Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving.  I love turkey day.  Ate way too much food.  It was awesome. Hope your Thanksgiving was awesome. 

So this week was way good.  On Monday we had a normal day pretty much because we switched our p-day to Thanksgiving.  We had a specialized training thing this week and Pres Young took me aside and said I would be leaving in two weeks at the end of the transfer.  But. shhhh.  It's a secret.  I am pretty bummed out because Eugene is awesome, but it wil be an adventure to go some place new.  Who knows, . . . 

So a couple weeks ago we ran into this guy named Andrew.  Awesome guy, super interested, great questions, pretty much the most golden guy ever...... or so we thought. He was a Jehovah Witness that decided to "ninja" us.  We went over to his house and then he just starts pulling out all this stuff and being a jerk. and this is way i love Elder "D" so much.  He just asked the guy if he had ever read the Book of Mormon.  He said "no". Then Elder "D" said; "We don't expect you to believe us.  We invite you to read it and pray and ask our Heavenly Father if it is true."  He wouldn't do it.  People blow my mind.  They yell and scream that something isn't true, yet they have never read it or even opened it. Crazy talk!  Then he said he would txt us all the reasons it wasn't true.  Elder "D" said, "how would you know if you have never read it."  hahaha.  

Also this week we went on an exchange and Elder "D" was able to stay in our area and show his skills.  He went to a member's home and had a dinner lesson with one of our investigators there.  He said it went super well and the member told me that it did too. So building member trust and getting Elder "D" to take over the area - things are going good. 

We have pretty much had to start over with our teaching pool because people are at a stand still.  The people here are hard to have progress.  So Elder "D" and i are trying to figure out ways to get people to keep commitments.  One sweet miracle is that our investigator Marcus, who is a member's husband, is doing well.  We were able to teach the Restoration and he is reading and praying. !!!!!!!   Also our ward mission leader has had one of his friends coming to church the past three weeks.  We haven't counted her in our teaching pool yet because she still doesn't want to meet with us yet, but this week he talked to her and things are looking up.  Loving it.    

This week I have been really trying to figure out a way to make it so i don't hit my climax now. i am afraid that I will plateau, and i don't want that to happen.  So I have been praying and making game plans so I don't flat line.  Things are going well. Loving life and loving the mission.

-Elder Woestman

T M I . . .

This has been a weird/ crazy/ awesome/ fun week. i will tell the non-spiritual stuff first because it's pretty funny.  So on Monday last week I woke up with what I thought was a bruised tail bone.  I went on my day doing my normal thing.  Got a new suit, which looks pretty fly if I say so my self, and then played some foot ball with other missionaries.  Then the next day Elder "D" and I woke up to do our normal morning run - what I thought was a bruised tail bone had gotten bigger. and hurt.  We went for the run and then when I went to go jump in the shower I noticed that it had started to leek out.  Gross I know   So I called a nurse in our ward and she said that it was prob a cyst. (I thought I was going to die) and then told me that if the puss was yellow it wasn't infected but if it was green it was infected.....................................it was yellow. (At this point I figured that i wasn't going to die today, just in a week now).  So I drained it out -  Which hurt really bad, and then went about my day doing my thing.  I had to go on an exchange so I went on an exchange that night with another set of missionaries.  That next morning I was hurting pretty bad. haha ( I blame dad for my hardheadedness about calling a doctor.  To many things that had to get done) but I finally called my mission president's wife who handles all of our medical stuff.  She told me that I need to call this member who is a doctor in another ward.  I call him and set up a time that night to have him do his doctor stuff on my tail bone. I get there and he has me go into his bath room and he put this coolant stuff on it and then he started cutting it with scissors. ( Don't worry it was all sanitized stuff) this hurt really bad. But I took it like a man haha.  Oh man did it hurt.  (Like now I know how the pioneers felt.  So with no drugs or knocking out stuff, I had this half dollar thing cyst cut and now I am suppose to just let it drain out. It looks a lot better now. Not completely gone but a lot smaller and not as red. hahahaha  A story of a life time.  Just thought I would let you know - ha.  I am all good. No worries.

