Dec 12 2011

This week was a good week! Tuesday we were finally able to have the marriage of the family we were going to baptize and then we had the baptism on Saturday! The wedding was sweet ha they both started crying, we were all surprised that the husband started crying too, and they were both super happy! It was awesome! And then on Saturday we were finally able to have our baptism which went awesome! They were so happy and everyone in the ward made an effort to congratulate them and get to know them. They already knew allot of people in the ward so I’m sure they´re gonna do great at staying active!

We have changes this Tuesday or Wednesday, we´re not quite sure because we heard both so I guess we´ll see when they are haha. We´re pretty sure that Elder Mahina and Elder Betanco will both be leaving which means that it´s just gonna be me and my new comp. it should be pretty good though! So because of changes we spent allot of time saying good bye, well Betanco did anyways haha. I´m kind of nervous to see who my next comp will be though ha but that alright it´s all just part of the mission!

On Thursday it was mother’s day here which meant that Thursday night pretty much everyone and there dog was partying haha. Mother´s day is a huge deal here though ha that or the people just look for holidays so they can party; I’m not quite sure which one haha. Something cool happened that night though, we were walking down the road and this kid came running up behind us yelling for us. At first we were like what´s going on? But when he got to us he was like hey when can I be baptized? Neither of us had seen this boy before, and we were on our way to another appointment but we set up a time to go back and visit him and talk with him. We think that he was taught by the missionaries that were here a couple changes ago but they had emergency changes and then most of the investigators were lost because the record book wasn´t filled out. But hopefully we´ll be able to progress with him!

That´s crazy that Elder Beard and Elder Wing are already back! Ha it seems like they just barely left! But I’m sure they were both awesome missionaries!

Well I think that´s about all for this week, Sorry it´s a short one

Thank you all for everything though!

Elder Westwood

5 Dec 2011

This week was a pretty good week in the life of a missionary haha. We taught some cool lessons, had some sweet spiritual experiences, and worked to bring people to the truth!

This week our companionship turned into a trio. Elder Mahina´s comp was a mini-missionary so he was only with him for like a month, so when he left Mahina just joined Elder Betanco and me. It´s been pretty sweet having him with us, he´s an awesome missionary! But since he came with us we´re gonna be working in his area now as well so our area to work just got HUGE!! And then next change they aren´t gonna put more missionaries in his area so that´ll become part of my area. Ha it´s gonna be pretty interesting working in both areas.

We got to go to the First Presidency´s Christmas Devotional last night, that was pretty awesome! Ha except it was in Spanish and they didn´t have another room set apart for English this time. But it was alright, I still understood quite a bit of it so that was cool! Ha I always love listening to the talks given by the General Authorities of the church!

This week I still wasn´t feeling very good and I had the option to go and buy these pills that cost like $5.00 a pill or ask for a blessing. I decided to ask for the blessing, I should have done that when I first got sick during the beginning of this change! I´m not 100% yet but I feel way better and I’m actually recovering faster than Elder Mahina did and he took the pills. I love the power of the priesthood! It´s such a blessing to be able to have it.

We weren´t able to do the baptism last week because there was some problems with the paperwork for the marriage. But we got it all worked out and the marriage will be tomorrow and we´ll have a baptism this Saturday! So I’m super excited about that! Ha this is the last full week of the change, I can´t believe it! This change has gone by super fast!

Thank you all for all of your love, support and prayers

I love you all!

Elder Westwood

28 Nov 2011

This week was a good week! Last Sunday we had one of our recent converts bring one of her non-member friends to church and after church we were able to talk to her for a while and she said that she loved it! Then we found out that the ward went to the Temple on Tuesday and she actually went with them! We met with her on Wednesday and she said that although she couldn´t go inside the temple she loved it there! So that was pretty awesome!

We also got to go to the temple on Tuesday as a zone but we went to the early morning session. I miss being able to go to the temple whenever I want. The Panama Temple is amazing inside! ha It´s a lot smaller than the other temples I´ve been to but it doesn´t matter because the Spirit is still the same! I love it! It was pretty interesting doing it in Spanish haha but surprisingly I actually understood basically all of it. It was pretty sweet.

Yesterday we had 4 of our investigators at church which was awesome! Two of them have baptismal dates already set and I think we´re gonna set the other two this week if they keep progressing which I´m sure they will. This week should be pretty busy because with the wedding of a couple of our investigators and then we´re going to have a baptism this weekend so that should be sweet!

Something kind of funny that happened this week. We were walking down the street after lunch on Wednesday I think it was, ha I can´t remember. But anyways we eat lunch with two other missionaries, one of them, Elder Mahina is Tongan and is about 6´5" and about 250, the other is Elder Padilla and he´s like 6´2" and probably 250 as well. Well anyways we were walking down the street and going around this corner when we saw this drunk guy who was smaller than me and probably weighed about 100. Well when he saw us he started to cross the street to talk to us like most drunk people are and we could tell that he was gonna try and start something. So he walk in front of us and stopped and I didn´t really feel like confronting him so I just slowed down and got behind Elder Mahina and Elder Padilla. As they walked closer to him I think the guy got a scared because of how big they are and then just kind of cowered away.Ha it was kind of funny how it all happened. I was glad to have those two around though.

Well, I think that about sums it up for this week. Thank you for all of your support and prayers! I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving!

Elder Westwood

21 Nov 2011

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!! This is gonna be my first Thanksgiving away from home ha it´s gonna be weird. But some of the people here actually celebrate Thanksgiving so it´s gonna be interesting to see what it´s like down here haha.

This week was an interesting one! We went to the doctor on Wednesday because I still wasn´t feeling to well and found out that I have Bronchitis! So that was kind of a bummer but I got some meds and I´m on my way back to being health again! ha hopefully it lasts for a while! It´s rained almost all day everyday this week so we think that has something to do with it. The doctor told me I needed to take a couple days and rest so we didn´t do as much work this week as we had hoped. But we´re hoping to get back at it this week if we can both stay healthy. My comp thinks he´s starting to get sick so we´re crossing our fingers that he doesn´t.

