if we could honestly say of ourselves what Christ said of Himself in that verse?

Anyway, I hope you have a great week!

Elder Webster

Tattoos, Birthdays, and Other Stuff

Hola,

Haha I'm glad to hear everything is going good up there. Hopefully your lesson with the missionaries and the investigator goes great again! Keep being super awesome examples!

This week was pretty busy. Haha I'm not even really sure what we did that made it so busy, it was just...busy. President has been doing his interviews with everyone here at the office, so there's been a ton of people coming in and out of the office this week. Plus it was the mission president's wife's birthday and the mission nurse's birthday, so we celebrated both of those. The days really just kind of blend together here in the office though.

We didn't get to go out to our area very much this week unfortunately. We got to go contact an interesting reference, so that was cool. She has a tattoo place in her house, and when we got there the door was open and she was inside giving someone a tattoo. She talked to us for a little bit and was way nice, but said that the mornings are the best time to find her...which is cool that she's willing to let us come back, but we can't go out in the mornings, so we had to pass the reference off to the sisters that share our ward. We also ended up passing Valentin and Franco off to the sisters also (2 of the kids from the plaza). And then last night I went on a 2 or 3 hour "exchange" with one of the assistants because they had a service activity but one of them had to be at the office, so that was pretty fun. I went with Elder Rainock. He's been way fun to get to know here in the office. We've been talking a lot more this transfer, especially since he found out he got accepted to BYU. Haha pretty much everyone in the office isn't really what you'd expect.

Well, as a verse of the week this week, I was thinking of something I read in D&C 107:30-31. The whole section 107 pretty much talks about the organization of the church, and verses 30 and 31 explain a little about how a church group should make decisions, and then goes on to give a promise to those that make decisions in that way. I was just thinking about how our lives might be different if we made all of our personal decisions with those things in mind. It says that decisions should be made with humility of heart, meekness, faith, virtue, knowledge, patience, and charity (to name a few). I can honestly say that not all my decisions are as strongly based on those characteristics as they should be. It reminds me of the conference talk from a few weeks ago when we were told to ask ourselves if the things that we do will make us better people, or not. Food for thought I guess.

Anyway, I hope everything is going great. Mom and Dad, I hope your busy jobs/activities are going well and that you still have plenty of time to do good fun stuff. I hope you all have another good week and a happy halloween!

 Elder Webster

Dead cockroaches from my shower..

A cool band that we saw in Centro

The wonders of Argentine construction

Buying stuff for meetings next week

More graffiti for the Tomba soccer team...cuz they're cool...almost as cool as River

Visit to Rodeo del Medio

Hey!

Sounds like everyone is keeping pretty busy this week! I hope you're all doing well and just as awesome as ever! And shout-out to Hailey for the letter, that was awesome!

This week was pretty good, pretty busy. We had to send home 2 elders on Tuesday, so that was sort of sad. It was a pretty weird situation. Plus, the president basically has the mentality of "if you don't want to be here, I don't want you here". Which honestly, is pretty awesome. But now that people are starting to figure that out... it seems like every week 1 or 2 missionaries comes up with a new "medical problem" that no one can solve. Anyway, on monday, my comp and I had gone out to our area to work, but, as always, the office has a way of not letting you go. We got a call from the APs asking us to drive out to San Martin to pick up the suitcases of one of the missionaries that was going home, so we ended up doing that. But the good news is that the drive to San Martin goes right by Rodeo del Medio...and the Gutierrez family literally lives on the freeway...so we got to stop there for like 10 minutes on the way back!! It was way awesome getting to see them again! The mom started crying when she saw me through the window, and none of really new what to say, so it was just a sort of awkward, happy silence sitting around there table for a couple minutes. I found out that Patricia now has 3 callings! And that Carolina and Jorge are now regularly attending church and area still thinking about baptism! Haha it was so great getting to talk to them for a second.

We also got to go find the houses of 2 of the teenagers that we've been teaching in the plaza. Neither of them were at home when we went to their houses, but we met a couple other people at their house and they all seemed really nice. We've got an appointment for monday with Valentin´s family, so hopefully that goes through. They technically live in the sister's area, so we're going to all go over there and have a lesson/pass them off to the sisters. Hopefully everything works out.

So, verse of the week. 3 Nephi 13:19-24. Its kind of a confusing explanation, but basically, when I thought about those verses, the "formula" came into my head of master-->goals-->thoughts-->actions. I came up with like 5 versions of that formula, but they're all pretty much the same. Basically, the scriptures said that your options are either to serve God or to serve the natural man. Who you want to serve will change your goals, which will direct your thoughts, which will lead to your actions. But the more I thought about it, I realized that the formula isn't so much cause-and-effect, because it works in reverse as well. Really, changing any of them changes the rest of them, over time. I guess its not so much a formula, as it is just a bunch of inter-related thingys (thats a mathematical term...duh). If you want to change your "master", you can start by changing your actions. By changing your actions enough, your thoughts and goals begin to change with them. And before you know it, you're dedicated to serving someone else. I guess that might be way He wants us to be "anxiously engaged" in good causes of our own free will (D&C 58:27). Of course, none of it is possible by ourselves, so Christ's atonement serves almost as a catalyst. (haha I miss school). You could also include things like "surroundings", "peers", and a lot of other things into the formula. Like I said...its kind of hard to explain how I got that out of those verses but...yeah.

