Monday March 30th 2009

Well this week was crazy and a little depressing. So Tuesday I had my first district meeting and I started it. Had it all planned out. Then the AP´s called and said they were coming to my district meeting and to wait for them. So of course I was then nervous. So they came and were all like taking notes, looking as if my eternal salvation all depended on the notes they were taking. lol. They were pretty intimidating and I don’t know why either. But, I still thought my first district meeting was awesome. I focused our district meeting on bringing reverence to the sacrament meeting and specifically during the sacrament. I set out the plan of how we were going to teach key families and leaders about how important the sacrament is and commit them to pray through the whole passing and blessing of the sacrament. But, then to my surprise the AP´s [assistants to the mission president] got up and talked about the same thing. They expounded on my lesson and set up something called a “cosecha” with us - which is a “reaping of the harvest” or so I believe. And they said that we needed to get all the priesthood holders 16 years old and up and teach them about the importance of the “santa cena” [Holy Sacrament] Friday night. Then Saturday they were going to come out. Every missionary with 1 or 2 members was going to go out and all together we were going to visit every member in the branch in one hour, about the importance of the “santa cena” and commit them to pray through the whole thing. It was really cool and really exciting to think about. So my district worked hard on gathering the people for Friday. We had 20 people show up which was almost all of them that could. We taught them all about the importance of the “santa cena” and about what we were going to do Saturday. But then Saturday only the president of the rama [branch] and 3 other people showed up. And the AP´s were an hour and a half late. And we weren’t able to do the “cosecha”. I was pretty up set. Especially with the AP´s, because I spent lots of time with that and because of it only two of my 9 investigators showed up for church since I didn’t have time to remind them about church Saturday because I was stuck in the church building.
But I did do a baptism Saturday and it was good. His whole family showed up and they aren’t members so maybe we’ll get to teach his family with time. Wednesday we had our zone conference. It was my first Zone conference that I actually understood. So that was good. But I also realized that it wasn’t very organized at all. The president wanted to talk about our numbers - like always, focusing on our baptisms. But it was basically a couple missionaries arguing with him about his ideas. Then the other missionaries were all bearing their testimonies about his ideas. We only talked about 3 things in 2 and a half hours: committing our investigators to get baptized after sacrament meeting, using members more in our lessons, and baptize more people. So I thought that was actually kind of funny. But yea that was my week. Not to interesting. Just working. lol.
Elder Woestman

Monday March 23rd 2009

Hi:
I finally got the package from the family and everything is good here, but I am in a rush. So my letter may be a little shorter
Everything freak’n happened this week. First of all, Tuesday there were transfers and my trainer is no more in my life. Well, he is in my life but not as my trainer. He is my Zone leader now. So that’s kind of cool. But now I have a Dominican as a companion so that’s freak’n awesome. But he is definitely way different than me. For one he doesn’t eat. Like literally. Only bread. It’s weird and I don’t know what to do for lunch. lol. But it's all good.
Then Thursday I received a phone call and I am now a District leader. So that is awesome. But I kind of have a lot of responsibility - and we got two more missionaries Thursday in Don Gregorio, which is part of my district. So we helped move them into their house Thursday.
Saturday we didn’t have any baptisms. But Sunday we talked to our investigators and we should have one next Saturday and two more the Saturday afterwards. But yea, my mind’s going crazy. I have too many things to do these days. I’m not just that kid that doesn’t have to do anything anymore. But hey :)
Love You
Elder Woestman

Monday, March 9th 2009

Hey.

    My dad asked me what my companion is like and a little about where I live. Well, my companion is 6 ft tall, has kind of funky teeth, and isn't the cleanest person - not like house-wise but like person wise. I never touch him because he wears the same shirt twice before he washes it and picks his nose and stuff. Other than that he is a pretty good guy. He has no problems with working hard and only speaks Spanish to me so I can't complain too much.  I live in Nizao of Baní. It isn't a super poor area. It is full of lower middle class people with poor people and a few famous baseball players are from here. Every Saturday there is a party at the park in the center of the city. There are colmados all over the place which is where we get food. Colmados are like small family stores with the basics. Some are bigger than others. But yea, that's my town. just a small little place.

