April 28 2014- what's Up- with pictures

Hola Familia, 

What a week this was. Busiest week in a while. I think i passed out twice this week. I am glad things are good at home and life is just going. The blazers are doing good and thats all that matters haha. Just kidding. I miss you all and i love you all.

P day we went bowling again and just hung out. I played horse in the stake center against this sister from lone peak. She is super cool. She beat me and i was trying actually. BUt that was P day. oh and i played ping pong....

This week was great like i said. We achieved what they call ¨the standard of the mission¨ which is a set of numbers you have to achieve to have the standard. We did it.ANd now the zone leaders are buying us facturas!!!! Julian was baptized saturday. I was able to do that and what an experience. It was great. HArd work paying off. We have another Baptism Friday. German. He wants me to baptize him because i found him with figueroa my last companion and he knows me really well. But i am trying to have my comp to be the one so its even. My comp es mas capo he visto en mi vida en serio. El es la razon por todo del exito. BUt well see when friday comes i wouldnt mind baptizing again. 

All is well. Every day this week was non stop go. go. go. NO time to think rest or do anything. Fastest week of my life. LIFE. not just the mission. BUt it was very hard work and i am feeling it right now. Hopefully we can repeat again this week the standard. 

Well im not going to lie. IM not sure what else to say here. Im getting tired of writing i feel like its the same things...

This week we have been planning our branch activity. oh, sunday we had 72 people in church which was also a record for us. But we are going to have an activity thursday. Everyone has to bring a different creative pizza to share. Also we have assigned the young men, women, primary and other groups to do a skit or song or dance. It will also be a talent show night. SHould be great fun and we will have a lot of investigators there becasue it will be a party mas que nada. BUt we have seen a change here in this branch it really is something amazing. The hand of the lord has definately been the reason we are seeing all of this. i just cant explain how much better it is. More love and it feels warm in the church now. 

For the activity i will be playing the guitar and me and 3 other elders will be singing a song from Chile called NO TENGO PLATA. Its a funny song and people will like it. I have been playing the guitar a lot and getting better, Not good, but better. I just bought a KILLERS and KEANE guitar book to help me learn. ITs a little more advanced but its pushing my guitar playing so thats cool. I love the guitar and every morning and night a play it and sometimes during lunch. WHenever i can really. I will be buying a nice guitar when i get home for sure. BUt well see. 

I will try to send some pictures of the baptism and everything this weeek. If you have any questions let me know im running out of stuff to say! 

Love you all! Cuidense! Y Recuerden que tine un salvador que les ama! 

Chao!

Elder Westensee

p.s. hows lindsey

Julian y Yo en el bautismo!

Mis Zapatos Rotos! Una Porqueria!

In the morning waiting to go to Centro in collectivo (bus)

the zone (almost everyone not quite)

this is where we email CYber

a little of the area

more of  neighborhood Nahuel-Hue close to frutillar

when we played in the rain, i was taking foto

April 21st 2014-hey hey hey

miss you all. Keep the commandments and you will be happy i promise. SOunds like they are building a new church and school in herriman? thats gonna be nuts. New stoplights and what not! Man it didnt change then when i leave it changes a ton. oh well it will be fun to see everything. 

This week was nuts. Very challenging for me. The most up and down i have ever been. 

P day we went to a ski resort. Or ski town. like a tiny park city but crappier haha. It was cool. we went to the top and after ate some waffles with berries andcream. So good. It is pretty big ski area. we can see frutillar from the top of the ski hill. it was pretty good day.

Went on exchanges on thurday with elder shearer from layton. Were good friends but the4 transfer wasnt great. Really boring as crud. But we had a few tough lessons and thats what put me down big time. I was very down. I could hardly talk. I felt like a stone. I had no feeling or expression. But i just kept going. 

This week as well, the day before exchanges, we had interviews with president. My interview was good. I didnt have much to say as normal. But he shared some good stuffwith me. Also i remember he prayed for me and i remember hearing in his prayer that i will have mighty miracles in the coming days. Well he was right. After this meeting is when exchanges happened and i had those cruddy meetings so i was just wondering what those miracles meant. 

Then saturday we planned in the churchwith the sisters. Sister Rainsdon from my district MTC and sister mcchesney. they were on exhanges the sisters. Normally its hermana aguero de paraguay. We planned for our activity may 1. a night of pizza and talents. Should be great. Were going to play and sing a song for it.  BUt Sunday was busy. 

Sunday. Went to the church early at 8 am to make the invitations to the activity. Then we all spoke in church. I spoke with just a book of mormon and my thoughts. I was rushed and my spanish sucked cause I was just going fast becasue had 2 minutes but na awesome story to tell. Anyways some people loved it and some said they didnt understand but what are you gonna do. I liked it so hah. haha no. but it was ok. Then we went after to see Julian, our 16 year old investigator. 

