Oregon is so awesome, the green trees and grass make it so much nicer than Provo (which had no trees). The people here are way nice too. No one wants to listen to us yet, but they are always polite about it, which is way cool. Albany is like a small town type place. Don't know how else to describe it. The ward has two social classes that are pretty far apart - one is super well off and then the other is pretty poor. But they do well together and everyone seems to get along with everyone which is way good. Me and my companion were both transferred into our area at the same time, so it has been hard to know where to start because the last missionaries did not keep good records of anything and kind of got the ward mission leader upset at them all the time. So we have to build up some trust with the members. We had a correlation meeting with the ward mission leader and the other leaders of the ward and every time me or Elder E had some ideas, you could tell that they did not think they were good because we are just "teenagers". haha. So that needs to be fixed.
This is going to be a learning experience for me because I cannot handle when adults don't take me seriously:) but my companion is sweet. He knows what he is doing - will probably be the next Assistant to the President - so I am pumped to serve with him.
I did get my bike and all the accessories. Haven't used the bike yet. We are in a "car-share" so we split the car during the week with another set of missionaries. We have it now, but I will probably use my bike tomorrow. I actually am going on exchanges with our zone leaders tonight so I am pumped about that.
I was reading in Preach My Gospel the other day where it said not to take the Book of Mormon for granted and to use it. It also said that if you pray about how to use the Book of Mormon while teaching people, you can receive revelation about how to do that. I am excited to try that. We are teaching a guy from Africa named Grady who speaks French. The missionaries here before us were teaching him. The man is ready to get baptised. He loves the gospel and that we do baptisms for the dead. We taught him the third lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ last night. It was way easy because the Spirit was there and he was so into it he understood everything. He is getting baptised on the 10th, so that's awesome! Right now though, we are trying to find new investigators since Grady is our only one pretty much. So, pray for me and Elder E to be able to find a family to be guided to.
Love you all,
Elder Woestman
PS - I almost forgot. We can have ukuleles, so Mom, can you find out how much it costs to ship mine out along with my tuner and extra strings. If it costs too much - I will just buy a new one out here.