Anyway, I hope you're all doing great! I hope the lesson that you have planned with the missionaries and the investigator goes super well! Have a fun week!

Elder Webster

Dad asked for pictures. I don't really haven any pics from this week, but I just looked through my flash drive for some random pics, because I know I haven't sent you all of them. I'm not really sure if I've sent these before on not though, I can't remember.

"Esto es CDGCAT Barrio"-- the Tomba soccer team stadium is in our area/at the edge. Its kind of known for being a ghetto team...so we don't really go over there much. But like last year Tomba made it into League A, which means I think they are officially on the new FIFA videogames, along with River and Boca. Fun fact

Other pic of the area near the stadium

Mate cups. We aren't allowed to drink mate as missionaries, just because its a social thing that people will do for hours and its kind of a waste of time...but I'll probably try to bring some back...because its way good (with lots of sugar) (Presidente Ávila made some for us on our last pday with him)

The last pic is from back in Rodeo del Medio, in the spring time here. I kind of hate that picture...which is why I figure I probably didn't send it to you.

Daily Revelation...

Hey ¿cómo estáis? haha

Haha sounds like you've all been doing pretty good this week. Glad to hear that nobody died. I wasn't really expecting anyone to die, but hey, all the more reason for me to be grateful it didn't happen. Unexpected deaths are the worst. So anyway...

Pretty good week this week. Any week that includes general conference is pretty much bound to awesome. We watched it all on a projector here at the offices. I've watched conference before while looking for guidance or answers, but this was the first time I've really taken time to think about and write down some of the questions I wanted answered, so that was a pretty good experience. I've noticed that the notes you take during conference say a lot about you...I've compared small bits of notes with other missionaries after other conferences, and sometimes it looks like we weren't even listening to the same talk. So it was kind of interesting to go back and look at my notes this time and think about what they say about the types of things I've been thinking about and the kind of guidance I need. Interesting.

As far as other stuff this week... the offices had their interviews with president on monday, so that was cool. It was a little weird, just because I remember that before I came to the offices, the only time we ever talked to president was during interviews, but now I text him/talk to him all the time. Haha my interview was literally like 3-4 minutes long, and all we talked about was about whether or not I'll be training my replacement next transfer and what kind of skills he might need. So...hopefully I train a new financiero next transfer! Haha he asked me how I would feel if I had to stay 5 transfers instead of 4, and I told him I would do it if I had to...but he laughed and caught that I would only do it if I "had" to....which is totally true.

Besides that, nothing too exciting. Paid a lot of rent money and bills this week. Hahaha I accidentally got the electricity of the sisters we share a ward with cut off because I put their bill in the wrong pile and didn't pay it in time. They called me and apologized a bunch because they thought it was their fault for not getting me the bill in time...but...I ended up having to call them later to apologize when I found out what really happened. So...that was different.

Well, as a verse of the week, I was thinking about Helaman 11:23. During Conference, it seemed to me like a lot of people talked about receiving revelation. The thing that caught my attention in this verse is that is says that they were receiving many revelations daily. It made me wonder about what exactly they were receiving revelations about...? Or, if I had many revelations every day, what kind of guidance would Heavenly Father give me? Obviously, personal revelation is personal. But if we've been commanded to pray always, and God always answers prayers, it seems logical that we should always be able to receive communication from Him. I don't know, the scripture just made me think that maybe we miss out on a lot of opportunities to receive revelation just because we realize they are opportunities. Kinda cool.

Well, I hope you all have a great week! Keep being awesome!!

Elder Webster

If We Try, There's Always Time For Missionary Work

Hey

Sounds like everything is going pretty well over there! Glad to hear that everything is...well..going well...I guess. Haha but seriously, thanks for all the emails and support!

This week was pretty good. Hectic as always. Last sunday we all set some companionship goals about getting to our areas this week. So I actually managed to go out and work 3 times! That was way nice. Unfortunately we had to really squeeze that time in there, so each time was only about 30-40 minutes long, so we couldn't do a lot, but we all definitely enjoyed getting to finally get out of the office and do some missionary work, even if it was just a little bit. And we're all way excited for general conference today. We've all been trying to prepare ourselves for that. Should be awesome.

Did I tell you about the "activity" we did last sunday? It was definitely a different idea, but our ward is pretty well known for not really retaining new converts or helping investigators....so the sisters thought of an idea. We had to get it approved first, but it was kind of cool. Half of us missionaries showed up at the church wearing normal street clothes and giant signs that said "investigator" on it, while the other missionaries and the ward mission leader tried to tell all the members that they had brought an investigator family and to get the members to come welcome us and take us to our classes (we have sacrament meeting 3rd hour). It actually turned out really good, and the members loved taking us to their classes. We were all posing as people of different ages, so they needed to get people from each organization to help us. Then we changed clothes before sacrament meeting and spoke a little about our experience and about some gospel basics. Hopefully they'll be better prepared for the next time they get to welcome a non-member friend into the church.

