September 6, 2011

Hola,

This past week has been good. We are seeing signs that the weather is cooling down. I can't believe it's September already. We've been working hard, though I don't really have too much to report for the week.

We took out a tree. It was on purpose. They asked us to do it.

Our Zone Leaders went to Albuquerque for a meeting and took our car. They brought us a new one! Well...we made a little trade and gave the Zone Leaders our new car for their truck! It was the best trade ever!!! So now we have a Chevy Colorado and I remember riding in that exact truck the first day i came out on my mission. It's a sentimental thing.

We had Zone Conference in Las Cruces at the beginning of last week. We talked a lot about the restoration and how to teach it better. I received a little bit of revelation during that meeting so it was good.

Yesterday for Labor Day we went hiking in the morning in the Franklin Mountains with a recent convert and her daughter. That was a lot of fun. I was afraid of rattle snakes the whole way. At the top we got to check out some caves. We also went to the mall, and then played some ball. It was a good day.

Love,


Elder Wiest

August 29, 2011

Hola,

This week has been busy. We've been working a lot on finding. I think I might have said that last week. It's a never ending effort.

Things are good. We've come accross some cool new people and we've been making progress with the investigators we have. We are teaching a young man who was able to go to Seminary a couple times this last week. We are way proud of him for that, although here Seminary starts at 7:00am not 6:30am. I guess the youth here aren't quite as valiant as we were back home.

Me and Elder Perez started working out hard in the morning. It sucks.

We have a couple of Family Home Evenings tonight with some investigators and recent converts, so we're excited for that.

Volleyball training started this past week so we went and played a little bit with our investigator and recent convert.

Things are going great. Hitting the streets and working hard!


Love,


Elder Wiest

August 22, 2011

Hola,

Well, I'm pretty much all settled into my new area. It's a pretty cool place and so far I like it a lot. The ward is really supportive and that helps a lot. We have a couple of people we are teaching and we are trying to work through the members to find some more investigators. We have 4 Family Home Evenings planned for the next 3 days.

The first couple of days here the swamp cooler didn't work at all! We were burning up! It finally got fixed it and we got a fan so we are staying relatively comfortable. I honestly can't wait for summer to be over.

School started today! Suckers!!

We have a full car again so I don' have to bike. This area is huge and is all hills so I'm thankful for that Chevy Malibu.

My companion, Elder Perez, is awesome. He kinda reminds me of a brown Uncle Scott. We've been working hard and having some fun. We had the chance to give some beginning of school blessings yesterday and that was neat.

I've gotten to the point were I'm more afraid to knock on the door of a huge house in a rich neighborhood at night than a little apartment in the ghetto. I love it!

Love,


Elder Wiest

August 15, 2011

Hola,


Well.....I'm getting transferred, but I'm staying in the zone. I will be going to the Rio Grande Ward. It's just back over the mountain. These last three areas have all been bordering each other. I'm going to be with Elder Perez. He is a cool kid. He comes from LA and is built kinda like a bowling ball. I'm really excited to go over there and serve with him. I've got three transfers left so this could be my last area. Elder Salazar is going to be training a new missionary, so that's exciting.

We had a baptism on Saturday. Ben got baptized and it was an awesome baptism. The ward did everything. Ben's non-member parents and step-dad came to the baptism and then also came to his confirmation on Sunday, so that was really cool.

I was able to say some goodbye's to members and investigators. I've decided I'm going to miss this area. Last night we had dinner with the Bishop and his family and they made me my favorite meal: chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter, nutella and syrup! it was amazing. The Bishop also gave both me and Elder Salazar each a priesthood blessing for our new transfer. That was really awesome.

Love,


Elder Wiest

August 8, 2011

Hola,

I'm not exactly sure what we did this week. It's all kind of a blur. I know we did missionary work!

One of our investigators taught us how to make discada, just tacos. They were great. I do love Mexican food.

We gave a blessing to a member in the hospital. She was looooopy. And we got lost in the hospital. I think someone was getting killed in the elevator because we could hear them screaming bloody murder in there. Weird.

One of our investigators who we've been working with for a long time finally came to church yesterday! It was great. She's been coming to all kinds of activities but never came on Sunday until yesterday.

We love teaching English classes! They're so much fun! We talked about introducing your family. We had a bunch of non-members come again. Now were just trying to get members to come and mingle.

One of our other investigators had his baptismal interview yesterday and passed and is good to go!

Love,


Elder Wiest

August 1, 2011

Hola,

We just got done at the zoo. I've been in El Paso for a year and a half and for a year and a half I've been wanting to go to the zoo and today I finally got to go! It's nothing like the Portland zoo but we had a good time.

This last week we went on exchanges with the other Elders in our district. Elder Hull came to our area and I worked here with him. We got some good stuff done and helped a guy move. We got a call from a young couple who lives in the same apartments as the guy we were moving. They needed help with a blessing. They had just got sealed and he just recently received the Melchizedek priesthood. We got there and she was basically going into labor with their first kid. It was cool because we coached him through his first blessing and it was powerful.

We had a park night with the Bishop's kids while they were on a date.

Our investigator, Nancy, taught us how to make gorditas! Soooo good! (and so frustrating). But well worth it.

We started English classes this week on Wednesday and Friday nights at 6:30pm. On Wednesday we just had our one investigator, Nancy, but then on Friday she brought a bunch of her friends and we had like 6 people and they were all non-members! It was so cool. It's a little nerve racking but I'm excited to see were this all goes.

This last Sunday we spoke in Sacrament meeting. Our topics were missionary work and I talked about the spirit and qualifying for the spirit and how it will help you overcome fears of sharing the gospel. It went pretty good.

Love,


Elder Wiest

July 25, 2011

Hola,

This week we had zone training and interviews with President Miller. It all went well. In the training, we talked about recognizing and qualifying for the spirit and teaching simply. We had some little kids from a few of the wards come to our meeting. Each companionship got assigned a kid and a topic to teach. Elder Salazar and I got the oldest kid and had to teach him the law of chastity! Lucky thing was when they asked him afterward what he learned he made us look good. Maybe we bribed him?

We've been working hard on visiting members in their home. We're doing it for a few reasons: 1) The ward lists in both wards are horrible so we are helping to clean them up, 2) If it's an active family we can get to know them and ask for referrals, 3) If it's a less-active or part-member family we can work with them and teach them, 4) If it's a non-member family we can teach them, too. So, we've been doing a lot of that lately and it's been working pretty good. The members actually know who we are now.

On Saturday we went with our English WML and helped him visit one of his home teaching sisters. She mainly speaks Spanish but still attends the English ward so he took us to translate and help him out. We got pizza out of it! We also visited a family out in the boonies (Chaparral). They have a horse and I think I fell in love.

Some Elders gave us their weights so we are working on getting buff.

On Sunday at church we taught Gospel Principles in the Spanish branch. We again had about 10 minutes notice but we made it work pretty good. It was on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Next week we are speaking in the English ward's sacrament meeting. There will be four speakers so I will only have to talk for about five minutes this time, thank goodness.

Last night we visited one of our investigators. She is having some troubles. She needed to get rid of the family kitten. Her plan was to put a collar on it and leave it at the park. My companion had some quick thinking. Long story short...we took the cat, had it for a few hours, and then gave it to our cat loving recent convert named April. We blessed two lives with one kitty!

Love,


Elder Wiest