Feb 20, 2012

Well this week was another good week here just doin the work of the Lord!

One day this week when we were contacting we came to this house that this guy was sitting out in front on a chair trying to fix an amp. So we starting talking to him and right away he invited us in and we just started talking and got to know him a little better. He actually knew a little about the church but not too much so we started teaching him about the book of Mormon. It was sweet because as we were talking about it out of nowhere he asked us if he could buy the copy we had with us haha. Of course we just gave it to him and then as we were finishing up the lesson he was just like "When are you gonna come back again?" ha I love when we find people like him! so we set another appt with him for this week and he was telling us how he wanted us to meet his wife and kids and was gonna make sure that the whole family was there. It was so awesome!

Then yesterday we went to go visit one of our investigators that is getting baptized next week. When we got to the house she wasn’t there but as we were walking away we heard someone yelling for us. At one of the houses near our investigator one of the members of the ward was visiting with one of her friends and she wanted us to meet her friend and start teaching here. The lady had just had a baby so we taught her about the plan of salvation. It was so awesome! She had a ton of way good questions and was super interested! Ha she had so many questions haha it was crazy but we set up another appt with her for this week as well which should be sweet!

This past week was pretty sweet and hopefully this upcoming will be just as good! I love this work!
Thanks for everything
love Elder Westwood

Feb 13, 2012

Happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow everyone haha

This week was pretty good in the work down here! We did something this week that I’ve never heard about before but it actually turned out pretty well. On Wednesday all of the missionaries in the zone went up to this area called Boquete. There we met with the Branch President and some of the other members in the ward and they gave us a list of names of less active members and part member families within the ward. I guess there´s actually quite a bit of members who live up there but there assistance at church has been like in the 30s and 40s. So we went up and broke up and went and found these families and invited them back to church and then we went and found other families to invite to church.

The Branch President did this when he was in his mission in Nicaragua and they had a ton of success. In one month the mission baptized 501 people! So now we´re just waiting it out to see how well it worked. I’m sure that if we see a lot of success come from it we´ll start doing it more in the mission. Yesterday in church Elder Goodfellow and I talked with all of the Young Men in the ward and their leaders and we want to go out with all of them in a couple of weeks and do something kind of like what we did in Boquete with them. We have a super strong young men’s group right now so we´re praying that we´ll see success from it.

On Saturday we did something that my comp has been wanting to do his whole mission but hasn´t been able to do it until now. Ha he´s always wanted to kill a chicken to eat so on Saturday one of the family´s in the ward let him do it. Ha it was pretty interesting he was super nervous about it at first haha. After he killed it they make him pluck all the feathers and then cut it up too. They use like everything! Ha I think the only part they threw away was the head. Ha it was crazy but after we left the lady cooked it and we ate it for dinner that night haha. It actually tasted pretty good too.

Well I hope you all have a good week this week! Thank you for all your prayers and support!

Elder Westwood

Feb 6, 2012

Well now that I´ve spent a little more time in my new area I’m starting to like it more and more! The members up here are awesome! And the people are a lot more accepting too.

This week we did a service project for one of the recent converts in the ward. He told us that he needed some help doing cement at his house. One of the rooms in his house just had a dirt floor and wanted to put cement down. When I heard this I was just like man this is gonna be interesting to see how they do it here. And I was right haha we showed up on Wednesday morning and there were two big piles, one of gravel and the other of sand and then a bunch of bags of cement powder, one wheelbarrow and a couple of shovels. What we did was cleared an area where we could put all of the ingredients together and then add water and then we´d shovel it into the wheelbarrow and then go dump it where it was needed. Ha it was quite the process haha. The pad was only about 10´x20´ but I think it took about 3 or 4 hours for us to do it. ha it was actually kinda fun just because it was so different from what I was used to but it made me appreciate what we have in the states to make things like that easier and it made me realize how much I want to get a good education so I don’t have to be doing concrete the rest of my life haha.

This week one of our investigators got done with all of her paperwork so that she could get married so she could be baptized so that was pretty awesome! She was actually a pretty strong catholic but she started having questions about her church and she is dating a member of the church but at the time he was less active. So they were talking about it and he decided to bring her to church and they´ve been coming ever since! It´s so awesome! They´re gonna be married on the 28th and she´ll be baptized on the 1st of March. ha we tried to do it for the 29th since it only comes around every 4 years but she couldn´t do it because she had school or something haha but that´s ok. At least she´s getting baptized!

The work up here is going great! I love my new area and the people here!
Thank you all for your love and support
Elder Westwood

Jan 30, 2012

Well I knew it was gonna happen and sure enough it did haha. I got the call on Tuesday night telling me that I had changes. Ha luckily I pretty much already knew I had them so I already had most of my bags packed up so I could just chill that night. I was pretty nervous about where I was going like usual and who my new comp would be but they both turned out awesome.

My new comp is Elder Goodfellow from Midvale, UT. He´s super cool! Ha he has the same time left in the mission as I have in the mission right now haha if that makes sense. Ha I have just over 6 months and he leaves in just under 6 months. He´s way cool though and we´ve worked super hard since I’ve been here. Ha neither of us thought that we would get another gringo comp but it´s been pretty fun. We have a sweet area and I think we´ll be able to have a lot of success up here. Ha another cool thing about it is that since he has so much time in the mission he knows a ton! I’ve already learned so much from him so I can´t wait to see what else I’ll learn from him this change!

My new area is in David, Chiriqui. Ha its way up on the northern end of Panamá. Honestly I didn´t really want to go somewhere far because I heard that the bus rides are forever! And that was right ha we left Panama City around like 2:30 in the afternoon and arrived here in David at about midnight! Ha it was kind of a cool bus ride though, there´s a whole lot more of panama that I didn´t even know existed and the terrain is way different than I expected. And the bus we got to ride was a double decker bus so that was kinda cool haha. Things are way different up here than they were in the city though. Things are way more relaxed and the people are super nice up here and the biggest difference is that it´s all FLAT! It´s crazy haha but I kinda like it.

Because our area is so flat and it´s actually a pretty big area we get to use bikes up here! Ha it´s awesome! We can get places so fast and we´re so much more productive! Yesterday we had to leave the bikes home though and walk around, ha I never realized how much more ground we can cover while on the bikes. Ha the only bad thing about it is my butt is killing my right now haha but that´s alright I’ll get over it.

Since I’ve only been here for a few days I haven´t gotten to know the members super well yet but they all seem way cool and our investigators are super positive so I’m really excited to be working here. We´re gonna see some miracles happen this change!!

Thank you for all your love and support

Elder Westwood