Tuesday we had an awesome day though. We taught some awesome lessons and the spirit was so strong! She was raised in the Catholic church and her family members are super against the church which is sad. But anyways Tuesday night we taught this girl about the restoration and prayer and the spirit there was so amazing. We asked her if she would pray that night to find out for herself if the things we had taught her were true. Wednesday morning we got a call from her and she was super excited and told us that she had received an answer to her prayer and she knew it was true! It was so awesome! We weren´t able to teach her again last week because I got sick but we set up an appointment with her for this week. We´re pretty sure she´s gonna be baptized pretty soon.

Other than that not a whole lot happened this week. The doctor said to rest for 3 days so we weren´t able to go out and teach as much. We still did a little but not a ton. But we had a lot of time to study the scriptures haha. It´s awesome the things you can learn when you read the scriptures. I love it! I wish we had more time to study because it seems like every time we study we find something that can help us become better missionaries by helping us in our teaching.

The mission is awesome! I love it! I love you all and thank you for all of your support and prayers!

Elder Westwood

14 Nov 2011

Hey everyone!!

This week’s been another rough one. This week I came down with some kind of cold that kind of kicked my butt a little bit but its getting better! Tuesday morning when I woke up my throat was hurting super bad and I couldn’t breathe through my nose so that was pretty awesome haha. Then I lost my voice by about Thursday but now it’s back and the cold seems to be going away so I think I’m getting over it. I guess we’ll see!

Because I was sick my comp didn’t want to work too hard because it’s been raining a ton this week and he didn’t want me getting wet and making things worse so we just kind of took it easy this week. Which was kind of a bummer because I hate just sitting around doing nothing and would rather be out teaching but I guess once I get totally better we’ll just have to work extra hard to make up for the time we lost!

This week we continued teaching the Jaen´s which are a family we found in the record book. They were taught by the missionaries almost a year ago and then for some reason the missionaries just quit going. I’m not exactly sure of the reason. But anyways, they aren’t married like most people here in Panama but they want to be baptized so we got the papers started for them to get married and it should be the end of this month some time so that will be sweet! We also set a baptismal date for the end of the month to; I think they’ll get married on like a Friday and then baptized the next day on Saturday so it should be a pretty awesome weekend ha-ha. They both have super strong testimonies of the church and have read the book of Mormon. It’s so awesome!

This week we taught a lady who we had contacted earlier this week but she didn’t have time to talk to us then so we made an appointment to go back. When we went back all of her siblings were there and her mom as well. We taught them about how families can be together forever and the mom got super excited about the church at that point. She said that she wanted to come to church with us on Sunday and she was going to make her husband come too haha. Unfortunately when we went back to get her, the daughter said that she had to leave town because there was a family issue or something like that. But we’re gonna go back this week and see if we can get her to come next week.

This week’s been hard being sick and all but I’m getting better and hopefully be back at work hard again soon! Sorry I don’t have much else to say for the week.

Love you all thank you for all of your support and prayers!

Elder Westwood

11Nov 2011

Hey everyone! This week has been a crazy one!

We knew we had transfers this week but Elder Echeverria and I thought that if anyone was going to be changing it would be him. Well... we were both wrong! I got the call Tuesday night around 930 telling me that I had transfers and I needed to pack up all my things. At first I thought it was a joke but then I realized that it was for real. I was kind of upset because we were having a lot of success in that area but it’s all good. The Lord needs me here in my new area.

My new area is called San Isidro. It’s basically on the opposite side of Panama City than Arraijan was. It has a reputation for being one of the harder areas in the zone. This area has a lot more money than my other area and the people aren’t as open. Most of the people here won’t even give us the time of day it’s sad. San Isidro does have one thing in common as Arraijan though, that is that there are a ton of Hills! I actually think there are more hills in this area than in Arraijan except here they are a lot steeper.

My new comp is Elder Betanco from Honduras and he knows less English than I do Spanish ha-ha. So basically I’ve really had to step up my game with the Spanish. The first day was super rough ha I didn’t know anything he was saying but things are starting to get better now. It’s probably a good thing I got a Latino comp that doesn’t know any English because now I don’t have a choice but to speak Spanish and I’m actually getting allot better at it so that’s good I guess ha-ha.

ha I think Panamá is starting to take a little effect on me, Friday night I was sitting on my bed and I looked down at my feet and my ankles were so swollen. I was planning on still working next day but then Betanco saw them and said I had to call the mission nurse and she said to ice them and keep them elevated so I did for a little while Saturday but I hate just laying around so we still worked allot that afternoon. I also noticed these red marks on my chest that I hadn’t ever seen before that the nurse thinks might be fungus so I had to go buy some medicine to put on it.

Sorry I don’t have a ton to say; ha because of changes we didn’t really do a ton. Even though this area has a bad reputation right now, Elder Betanco and I are gonna work our hardest to change that!

Thank you for all of your love and support
Elder Westwood

Hey Everyone!!

Wow this week was a crazy one ha I don´t even know where to start!

Since this was the last week of the change Elder Echeverría and I decided we really wanted to push ourselves and work really hard. So last Sunday during stake conference we asked President Ward what the record was for lessons taught in one week. He said he wasn´t quite sure but he thought that it was like 54 or somewhere around that. So we set our goal to get 60 lessons this week. Well not only did we make 60, we actually got 68!! It was so crazy! Ha we worked so hard, by about Thursday we both were just dying because we were so tired but we kept pushing on and set the record. It was super fun though we found so many people that have been prepared and are ready to hear the gospel it was so awesome to see! This week really helped me a ton with my Spanish too, Elder Echeverría had me do a lot of the contacting and lead a lot of the lessons, at the beginning of the week I was a little rough but by the end I could definitely see an improvement which was good. Because we broke the record today President Ward let us go to the mission home and hang out with him and Sister Ward. It was so awesome!

We also baptized two people this week which was awesome! We baptized a 15 year old boy and his sister who is 13. They´re both awesome and have super strong testimonies of the church. At the baptism we didn´t have very many other members show up and the people who were going to give the talks didn´t come so my comp and I gave them. I was pretty nervous at first, but it actually turned out alright and the spirit was super strong throughout the whole service which was awesome. We also had an investigator come and he loved it and after the service he kept asking us when we could go teach him again it was so cool haha I love it!