This week Elder Barton double schedule the visa work he was going to do with missionaries, so I ended up having to go with new missionaries pretty much every morning this week to take them to go do visa work, while he took the other groups. Its always fun getting to be with the new missionaries. Haha they say the funniest things sometimes. But I guess I did to when I first got here...haha I guess I still talk like that sometimes actually. But whatever. But doings visas every morning meant I had twice as much financial stuff to do in the afternoons, which kept me way busy since its the beginning of the month and I had to pay everyone's rent. But I feel like we all really managed to prove to ourselves that if we really really try, there's always a way to find time to go out and do missionary work, even if it isn't as much as we'd like to. Before, if we got towards the end of the day and only had like 30 minutes, we'd just start working on the stuff for the next day since we figured it wasn't really enough time to go do anything, but this week we decided that if that happened we'd go out to work. It was hard to coordinate with companions being free at the same times, so I went with a different missionary everytime I went out, but hey...its a start.

So, verse of the week. This week I chose Helaman 5:40-41. It is when Nephi and Lehi are in a prison, and a cloud of darkness comes over the other people there. The people ask among themselves about what they can to do get the darkness removed, and one of them answers that they must repent and cry out to the voice they had heard until they had faith in Christ, so that the darkness would be removed. When one considers that sin is like a darkness we have over us, this becomes very applicable to us. In the moment, those people had no faith in Christ, but finding themselves with the need and desire to be cleaned/forgiven/helped, they found the need to cry out to Him, or in other words, pray. It shows me that to begin the repentance process or to begin to pray, we don't need to have great faith or knowledge...just desire. But as we pray and repent, the faith and the blessings will come. The hard part is just taking the first step.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great general conference and a great week!! I'm sure we'll all be able to learn a lot as we listen to the Prophet. Hopefully we'll be able to apply what we learn :)

Love

Elder Webster

Audit, Christofferson, and 28 New Missionaries

Hey y'all

Sounds like there were a lot of updates! Pretty cool stuff. At the rate everyone is growing up, Jaxon might even be potty-trained by the time I get home! :) (hahahahahaha sorry, that was mean, you should probably not put that on the blog...). Its crazy how much goes on back there!

We had a pretty busy week in the office yet again. This week was my first time going to the airport since I first got to Argentina, but I ended up having to go there 3 times this week. 2 of the times were to pick up/drop off someone that works in the church area office in Buenos Aires. He came to do a training meeting with me and the president about budget stuff, and then he spent about 5 or 6 hours with me doing an audit. So that was great. Haha I guess there aren't many 20 year olds that have had to go through an audit in a foreign language. But I learned a lot of good stuff from him...plus he took me to lunch and bought me ice cream afterward so...totally worth it. Haha and he told me all about the new iPhone 6 Plus. I guess he's thinking about getting one...haha the people I meet working in the office are very different than the ones I met when I just talked to people out in fields. Oh, and on an unrelated note, I found out that Elder Christofferson is going to be coming to our mission in November, so that should be way cool. Everyone in the office is pretty excited about it (I'm not sure the rest of the mission knows yet or not...but I'm sure they'd be excited if they knew also..).

We've also been way busy this week trying to get everything ready for transfers next week. At first we were planning on receiving around 28 missionaries, but it looks like some are visa-waiting, and now no one is quite sure how many are coming, so thats making things a little difficult. Oh and this week we sent a bunch of missionaries to Chile and back for visa stuff. We actually ended up working it out with 2 other missions to all go together, so it was interesting getting to work with them.

Well other than that, not a lot of news this week. I've literally had to stay working at the office until around 9:30 every night, so I haven't been able to go visit those teenagers in the plaza for a while. Hopefully I'll be able to go take some new missionaries next week to go meet them. We'll see.

As a verse of the week, I was thinking of something I read in Alma 46:12,19-21. There was one phrase that caught my attention, but you kind of need all the verses to set it up. Verses 12, 19, and 20 explain that Captain Moroni set up a sort of flag as a symbol of their purpose in going to battle, which was to protect their families and religion. He shows it to the people and essentially asks them to come forward if they supported it and where willing to fight to protect those things. The phrase I like was in verse 21, when it says that "the people came running" in support of such a cause. It kind of makes me think of the things that we are often expected or asked to stand up for or to do-to be an example or to stand strong in our beliefs. Sometimes we might hesitate or feel that it is a burden. The people in this verse didn't think like that. They literally came forward, running, to be able to support such a cause. I think we could all (at least I can) learn a little from their strong desire to go forth and do what they had to do, in the moment that it was asked of them.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week. I hope I don't get any news about Hailey wrecking the car :) Keep being awesome.

