Training Cambios

Hey Everyone!

Well, another week has past and changes came again. I really didn't want to leave. I have a lot of people that are really progressing well here, and I didn't want to lose them. But changes came as they always do; just when you least want them to come.

Elder Chapman and I anxiously waited by the phone to hear what our changes would be. After about fifteen minutes of sweating bullets, someone from the office called us.

“Elder Chapman, Elder Westover,” said Elder Mexfield, the finance guy.

“I have your changes right here, are you ready?” Ready was a very pliable word at the moment, seeing as that was all we were waiting for, but at the same time, I didnt want to hear what was going to happen.

“Elder Westover and Elder Chapman, you both are staying in Tocornal.” A wave of relief washed over both of our faces.

“But,” he said, “you both need to come to the change meeting”

As it turns out, I am assigned to stay in the sector, but I am going to be training a newbie. I would have gone into more detail here, but Microsoft Word deleted my letter, so I am just going to cut with please pray for me. Thanks for all that you guys do!

Con Amor,

Elder Westover

Organizing Chaos

Hey guys!
Well, its nice to hear stories about how cold it is in California and in Utah, because here it is blistering hot! The other day the tempurature rose to about 90 degrees, which for those of you who live in Utah doesnt sound like much, but when you live in a city that lies right underneath one of the largest holes in the ozone and has one of the highest UV ray penetration in the world, it makes everything seem like an oven. The best part is tracting in it. We basically run from tree to tree, trying to find shade wherever we can. Its quite a challenge at times, but Im gonna come back from my mission nice and tan... well, at least I´ll have a super nice looking farmer´s tan.
Things here in Tocornal have not slowed down, and it seems like people just keep showing up, asking us to change their lives around. The only problem is that there are a lot of them. I mean, a LOT. We are teaching about twenty some odd people that are progressing, ten that regularly go to the chapel, and about five with batismimal dates. It´s every missionarys’ dream. But it has shown to be a challenge as well. God is always testing us, at times in ways we dont understand at first. He is poking, prodding. But more than anything, he is molding. Sometimes we dont like it and dont want to be molded that way, so we dont let him. We are molded however we allow ourselves to be. The big question pressing on my mind is this: Who is molding me? God? Or do I allow my circumstanes and external factors shape me haphazardly into some random figure that I dont even recognize?
Right now, God is poking me with his big celestial stick. We have way too much to do, so we need to manage our time and prioritize everything so that everyone stays happy and growing. God is trying to make me more organized. I know that after reading that sentence, both my mom and dad will kneel down in prayer tonight and thank the Lord for finally answering their prayers. Honestly though, I found out that when it is something that is really important to me, I’m pretty darn good at it. We have about five whiteboards listing all of our investigators, what their problems are, and a calander with times that are the most likely for them to be home. I write everything down now in my planner. I discovered that my thoughts were like balloons; I could only hold so many before a few of them floated away. So I write everything down, nail down the balloons, so I can hold more in my hand. We are really good at getting things done, and the pensionists, the people that com check our apartments, said that our apartment was one of the cleanest ones they have ever seen. Okay, mom and dad, before you break out in dance, I need to say that I am still the same kid who left on the mission in the sense that I am still super forgetful and my thoughts are still usually up in the clouds. One hermana in our ward called me a “cabeza de pollo” (chicken head) yesterday for leaving my hymnbook at her house. And it is still hard for me to focus on one thing at a time without jumping to another. Elder Chapman calls it my “leaving the station” look. I realized that I need to do something that I really love to be able to organize myself. Its a curse, but I just have to get over it. Elder Chapman though told me that I should really get into law, of all things. He says that I like to argue too much. His dad is a personal injury attorney who basically sues the companies that my dad works for. So there you go dad; another career path. Tell me what to do. Elder Chapman says that if I get into something like personal injury law, it wont be as much paper work, and I also get to help out people that have gotten hurt in accidents. The only thing is that eventually I would probably have to sue Wellpoint or something, so Im still in the air. But Im basically trusting 100 percent in what you tell me to do as my career path (patriarchal blessing).
Im sorry this email was more on the drier side this week. We have a lot of people progressing that I wanted to talk about (Omar and Veronica, Maria Jose, etc, etc), but I kind of went off on the organization thing for a little too long. Next week will be more entertaining, I promise.
Thanks for everything guys, I love you!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover

