Elvis & Jenny 3-20-2012

Hola Familia!

Sorry I forgot my camera at home buy I do have pictures that I wanted to send you guys. We had a marriage and a baptism this week! we completed a family. We baptized hermana Dora we got her married to her husband (who was inactive for a long time) and we got her baptized.

I also have alot of really cool stories to tell.

The first cool one happened when I went on divisions with Elder Durfee from Utah. We were knocking doors and at this one door a man came out and before we could even say anything he told us "not now Im busy!". And tought him a little bit and were about to leave, but then we heard the voice of a women from inside the house yell "let them come in!". and we could tell that the husband was thinking What!, haha. So he hesitantly let us in and we found is wife sitting on the floor. She is blind and the day that we showed up she was also feeling really sick. She got up and we all took a seat. We then offered them a prayer and we asked them what we could do to help them. She told us about that she is suffering from diabetes, and she is always really sick because the dont have enough money for all of the medication. She then asked us if we could pray for her so that she could be healed. We explained that we have the priesthood and that we can bless people like the apostles did back in the day. We asked her if she had faith that god could heal her and she said yes. Then we gave her a blessing. After the blessing Elder Durfee asked her, "how do you feel sister?" and she just started to cry and said that she felt better. Through her tears she said that she felt a fire with in her. This completely changed the attitude of her husband, he went and got us a glass of water and he told us that we will always be welcome there. We then testified about the church and ended the visit. They promised us that they were going to come to church. And I think they did.

My second story is that we have a family that is preparing to get baptized and married in this month as well. Elvis and jenny. We had a combined family home evening in the church building, and tons of people showed up. Jenny showed up all by herself because Elvis went hometeaching with the elders qourum (yes, thats right he is not even baptized yet and he went home teaching). About 50 people showed up to the activity, the bishop gave a message and Elder Turcios and I were incharge of the activity. We tought them all how to play ninja. It was hilarious, how much the got into it. There was a 60 year old women that really got into it and was karate chopping everyone. But anyways while we were playing jenny slipped out to talk in private with the bishops wife. The only thing we saw was jenny crying her eyes out. So after ward we asked the bishops wife what was going on and she told us that jenny was suffering from phyiscal and verbal abuse from her husband. Something that they did not tell us. however she said that they were on the verge of getting seperated when we suddenly showed up at their door. They decided that that was an anwser to their prayers, and that they were going to stay togather and see if god could help them. During the time that we have been teaching them Elvis has not hit Jenny once. They have gotten into a few arguments but nothing big. yesterday we read the family a proclamation to the world with them and they loved it. When we got to the part that warns against abuse, we could see that elvis was starting to sweat alot. he came out and said that it was his problem and that he has a strong desire to change. We believe them, and they still want to get married. They have a 2 year old kid named Brayner, who will be blessed to raised in the gospel. maybe god knew that that brayner was going to grow up to be a great missionary and that is why god lead us there.

Another thing that happened is that my companion lost his voice, haha, and so I have pretty much been a one man show for the past 3 days. That was interesting.

Well, I am super happy. I am super tired but i am super tired. Today we talked with the whole zone and we motivated everyone to go out and contact everybus that they get on. On the way to internet hermana Treviño from arizona contacted the bus, it was awesome. Its true what kristen said I feel like there is so much to do but so little time to do it. I hope that You all have a good week, and I promise that next week I will send Fotos.

Love,

Elder West

Awesome Stake Conference 3-13-2012

Hola Familia!

This week was pretty cool.

The first cool thing that happened was that we had stake conferance and Elder Martino and the Temple President spoke to the stake, and they gave really really good talks. They talked about how all of the families need to pray and have family home evenings consistently. The sad part was that only one of our investigadors showed up. In the morning we called all of our investigadors and they all had sudden changes of plan (sickness, work, etc...). If only they had listened to the talk of elder martino I think that they all would have been instantly converted or something.

The other cool thing that happened is that I think that I have officially overcome my fear of contacting buses, its not scary any more. Alot of people say that it is not effective, which is kind of true. Considering that in one bus of 50 people maybe 1-2 people will give you their adress. But, if you think about it saying no to a stranger who is asking for you direction on a public bus in a dangerous city is easy. However saying yes, is harder, therefor the 1-2 references that we recieve are really good ones. So its kind of like finding the needle in the hay stack.

The other cool thing is that we my companion and I totally healed a kid who was sick. We have some really good investigadors that had a little 2 year old kid that was sick throwing up all week and he pretty much had not eaten anything all week because he couldnt keep anything down. They took him to the doctors office and the doctor told them that they had to take them to a special childrens doctor really far away in the coast. Me and My companion stopped by and just happend to find them right as they were walking out of the door. They asked us if we could pray for them and their sick son before the got on the bus. So we went inside, and we explained to them about the priesthood a little bit and told them how we perform blessings. A couple of days later, we talked to them and they told us that as they were on there way to the coast they said that there son suddenly just got better. They said he was playing and jumping around and stuff. When they got to the doctor he no longer had throwing up a dn diarhea problems. That really helped strenghten the faith of this family.

My companion got really sick again and so I had to go out and work with a member for the whole day. Poor guy, its the second time that hes gotten sick.

Another cool thing that happened is that yesterday for p-day my companion and I went to a members house to play board games. We played risk (but we gave up half way through), and we played a game of scrabble in spanish. It was really funny because I was playing against 3 latinos and I won! hahaha, it was hilarious they were all ashamed. Gift of Tounges baby!

i cannot believe that Kristen is going to be home in 2 weeks, that is awesome. I just passed the 20 month mark on the 7th.

I love you guys and I cant wait to hear from you next week.

Love,

Elder West