Family Email- July 28th

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great week! I miss you all. Happy Birthday dad! Sounds like all is well back home. Same old same old. 

I have been pretty busy over here just working hard like normal. Im gettine pretty burned out physically and mentally. Im looking for my second wind. Its a tough assignment i have to be in the office. Its not like a normal missionary. Its interesting as i am on the computer everyday and dont feel too disconnected if that makes sense. I feel OF the world if that makes sense. But its a sacrifice im willing to take. Someone has to do it and i know i will be fine and i dont have to be here the whole mission. I am still learning tons however about the gospel just in a different manner and i have different opporutunities in the office to learn. 

This past week was great. Flew by. My new comp is a little bit of a challenge but not too bad. He is just a little pesado and unhappy all the time. I feel like he is just here for his girlfriend as he has no desire to go out and work like i do. Its really tough for me. I need to be patient with him. He is also struggling with the schedule. He is trying to lose weight as he has gained a ton and is almost unable to ride bike and stuff. But he has already lost 8 lbs with me so im pretty stoked about that. hopefully we can keep it up. But he eats a ton of crap and a lot of it. If you put a plate of brownies around him he will scarf down the whole thing. Its not funny because he really has a problem. He tries hiding it and acting like he didnt eat any. But i am trying to help him and keep him exercising. So thats what im working with these days. But he is a great guy overall. No problems other than he is a little lazy. 

Well. last saturday we went to subway for lunch on p day in the middle of downtown neuquen. They have TV´s there so we saw the Argentina game finish where they beat Iran 1-0 with a late Messi goal. It was intense cause everyone in subway was going nuts. But after we went out into the streets and it was scary. We started walking through a park where nobody was and watched the chaos as cars zooming all over the place yelling out the windows. I have never seen anything like it. Everyone honking and going nuts! I will never forget that moment.

We then went to get out of the chaos and got ice cream. IN the Gridos, thats what the ice cream shop is called here like a baskin robbins. But some guy asked me tons of questions about our religion and stuff. He was a preacher. He talked about how all we need to be saved is love god. We talked for a good 30 minutes. He started bashing Joseph smith and stuff. About every 10 seconds he would stop and say Amen? like a preacher does. Eventually I stopped saying amen. Because at first he was like ¨god loves us¨ Amen? I was like ....uhhh yes. amen. After about 10 amens, he started preaching false doctrine. He looked at me and i just stared at him when he told me AMEN? I just stared into his eyes. He said AMEN? again. He looks at his friend and started laughing and says again and looks at me ¨can i get an amen?¨ I said no, i am sorry but i dont agree with what your saying. then i shared my testimony and we kindly left the store after giving him a book of mormon and inviting him to read. I wasnt rude. I wast disrespectful. But im not going to tell him i agree, when i simply dont agree. 

I am very grateful for the experiences i have everyday. Small things like this are more of the experience I am getting these days. I love it so much. But these expereinces help me grow personally. 

Lets see.....This week was normal a lot of office work. We have a few baptisms coming up. One today at 6 pm. Leandro. He is so great. he has a strong testimony. He plays guitar and just is a capo....and Octavio will be baptized in Julio. But thats about it for our area. We are having good success. Im very excited for our area.

I wish i could tell you tons of stories from this week but i am out of time. ok one more real quick.

So as of late i have been driving a lot. To banks, and to migrations for tramite work and other things. taking people to the terminal, etc. But we have a toyota corrolla and a ford ranger 2013. Its so sick. The ranger is a manual so you know i love driving it! Its turbo as well ;))))))) anyways. I have been driving a lot and its going well. Its sketchy as crud, has there is no stop signs and people are nuts. Also, no lines on the road. But heres the funny story. Were in the garage and the truck is parked behing the corolla. And its parked about an inch away from the corolla. Very close. I got in and started the ranger. I let off the clutch....and BANG! It jumps right into the back of the corrola. I thought the car was in neutral but it was in 1st!!!!!! oh my crap. We banged into the car and then i put it in reverse and backed out about 3 feet. My heart sank and i felt like crud. At first i wanted to get out and run away haha. But then i was like....lets...say a prayer...haha. So we did. My comp kindly offered it. Then he says amen and we both just book it out of that car to look at the damage....Turns out there is a tiny scratch no mas. SOOOO lucky. I thought we went deep into the trunk with how hard we hit it. So lucky. And i was thinking..its the other elders fault for parking too close...but then i realized. if anything that helped me do less damage. I would have picked up more momentum if it wasnt so close! So wow. Scared me pretty good but everything is ok and i can still drive! But that was funny cause i had to show president and the other old elder what happened. They werent mad. They kinda laughed....so ya. That was funny.

That was my week! Things are good. Im skinny still. Love you all.

Elder westensee