May 5, 2012

Hey Family, how is it going? My P-day is going pretty good today. All of the Elders went to the Zoo today, even with the rain. It really wasn’t much of a zoo though, more like a petting zoo, with lots of goats horses and pigs. They did have some cool deer that I’ve never seen before, but other than that it was kind of boring. But we walked in the rain through the country side and we saw some really beautiful sights. I love it when it rains here. That was worth making the trip by itself.

We did have zone conference this past week, which was really great. I greatly enjoyed everything that was prepared. President Heaton talked about learning your purpose as a missionary, doing missionary activities with the intent of trying to help people, and not just doing things for numbers. Sister Heaton talked about using the atonement of Christ and letting it help us in our lives. She shared a lot of things from Elder Bednar’s talk from the Liahona of April. The one thing she talked about that I really liked was that we are all like little pop corn kernels and if we let the Atonement of Christ work within us, and not harden our hearts, we will grow into beautiful white pop corn. But if we harden our hearts, we’ll not progress and stay seeds. Sometimes we do things half way and we just sort of pop.

For Lunch we had pizza and had caramel pop corn. Also, we all got little bag of pop corn seeds. A lot of people left those at the table. But I didn’t. so after lunch hermana Heaton talked again, and she was sad that people left their bags of pop corn on the table. She said she felt like Christ when He has given us so many talents and blessings and yet we ignore those things and leave them on the table where they will stay kernels forever. We can’t leave those things on the table.

Thank you for working so hard with the package, and sending it off so fast. My companion appreciates it. Hopefully, it’ll get here on time before he leaves. What does the package look like that has his stuff in it? He might have to go look for it when he goes to the mission home, if it doesn’t come next week. The office elders can just give it to him there.

I can’t believe school is already over. I was going to make graduation cards for a couple of those guys graduating. Dang, maybe you guys could just make one for me. I know I wanted to send one to Ler and Simister and Berkley Bundy. I’m sorry Ì keep giving you guys projects, I really am.

We found a youth kid that we’re working with. He’s really cool, he comes and plays soccer with us on Wednesday and we’ve taught him a couple lessons already. I like him, we’ll see were it goes though. He doesn’t have any religious history…which can be good.

Mom, you’ll have to tell me the name of the Elder that you blog stalk.

I’m sending off a letter tomorrow and I’ll start another one tonight for you guys. Thanks so Much for your love and support guys.

Love Elder Webster

Hey mom, great talking to you guys yesterday. Now I have to wait till Christmas to talk to you again. That seems so far away. Oh well. Overall, it was a great talk. Sorry I didn’t get the video up and running until the end. My companion really appreciated talking with you guys too. I know he’s feeling really discouraged right now about his whole family situation. He doesn’t like talking about it, and I can tell. Hopefully I can help him out.

My pancakes went all right today. They turned out really thin. Which I didn’t like because they were a little too thin and I burned a few. Oh well. I’ll get better with practice. Thank you for the recipe, that’ll help me out a lot. I just kind of guessed when I made it.

We played futbol today for p-day. I tried running around a lot more than usual, trying to get more cardio in during the week. I can’t jump rope because we live above people and I know they wouldn’t appreciate their roof shaking like that at 6:30 in the morning. I think the Latinos were getting a little frustrated at me playing with a lot more energy; I was all over the place disrupting their forward offense. hahaha. Good day.

I do always like to hear when you have special moments of like that mom, when you have spiritual promptings. It makes me think harder what I need to be doing in this life and as a missionary. I wish I could only help you out more. I’m excited for this Thursday because we have zone conference and we’ll get the Liahona from general conference. I’m very excited. I really want to go back and read some of those talks, especially Elder Scott’s. Thanks mom for sharing your experiences with me...yhey mean a lot.

Dad said that it was elder Worthlin that called you, after Brenan passed away. I always loved Elder Worthlin, I felt he’s the apostle that I can relate most with. Because of his sports back ground, and other experiences. I went and read his fall conference talk of 2008 and I felt it had great council for me. I’ve been having trouble with my football memories, just the whole experience and some individual games, It just feels disappointing. I’ve been wondering a lot about how I can learn from these things and try to move on. I realize I’ve never really talked about it, I wish I would’ve because keeping it bottled up makes things worse. I just wish to know why I went through these things and what Heavenly Father wants me to learn from them. His talk about “come what may” and “love” it brought much comfort. I also related it to Brennan in many ways for our family, especially about everything being re-compensated. I liked that thought but after reading that talk the following talk was by Elder Holland, about angels ministering to us. I felt like I needed to read these two talks, and I’d like you guys to read these talks too.

So, now there are two stories that I’d like you guys to write. The story about the phone call from the quorum of the 12 in more detail, and another story I remember about a girl that went to school with Brennan and had an experience much later in life when she saw Brennan again. I can’t remember the experience; I think she got lost...but if you could work on these two. I’d be very grateful.

Thank you for the story with Brennan and swimming, I really enjoyed it and felt it very applicable.

Thank you for writing family, I love you so much. I’m working on that letter giving greater detail of what I’m doing.

Love you all. I always look forward to your emails and letters.

Handwritten Letter 

Hey Family, Elder Webster here.