It´s been raining super hard this week ha I think it´s basically rained all day for the past 4 days. Occasionally it´ll break and we´ll have sunshine for a little while but it doesn´t last very long. The other day we were walking to a member´s house and it was pretty nice out, it was a blue sky and it was super hot, within 30 minutes it was a complete down poor and it rained the rest of the day ha it was so crazy. It´s so hard to teach when it rains here because the roofs of all the houses are tin, so when the rain hits it, it´s SUPER loud ha we basically have to yell while we´re teaching and sometimes we still can´t hear what each other is saying.

This week has been an awesome week! Ha I can´t believe I’m done with my first change here in the mission. It´s been a pretty good one we´ve worked super hard and I’ve learned a ton! We´re still not sure if elder echeverria and I will be together next change but we´ll find out tomorrow night. We hope we can stay together another change but we´ve heard a lot of rumors that he´s changing. So I guess we´ll see what happens.

Thanks for all of your love and prayers
Elder Westwood

Hey Everyone!!

What another awesome week this was again!

This week we had interviews which was pretty sweet. I love President and Sister Ward they are so awesome! Then this weekend was stake conference for our stake. It was pretty intense! The speakers were the stake president, president and sister Ward, the temple president and his wife, and then Elder Martino who is the presidency for Central America. It was so awesome to get to meet them and the conference was great! They talked a lot about how important it is that the members each help friendship everyone in the wards, especially the Recent Converts. It was pretty sweet! ha a funny thing that happened though, after the conference this girl came up to me that I’d never seen before and supposedly told me that I have pretty eyes. But the only problem was that I had no idea what she said so I just sat there and smiled and didn´t know what to say and then she like got embarrassed and turned and walked away pretty fast. Ha I didn´t really know what she said until later when Elder Echeverría told me so we´ve been laughing about that haha.

This week one of our investigators was really sick. We stopped by to visit him and he could barely even talk it was super bad. So we offered to give him a blessing and he said that he wanted on. The next day we went back to check on him and to see how he´s doing, his voice was almost all the way back to normal and he said he felt a ton better! It was so awesome! We had another miracle happen with him this week too, we have a baptismal date for him and his daughter but he hasn´t been able to come to church because he has to work every day. So we´ve been praying for him hoping that something would happen with this job. Well when we went back he told us that he found another job that would actually pay him more and he wouldn’t have to work on Sundays! It´s awesome how the Lord will make everything turn out alright when we´re doing what we can to follow him.

This week we have a super busy week but it´s gonna be sweet! We have a baptism this Friday for a boy and his younger sister. They´re so sweet. The boy is actually a friend of the family that we baptized at the beginning of the month so when they got baptized he became really interested and his sister as well. They both have a bunch of friends that are actually members of the church so that´s a really positive thing as well to keep them active. On our last visit with them the mom actually seemed more interested as well so we´re hoping to begin teaching her now too.

This work is awesome! I love seeing the blessings of the Lord in the lives of the people here.

Thank you for all your love and support!

I love you all

Elder Westwood

Hey Everyone!!

This week was a pretty good week! The baseball game we went to last p-day was awesome! Ha I miss baseball. The tickets we bought put us way up in the top of the stadium but luckily the stadium wasn’t that big so it didn´t really matter haha. And the tickets were only 2 dollars which was even better! Some of the other missionaries that came with us bought their tickets from someone else and they ended up sitting right down the first base line ha it was sweet. And I think they´re tickets were like 3 dollars.  I can´t believe how cheap things are here! But anyways during the game the missionaries sitting down by the field were able to talk with the players from the U.S.A. team and got a flag signed by everyone on the team and then after the game we all got to go take pictures with the team. ha It was pretty sweet!

This week I went on splits Elder Almeida, one of the zone leaders from our zone. At first I was super nervous because he doesn´t speak any English which would was good because it meant that I could only communicate in Spanish but at the same time it was a little scary because I was afraid that I wouldn´t be able to understand what he was saying. It was awesome though because as the day went on, I could understand more of what he was saying and we had some super good lessons. One of the houses we went to there was a little boy outside hitting a ball with his bat and after talking to him for a bit his grandpa came out and we started talking to him. At first I didn´t think he was gonna let us in but then he saw that I was American and let us in which I thought was kind of strange. But then he said that if he listened to our message then he wanted me to help his grandson with his English because they teach all of the kids English here. It was kind of funny I thought but we got to teach him something and by the time we were done with our lesson he seemed really interested. So hopefully things stay that way.

I forgot to tell you about this other guy we met. He’s so sweet, he´s 24 years old, is already a practicing doctor at the hospital here, is married (most people here aren’t married which makes a big problem when they want to get baptized because the things they have to do here to get married are ridiculous!) he has a couple of kids I think and was really interested in the church so hopefully we´ll be able to put a baptismal date with him.

Saturday Elder Echeverría and I weren´t having any luck at all. We went to this new area that we´d never been to which looked really nice. When we got there we started contacting and were getting rejected left and right. Ha it was bad we´d go to a house and people would look at us through the windows but wouldn´t say anything and act like nobody was home. Even though we could see them haha all I could do was laugh. We even had one house that they opened the door and let their dogs out to come bark at us. Luckily there was a fence between us. It was also raining super hard that day and we forgot our umbrellas at the house so we were getting soaked! But our luck changed that night. We went to teach a boy that we have set a baptismal date with and when we showed up his whole family was there and some of the dad´s friends were there as well. The boy is awesome! His family is pretty active with another religion but one day Rojelio, the son of the family we just baptized, invited him to church and when he went he felt the Spirit super strong. Then the next week he went to his other church and he said that he just felt like something was missing. And when he came back to our church and when we teach him he feels the Spirit again. It´s so cool! Well we ended up teaching all of them and most of them were really open to our message and seemed pretty interested. Especially one of the dad´s friends, it was crazy! He like asked us a ton of questions about the Book of Mormon and said he wanted to read it and when we set up our return appointment he had to confirm it with us like 4 or 5 times just to make sure he knew what day and what time we were going to be there.