    So Tuesday was a pretty normal day. Nothing super exciting happened. Wednesday my companion went to the capital to go to the dentist because he broke one of his teeth. So I was on an intercombio with Elder Guzman Wednesday.  It was awesome because I was the senior companion since we were in Nizao.   So besides having to speak Spanish more than usual, I also decided what we did all day and we worked!  I worked Guzman hard. We ran and hit up everybody who was anybody.  We taught 9 lessons to investigators, 4 with a member present, 5 predicad mi Evangelio lessons, and did a million relompagos - which are lightning visits - meaning we jump in, say hi and offer a pray to old investigators.  It was sweet.

    We didn't have water for 4 days this week. So I took showers with bad water from a thing in the back yard then rinsed with clean water from huge jugs that we buy to drink. It was no fun but made me truly grateful when the water came back.   Thursday we had interviews with the President and that was sweet.  My companion is leaving me in two Wednesdays and I am receiving a Latino for a companion.  Oh ya!  I am excited, and we baptized two more people Saturday. On Sunday the President came to our church and told everybody how he was going to split the ward because we have so many people now. He is sending two more missionaries in next week. So I'm excited because life is crazy and the work is crazy.   So life rocks and people are getting baptized - so life's even better.   So Saturday we baptized two people. One was the daughter of an investigator family we have who the parents haven't been able to be baptized because of problems with papers and stuff for marriage. But their 8 yr old daughter was baptized and I baptized her.  The other person is a friend of the girl we baptized last week. But when I baptized this girl my pants ripped because she was so small and I had to bend down so far that my paints ripped and now have a huge hole. But nobody realized except for me and nobody still knows. But now I have to sow up my pants before my companion finds out and laughs at me. So that was fun.   Sorry my letter is small this week. I have to run. We spent all day in Ocoa at the waterfalls there and now I have no time to write my letters, but I'll talk about that next week.
     love you
         Elder Woestman

Monday March 2nd 2009

First of all, I love the members in my ward. There is this one girl named Yoellisa who came to a lesson that we taught Claritsa this past week. Claritsa got baptized Saturday, but I will talk about that in a little bit . The lesson was awesome because we, being American guys and not knowing anything about women clothes and the words for them in Spanish, Yoellisa was able to help us with teaching the Law of Chastity. And she was awesome. She was telling them everything wrong with their clothes, comparing them to scriptures, and everything. Claritsa and her friends were just like “dang”, I want to be as sweet and modest as this girl”. In fact - now that I think about it we didn't even teach anything. She basically talked the whole time, which was fine with me because she was awesome. Later we also taught a 30 yr old guy the Law of Chastity and it turns out that he has 6 girlfriends. Three of which are married and he sleeps with them all. How messed up is that!?!. And apparently that’s just how he thinks it is. He just can't catch the fact that what he is doing is wrong because he says the ladies want it more than him. Luckily he is said he is going to slowly dump them because he doesn't want to get beat up by an angry husband for one.
But now to the baptisms this weekend: So we had some crazy obstacles this weekend. First off there was a festival to honor chickens Friday. What’s up with that?! It’s like a national holiday. There was a parade of people dancing in chicken outfits to some crazy music. It was pretty hilarious, but no good because all the roads were closed down and the district leaders could not get to us to do the interviews for our baptisms. So we had to move those to Saturday. Then on Saturday we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off ourselves, trying to find a close enough relative to sign one of our investigators baptism papers so he could get baptized because he is only 17. Finally, we found his evangelical grandma who we convinced to sign it for him. That was pretty funny. Then Saturday we had our 3 baptisms. Luz, who is an older lady, was baptized by her husband who is also old and almost died - he could barely pull her back up. We almost had to jump in and save them both. lol.
Tuesday we found out that we can't listen to music of any kind, not even church music. I’m going to have to turn my I-pod and speakers and then pick them up at the end of my mission. But I can live with that.
Saturday right before the baptisms my companion and I were interviewed by the AP's. and I am not aloud to speak English anymore. So that’s been interesting because my companion and I don't communicate very well - he doesn't speak English ether anymore. That was my week. I’m doing freaking awesome. Life could only be a little better if I had a bike. lol.
Love you,
Elder Woestman