I am going to try to get a lot better with my letters explaining what I am doing and the people I am with and the experiences I am having. So here it goes…

The part member family that we have been working with has had a few things happen with them. First, I will give you a bit of history with them. The parents were baptized about 20 years ago and they have been less active for most, if not all, of those years. The father is 58 and blind. He walks with a cane, but he is really funny and has really long ear hair that sticks out from his ears. They have 6 kids all living at home, three that are Lauren’s age. Elias (boy)11, Luciana 13, Ana 16. Then, there are 3 that are older than me . 2 boys and a girl, the girl is pregnant and her boyfriend spends a lot of time at the house. They aren’t married like most families here, mostly because they get help from the government being a single parent (they work the system here). That’s the familia Perela. They are the investigators we have spent the most time with. This week we learned the parents were baptized but never confirmed. We had to try and explain to them that they have to get baptized again. That was kind of tough but we got through it alright and we are going to work on baptizing the parents and the 3 younger kids. We have had great progress with this family. We have gotten to the point where the parents come to church every week now with at least one of the 3 younger kids. I really want to get these 3 kids baptized. They are kind of a rough bunch but I have grown close to them these past weeks. The youngest boy Elias, I play futbol (soccer) with him and always just mess around with him.

The ward that we are in had a missionary return this last Friday, which is a big deal for a Uruguayan ward. He bore his testimony in fast and testimony meeting along with his mom and dad. They all said great things and they are a great family. It was tough for me and the other Elders in our ward to listen to their testimonies, a very trunky moment.

There is a family that feeds us every Saturday and the mom always makes a big cake for us, which I always look forward to. They have a son who is my little buddy. He has some problems that are similar to Josh. He is around 8 years old. But whenever I see him I am reminded of the Smiths, and their family. I think Heavenly Father has great trust in these families to have placed some of his most pure and special spirits with them. I can’t wait to meet these spirits after this life when their bodies are perfected.  But he is my little buddy because he always tries to sit on my lap during lunch while we are eating. I let him sit there and he just sits with a big smile on his face. I love it.

Hey Lauren, Here is a part for you. I am responding to your email. … I’ve been praying hard for you to find good friends with good values. Be careful with boyfriends try not to get hung up over one guy for too long. You will have more fun through high school if you do that.  I am looking forward to our double date, I wonder what we should do dinner and a movie, bowling and ice cream? What ever we do will be great. I am glad you enjoyed missionary week and had so many great experiences. Hope you didn’t have to much of a problem with the rules. I remember not listening to music was a tough one for me, especially with driving to school. But I actually came to enjoy it. I know John Bytheway has a talk on “Weed Your Brain” about taking away those distractions in our lives. Its good you studied Preach My Gospel. I think members need to read it more often or just the first lessons at least. So they can understand the gospel principles, which are oh so important like Baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost. Priesthood authority, and the importance of a Prophet, the Book of Mormon and a lot more.  I realize that these principles can be tough to understand. I remember feeling overwhelmed my first couple of days in the MTC. These things are important, but what I guess is most important is that it’s not so much the things we see as it is the way we feel. So Lauren remember these spiritual experiences that you have. It is these experiences that will bring you great strength down the road.

Sorry this letter was all over the place, I fear I am slowly starting to lose my English now that I have been with a Latino companion for 3 months.

Well Lauren and family, I love you so much. Thank you for your prayers and your support.

Love Elder Webster.

Hey Family, things are going good in Mercedes. I finally got your package. It was so great! It really made my day. Thank you for the music its really great. Thank you for the food and the Brennan stories, I really appreciated that. Well, we’ve had a pretty busy week with the family Perela. This is the part member family that we’ve been working on since I’ve been here in
Mercedes. We found out that when the parents were baptized over 20 years ago but were never confirmed. They aren`t actually members. This was a little tough trying to tell them this and that
they have to be baptized again. They took it well I think. Now we have a baptismal date with the mom and two of the kids, Elias 11 years old and Luciana, 13. I think we’ve had real success with this family. I guess before us they wouldn’t even let the missionaries into their house. Now, I feel pretty welcome. Yesterday they invited us to Lunch, and we had this weird soup. I don’t really know what was in it, but it tasted good. I baked brownies and bought a Coke for them.
They really like me because I bring brownies and chocolate lumps to them. I haven’t been able to talk very well with them, but I`m getting a lot better and now I feel very comfortable with them. That’s what’s been going on with this family. I really hope we can get them baptized; we’ve put a lot of work in with them.


Hey, I want to Skype Sunday afternoon at around 6:00 my time. I think that’s about 3:00 for you guys. I’m using a member’s computer again. I’ll send you the contact information at around that time. Hopefully it works. If it doesn’t then I’ll send an email setting up a time where I can just call you. The president wants us to Skype if we can because it’s free. Let me know if this works for you guys.


In my package if you could send more of those pasta mixes that’d be great. Also, if you could put the same music you put on that CD you gave me and some others that’d be good. You could send me a long sleeve sweater vest and a nice polo shirt or golf polo shirt too. Pictures would be really good of the family and all. That’s about all I can think of.


Well, I’m working on a letter for you guys. It’ll be describing more about what I’m doing and just overall better.


It sounds like things are going good in St. George. Steve sent me an email saying he’s been reading the book of Mormon in German. I’m happy about that. I also fasted for Stephen this weekend, hopefully things work out for him.


My comp goes home the first week of June. He’s been having a tough time because his family didn’t want to talk to him when he tried calling or that’s what he said what happened. He was pretty disappointed about that, and has lost a lot of amino to work. It was a tough week with that.
Hopefully I can help him.


Love you guys and thank you for everything. You’re in my prayers. I’m trying to be a good missionary and trying to help the people I’m with the best I can. I’ll send a letter.


Love Elder Webster