So guess who´s coming to Panama on like the first or second of November?! Ha Aerosmith! A bunch of us keep joking that we´re gonna go to it. That´d be so much fun and i bet it´d be super cheap to!

We found a couple more families this week which all seem pretty interested so hopefully we´ll continue to progress with them. I love the work here it´s awesome!
Thank you for all of your love and prayers

Elder Westwood

My first Baptism!!

This week was so awesome! It was a week full of doing things for the first time.

The first one was the baptism. On Saturday we baptized the Gonzales family they are a family of 4. The daughter of the family is special needs though so we didn´t baptize her because she didn´t need to be baptized. I was so nervous ha Elder Echeverría baptized the father and the son and then I was able to baptize the mom. It was so cool; the spirit there was so awesome. Elder Echeverría told me that the family used to be very against the church and they basically wouldn´t give the missionaries the time of day. But then one night Hna Gonzales had a dream about the missionaries coming to their house and teaching them and then getting baptized into the church and then like a few days later Elder Echeverría and his last companion showed up. And that´s what got the ball rolling. It was so awesome!

We almost didn´t the baptism though. We went to the chapel Saturday morning to fill up the font and we went to turn on the water and we got nothing. So we were sitting there trying to figure out what to do, and then a guy showed up and told us that he was there to fix the water pump because it was broken. He thought he would have it fixed though pretty soon.. well he got it so it would start pumping the water but the line was sucking air into it so it would only pump for a couple of minutes and then he would have to turn it off and re-prime it and then do it again. He didn´t have the supplies with him to fix the line so he ended up just doing that the whole time this was going on we were just praying like crazy that it would work and that we would have water to do the baptism. We ended up having just enough water to baptize in and then we couldn’t get any more water at all. It was crazy but awesome at the same time I know that our prayers were answered.

Yesterday at church a girl came up to us and asked if we could go to her house because her family was going through a hard time and just wanted to talk with us. So we got there and they talked while I tried to pick up on as many words as I could to figure out what they were talking about but it wasn´t much. But I could still figure out the main points of what they were talking about. And then before we left they asked if we could give them blessings. I’d never actually given a blessing before, I’ve only stood in on them so I was a little nervous at that and then the fact that I had to do it in Spanish was even more scary. But as I gave the blessings it was like the spirit took over and I gave the blessings using words that I didn´t know I knew. It was so awesome! I loved it!

We have another busy week planned for this week so hopefully all of our appointments and things will go through. I love the mission!
Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Elder Westwood

I love Conference!

General Conference was amazing!! It’s crazy how much more I learned from this one. I think before my mission I kind of took for granted being able to listen to the prophets and apostles and I probably didn’t pay attention to them as much as I should have. Well that’s changed here in the mission. I love listening to the general authorities of the church speak. Ha in the MTC I made a little journal that I took notes in as we had devotionals and firesides. So I did the same thing during conference. I counted the pages last night ha I took 24 pages of notes haha.

Aside from conference this past week has been a good one! Monday we had p-day which was pretty fun. We got together as a zone and just hung out pretty much haha. I think in a couple of weeks we’re gonna go see the canal though I can’t wait for that! We have some sweet missionaries in our zone. The weather last week was really weird. It was super hot most of the week and right now we’re supposed to be in the rainy season. But we finally got rain a couple of days ago and it cooled it down a little. Except now it’s really humid so idk which is better haha.

On Wednesday I went on splits with the District Leader. His name is Elder Hill and he’s from Kaysville. Me and him have a bunch in common and we got a lot done. Our first appointment was so sweet. ha the reason it was so cool was because I actually understood most of what one of the husband was saying. Most of the people here talk super fast and cut their words so it’s just like one continuous blur. But this guy talked slower and actually took time while he was talking and I actually understood it. ha it was awesome! Other than that I still don’t know what most people are saying but I’m getting better! Ha everyone says it’ll be a couple of months before I actually can communicate pretty fluently so I’m looking forward to that day haha. When I was with Elder Hill he had me contact most of the houses too. Ha that was interesting but by the end I was getting the hang of it I think.

On Friday we had kind of a rough day. All of our appointments fell through so we contacted for about 4 or 5 hours straight. We just weren’t having any luck at all. I think we contacted like 15 houses before anyone let us share anything with us. I can see why a lot of missionaries get discouraged when they’re contacting because they get rejected a lot. But the way I see it is if we at least try to share a message with them then I’m doing my part and I will be blessed for it. That’s how I keep my spirits up with contacting. Finally we got someone to let us in and I can totally see this guy and his family getting baptized. He asked all the right questions and was really interested. So that was sweet. That afternoon we went to a member’s house for dinner and her grandson who is probably 7 years old said he wanted to buy us something. So he ran to his room and got a little jar which is about the size of a half a cup and dumped out all of his coins which was basically all of his savings and went to the store and bought me and Echevvería a sweet roll. The people here are amazing; they have nothing but will give everything that they have. I already love them!

Then this weekend we got to watch general conference which was awesome! They played it in Spanish in the chapel where they had someone translating and then in another room we got to watch it in English. It was so sweet! It was the perfect way to end the week! My favorite talk by far was Elder Holland’s talk in the priesthood session so as soon as you can get a hold of it watch it! It’s amazing! One of the next talks I liked most was the one by Sister Dalton. I hope you all listened carefully to her talk.

This Saturday we’re baptizing a family of 4 so it should be another awesome weekend!

I love the work it!

Thank you for all of your support I love you all

 Elder Westwood

Week 1 in the field

What’s up everyone??

First off I’m still alive just in case anyone was wondering haha. Second off I take back anything bad I ever said about living in the U.S. things are so different down here it’s a whole new world here.

We got here Monday night at about 9 or 930 and then went to the AP´s house to sleep for the night. As you probably all saw we had a huge group because of the missionaries that we met up with from Guatemala. Because it was night time when we got here the humidity wasn’t quite that bad but it hit me as we were going to bed. The AP´s house is pretty small and we had about 20 missionaries spread all across the ground about the size of our laundry room so it was packed and smelled awful! It was bad we stayed there the next two nights. I don’t think I slept at all because it was so hot and humid in there. The second night I was here I was stressin big time so I prayed for comfort and like immediately after I said amen I just felt at peace it was so cool.

