Elder Westensee's Mission to Argentina: Week 3-MTC

3 weeks done here at the MTC. The new district that came in on wednesday has Grant Jones best friend, Elder Turley in it. He is a cool kid and is probably the most obedient too. Also, a kid from EFY back in 08 that i know. He is very lazy though and not obedient so thats dissapointing...But we are a great zone otherwise. I got a shot today, my 2nd Hep A shot and they said they would bill the house so I wouldn't have to use my travel money. Sorry bout that I know you are on Trek right now and are busy a lot. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!! It has been killing me cause we can only email once a week and write letters one day a week. But just count that fathers day letter as a birthday item as well :) How old are you now? 50? 49? I cant remember. I hope you treated yourself to some golf on your birthday cause you know I would "take you golfing" if I was home. I am seriously missing music the most, then golf. And family of course.

Thank you Mom for the package of ties and goodies! Dont worry about home baked goods its not a big deal! I will take anything. Literally. The other day in the free bin we found "noise putty" where you have the can of putty that makes inappropriate noises if you know what i mean....it is pretty fun (cause theres 10 cans) so us 4 elders go in the stalls and make some pretty gross sounds haha and you can hear the other elders outside laughing. Anyways...those free bins are money.

I have some allergy meds left still, I have been off of them for about a week now and i am doing good. I haven't emailed alex or daniel, they are busy. Jeremy and i have been emailingthough cause he can relate he was just in the MTC.Thats awesome Dad got the Cabin shower going! Happy Birthday to you! I am sure the Cabin will just keep getting better! I have one stamp left for letters but I should be good for the rest the time here. When I go to the field, I will only do email cause of the travel and time. I am loving my group of elders we have a lot of fun.

In the Sunday Devotional we are on the video at 3 minutes 9 seconds if you pause it and look on the right part i am there singing. Longer range, but still you can see me. The video is on LDS.org. I also enjoyed getting a letter from dad and hearing from Andrew and Tyler. You should put on my facebook that lindsey and doug should write me. I miss them. Oh and for some reason the girls think I am writing a girl? So if you ever send a letter you should make it look like a love letter. Or tell lindsey that too. Like today Elder Adcock got one with hearts on it. I think that would be funny to mess with everyone haha cause I have told them I am not writing anyone but they dont believe me so I am just gonna go with it.

I just attached a few pictures of our district, and....some others. I hope it works.

Now for the important part. My classes have been going well but it is very rough teaching. It is difficult to stay positive. That is the hardest thing because it is discouraging when you plan a lesson and then it goes awful and the investigator falls asleep or doesnt keep commitments. Let me remind you that our investigators are our Teachers. We have 2 teachers. Hermano Christofferson, D Todd's Nephew. He is amazing. I will get a pic with him. And Hermana Bryce. Both great in their own ways. But me and my companion dont mesh well in the lessons quite yet for whatever reason. It is a challenge. We are doing our best and are very obedient and know that we will be blessed for that. At the end of every day though we always end up happy and ready to work the next day.

Teaching is either the best or worst thing. And we have been working to try to do our best every time. So the spanish is not clicking like I want but I just need to be patient. It is very annoying day after day when you feel like your not going anywhere but that is when I make light of the situation and try to uplift everyone and compliment as much as possible. So yesterday in class, one of the Sisters was teaching me and elder hill in a class simulation about inviting investigators to church on sunday. This is just in our class 2 on 2 teaching companionships in normal class. We were investigators. So the sisters start teacheing us and you have to trade off saying phrases to the investigators so its equal companionship talking. When it came to this other sisters turn to talk she had nothing to say. Then after like 30 seconds she started balling and weeping and she left the class. I felt awful for her cause I have felt like that when teaching too. She is having a rough time. But when those times come I just try to smile and laugh at it because when I get down not only do I stop learning, I just stop caring. So when I teach in spanish I teach with a bunch of emotion and passion and happiness. It takes the stress out of it for now. I can go through the first three lessons all in spanish right now so im pretty proud of that. Its broken spanish though.

Dad, for my favorite scripture, I haven't given it much thought. I will try to have on e by next week. Also, what picture are you using cause that one i took before is nasty...anyway i will think about it this week. I have been thinking a lot and learning a lot about the gospel. I wish I would have applied things to my life more often so i can teach them better. I am slowly getting better at sharing scriptures that relate to our lives and opening up to investigators with personal stories. That is the best way to teach.

Anyways, I am doing well and enjoying my time here. It is a great place. We were able to play basketball again yesterday and are now back in the cafeteria. Our district is getting very close and are getting along so well. Its great.

Thank you everyone for the letters, they were all great. I liked Kristina Millers letter a lot and mom and dads letters a lot as well. It helped me through a rough night after a bad lesson and rough day. But in the end the gospel is the same and everything works out.

Love you all and look forward to reading letters throughout the week!

Love,

Elder Westensee