Monday, October 18th 2010

I did finally get the money mom sent down through Western Union and I bought some way cool stuff with it. I'm way excited to come home. I never got Bro Weidner's letter about giving a talk when I get back, but I got mom's message, so I will plan on it. He wants me to talk on the Articles of Faith - hum . . . . . . .

I am pretty sure I won't be able to use the internet my last Monday here to email, so this will be my last time using the internet till I get home. Next Monday I will be going through a "how to get back into the world" training thing. But otherwise I'm still working and things are going way great. My companion from my last area just wrote me and told me that he baptized the two families we were teaching over there and wanted to know why I didn't come - since I was the one that taught them everything. And it look like that's what is going to happen to me again. We are teaching two families right now. But I will be gone before they are ready to be baptized. But hey, I started it, right. Well - I have got to go, see you all soon.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman.

Tuesday, October 5th 2010

Hi Everyone. This is Andy's mom. Below is Andy's letter from this week. We were able to communicate online yesterday trying to work out a way to get him some money. I had just sent him a debit card because his earlier one expired. Not confident that he would ever actually get the debit card, I sent it through the regular postal service anyway. And to my surprise, he actually did receive it, only to have it eaten/stolen at a fake ATM machine. So - we worked out a way to send him some cash through his Mission President. He only has 22 days left before he heads home and wants to buy some gifts/souvenirs. Andy will arrive back home on Wednesday night, October 27th. Dan and his family, and Anna will be in town to see him. After a short time here, he will head out to Denver and Seattle to visit with Maria and Robert and their families for a week. Then after Christmas Andy will head back to BYU-Idaho to start back to college. Thanks for your support, it has been a blessing to him and to us - we appreciate your prayers and your concerns. -Lots of Love, Laura

ANDY'S LETTER:
So - Mom, you asked me about the condition of my clothes. I don't really have any clothes besides church clothes. The clothes I brought for p-days are torn up bad - I super glued them together so they will last my last few weeks. My white shirts look so bad, and my garments are horrible. So the thing is, I don't really have anything to bring home to say the truth. I mean I don't own anything. I want to buy some clothes here because they're cheap and yea - some gifts. I could probably fit it all in one bag of luggage. So I'm not too worried about space. But now to my week;
So the week was pretty awesome, and why you might ask? Well it was general conference weekend. O-Yea! So that just made everything awesome. But besides that we went on an exchange Wednesday and that was way fun. We also had another special transfer, so now we have a new missionary in the zone. But he is not really new at all because he was the first kid I trained. :P, which is awesome. I love that kid so much. Also we received 3 referrals this week. One is an awesome family. So things are progressing really well in the investigator section. I just hope that they are already married. Why is it that nobody is ever married? But yea that was my week. I hope every one else had an awesome week.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman

Monday, September 27th 2010

O-yea. I am super excited that I have a dentist appointment scheduled right after I get back home. lol. And new garments will be great - mine are dingy and raggedy. I don't actually think that I have gotten bigger because my weight is the same as it always has been. I mean there is no actual way that I could become fat walking all around all day in the scorching sun. So I would say that my waist is still the same and my shirt size is still the same. But now to my week.

So the week was pretty normal. Nothing super crazy happened. I am slowly but surely making really good friends with the ward members. So hopefully things will get better reference wise, and they will start helping us find people. Although this whole country still just cracks me up some times. For example. we ate at the stake president's house Sunday for lunch. My companion was talking to the stake president about boring stuff so I went and started talking with his wife and two of his daughters. And we hit it off way good and some how got started on movies and this new movie called Avatar. She was telling me how the main actress is a Dominican and she asked me if I have ever seen her. I said no because I had never seen the movie. And she was like "WHAT! You have never seen the movie?" Then she went down in her voice and said. ¨I have it over there¨ lol, like she wanted to watch it with me right then and there. The stake presidents wife! lol. But I playfully yelled at her. It always cracks me up how Dominicans know that we aren't allowed doing all these things but they still always try to get you to do them. And it's not because they want you to do something bad. It's because they want you to stay in their house longer and talk with them. lol.

