Kayla, Jacob, YSA

This was a crazy week.  So many cool miracles.  It all started with Tuesday and how we were able to go on an exchange.  I went to another elder's area.  We had staked a bunch of lessons so he could teach people, and then my job was to find people for them to teach.  Well the great part is that he was able to set a date with Kayla, for on my birthday !!!!!!!, and then was able to find three people who have been coming to church who want to be baptized.  So it worked out great.  And then we were going through our stake young single adult (YSA) list.  We got a list of all the people in the stake from the ages 18 -30 - regardless if their records are in the YSA ward or their home wards.  We went to go visit a kid named Jacob.  We set up a lesson and when we showed up he had invited his girlfriend to come.  We were able to teach the Restoration and it went really good.  They both came to church and loved it.  Then one of our members invited them over for dinner (with out us even knowing or asking her to do that) and they loved that.  We had already had a lesson planned out for them for Sunday evening and when we showed up they were talking about how they had a great time.  We were able to teach the Plan of Salvation and we focused on Christ and the peace He brings.  We read 3 Nephi 11 and talked about how it would feel to see Christ and touched his hands a feet.  Such a good lesson, so Spirit lead.  I love miracles.  She now is going to be baptized on August 17th.  Being a missionary is awesome.  Serving in a singles ward is awesome.  Hopefully I can just stay here till the end of my mission lol. I could live with that.

Hope you all are doing great! Love you all,

Elder Ben Woestman.

The One

This week was great.  We had a a pretty intense zone conference this week.  We set a goal as a mission to baptize 150 people in the months of August, September, and October - and to do that we all need to baptize 1 person.  So we focused our zone conference all around "The One" and how we need to be responsible for the one.  Our mission president prayed about it and knows we can all have our 1 person if we do our part - which is a pretty awesome promise.  So, we are all working for the "1". 

Also this week we had an awesome miracle happen at church.  We had 4 people come.  And in the summer that's really good for a college ward.  One is a member's boyfriend who wants to start to meet with us!  Our first lesson is this week so keep that in your prayers that it goes well.  Also Kayla came to church again for the second time.  She is trying to figure out if Aug 3rd will work for her to be baptized - which will be awesome.  Miracles are happening everywhere, left and right.  It pumps me up. 

We are working with our zone a lot because they are all new and have no idea what to do.  So if any of you have pointers on how to help people learn to be bold I would love some help on how to teach that.  A lot of my thoughts go to what Dan had sent me already about how we need to inspire people and not run people.  So we are going in that direction for right now.

Love you all, hope all is well, 

Love Elder Woestman

Another Day in Paradise . . .

Ben with other missionaries at a 4th of July parade.

Another great week in the College Hill ward.  We had a great miracle happen.  Elder "M" and I felt prompted to go visit a less active member and on the way there we were walking and saw a girl and went up to talk to her. We were able to give her a Book of Mormon and then set up an appointment for this Saturday at our institute. The lesson went great. We felt prompted to share the Plan of Salvation and she loved it. She said it made total sense and we were able to set a soft baptismal commitment with her and then this following lesson we will set a date. She also came to church and our Break the Fast dinner and loved it! Miracles! i love serving in a college town. 

We also had interviews with the Mission President this week and that went way well.  We were told about it on Tuesday and that it would be on Friday.  And they told us that we had to prepare a 5 hour training thing for our missionaries while they were waiting to be interviewed.  So we focused it on cleaning our inward selves and how important that is.  We started by baking a lot of brownings.  Some of which were really good and others that had a bunch of hot sauce and terriaki sauce in them.  They all looked the same but they for sure didn't taste the same hahaha.  We compared it to how missionaries can look the part but they need to be the part.  It was fun.

Oh - and we had our first Chinese baptism on Saturday!!! how awesome is that.  He is so cool.  He was way nervous but after he got the Holy Ghost on Sunday he was so happy. He told us he felt calm. and we asked him after the baptism what helped him to know this is true. and in his not so good English said "I found out God was true, and He helped me with the rest" how awesome is that! Liu  is such a good guy.  He told us that he wants to bring his girlfriend over to  America after the summer so hopefully we will be able to teach her too. 

Also a set of missionaries ran into Dan H who got baptized a year ago in Albany and he told them to tell me that he went to the temple!!!  So awesome. and Phil ( the chaplain in Eugene who is like my long lost friend and brother for life) went and found the missionaries! Our APs are teaching him, which is awesome!!!!!  Miracles happening everywhere - left and right. 

Love you all. Anna your baby looks cute.  Punch Izak for me- he should be coming home this week or next week. 

Love Elder Woestman

Monday - July 1st 2013

This was a great week.  We had someone get baptized this 
week. Her name is Kaylene and she was able to get baptized on her birthday which is awesome. 

It was a great baptism because it seemed that the whole singles ward came and supported her. I am happy because we have been able to baptize a girl and a guy in their twenties here. and after Kaylenes baptism it hit me that it was like baptizing mom and dad. So i thought that was pretty cool.  

And on Sunday we had a awesome miracle happen. A Chinese guy walked in and and wanted to learn about God. How awesome is that! - just walked off the street into the church. So we were able to talk to him and then set up a lesson for today.  It was really hard to understand what he was saying haha.  I love it.  Half of our investigators are chinese. 

So one of the investigators that is supposed to get baptized next week told us he prayed and feels that he needs to be baptized in a river.  The only problem is that President Young doesn't let anyone get baptized in anything but a baptismal fonts.  We tried to explain this to Charlie and he is having a tough time with it, because he has prayed and feels that he needs to be baptized at this certain spot in a river. So pray that when we talk to our Mission President that he will let it all work out :).

Get this.. . the stake is doing a play and they want me to play the tuba hahaha.  So mom, I need you to send me my mouth peice. It should be in my blue bucket I think. or some where. If you cant find it its all good because they have one.  The one they have isn't as good as mine.  I'm a little nervous because I haven't played in like two years but it should be fun. Miracles are happening.


One of the things that we are focusing on with the zone is to new trainees. We have 4 sets of missionaries training so we want to make sure that they know what they are doing, and also we noticed that a lot of our missionaries are relatively 'young' in the mission field. We are working on making sure everyone knows how to work smart and hard.
 
Love this place. Love Elder "M". Love the Zone.

Love

Elder Ben Woestman

PS Check out the photos below:

I did an exchange in Walport - so we woke up early that morning and ran to the beach so we could do yoga and exercise on the beach.  haha

Studying where ever we get the chance.

Ben with Elder "M" and with others . . . .