Tuesday we went to the mission home and went over a bunch of stuff and then went to the temple for a little while. We didn´t get to go in but it was still nice to go to the grounds. It´s so beautiful I love it! I think we´re gonna try and set up a p-day to go there but idk when it will be. It´s so green here it´s crazy! I don´t think I’ve ever seen this much green in my life! Then on Wednesday we had changes where we met our trainers and found out where we were going. My companions name is Elder Echeverria he´s from Guatemala and he´s a way cool kid. At first I was pretty nervous because I was like oh no I have a native and he probably doesn’t know any English. But he actually speaks pretty fluently in English and is a champ at Spanish so that´s been a big blessing. He´s been helping me out a ton so it´s been nice.

My area is called Arraijan I think, I can’t remember how´s it’s spelled but anyways it´s pretty much where they send a most of the new missionaries. It has a ton of hills; they get pretty tiring after walking up and down them every day. Our house is about the size of the upstairs living room in our house, maybe a little bit smaller though. When I walked in the place was a mess! So I’ve been cleaning it up in my spare time this past week. It was so bad. Mom thank you for teaching me how to clean and sorry for being such a rebel at keeping things clean, ha I knew this was gonna happen. But its super small, Echeverría says it´s probably the smallest one in the mission, but it keeps us dry from all the rain so it´s good. It rains so much and so hard here it’s crazy! The other day we were walking up on this ridge to try and get to an appointment and a thunderstorm passed over us, it was kinda scary. We saw this huge flash of lightning and then immediately heard just this deafening roar of thunder. It was nuts!

My area is said to have one of the highest baptism rates in the mission as well. Elder Echeverría was telling me about the investigators we already have and he said that we´re going to be baptizing a family of 4 on like the 8th so that should be sweet and then we made 2 more baptism dates this week. It´s awesome! Except I don´t understand anything anyone is saying. ha They all talk so fast here! I’m getting better I think but idk. I can talk about things, but when they reply I’m so lost haha. But I’m getting better I think, the other day I was having a super hard time and getting frustrated so I just prayed and plead with the Lord to help me and after that things started going better. It was awesome, I know that he hears and answers our prayers and will help us with anything. But basically right now in our lessons Echeverría does most of the talking and then I just bear my testimony. ha I think this upcoming week I’ll be able to participate more in the lessons though.

I don´t think I’ve ever prayed as much for help as I have since being here in the field. It´s so hard because I can´t understand anything but it´ll come, I just gotta put my trust in the Lord! And I gotta keep reminding myself that I’ve only been here a week so be patient. You should see the people’s reactions when I tell them I just barely got here last Monday they´re like I shock haha but they´re patient with me when I don´t understand them and when I speak.

New missionaries at the temple

This is the hardest but probably one of the best experiences I’ve had so far in my life.

Anyways I think that´s about all from me. I love you all! Thank you for all of your support and love.

Elder Westwood

2 for 2!

Hey everyone!!

So I'm guessing your wondering what the 2 for 2 is. It's because I've sang in the choir 2 times and both times I sang we've had a member of the Quorum of the Twelve come haha. The first time it was Elder Holland and this past devotional Elder Ballard came! It was so awesome!! ha I love being in the presence of the apostles because the spirit is so strong!! He spoke about a lot of things but one thing I liked was that right now as missionaries we have the best resources in the history of the world for teaching so basically we need to get to work! haha It was awesome!

I cant believe I only have a few days left here its so crazy! It's actually gone by a lot faster then I thought it would which is good! Yesterday we did this thing called in-field orientation and basically we just did workshops all day it was actually pretty fun. It was super helpful and super motivational. I loved it!

Next time you see Scott Kiesel tell him I met a kid here at the mtc he knew on his mission. His name is Elder Samuel Dantas he said that they were really good friends while he was on his mission.

I still can't believe I leave Monday morning! it's so crazy! I think I'll probably call that morning when we get to the airport in salt lake. I don't think we'll have very much time when we get to Atlanta but I'm not sure how much time I'll have for sure so I guess I'll just play it by ear. I'll try and call everyone.

I love you all! thank you for all of your support and prayers. This is where the fun

part begins! It's gonna be hard but it just means that I have to have more faith and work harder and I'll be alright! I know I will. I love you!

Love Elder Westwood

9 Sept 2011

Before I get to the travel plans I just gotta say mom it was awesome talking to you this week, I loved it!! Sorry if it made you cry the rest of the day. But it was awesome!! I love you!!

Ok back to the travel plans.. I’ll be traveling on the 19. My first flight leaves from Salt Lake at 11:10 A.M. we fly to Atlanta and get there at 4:50 PM. Then our flight from Atlanta leaves at 5:53 PM and we arrive in Panama City at 9:10 PM. Then for some reason it has another flight on October 20th and we have to fly back to Miami, I think it has something to do with our visa's but I’m not sure. I’ll let you know more when I find out.

That’s so crazy I can’t believe I’m leaving so soon!! I love it though! I can't wait to get there. We thought that we were gonna get our travel plans yesterday but then we didn’t and we were all pretty bummed but we got them today so it's all good!! This week’s been pretty good, nothing to exciting has happened except for hosting that was pretty fun. It was so funny when Cindy and Kim pulled up. They both jumped out of the car and I was like can I give you guys hugs and before I was done Cindy already had her arms around me and was like of course we can, we're family! haha it was sweet. Hosting was pretty fun, getting to see all the new missionaries, I think they said there were 350 that came in on Wednesday, we got invited to do it again this upcoming Wednesday so we'll see how that one goes too.. I’ve seen Sister Converse quite a bit actually and she seems to be doing really good. I also saw Elder E J Stevenson and one of the Bickmore twins.