PS- mom, para que sepa, I have lost weight on the mission, but I am still a 16 collar because they need to be long enough. And also, I would like peanut butter. Lots and lots of peanut butter. Thats my mission here in Chile besides converting people, sensationalizing peanut butter to the masses. Thanks, I’ll be looking forward to the Thanksgiving package, thanks!

Coming to Church

In the line of work, there are a few things that are especially challenging.
1) your girlfriend dumping you
2) getting up in the morning and exercising when it's really cold
and the hardest of all....
3) getting stubborn investigators to go to church

Yesterday was a challenge of the third. In this sector, there are a lot of investigators that go to church, but the ones that don't regularly go are more of a problem. Omar and Veronica are some of those people. Omar works with a member, which is how he started investigating the church. Veronica, his wife, has some family members that are all Mormon. They like what we have to say, but it is very hard for them to come to church. We halfheartedly called them yesterday to see if they were going to come. They didn't answer. 20 minutes before church, a member calls us and tells us to get ready, Omar and Veronica were coming to church. We were basically in a panic. When they came, we try to accommodate them as much as possible. The hours went by pretty smoothly (it was fast and testimony meeting), and at the end of all the hours, both Elder Chapman and I were exhausted. But its what happened AFTER church that made us realize what had just happened.
We got back together with them to have 11 (like dinner). There they told us why they had come to church that day. That week, Veronica had a dream about us. we were telling her that she needed to come to church with us. She thought it was strange and so she told Omar about it. He said that if he cant work on Sunday (he sells stuff in the flea market on Sundays), then they will go to church. Saturday was one of the hottest days yet here in Chile. Omar was sure it was going to be a great day tomorrow. Saturday cam and went, and when Sunday came, clouds started to loom over the horizon. It wasn't raining however, so Omar got his stuff, and went out to work. Just as he got his stuff set up... BOOM! lightening and rain began pounding the little metropolis of Santiago. For whatever cosmic reason made it happen, Omar and Veronica came to church... and they are going to go next week as well because their daughters loved it so much. Omar related to us that he felt a strange sensation which sounds exactly like what the Holy Ghost is. Im pretty sure that's what it was.
Everything is great! I love this sector, my comp and I are great, and I am happy to just be a missionary.
Thanks for everything guys, I love you all!
Con amor,
Elder Westover

PS- mom, if you could, please send as much peanut butter as you can. There is none here, and the other jar is completely gone... I accidentally brought it to church one time...

Cambios

Hey Everybody!
I wanted to thank everybody for all that you have done for me and for your constant support. I think I am kind of hitting that point where I don't worry about how many emails I am getting or who is or is not writing me. I am just happy where I am and I don't want to change for the world.
Its very odd how that works. I am coming to a point on the mission where I am officially in the swing of things, I can go and say pretty much whatever I want, and people for the most part understand me. I am in that dead space of time between being out in the mission and getting everything ready to come back home. That sounds so weird and remote to me now, thinking of going home. It seems like a very abstract concept to me right now; everyone has just been petrified in space and time for me, even though I know that its not true. I know that when I come back, everything will have changed.
That's a common thread in the mission. There was an investigator names Jackeline who really didn't have any hopes of progressing. her husband drank too much and occasionally came back home and beat her. She couldn't progress in that kind of environment until things got set in order or something happened. The other day, I felt we needed to go visit her. She answered the door immediately. It turned out that her husband left their family the day before with no money at all. She is now one of our star investigators.
I shortened that story a bit because I'm honestly not sure if I've shared it before or not. It just thrills me how many changes take place in such a short period of time. I'm so thankful for where I am and who I have become because of it. Thank you everybody for everything. I love you guys!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover

Cooldown

Hey everybody!
Well, things have finally begun to slow down here in Tocornal. But does that mean that we dont have any plans? Heck, no! We are still working with about five people who really want to get baptized, but are not able to for bad circumstances. The real one hope we have right now is Sophie, a painfully shy girl who is part of a less active family. When we got there, the family readily accepted us, and things have only gotten better from there. now Sophie has a fecha, and she is more than ready to get baptized. I only had one question: Why hasnt she gotten baptized before? It was a fairly simple question, and the fact that many other elders have passed by this house, presumably to get sophie baptized made me wonder why it had taken so long. were they on vacation? Was sophie a drug addict (she is 9)? What could be the problem that happened there?
What I found out surprised me. We talked with the mother, and in a nutshell she told us that she had not felt comfortable with any of the other set of elders that had come through. We had something that she liked about us, we were different (in a good way, of course). I think that I am beginning to realize why I am the way I am. I know that I can get into houses that other elders cannot. I also recognize my weaknesses and admit that there are houses that I cannot get into that other elders can. It is all a matter of who is where at what time, an even better incentive to just do your best, and let God work out all the details.
Mom, In Preach My Gospel, chapter 6 is just riddled with things that will help you out. I know it has helped me for sure! Also, if you could get a smaller size of journal, that would be awesome; mine is just way too big.
Also, I would like to give a hats off to Alyssa for turning 18 yesterday. Holy cow, lyssa, you´re legal now!!! I need to buy myself a shotgun before I get home: there have been a lot of elders that have asked about you. Let me know how things go with the ACT and the SAT. They are evil. Just take them and never look back.
Thanks everybody, Hopefully we will have more fun things to talk about next week! Take care!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover

The Testimony of Rosemary Eshneverger Salas

Hey everybody!!!

I'm glad everyone heard about the miners. Everyone was pegged to the TV the whole day! They showed intensive footage about the miners living conditions, what they had to go through, and an in depth look at their personal lives. It was quite amazing. Many called it a miracle, and a lot of people believe that it was a gift from God that they all survived. Some people said that they survived off of luck. That God, if he was a loving God, wouldn't have put them there in the first place.
To pick that argument apart, we have to look and see what it means to be called a miracle. What is a miracle? and what is the difference between a miracle and extreme luck? Is there a distinction there? A miracle, according to an atheist man I talked to, is something that cannot be explained by science, but that it happens anyway. He relied quickly by saying that everything can be explained by science anyway, so miracles therefore do not exist. I believed him. I think that if we look closely enough at anything, it can be explained by science and written off as another triumph of science over religion.
However, the miracles do not exist there. The miracle was not Christ healing the blind, or the sick, or raising the dead. The miracle was the people themselves. In Ether 12: 7-8, it reads: "For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed himself not unto the world. But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen." What Christ did was extraordinary, but what the real miracle was was the faith that he had; the faith of the blind, the deaf, and the dumb. In verse 12 of the same chapter, it says: "For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them; wherefore, he showed not himself until after their faith."
Therefore, a miracle has to be something else. The difference between a miracle and luck is a decision that we all have to make; a decision requiring faith. It is this faith that changes an extremely lucky situation into a miraculous one. Once we make that leap, we begin to see with new eyes. In 2 Corinthians 5:7, it says: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." We begin to see miracles occur in our every day lives. They happen all the time, every day; we just have to be looking for them.
One of these miracles on Sunday. The Salas Family was baptized. I was given the honor to be able to baptize Rosemary, a very special girl of 22 years old. But the miracle wasnt the baptism, it wasnt the circumstances that the family had to overcome to get there, it wasnt Rosemary´s one night in the hospital having cancer, and then leaving the next day after having a priesthood blessing without a trace of cancerous cells. The miracle was the family themselves. Rosemary asked to give her testimony after the service. What she said was the most spiritual experience I have ever had in my life. I have only cried a handful of times because of feeling the spirit (Im just not really one of those people), but while she was up there, telling us how grateful she was that we came into her life, I bawled. She said how she was sick. Really sick. By the time we got to her house, she had not gotten out of her bed for over four months. She didnt want to eat, she didnt want to go outside, she didnt want to live anymore. She told us that she asked for God to answer her; to prove that he loved her. When we came she began to change; subtly at first, but after a month, she had transformed into someone much more. She thanked us for being an answer to her supplications, and told us that now her joy was full. I honestly cant express the profundity of her testimony, but when she finished, everyone was crying. Everyone.
I feel so honored to have been to be part of that miracle. I know it was a miracle, because nothing but the power of God could have wrought that kind of change in a person. I love what I am doing and I know that we are all part of the miracle. Open your eyes. Don't wait for the miracles, be the miracle. Thank you for all your love and concern! Go Chile!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover

Mitchel and Denisse

The rose buds in our patio started to bloom the other day.

Yesterday I was present for one of the most powerful Sundays of my life. It was a fast and testimony meeting and of course, the familia Salas came, looking so eager and willing to learn more about the gospel. Today was a special day for us. We had two baptisms planned for today. Today was also special for a reason that I wish I had known before, which was that it was the day that the hour changed forward. Luckily, we were awake when we received the call asking where the missionaries had run off to.
We got to sacrament meeting about 10 minutes late and immediately went to go fill up the baptismal font. Ive gotten used to these rushed days, but its always hectic and a little nerve wracking when you have a baptism, let alone two. But for some reason I wasn't that nervous. I want sure what it was, but I felt a calm sensation as I came into the chapel. I felt a strong spirit even before anyone said anything. Maybe I was just excited that there were ten investigators that had showed up to church, so I kind of just brushed it off.
As the meeting progressed, the spirit grew stronger. All of the testimonies that were borne (it being fast and testimony meeting) were very powerful, and even one of them; Ernesto, a less active member who turned his life around after being hospitalized a few weeks ago, especially impressed me and made my eyes water. I felt the power of change that comes through the gospel. I felt it not as a concept, not a hope of a better tomorrow, but as a tangible, real presence. I really didn't know what was going on during sacrament, but I knew I was not the only one because when I looked over at Elder Chapman, I could tell he was being affected the same way that I was.
After church we had the baptisms of Mitchel Sepulveda (16) and Denisse Campos (8). They had both come a long way, especially Mitchel. When I saw their baptisms (their relatives did the ordinance), I was able to catch a glimpse of their changes from the beginning of the time when we began teaching them. When Denisse went into the water, I thought of her family. How her mother, although supportive, was not the greatest role model. When Denisse left the water, she left everything with her. The horrible living conditions, her mothers infidelity, the police escort from her daughter, everything. When Mitchel was baptized, the force of the spirit struck me like a Mac truck on a highway. Mitchel was baptized by immersion, and when he came out of the water, he left behind the drugs, his girlfriend, the tattoos, everything. He changed from what was, to what could be. That's what the gospel does. Right there, that moment. That's the power of the Atonement. That's the power that we have.
After the baptisms, I felt so grateful just to be able to be here, to be able to be a part of their lives, I really couldn't say anything to them but "Thank You". As we were waiting for them to get changed, one of the hermanos pulled me aside and asked to talk with us. "Thank you, Elders," he told us. "Thank you for what you have done for this ward." He went on to explain why he had pulled us aside. [Paul recounts a very sacred experience that he prefers to keep somewhat private at this time.]
I knew I had a testimony of the gospel before. But now I can not doubt it. This is the truth, and we have God on our left hand, and on our right. He is always with us, and he always wants us to follow him, even unto the waters of baptism.

I really like that those roses are finally starting to bloom.

Thank you guys for all of your love and support. I feel honored to be here and serve these people.
Con Amor,
Elder Westover