Elder Webster

The people that came to family home evening, wearing their "armor of God"

Elder Smith and I taking a break after some hard work of "organizing" a bunch of boxes that showed up at the office this week (we finally got some materials we've been waiting on forever...and now the office is flooded with cardboard boxes).

And our finished soccer court!

Spending Millions and Learning to Drive Stick

Hey

So first of all, happy 15th birthday Hailey! I was about to say happy 16th birthday, but then I remembered that you are never going to turn old enough to date. Sounds like an exciting week with the monsoons and family history work. Nothing more exciting than that! And I got the package you sent! Way awesome! Haha the elders that go to the place to pick up the mail got to see what was inside it before I did, because they have to open it there for customs stuff, so when they got back to the office they kept telling me how awesome it was. Thanks!

This week was pretty good. Busy as always. I found out I spent over $1 million pesos last month for the mission, so that was kind of cool. This week I also got to go help set up a new apartment we bought. We've been doing contracts and stuff for it the past few weeks, and this week we got to go buy all their furniture and go assemble everything so that next transfer people can move into it. So that was different. Hmmm...oh, I sort of learned how to drive stick this week. The mission has 2 vehicles for the offices, an automatic car and a manual truck. I tried driving the truck like 2 blocks a couple weeks ago, and I probably killed it like 10 times in 5 minutes. Yesterday was the first time I've tried driving it since then, and somehow I made it all the way across town without any problems, so that was pretty awesome. Which is good, because it looks like I might need to be able to drive it on monday. A last minute thing came up this week and a group of missionaries are heading over to Chile on monday for visa stuff, and I think I'm going to have to shuttle some missionaries to a meeting spot here in godoy cruz at like 4 in the morning that day....so I guess I figured out stick shift just in time. Who knew that I would learn that on my mission? The bad news for this week though is that I only got to spend like 3 or 4 hours in my area. But we have a ward family home evening activity planned for tonight at the church that we are in charge of, so that should be fun. We're going to teach about the "armor of God" from Ephesians 5, and then hand out a bunch of cardboard boxes and stuff and have everyone make some armor...and then maybe pull out some lightsabers and nerf guns....maybe. Not sure about that yet haha.

So, this week as the verse of the week, is something I read the other day in Alma 31:38. In this chapter, we see 2 examples of prayer, right as a group of missionaries head out to begin to teach the people. This verse says something along the lines of how "the Lord...gave them strength so that they did not suffer any type of affliction that wasn't consumed in the joy of Christ...because he prayed with faith". It stood out to me that the Lord didn't stop the missionaries from having afflictions, but rather, He helped them to find joy and peace in their trials, and they found that it was all worth it in the end. Haha sounds a lot like missionaries and missions today.

Well, thats...that. Haha I hope you all have an awesome week! Keep being super cool.

Elder Webster

The new soccer field they're putting in at the office (they tore the old one down a few weeks ago).

The view from the balcony of the new apartment we were opening.

Elder Chamorro and I after assembling a bunch of furniture

Another Good Week

Hey, ¿Cómo estáis?

Haha in the words of an Elder from my MTC group, "There´s some spanish for ya!" Haha anyway, it looks like you had a way fun time for mom's birthday!! Way cool! And happy birthday to Hailey next week! And thats way cool dad, that you took out Jordan's friends to go rabbit/snake hunting for a bit, and I hope Jaxon enjoyed dove hunting! And thanks for all the cool pictures!

Haha well, another good week here in Godoy Cruz Centro. We were way busy this week and didn't get to go to our areas like at all this week, because we had to get everything prepared for a whole bunch of huge meetings that we had.  We had over half the mission here at the offices this week for zone conferences and leadership meetings. And we had to get everything ready for the meetings next week that won't be at the offices, so we can send everything with the President and the APs to take out to the missionaries. But it was way nice getting to see a lot of old friends from the mission this past week and hearing news from my old areas. In fact, I got a couple letters from an awesome family in Rodeo del Medio, so that was way exciting!! Patricia is still doing awesome, and I got a letter that was from her brother Jorge and Jorge's girlfriend, where they told me that they think they are going to get baptized soon, haha and they were even apologizing a bit for being so closed to me while I was there. So it was way great to hear from them!!! And I got to write some letters back to them and send them with the missionaries that are there now. And a little closer to the offices, Jhony was out of town all week, but he's texted us a few times and it sounds like he's been doing good. In fact, last week at church, the lesson was on missionary work, and he is way excited to go help his friends! Lets see... besides that...I set a record for most money taken out by the financial secretary at one time, so that was pretty cool. And last saturday night I had to make a road trip and drive way out to the middle of nowhere for a "financial emergency" (haha it sounds way cooler when I say it like that). But yeah, nothing else that was too exciting or out of the ordinary this week.