We had some way cool miracles happen. During my little doctor visit Elder "D" and i went on exchanges so he could go to our lessons while i was with a member.  I was happy because this was his first time out by himself and he had to take charge. and things went great!  He is a way good missionary and kicks butt!.   This Friday we will meet with a part member family and we asked the husband (who is the non memver) if he would want to be taught and he said yes.  They are a young couple and they just got married this past September  so we are the first missionaries to meet with them.  Pressure. haha. But it should go very well. lets see what else. 

I have an AP coming with elder "D" and I so we are freaked out haha. but - oh well.  Oh - we meet this one guy named Andrew who is so awesome. He knows that there has been an apostasy and is waiting for the restoration of Christ's church.  Can you say holy cow!  He is very learned in the Bible, which is good because we get to learn some stuff from him but then show him how the Bible and the Book of Mormon work together, and that Christ's church has been restored onto the earth. Over all pretty good week. we are having fun with the rain haha. 

Love it here. love you all

Elder Ben Woestman

Bible Bashing vs Bearing Testimony

This has been another fantastic week in "The Eugene".  Life is awesome.  We have had some pretty sweet miracles happen this week.  First one goes with a family, parents named TJ and Niki.  They are two less active members that the elders quorum president told us to go see.  So we went over a couple weeks ago and then were able to help them with a washer and a dryer instal.  Then they said that they would feed us in return.  So this past Wednesday we went over to their house for dinner.  While we were there we invited them to find someone for us to teach.  They refered us to one of their neighbors.  We went over to the neighbor's house and right when we said that TJ sent us the neighbor got a big smile on his face and was way nice.  Then later we found out that he went to TJ's house after we talk to him and now TJ is all pumped up and is in missionary mode!  So this will be good because we can help two families here.  Love it!!  Missionary work is so awesome.  Every time something awesome happens it just renergizes you and gets you pumped up to do more work. 

Like another cool thing that happen was that we went out finding and the first door we knocked on was this guy named Richard.  He let us in right away and then we were able to teach him the first half of the Restoration.  Cool miracle right there.  We have been praying that he can keep up the desire. 

Now there was something funny that happened after that visit:  The next house we knocked on was a guy named Todd.  For a pass time Todd likes to Bible bash' missionaries.  He pulled out a copy of the Book of Mormon from the 60's which he had marked up proving why it was wrong.  Right when he did that we went into 'game on' mode. Now,  we did not start yelling at each other, I don't like that so I don't do that.  But one thing that a person can not overcome is a testimony.  So Elder "D" did well in his first Bible bash situation because he went straight to his testimony which Todd could not argue with.  Then we asked him if he had ever prayed about the Book of Mormon,  He said no.  Then we invited him to read it and pray and ask God if it is true.  He didn't know what to say. Love it. The power of a testimony. 

Just heard that Nakai V. put his papers in or is working on them so that is way sweet.  Hope all is well. 
Love you all.

Elder Ben Woestman

Chapel Tours

So this was a great week.  Elder "D" and i have had a pretty funny week.  So one cool miracle that happened was that we had an investigator come to church that we weren't expecting. His name is Bruce and this past Monday we had a chapel tour and then i guess that made him want to come to church.  The power of the chapel tour - can't beat it.

Also this week has been way good because we have been able to take the young men out to lessons.  The high school here has a bunch of open minded people which is way good because that means they will talk. lol.  So we have ran into a lot of teenagers and  we are having the kids in our ward talk to them and then come with us when we teach.  We are going to use the power of the church dances to get kids to come.  Love it.  Once you go to a church dance your hooked haha.  The young men in our ward are pretty good too,  We have the jocks, band geeks, and chill kids, so we are ready for any situation.

Oh - I almost forgot about Halloween.  We passed out candy :). but we only had one kid knock on our door so he got it all hah he was pretty pumped. I love it here.  This next transfer is going to be awesome. miracles are going to happen.

Love ya, Elder Woestman