I can't believe Elder Gust is gone now. It’s weird to not have him here, but I know he's doing awesome in Florida! He was ready to go and I’m sure he's loving it! This week we talked to another native at the TRC it was so fun. I was able to understand most of what she said it was sweet!

The choir was actually pretty fun but I didn’t do it for this past devotional because I was sick. Oh ya I got sick this week I guess that was something new. I actually got to go the outside world it was sweet ha-ha I forgot what it was like outside the MTC walls. It's good to know that it's still there. Basically I just had a super achy body and my temp was like 102 and while I was at the Doctor I decided to ask him about my heel because it was hurting. They diagnosed it as plantar fasciitis it think it’s called, ha idk how to spell it though but I should be getting my new orthotics on like Tuesday I believe.

Well sorry that's so short, if you have any questions about my flight plans let me know and I’ll try and get a letter home to you guys. Next week my p day will be on Saturday so don’t get worried if I don’t send anything Friday.

I love you all! Thanks for everything!

Elder Westwood

Hey Family!! Another week down and only a few more left!! I’m so excited haha

This week was awesome!! But mostly because of the devotional Tuesday night. Guess who the speaker was? Elder Jeffrey R Holland!! It was so sweet!! We all figured we were due for a member of the Quorum of the Twelve sometime soon because there hasn't been one here for a while and it finally happened! As soon as he walked into the room you could feel the Spirits presence even more it was so cool. For about the first half of our lesson he basically commanded us to make sure that when we get home from our missions that we stay strong in the church and that we don't have the right to fall away. He also said that when most of the world views the missionaries they see them as perfect and we don't have the right to tarnish that image or to do anything that would make someone think otherwise. For the last half of his talk he answered questions which were asked by missionaries here in the mtc it was pretty cool. I learned so much it was amazing!

Tell Kyle not to freeze up there in Alaska! That’d be so cold haha. Tell him to study Preach My Gospel as much as he can right now. Colton leaves on Tuesday! That’s so crazy ha it's gone by so fast. He’s really excited to go though.

Next Wednesday my district gets to host all the new missionaries that come in that day. So who do I need to watch for??

Sorry this one is pretty short, Elder Johnson can't log on to his email so I’m gonna let him use mine for a bit.

Have fun if you go to the cabin this weekend! I wish I could go, I made a friend up here, his name is Elder Aagard who lives in Fountain Green and went to school at North Sanpete so we talk about it all the time haha. But anyways have fun if you go!

Love you all!! Be happy! Sorry it's a short one

Love Elder Westwood

p.s. guess what? I GET MY TRAVEL PLANS NEXT WEEK!!!

26 Aug 11

Hey everyone!!

 

It's Friday again!! This week was kind of weird, some days seemed like they drug on FOREVER  but since it's Friday again I guess it must not have been too bad haha.

 

A couple of weeks ago Elder Boyd sat next to a guy who is in one of the branch presidencies here and he is actually from Panama. So after the fireside he said he wanted to come talk to us, so he came to our class on Wednesday and told us all about it. It was awesome!! He said that in Panama cCity, it's just like being in like Miami or a big city like that. He told us about the canal and the people and customs there. We asked him about how good the tap water is there cuz we've all been kind of worried about that. He said that the drinking water there is just as good as it is here in the states. The reason for that is because when the U.S. took over the construction of the canal they went in and built a bunch of water treatment plants so that the workers didn't get sick from drinking the water. And they've kept those plants working good so the water is good! Which is good to know haha.

 

On Tuesday night we had a devotional and the speaker was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He talked a lot about the power of prayer and how 2 of the most significant events in the church started with prayer. The first was the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane which started the Atonement, and the next one was Joseph Smith going to the sacred grove which started the restoration. It was really cool. Then we went back to the classroom and had a district devotional review. It was amazing!! The spirit was felt so strong I loved it! I'm really going to miss the firesides and devotionals once I hit the field.

 

Elder Volksen is already gone!! I can't believe it ha it seemed like he was only here for a few days. But he seemed happy while he was here and I'm sure he's loving it out there! I saw Gary Stott last Sunday! It was really good to see him. Guess who else I saw?! ha I saw Elder Scott Andrus ha I haven't seen him in so long! It was good to get to talk to him again. That's sweet kyles going to Alaska ha I hope he doesn't freeze!! haha. When does he enter the mtc?? The other day we were talking as a district and we realized that we'll get our travel plans in like 2 weeks! crazy!! I'm so excited though!

 

Mom and dad, thank you so much for teaching us good table manners like eating with our mouth shut. I hate going to eat because only a few missionaries here have good table manners and I can't stand seeing people's food as they're chewing it up. Or they just stuff it in they're mouths like they've been food deprived! Elder Johnson does both of those things and it drives me nuts! Imagine Gus eating (how's he doing by the way) but worse than him and in human form. He's gotten a lot better though, I keep telling him that I don't care to see what his food looks or sounds like while he's chewing it. I do it in a joking manner though so I don't piss him off too bad. I'll have him trained by the time we get out of here though haha.

 

Sorry I ran out of time I love you all!!

Have patience with each other in all that you do!

The church is true and I love it haha

love elder westwood

 

19 Aug 2011

Hey everyone!! How ya´ll doin?? haha sorry mom

First off thanks for the package!! This past week felt like it went by even faster then the last! ha I know I say that like every letter but it's true!! This weekend is my 1 month mark here, it doesn't seem like I've been here that long. Does it seem like it to you? Tell grandma thanks for the card and the doughnuts.

 

Sorry about not telling you about the firesides/devotionals. I'll start now ha but since I'm always rushed for time on here I wrote a letter and talked about them. I sent it today so it should be there in a few; and sorry I didn't tell you more about Elder Johnson, he is from Gilbert, AZ and has 8 kids in his family!

I can't believe it's time for school to start already. Good luck with it! Study hard!! ha I've learned the importance of studying hard here. The other day Elder Johnson and I were teaching one of our investigators and we had just taught a lesson similar to the one we were teaching the day before. So I just went over a few things briefly and didn't really focus on studying... Big Mistake!!! As we were walking to where we were meeting our investigator, my mind went completely blank. I tried to rely more on the Spirit but since I hadn't studied anything, there wasn't anything for the Spirit to draw from to help me. I was super frustrated and I felt like our lesson was a complete waste of our time along with the investigator's time. So needless to say, I'm a lot more diligent in my studying now.