As a verse of the week---is a scripture that the President shared in the zone conferences this week. John 15:16. The part he focused on was  " I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain" He talked a lot about what we can do to help people become converted, not just to the point of them agreeing to get baptized, but to the point of really trying to help them stay strong in the church. It reminds me of a scripture I read this morning in Alma 15:12, where it says that "Alma baptized Zeezrom unto the Lord, and from then on Zeezrom began to preach to the people" (..might not be word for word translated right). Our President, and Heavenly Father, want the converts to the church to be just that...converts.

Well, that was probably not the most exciting letter I've ever written but... lets not start pointing fingers. I hope you all have a great week! And I hope Hailey decides to postpone her birthday and just stay 15 years old!

Elder Webster

Some pics, for the visually blessed:

Elder Chamorro from Colombia and Elder Magdaluyo from Las Vegas when we went to buy waters for some of the meetings.

Elder Chamorro outside of our pench-there are 8 of us that live there, there are 3 bedrooms, around 24 beds (for visitors), 4 more or less working showers, 2 more or less working toilets, and 1 working budet, and it has a place to do asado (argentine bbq) on the roof. So...welcome to the most expensive pench in the mission!

The street outside of our pench...because its beautiful...and its ours.

And my comp, Elder Magdaluyo, after we set one of the meetings.

Haha I bet you thought there would be a pic of me! Well...better luck next time

Soccer and Stories

Hey!

First, happy almost birthday mom! The big 2-0, right? And congrats to Jaxon with all the merit badges, what a boss. It looks like he might be the youngest of us kids to get his eagle. Keep up the good work!

So first of all, yes, Johny did end up getting baptized last saturday, so that was really neat. I'll be attaching a couple of photos of him. And he's already set the goal of making to the temple in Chile someday, so that was nice to hear. He's a way spiritual guy, it seems like every lesson he manages to ask us questions none of us have ever been asked by people before.

This week my comp and I also got to have some fun proselyting experiences. We didn't get to go to our area very much, but on Thursday we managed to go visit those kids that are always hanging out in the plaza. We got there and the first thing they did was challenge us to see who could juggle a soccer ball the longest. Haha so that was pretty fun. Then one of them asked, "Hey, aren't you going to teach us something? Tell us a story!" Haha so we all ended up sitting down again and we were able to teach a couple points from the restoration lesson. They weren't super focused, but we found 1 or 2 of them that really seemed interested, so hopefully we'll be able to focus on them more in the future. In fact, the sisters we share a ward with are now teaching the mom of one of them, since we passed them the reference, so thats pretty cool. Haha when we finished talking to them, they all started leaving because they were about to play soccer with another group that they had been waiting for, but before they did, one of them asked, "Hey, aren't we going to pray again, like last time?" We said yes, so he started shouting out for everyone to come back so they could pray. Everyone from their group turned around from the people they had just left to say hi to, said stuff along the lines of "oh yeah, we forgot" and came back so we could pray. Haha they're like the most spiritual gang of young teenage pot smokers ever. Haha they're way fun. 

The other main cool experience/idea was yesterday. You know how sometimes in Mexico, people would come to our car at intersections to try to wash our windows and stuff? Thats pretty common here downtown, and they also go car to car at intersections to sell fruits and other random stuff a lot too. Well yesterday we had to go to a place to get some new nametags made for missionaries, and while my comp and I were waiting, I said it would be fun to go car to car with pass along cards. He just kind of laughed and thought I was joking....so I did it. It was way fun. We were only there for like 3 red lights, but I gave away probably 30 pass along cards to people stopped at the intersection. A few people even would call me from other lanes so they could get one, and one guy had his wallet out when I got to his car because he wanted to buy one. Way fun. It looks like I found my new pass time for whenever we're downtown waiting for something.

Anyway, so the verse I chose this week is Mosiah 27:28-29. Here, Alma the younger is talking about his repentance process, and he says that he had to repent almost unto death (haha...I think thats how it would translate). It made me think of something I was thinking about a week or 2 ago. Its that everyone, from a mass murderer to a missionary that accidentally sleeps 5 minutes late, needs the atonement equally. Can any of us really say "Oh, I'm better than him, he needs the atonement way more than I do"? Or can we say "I'm pretty good, I only need a little bit of help from Christ"? We all need to be perfectly perfect to live with God again, and since none of us are perfect, we are all in need of His forgiveness. Even if we might say 1 sin or error might be "worse" than another, every single error must be erased. It doesn't really matter if one persons sins are more "minor" than another person's, if neither of them get to live with God than what does it matter? They essentially have the same punishment of not being in His presence. That thought process made me realize that really, the severity of the sin doesn't really have to be directly proportional to the degree of our repentance. When we really see the results of even the "smallest sin" and if we are able to look at our sin the way our Heavenly Father does (without the least degree of allowance), we can be brought to repent in the way that Alma the younger did. Great godly sorrow isn't limited to great sins. The atonement's impact on our life isn't so much a result of the severity of our sins, but a result of the depth of desire to be forgiven.

Well, thats the gospel according to Elder Webster for ya. I hope you all have a great week! Happy Birthday mom, again!

Love

Elder Webster

Hey Y'all!

