July 22, 2012

July 22, 2012

Hey Family how is it going? I’m doing very well here in Colonia 18. Well, mass o menos. Our new area is huge and biking this past week has been very painful on my legs and my rump. The roads are mostly dirt with tons and tons of rolling hills.  It’s been pretty tough on my body. I almost couldn’t get up out of bed after the first day…my legs were so tired. I really like this new area. It’s really pretty out here in the country side. There are fields and fields of Orange trees and strawberry bushes. Its strawberry fields forever. My house looks like the house from the man from Snowy River. Just like a little shack cabin. I like it. I’ll write more about the details in my letter that I started this morning. P-days will be a lot more tranquil and I’ll have more time to write.

Right now I’m in a branch and it’s in bad shape. It has a lot of members, but a lot of them have gone less active in the past 4 months. I’ve never seen anything like it. They just called a new Branch President and he’s only been a member for 2 years. he’s trying but he just lacks gospel knowledge. What can you expect from a recent convert? He’s really cool though. He looks like Ted Mosby from the tv show: How I met your mother.

Friday we went on a really far bike 10 or mass kilometers to a house with a lady that really wants to get baptized. Her only problem is that she can’t get to the church because its soo far away. That’s the big problem with a lot of these people. We shared the restoration with her and her daughter. I always love telling the Joseph Smith story, but when I told it this time I felt the spirit over whelm me like never before. That lessen felt really good, and she was very animated to go to church. However, when Sunday came she said she couldn’t go because there were drunk people in her house and she didn’t want to leave them there. Stupid alcohol. Her Name is Olga and we’re going to do all we can to help here get baptized.

My new companion is elder Rivera. He’s from Honduras. He’s awesome. I knew him before while I was in Mercedes. We were in the same district. He was very excited to have me as his companion. He’s really great. I’ll send a picture of him next time. We are using the computer in the church and for some reason it can’t send photos. We are going to go into town next week to send photos.

It sounds like you guys had fun with girls camp and everything else. Dad with the tour de France. and I’m really happy that Stephen went to church. I’ve been praying for him a lot to have the desire to go. I hope Lauren is doing better. Sometimes it’s better to be in the house with family. They are the ones that are most important and will be with you for the longest.

I had to give a talk yesterday about charity. I really like what Mormon says in Moroni 7:40 something, sorry can’t remember exactly. It’s about praying for this gift of charity. I’ve really tried praying so that I can have a love for this people to help motivate me to work. So far I can see a big difference from when I started the mission and now. I have a great testimony in the power of prayer and charity.

Answers: 1 My companion is great. We get along really well and he’s helping me out a lot with Spanish and with teaching with power and authority. We like to wrestle and play catch with the football. He’s really interested in football.

2. We have some people but our best person is Olga, she’s in her 60`s but she’s still up and moving everywhere.

3. I`m going to buy a scarf in town tomorrow when we go in for district meeting. It’s really not that cold. I have my sleeves rolled up during the day and I just put my sweater vest on at night.  It’s not cold when you are biking everywhere.

4.Our Apartment is small but its home. It has washing machine…which is a bonus. We have to turn on this water tube thing every morning to fill up a water tower by our house. Other than that it’s nice. I’ll take some pictures.

5. We have a washing machine. The tough thing is getting food. The closest store is about 2 miles away from our house. We just carry everything we can in our back packs. Sometimes we have to ride slow, especially with carrying eggs in my pack.

6. The District is really cool. I’m in the Salto Zone; which is the best zone in Uruguay. They are always getting tons of baptisms. Its called the promised land. However, I’m kind of in the loop hool out in the country side. That’s ok. I know a lot of the elders from before and we all get along really well. This is my first p-day here so I’m not too sure what we are going to do.

Questions. I really don’t have any questions for you guys today. Maybe you can tell me what you guys are learning as a family with scripture study and other stuff like that. I know there are a couple movies coming out that seem really cool. Spiderman and Batman. Tell me how those are if you get the chance to go.

You guys can pray for my Spanish that it will improve and that people will be able to understand me better. I’m struggling right now and I get really frustrated when people don’t understand.

Well I love you guys. Thank you for all of your support and love and prayers. If you need anything just let me know.

Love Elder Webster