We had a cool experience at TRC yesterday, (Chase can tell you more about what it is) but it's basically where we go and teach volunteers that come and either act as investigators or just members of the church who want to learn more about the gospel. But anyways, yesterday we taught these two ladies who were from Peru so they spoke fluent Spanish. They spoke so fast!! I was kind of nervous to begin with, but as we started the lesson, I was surprised at how much I could actually understand. It was so cool! I didn't catch it all by any means, but I could at least pick up on the main points of what they were talking about. It was awesome! I have a lot more confidence now then I did before.

Elder Johnson and I have been pretty lucky and have been the only two missionaries in our residence room since our first week here. But that luck ran out this week, we got two new elders in our room. We knew it was gonna happen eventually because it had been so long. So we now have Elder Kesler from West Jordan and Elder Richardson from Snowflake, AZ. They're both going to Paraguay on their missions they both seem like they'll be really good missionaries.

Everybody- now that school's starting up I can already tell that there's gonna be some pretty stressful times ahead. Pray for patience and love! I know that the lord will help you!

Well I think that's about all from me this week. Everyone be good!! I love you all!!

Elder Westwood.

19 Aug 2011

So I guess I have a few Devotionals I need to report on. Here it goes:

On the 14th we had a Fireside and the speaker was Richard I Heaton, he is the Provo MTC Administrative Director.  He have a very good talk on what we as missionaries should define as "success" or having a successful mission.  He pointed out that many missionaries think success is having a lot of baptisms.  However, that's far from what a successful mission should be.  He stated that success is knowing that our efforts here are pleasing to the Lord.  Success is influenced by missionaries hard work and faith.

Success in getting baptisms is a gift, not a reward.  He said that we must do all that we can do to accomplish our purpose by inviting others to some unto Christ and expect nothing.  Then we will have success.  When I first heard this I was kind of taken back and thought that was kind of weird to say it like that.  But he then explained that many missionaries think that if they're diligent, work hard and be obedient they should get baptisms and when they don't they get discouraged which can weaken our faith.  Whether or not someone gets baptized it is up to that individual using his/her agency which is something that we can't control. 

If we get to take part in helping someone become baptized, it is because God blessed us to have the opportunity to witness that miracle.  He pointed out that our reward as missionaries for working hard and doing everything we are supposed to is Joy.  The Lord will bless us with Joy, not baptisms.

I really enjoyed listening to this talk because it helped me realized that when I get into the field, if I don't get many baptisms it's okay.  As long as I work hard and do everything I can to progress the Lord's work, then I can call my mission a success.

The next Devotional I want to share was on the 16th.  David F Evans of the First Quorum of the Seventy spoke with us that night.  His topic was what we know about our Heavenly Father.

What I got from his talk was the importance that we all know that EVERYTHING we have comes from our Heavenly Father.  He explained how many people think that we have the Church and everything that comes with it because of Christ and what he did for us.  But ultimately, everything leads back to our Father in Heaven.

We have the blessings of the atonement and Resurrection because if what Christ did for us.  But he did it according to the will of the Father.  The Savior's entire ministry on this earth was to do the will of the Father.

I know that I never thought of it like that and then we turned to 3 Nephi 11:32-36.  I want each of you to go read those few verses again.  It explains in perfectly.  Everything comes from the Father and his plan for us was executed perfectly by the Savior.  It's awesome all the things you can learn at the Devotionals and Firesides up here.  I love it!!

This last Monday we learned that a Sister Missionary in our Zone has basically been sick since she got to the MTC.  She got so bad that she spent pretty much all day in the hospital last Friday.  But we found out that if she doesn't get better by this weekend she's being sent home.  We decided to do a fast for her starting Monday night at 10 and ending it Tuesday night at 10. 

I'd never fasted that long before and I'm sure that a lot of the missionaries in the same boat I was.  But it was one of the coolest experiences I'd ever had.  I never necessarily got hungry throughout the day.  I was thirsty, but not hungry.  As the day went on I could feel my strength go down though, especially after climbing 5 flights of stairs to get to our classroom.  My mind was still alert and attentive but my body was just getting weak.  But as my body got weaker my prayers for strength got stronger and I could feel myself regaining some strength.

The experience was so amazing.  It was such a humbling experience and helped my faith grow even more.  I learned to rely on my Father in Heaven and the Savior even more and I was strengthened.  I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to be here and have experiences like that.

I'm not sure whether the sister is staying or going.  I know that it's all up to the will of the Lord.  I hope she gets healthy again and can stay.  But I guess we'll see.  It was definitely a life changing experience for me though.

Love all.
Elder Caydyn

14 Aug 2011

Hola Everyone!

Well, the language is coming.  I can teach most of what I want to say in Spanish.  I still have to put a few English words in here and there, but that's alright.  It's alot better than when I got here! I can understand what's being said to me for the most part, just enough to understand the main idea fo what's being said.  But that's about it.

I was feeling bad because in our lessons it was mostly me talking because Elder Johnson doesn't like to say anything unless its 100 % Spanish.  So I felt like I was talking over the lessons and I didn't want that.  So I told him that it's okay to throw a few English words in when he speaks and the Lord can't help us unless we try.  Well, now he barely gives me any space to talk, haha, and when I start to say something he cuts me off.  I've decided I'll give him one more lesson and then if things don't change I'll talk to him.  I've gotta let him have the floor to make up for as many times as I led the lessons.  I'm glad he talks more now though.

Today I got put in as the new District Leader over our District.  I guess we'll see how that goes.  haha.  I think it will be alright, I just gotta trust in the Lord!

I got Elder Johnson mad at me tonight because he wanted to go to the Fireside to get a good seat.  But he wanted to go at like 5:45 and the Fireside didn't even start until 7:00.  He wasn't happy with me when I told him I wasn't going to go that early, we still went a little after 6 though.  I think we're good now though.