Hey y'all

Thats way exciting about Elder Webster reaching the mission field this week! And I'm sorry you guys have been sick this week, but on the bright side, no one died so...it could be worse. And thats cool that grandma and grandpa got to go to see Hermana Schiess. Glad to hear she made it back alright. And congrats mom! Thats way cool about your friend accepting the invitation! Good luck! Haha if I think of any advice, I'll let you know.

This week was pretty good. Our mission got a visit from Elder Viñas of the 70, so that was really cool. He talked a lot about the atonement and about how to know if we have received a remission of our sins and how to help others recognize forgiveness in their lives. He also did a pretty intense activity. He had a list of the names of every person that had been baptized in like the past 5 years in our mission, and it was divided by ward. And he would call out a random ward, and the missionaries from that ward had to stand up and tell everything about the situation of everyone on his list. But he was actually pretty impressed at how well we did. So that was cool.

Unfortunately, this week we didn't get to go work in our area very much, so that was kind of lame. But on the bright side, Johny passed his baptismal interview on Thursday! He's set to get baptized tonight, assuming all goes well. So we're all pretty excited for that. Haha almost everyone in the office has taught him, because its been really hard for any of us to consistently be available at the times of our appointments, so its kind of like one big shared baptism. We've also been making a lot of changes in the office. None of us are particularly happy about being in the office because a lot of the time we don't really feel like missionaries really, but we realized we can change that. At least a little bit. So we've been making an effort to do a lot better at that, and I think its helping quite a bit.

So, verse(s) of the week. This one is kind of a lot. So, I read Mosiah 3 this week, and in that chapter, King Benjamin is telling his people about what an angel told him. It mainly talks about Christ and the Atonement. What I thought was interesting was verse 3 and 4. Its sort of a prologue, given by the angel, about the message he was going to share. He says that it was a message meant to make him happy, and that when he shared it with the people, they too would be filled with joy. So as I read the chapter, I thought, "Does this message fill me with joy? Why or why not?" In Mosiah 5:4 we read what the people thought about the message--that they were filled with joy because of the faith they had in the things they had heard. I really like that. That the joy they felt because of Christ and His atonement was directly related to the faith they had in it. And since faith is related to action, the more we act with faith in Christ, the more joy His gospel brings to us. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm leaving something out, as always. But I hope you all have a great week! Keep being awesome!

Elder Webster

It Was A Good Week

Hey Everyone!

I can't believe there is now officially another Elder Webster out in the mission field. I can't wait to hear about it! And that's cool about the new callings, mom and dad! Hope everything is going well!

So, I've got lots of stuff to write this week, so hopefully I remember to put in all the cool things that happened--

First, we got all the new missionaries this week, so that kept us way busy! It was way fun getting to talk to all of them/see them all kind of freaking out. It was kind of funny, all the questions they were asking us. But probably my favorite part of the things we did with them was on Wednesday night. They got their comps on Thursday, but the president and his wife wanted them to go out to work as soon as possible, so on Wednesday, we all split up, and I got to take 2 new missionaries out to go talk to people in the streets. It was awesome! We got to this little plaza, and I saw about 4 or 5 teenagers sitting on a bench smoking weed so...I decided we should go talk to them. As we were introducing ourselves, I thought of the Preach My Gospel DVDs, so I turned to one of the new missionaries and told him "talk to them about the restoration". The new elder looked at me for a second, then pulled out a pamphlet and started explaining. One of the guys interrupted to ask about life after death, and long story short...we ended up teaching the plan of salvation to about 15 teenagers while all of us were sitting in a circle on the ground in the middle of the plaza. There was like 3 rows of people in the circle all trying to listen to us. Way cool. Afterwards, the new missionaries were like freaking out and asking me if I had done that a lot...haha, nope! But way cool. I ended up going back to that plaza with my new comp (Elder Magdaluyo-the graffiti artist elder that is in the office waiting to see what happens with some knee problems), and a bunch of the teenagers greeted us and started calling their friends over to show them we had come. We'll see where that all goes I guess.

As far as Johnny goes, it looks like he'll be getting baptized next Saturday, unless something unexpected happens. So we're all pretty excited about that too. In one of our lessons with him this week, a new sister missionary and her trainer sat in on the lesson also. It was kind of fun seeing the new missionary in her first ever lesson. Haha she didn't say a word, but, still cool. Its amazing how many people we've gotten to teach/talk to this week, with how busy we've been. Literally, mission rules say to be back at the apartment by 9pm, but we've had to stay out until like 11pm 3 times this week because of all the things we had to do to organize transfers and receive the new people. And we need to get everything ready for a general authority that is coming next week (Elder Viñas of the 70), so, plenty busy. But since Elder Magdaluyo doesn't know for how long he'll get to stay in the mission because of his knees, we set the goal to really make an effort to try to get out and teach as much as possible. Which brings me to another fun lesson we had with a less active. I'll keep it short but, the lesson started when the teenage son stole his dad's bag of weed, and ended when the dad threatened his son by saying that he better say a good closing prayer or he'd "break him bad"...so...that was interesting.

