April 13 Weekly Letter

Hello family. Its good to hear things are going well. I feel like a lot has been changing as of late. Lindsey is getting married, and LINDSEY IS GETTING MARRIED! holy crud. My cuz is getting hitched to someone i dont even know! Que loco. I am very excited for her though. I am so excited to see her in arizona!

Este..... as for here in Argentina not too much NEW. Just my companion and area. The work of the lord just keeps going on. I learned this week that the work of the lord will always move forward. The invitation the lord gives us is that we participate and dont get left behind. Its helped me here late in the 9th inning. In the 4th quarter. Standing on the 18th tee box. Tired. I feel pressure of having to go back to real life. But i know that if i just finish strong and trust the lord. EVERYTHING will be ok. 

ME and Da Silva have been real busy here. We have i believe 5 baptisms this transfer. All they have to do is get married and ya está. Its amazing how much is focused on marriage and the family. It has to be for something. BUt i am really enjoying the time here in 5 saltos. I will expain howm y week went.

Monday night we had a great noche de hogar. Tuesday we cleaned the pension just about all day. I literally could not even think it was so dirty! NASTY. I got way into cleaning and i cleaned from after studies until 6 pm. thats like 8 hours straight. We got the pension in shape finally and now were able to feel the spirit there and work better. ON wednesday we went out to one of the neighborhoods in our area. Its about 45 minutes walk. Everything is real seprated. BUt it was great.

We did service for a less active family. They were doing construccion on their house. We helped pour concrete in a column....it makes no sense and its terribly done but oh well. They build houses terribly here. its sad. After the service we had a obra misional reunion. It was ok. But that was our day,.

Thursday we played basketball at the church. We got up at 6 am and ran to the church and played with a crazy member who has tatooed face and eyebrows and dragons and what not. He is nuts. But were heloing him and his friend who came is non memebrs o were working with that. But htat was fun.

Later that day we ate with a member and played his guitar a little bit and just had a good lunch. Then we helped the sister s move their pension. They are closing a lot of areas becasue the mission is shrinking. We had 250 at one point and now were dropping slowly to the goal of 16-180 missionaries. ANyways, it  was a good day.

Friday We got up again at 6 and.....bueno. Quickly i will explain the goegraphy of our zone. We have cinco saltos. its a small city. 4 missionaries including us are here. Centenario is 20 minutes up the high way. there are 8 missionaries there. Catriel is an hour and a half away. 4 mor missionaries. And 25 de mayo is 3 hours north, 4 more missionaries. SO. we got up early to travel to 25 de mayo to be in the district meeting. It was great. We halped the other elders area a ton and traveling is really fun on the double decker buses. We really had a good time and found al ot of new people to teach with them.

Ok. Saturday we had a good morning in our area and the n took a quick colectivo to centenario for the district meeting there. It was ok. After the meeting we waited at the bus stop for almost 3 hours. We got back to our area and had 2 amazing lessons and that was our day. We talked about mosiah 5 and it was just really great experience with this guy whos son was just baptized, NIko. HE also recieved the Priesthood. He is 14. And so his dad is planning on getting married then baptized. So excited. 

Sunday was ok. Really boring, my comp was sick so we had to sit in the pension a little but its ok :) I am reading hte doctrine and cvenants and am very excited to get to the later chapters that are very deep studies. 

Love you all unti lnext week!

Elder Westensee

p.s. estoy comiendo como chancho! :p ganando poco cada dia

April 6 Weekly Letter

Hello Friends and Family! I hope you all had a great week! I love you all!

 

This week was pretty good. I finished my time in Roca and have been transferred to  a place called 5 Saltos. Its about 45 miutes from Neuquen in another direction. I have been here for 1 hour. I like it so far. My copanion is Elder Da Silva from the office. I already know him really wellso i think ir will be a very fun transfer and we have some good stuff going here. I do miss Roca though.

 

I am very tired. Extremely exhausted. I got 1 hour of sleep in the last 2 days. I had to pack after getting home late from buying tickets for transfers. After i finished i layed down at 3 am and slept until 3 30. Then we went to the terminal and dropped off some tickets and stuff. We went back to the pension around 5 am. Slept until 6 am. Then I got up and went to Neuquen. IN Neuquen I found my companion and we took a taxi to 5 saltos. We ate lunch in Neuquen at Burger King! So goood.

 

Thats been my day. I got to my apartment and its really cool but really dirty and gross. Honestly i am so tired i am trying to clean it little by little but its like dirty dishes from months ago and gross everywhere so thats my plan this week is to whip the pension into shape.

 

As far as my last week in Roca.....It was good. We had a few fun exchanges and the icing on the cake was general conference. It was a very uplifting experience for me and i truly learned so much from it! I had to say goodbye to some great members and some good missionary friends but oh well life goes on. I am so tired and just trying to finish strong but its soooo hard. I am burned out haha

 

I pray every day to keep going strong and just try to get through and be effective and do the lords will. But wow. I have so much to say but just no time here and not much energy to write haha im sorry. 

 

 I will fill you ina lot more on the details in a few weeks! Love you all!

 

Elder Westensee

March 30th- Weekly Letter

Hey everyone. I am sorry for the lack of writing and stories but i have had no time and i still today have little time. Its a sacrifice sometimes but vale la pena. (its worth it) Also i want to say that i love you all and i think about you a lot. Thanks for the emails capos!

This week was a special one for me. WHY? because i dont know if you remember my investigador who we found and had an addiction to cocain and meriajuana (terribly spelled) and had many problems with the law of chastity in his life having 4 kids bafore he was 22 and yeah.....very very comlicated. But the difference was that we saw his potential. We fasted for him on many occasions. IN the process, he fell again into drugs. But through the atonement he was ablt to get help and make his life better. After many talks and phonealls with president, 4 long months of headaches and questions and trials, I am proud to say that Jonathan was baptized and confirmed this weekend over in cinco saltos. (remember he moved a few weeks before his baptism) But i have never witnessed such a miracle honestly. Gos has showed me on more than one occasion very plainly that he lives. He has shown me that there are no limits when we do his will and when we keep our covenants. And more than anything he has show me his love that he his for me. 

What an amazing experience. I cant explain in words how grateful i am to have these experiences. I dont feel likei deserve it. Its a blessing so big to be here learning and to progress that i dont even know how to describe it. 

When i think about life in a deep sentido, i come down to the question of why i am here and why i have life every day. And i realize that i am here to serve God. Nothing else. And part of the plan is that in the process of serving God, we will be shaped and prepared for eternal life. Im not just talking about the mission. We are here to prepare the world from the second coming and most importantly prepare ourselves with our families. When the second coming happens, all theings of the world will not be worth anything, So I invite you all to start now and start making eternal investments and keep the big picture in your heads always!

As far as my health I am doing better. It was 2 months of suffereing and weight loss and fever and throwing up and etc. But what a blessing it is to have the priesthood and to have a blessing that after the blessing i was better in a week! Again, i tell you that God lives and he loves us. I cant even tell you how real the priesthood is. I have seen so many miracles here that have changed my life!

I love you all and will let you know where i get transfered to next week to d¿finish the last 6 weeks of this great mission!

Have a great week!

Elder Westensee