Tonight I went out and took pictures with Elder Volksen, Elder Reber, Elder Porras and Elder Converse.  It was fun getting to talk with then all for a little bit.  (Elder Johnson was still mad at me at that time so I tried not to take too much time).

Don't worry about my shoulder, its healing pretty good already.

Ask the Lyon's why I haven't heard from them.  And the rest of our family.

Thanks for all your support.  I love you all.

Elder Westwood

8 Aug 2011

Hey everyone!

First thing is Happy Birthday on Saturday mom!! I hope you have a good one! I love you! Everyone else, you better make sure it's good! haha

The weeks seem like they just keep getting faster! I can't believe it's Friday again already.

We now have the smallest district in our zone, maybe even the whole MTC haha with only 6 of us. It's kind of weird not having Elder Hollingsworth and Elder Parmer here anymore, but at the same time the rest of us are pretty excited because with less people that means that we have more time with the teachers. I didn't know Elder Parmer, he moved to Highland a couple of years after we moved to St. George but it sounded like he lives by our old house.

I saw Tyler about an hour after he got here on Wednesday! ha Dalton smith was his host so I thought that was pretty cool that he got someone that he knew. Tyler looked pretty excited to be here though which was good. I saw him again at lunch today for a little bit. Tomorrow night after the fireside I think a bunch of us are gonna get together and do pictures again. ha Elder Smith said that Volksen was the last elder to get here on Wednesday haha.  Guess who else I saw Wednesday?! E.J. Rios! I haven't seen him in forever!! He's going to a mission in Brazil. I wasn't able to ask him which one though. It was definitely cool to see him! He said to tell you all hi!

It's a good thing I brought my bands from physical therapy up here.  Last night at the gym I dislocated my left shoulder playing basketball. It was a pretty good one too haha. It was weird how it happened though, me and this other elder were both going for a lose ball and as I had my arm extended he hit like the back of my shoulder and it just popped out the front. It took me a while to get it back in too, instead of just rolling back in like they usually do. The trainer just told me to start doing my exercises that I learned in physical therapy. She suggested getting a brace for it too but I don't think I need one. 

 

 

Thanks for the injury report! I'm glad to hear that Oakey is recovering.



There's a cold going around up here so will you send some vitamin c?? I was also thinking like some of those small packages of Kleenex's like the ones you can put in backpacks. We have a microwave in our residence building so I was also thinking some popcorn and hot tamales would be cool haha. If you have room for that stuff.

Well i gotta run love you all!

elder westwood

4 Aug 2011

Hey Everyone!

This week is going a lot better.  The language is coming slowly but surely and I'm grateful for the opportunity I have to be here!  

One of the sayings I’ve heard a lot here and can testify of its truthfulness is, "the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days."  Some days feel like they drag on FOREVER but then all of a sudden you’re starting a new week!

Elder Johnson and I have been getting along a lot better this week. There’s still some moments every now and then that I wanna get after him but I bite my tongue and let it go. Except for the other day when I had to take some Advil cuz I had a headache and he had to tell me everything that was wrong with taking medications, about how we get dependent on them and after a while you have to up the dose for it to work or something like that. idk I wasn't really listening (what movies is that off of haha:))I think we've been doing a lot better with our progressive investigators as far as understanding and speaking the language, but we still have to use our notes so we know what to say. Elder Johnson isn't really a man of many words and likes to jump right into the lesson before we really get to know the investigator so I’ve been trying to encourage him that we need to build some rapport with them before we begin the lessons. We also need to work on making it more of a discussion than us lecturing them. Something really interesting happened with Elder Johnson this week. He got a letter from home saying that his sister got her mission call. She's going to the exact same mission we are! crazy huh? I think with her sister there he and his family will be a lot more at peace to know that they're there together. the Lord is really looking out for them.

We started the new teaching curriculum this week. oh man it's SWEET!! I think before, a lot of the focus here at the MTC was more on getting missionaries to learn the language and not as much about teaching the gospel. The new one is focused more on teaching, and then also has like weekly goals for us to accomplish dealing with studying the language. with the new curriculum they want us to extend a commitment for baptism on the very first lesson! Or if you don't feel it's the right time, then do it on the second lesson. The reason is so that the investigators begin thinking about baptism from the very beginning.

The other day we were sitting at lunch and idk how it started, but the other elders in my district started talking about the bachelorette haha. It was so funny! They were talking about how they watched it before they came here and talked about their favorite episodes and the people they liked and didn’t like. I couldn't help but laugh at them haha it was pretty entertaining.

I actually see Elder Lindsey about every day. ha today I was sitting by this black elder and I was listening to him talk and I was like oh man I have to find out where this guy is from cuz he had a sweet accent. He's from Jamaica and is going to Alberta on his mission haha I hope he doesn’t freeze!

After Tuesday there will only be 6 people in my District.  I think we will have the smallest district here.  Right now we have 8 but 2 Elders are going to the MTC in Guatemala to finish the rest of their MTC training.  My District Leader right now is Elder Tucker; he is Lindon and is a really cool guy.  His companion is Elder Boyd, he's from Houston, Texas, he's nice but a little different at times.  The other elders in my district are Elder Royston, he's from Virginia, he's really cool and 22.  It took him a while to decide to come but we're glad he's here.  His companion is Elder Harris from Cedar City, he's pretty quiet but cool.  The two Elders that are leaving are Elder Hollingsworth, from Ohio, he's and awesome guy and a dang good basketball player.  His comp is Elder Parmer from Highland.  He's really smart and can already speak a ton of Spanish. 

The food here is....well it’s alright.  Given the amount of food they have to prepare each meal it’s not too bad.  It's nothin like moms cooking though!!  I'd give almost anything for a burger from Fargo's!! I've actually gained 5 lbs. since I've been here.  I think it’s because we eat and then sit in the classroom all day, we don't have time to work it off.  One of the Elders in my Zone had gained 16 lbs since he got here.  I sure hope that doesn't happen to me!!  I'd have to buy all new clothes.

So far this has been an awesome experience! Some days are harder that other, but I suppose that what comes with the experience.  

Thanks for all your prayers and support!!

Elder Caydyn