Anyway, as a verse of the week, it was something that I read a couple days ago that kind of stood out to me. It was really a phrase more than the whole verse, but I liked it a lot. Jacob 4:12. Here, Jacob had just finished teaching about Christ and the gospel, and in this verse he tells the people to "marvel not" that he would tell them those things, because "...why not speak of the Atonement of Christ..?" I really liked that phrase. Why not speak of the atonement of Christ? I feel like it really applies a lot to the goal that Elder Magdaluyo and I have set. And it is a great guideline for new missionaries. So often, especially at the beginning of the mission, we feel unsure of what to say, because we really want to say the perfect thing, or we don't want to mess up. But can we really go wrong if we're talking about Christ's atonement? Why not talk about that?

Well, I feel like there was something else I was going to mention to all of you but..I can't think of what it was. So, I'll just leave it there. I hope you all have a great week! Go and be great!

Elder Webster

Oh, haha I remember the other thing I wanted to mention. Another elder from the offices got in an car accident this past week. No one got hurt, but we have some pictures of the crash and I can not even tell you how tempted I was to send you an email from the official mission email with those pictures saying something like "We're sorry to tell you that Elder Webster was in a serious car accident and is currently at the hospital......." but don't worry, I'm slightly more mature than that. Don't worry, I wasn't even in the car. But I thought I might as well send the pictures, because...why not. The white truck is the mission vehicle, the black car is what he crashed with. I guess that's what happens when we have to keep running errands until 11pm trying to get everything ready on time.

Oh, I'm also attaching a pic of the new steeple they put on our chapel. It didn't have one, but this whole place has been under construction ever since I got to the offices. And a pic of us after carrying all the suitcases of the new missionaries to their hotel. That is only about half of them in that pic though.

Missionary truck

The other car

Weekly Update Number 982635876...or something like that, I lost track

Hey!

I still can't believe you're all going back to school already! And that kind of stinks dad, about having to work so far away...

And mom asked a lot of questions so... 1)Mom, you know I'm a thug:) 2) Yeah I've worn that to the bank, but I switch it up every time. Usually I just go in jeans and a random shirt. Its kind of weird going out like that. Its not a SUPER sketchy part of town, but, missionaries were robbed like 6 blocks from there a few weeks ago, so, just in case. Most missionaries don't have to change clothes, but since I pull out a whole lot more money than most missionaries, they don't want people seeing me because then they might think that all missionaries carry lots of money and then they'll be more likely to rob them. 3) Yeah it'll be easier when he can sign checks. He's gone a lot, but the main problem is that he's not on the mission bank account yet, and they can't put him on until he gets a bunch of paper work down. I think they're almost done with all that now. I hope.

This week has been pretty good. We're doing a lot of preparations for transfer week next week, especially since 32 new missionaries are coming, so we have to do a lot of planning for all of them and we're all going to be way busy next week. Haha game day for the offices. And I also spent a lot of time helping some missionaries move to a new pench...they had to do kind of an emergency move because the cops found like 7 women that had been kidnapped, trapped in one of the rooms of their little apartment complex thing....so we got them a new place. But on the more happy side... guess what happened this week! We set a baptismal date with someone!! We received an amazing reference from the sister missionaries in our ward. They had started teaching Johnny the week before, but it turned out he lived in our area, so they set up a lesson for us. He's amazing. He's so well prepared, and he even walks to the church right next to the offices so that we can teach him. He committed to get baptized, committed to live the word of wisdom, and is really doing everything he can. We met with him Tuesday and Thursday. On Thursday, he told us that he had had a dream the night before about him getting baptized. He wasn't sure if it was an answer to his prayer or because he had stayed up late reading the pamphlet we gave him, but he really wants to. I'm not sure if he'll be ready by his baptismal date (next week), but I'm positive he'll get baptized. It'll be like the first baptism in the offices since like...ever. So we're all way excited for that.

So as a verse of the week, I was thinking of 2 Nephi 16:11. Nephi is quoting chapters from Isaiah, and at the beginning of the chapter, Isaiah is called to preach and prophesy. In verse 11, he asks the Lord a question... "Lord, how long?". I love what the Lord said in response, "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate...." The thing that I was thinking is that, obviously, that time hasn't come yet, and so the Lord's call to Isaiah is still in effect. Meaning that his efforts were to extend and affect those that he didn't even meet during his life. We too can affect more people than we may ever know. A calling to serve in an Elders quorum doesn't mean that you will only be helping the members of that quorum, for that period of time, and the same goes for every calling we have. But hey, it was Isaiah writing, so for all I know, I understood that totally wrong. But, hey, good message either way.

Well, I hope you all have a great week! Good luck in California Elder Webster II!

Elder Webster

I don't know mom, I'm pretty sure I look way thug. This is right before we went to the bank to pull out $40,000 pesos :)

Stress and a Graffiti Artist

Hey everyone!

Wow sounds like everyone has had a crazy and fun week this past week! I'm glad you all enjoyed it and that nobody died:) I dare you to go and have an even crazier week next week!