We found julian in febuary my 2nd day in bariloche. He has a lip ring, emo hair and wears chains and stuff. But he is excellent. He is capo. He always comesto church and likes it. He had a baptismal date for march 8, 15, 21 and april 19th. They all fell. So he always kept pushing it off. We went after church to visit him. ANd in the week he had gone to youth conference in the mountains for 3 days with the youth. We heard he loved it and was super happy. He bore his testimony as well. So we went to visit him. It started off normal. He was annoyed that we were there. He said i want to be baptized MAS ADELANTE. more in the future. BUt i was tired of hearing that so i told him how i felt (with love of course) and then after a little bit, he commited to may 10.Then i said. oh wow thats too bad. He said why? whats wrong with may 10? I said, im probably going to leave bariloche and be transferred. Cause i am most likely gone. He said...oh....and said. Ok. Lets do it saturday cause i want you to baptize me. AHHHH! When he told me this, i am serious, i felt a fireball in my chest. The same fireball i felt with president in my interview when he said i would see mighty miracles. Unbelievably great. I almost started tearing up. It was powerful. He is ready and finally hes going to be baptized.

This story just shows what hard work can do. And the scripture in eter 12;6 is true. I have been trying so hard to get baptisms for 10 months now and finally. We have arrived. ANd the great thing is were having another one after julian as well. So rewarding. I have had baptisms before of course, but this one i feel responsible for. we found, we taught, we converted. I am very content and excited. The church is true. 

That just about does it for this week. Always when i have a cruddy day, its followed by a great experience or miracle. Eter 12 6 seriously is true. JUst keep pushing and you will see what happens. This principle and the atonement are what keep me going in the mission. I would be gone home if i didnt understand these principles. 

Anyways i am doing good. Its ups and downs. But at the end of the day, i will be on top and have learned a lot. 

Love you all. Dont be sick i pray for you a lot. And think about you everyday. CHAO!

Elder Westensee

p.s. tyler, andrew, derek, dustin, blake, got any good ideas for trainings? district meetings?

April 14th 2014

hello everyone. im gassed. im tired. i was so tired yesterday after church we went to the pension to study for an hour and my comp went to the bathroom and i just plopped on my bed in my coat and with my bag and next thing i knew it was an hour later. I felt so sick in the night too like nausea. But i was fine and we continued on like normal. We fasted for our branch cause its struggling bad. BUt were seeing improvements. This week was great. we almost acheived the standard. only 2 companionships in the mission achieved it last week. So ts hard to get the standard but were closer every week. We have some baptisms coming up as well. So its exciting. 

SOunds like your all doing great i love and miss you all. 

This week was a quicky like normal as the days flew. it rained for a week and a half, but this week in the middle it stopped. There was bad flooding here and worse in neuquen.

Monday we played soccer in the pouring rain and got soaked. But it was great i have pictures. IT was a great p day. Then we went back and had a family home evening with a family.

tuesday we had district meeting in the morning. It was a good meeting. I didnt plan a whole lot but just talked the whole time and trained in a few things. After we went and didnt have any lessons but did some contacting and had some success.

wednesday we went to centro in the morning to pay the rent of our pension. It was good no problems. We had lunch with president alarcon hes the president of the branch. He has had a lot of problems with members and interviews and stuff. So we shared a message about love about what the prophet spoke about. He was quiet and didnt say much. But he warmed up to us and we had a good time. Then we had a lesson with sergio. From australia in english the lesson was. It was cool. He loves the church but wont commit cause he is not 100%. He had questions like if christ came tomorrow what would happen to us? or what is the celestial kingdom like and where will it be? These are questions that we answered but dont have a consice answer to them. We cant say exaclty how things will happen or how it will be. SO that was tough a little. But we had to give them to the elders over in pioneros cause he moved there. 

thursday.this day always sucks. so boring and kills. Weekly planning. Lots of rejection after and dropped appointments. But itsl ike this every week. We stopped by the guajardo and had a great lesson and commited them to come to church. 

friday busy day lots of lessons and menos activos and some new baptismal dates. good day normal work great experiences. not sure what to say..

saturday great we found some new people. We were walking and a guy started talking to us from his car and said he will come to church sunday....a little weird but hey well see! We had a lesson with German, our 21 year old capo investigsdor. he is going to be baptized si o si. but great lesson with him. we found him walking home one night we bumped into him and he said to come over. 

sunday. We had 3 investiggadors at church so that was good. Then lunch with a weird kid from the other ward.....he took forever to make the food too and we were starving. The guy was a weirdy but nice and were grateful for the food. Then we tried to visit some others but they werent there. IN the testimony meeting at church president alarcon got up and shared a great testimony and cried a lot. You could tell he felt bad for what he had done with some people. But now we feel more love in the branch so its great. He had an interview with a man he yelled at before and the man left the interview in the middle mad. This time it was different and wasa great interview and this man will noew revieve the priesthood. great miracle there. becaue we are in the middle of people being mad at each other and now were on the same page as them now. 

It was a great week. I will send pictures of our baptisms. They have been hard to come by here in these days but were almost there finally! Its a great reward!

Love you all. Take care.

elder westensee