We also had two baptisms this weekend. They were the brother and sister of a member, so that was cool. But otherwise the week wasn't too bad. We still aren't doing very good with contacting houses at all. But that's why I am trying to focus on the members giving us references. And that was my week.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman

Monday, September 20th 2010

So this has been definitely an interesting week, but it seems like the time is flying by. I only have 5 weeks left and I'll be home. But, as for my week, I am in Villa Aura, as a Zone Leader and the capital is not treating me very well at all. The people here are mean. We go out and contact people and they don't want to talk at us. It's crazy. I haven't had a door slammed in my face my whole
mission, but now I can't say that anymore. I think it is all because I am in a really rich area. So the people most of the times are just maids that we contact. It's lame. So we only taught 2 people of all the people we made appointments with this week that were new. crazy crazy crazy. But hey things are going well. Sorry this is short - mom, you sent some really long emails. Talk to you
later.
-Elder Woestman

Monday, September 13th 2010

So this week was not very interesting but still had lots of results mission work wise. We have been teaching this young couple this week that has one kid that is like 1 and a half years old. And it's kind of weird because the dad is younger than me. lol. Man I'm old. But they are way sweet. The wife is the daughter of a pastor, but her dad left her and her mom a long time ago. She is way smart and it is way fun to talk with her because she asks great questions. But sadly I am leaving my area tomorrow. I am being transferred Las Caobas, Via Aura. as a Zone Leader. So that's where I will end my mission. This is officially my last transfer in the mission. So yesterday I said bye to everyone I know and all my baptisms. Tonight I am going to have a family home evening night with my branch president's family and the young couple that we have been teaching, and the fiancée of a guy in the ward and his family. So it's going to be a way sweet night. I already made cookies for it. But the week wasn't all that interesting besides me leaving for the capital. Which is good. You can tell Grandma W that it is not my fault that she hasn't gotten any mail because I actually wrote her like 5 weeks ago. The thing is that I don't think the mail is working any more - just normal for the government mail around here. But yea that was my week.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman

Monday, September 6, 2010

There have been some problems with some of the missionaries this week - but my week was way good besides that. I spent the whole week in the capital, from Tuesday to Friday night being trained on a new way of teaching. And it was awesome. They actually taught us what the real purpose of teaching is about and how to teach people by the Spirit. It's kind of hard to explain everything that they taught us but it was all about learning how to teach people, not lessons. We now have to pray with everybody kneeling. Which I have only done on special occasions before, mostly just because nobody else ever did it and because the houses here lots of times don't have floors. They're kind of just made of dirt and concrete. But hey. I planned on wearing some holes into the knees of my pants before I came home. Otherwise we are just being a lot more patient with our teaching. Not just moving on with anything until the person we are teaching really understands what he has to obey and do once he gets baptized. But yea that was my week. This coming week every morning I have to teach my zone everything we learned at the training in the capital. That's about it for now.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman

Monday, August 30th 2010

So to start out this letter I guess I should tell you that the conference with Elder Vinas rocked hard core. Thursday was the district fireside with him. and we were able to bring three families to the fire side. It was so awesome. Sadly though none of them are married and we are still struggling to get them married. Why is it that men never want to get married? It's stupid. Then Friday was the zone conference, and it rocked as well. We had our lil' interview with Elder Vinas before the conference and it has been confirmed - he is a human being. And it was all kind of weird to be honest because my mission president was in the interview and I always thought of my mission president as old and wise. But next to Elder Vinas he literally looked a heck of a lot younger and seemed a lil besides himself. He was the same confident mission Pres. that I had always known - but hey it was way cool. We talked a lot about my zone and I told him about the problems we had and everything. My zone doesn't have any major problems though, because my zone just rocks and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Tomorrow through Saturday I will be going to the capital for four days. It's going to be crazy. Every zone leader and District leader will be there. Gotta run, will fill you in later - but hey that was my week.
Love Ya, Elder Woestman