I had another good week this week. Time flies in the office, but every day is so similar so its kind of weird. The trip to Chile ended up going well (but no, I didn't get to go). Its been pretty stressful though. I've been way more stressed in the offices than I ever was out in the field for some reason. I thought I was handling it well though, up until a day or two ago some sister missionaries were at the offices and they came over to my office to say hi, but the first thing they said when they saw me was "elder, why do you look so stressed?" haha so I guess I haven't been hiding it as well as I thought. But my job will get like 5 times easier once President is able to sign checks for me. But someone told me something this week that made me feel nice and prideful. There is this guy that has worked really closely with the mission for like 20 years, and this week when he came in he told me that he didn't really know me yet, but that he had worked with a lot of office elders, and that based on the stuff he's already seen me done, he knows what kind of work I'll do and that he's excited to work with me. So, that was a nice way of getting me to be all full of myself haha.

Umm, so in other news, there is a cool missionary that got brought into the office this week. He's got some pretty serious knee problems and had to get taken out of the field, and it looks like he might become the new historiador. He's pretty fun. He used to be a professional street-artist/graffiti-artist, so we've been having him make cool art things all over the offices. So that's been kind of a fun change.

Anyway, so the verse I was thinking of sharing this week is...2 Nephi 3:17. It is Lehi quoting Joseph of Egypt's prophecy about Moses. The thing that I thought was cool is that the Lord makes it clear that before Moses was even born, He know what his strengths and weaknesses would be. He says some of the things He would do to help with the weaknesses, but He has no intention of removing the weakness entirely. He does the same with us. He knows our weaknesses better than we do, and although He won't push us beyond what we are able and He is always willing to help us, our weaknesses are OUR weaknesses. We simply have weaknesses. There is no use worrying about them or being sad about them. Like it says in Ether, we have weaknesses to help us be humble. They're supposed to be there. So I guess its a blessing that He gave me so many of them!!

Well I hope you all have another great, fun-filled week!

Elder Webster

A pic from Centro today

Me looking like a thug in my Argentina ghetto clothes.

Like 20,000 pesos

Good News From Rodeo Del Medio

Hey!

Haha sounds like everyone has had a pretty fun week (haha except for you dad...no offense...). I'm glad everyone has been enjoying the summer. I can't believe school starts in just a couple weeks!

This week was pretty good. The President and the assistants were out of town all week, so it was just us office elders here. Haha I didn't realize how crazy the assistants were until they left. It was way quite in our pench without them. But this week we managed to go and teach several less active families which was great. Haha you know one thing I love about the mission? When a guy that is completely drunk/drugged, walks up to you in the street and mumbles in spanish telling you to come to his house...you go without hesitating. I used to spend a lot more time talking to people that weren't really all there, but now that I spend so much time in the office and the bank, it doesn't exactly happen as much, but we got to do that this week. I was just thinking how at any other point in my life, I probably would have kind of freaked out if that happened, but now it somehow seems normal and the three of us didn't even really hesitate in accepting the invitation. Good times on the mission.

I heard some good news about Rodeo del Medio this week! Someone that Elder Perez and I talked to in the street during my 2nd to last week there is getting baptized today! And do you remember Patricia? Her brother and his girlfriend have committed to pray about a baptismal date and they've been going to church! Haha I literally tried to get those two to go to church for like 5 months, and as soon as I leave they finally go! Well, better late than never I guess. So that was way exciting to hear.

This week I've also been pretty busy with the mission budget (wow, that was probably the most boring sounding thing I've ever written). But the new president and his wife kept asking me questions about the budget worked, and it wasn't quite set up perfectly, so I basically just went through and re-did the whole mission budget while they were gone, to answer their questions. I've been also trying to figure out how to fund a trip to Chile for next week. The secretaries are basically in charge of keeping everyone in the mission legal, and for whatever reason, they decided it would be easier to just have some people leave the country and then just re-enter, so we got special permission to do that. So I've been figuring out how to send them over there. Fun stuff.

So, verse of the week. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. These verses talk about the importance of having charity. The thing that caught my attention was in verse 3. Often, when we think about charity, we think of physical, charitable actions. Verse 3 says that "and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." So clearly, actions alone are not charity. If charity was actions, then it would be impossible to "bestow all my goods to feed the poor...and have not charity", but charity is more than actions. It is the desire and intent that we have to help others. A gift without real desire to help someone would be hypocrisy, not charity. The other thing that caught my attention was the phrase "it profiteth me nothing". Two things are implied by that. The first is that, the gift, even given without charity, does in fact help the person you gave it to, so in that sense, it is still worth doing it, it just wouldn't help you. The second thing is that, since he is explaining that a gift without charity doesn't help you, than he is implying that the opposite is true, that is, that a gift given with charity, does help you. Its all things I've heard before but it was something I hadn't noticed in that scripture before.

And with that, I hope you all have another great week! Go out there and doing something charitable, with charity!

Elder Webster