Aug 13th - Always follow the little Mexican boy

Cool scripture and quote I like this week.
"Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder." - 1 Nephi 17:45

"Determined to walk in his own way, the natural man often persists to the point where he is "past feeling," having been sedated by pleasing the carnal mind. Sadly, like the drug addict, he is always in need of a fresh fix."  -Neal A. Maxwell 

I'll quickly write about this super cool miracle we had the other day. Elder Brown and I were out trying to contact people... as always. This little Mexican boy comes riding by on his scooter saying "hola, hola," and whatnot.  We really couldn't understanding him. It was cute, but we continued to tract further and knock on more homes, but he rides up to us again, circling and saying, "hola" with a smile. He is more persistent the second time and catches our attention by trying to throw out some other Spanish words that I couldn't translate (I left my seer stone at home). But he continues to point down the street for some reason and then starts riding off.  So Elder Brown and I look at each other, kinda' confused, not knowing what he is saying, but we felt prompted to follow him down the road. As we are walking down the street he continues to look back at us every ten yards or so to make sure we are still following him. Eventually we get to what we supposed to be his house. On the the front porch we find his mother, three sisters and now the little Mexican boy staring at us. They ask us if we speak Spanish, and in my "Gringo" awesome Spanish, I tell them "no hablo espanol".  Luckily one of the daughters spoke some English. The first thing she asks is "What time does your church start?"  So obviously we do what any good missionaries would do... call the Spanish Sisters to come by and teach these people! We haven't heard from the Hermanas yet, but that was such a miracle that came by surprise. Lesson learned,,,ALWAYS follow the Little Mexican Boy. :)

In our YSA Ward we are going to have a baptism next week, and we are real excited. Kobe has been so prepared, I feel like I haven't had to do any work. We have a great teaching pool and expect another baptism for the first of November. The college campus is starting to fill up with students and we are getting more and more people at church. Pray for us!

Thanks for all your love, prayers, and emails!  I promise I read them, but I'm not always great at responding, so please forgive me.  But I love them!

Elder West

Golden Kobe

"But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator."
-Alma 30:44

Nothing too spectacular happened this week. We are still teaching and meeting with our newest investigator / slash Golden boy, Kobe, who by the way, will be getting baptized soon. Yay!  He came to church yesterday, so that was awesome seeing him there! Recently we've been getting more referrals from our members and other missionaries... The Lord really is raining down blessings for us. It's awesome!

One of my favorite parts of the week is on Sunday when we help teach the Mission Preparation class. Elder Brown and I do demonstrations and help instruct and practice with some of the kids out here preparing to go on missions. This last week we taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how simple it really is. How amazing it is to be able to feel the love of God and spread it to those who are in need.

The other night as we were winding down after working in our area and our apartment building lost power. There was a blackout for an hour or so, that was kinda fun. I can't believe I will be hitting my year and half mark soon.  I can't believe it.

Love everyone!
Elder West

July 30 - I think I broke my nose

"For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." 
-3 Nephi 13:32-33

Another great week but it was a crazy transfer let me tell you! We have four new companionship's training four new missionaries in our Zone, so organizing everyone to get to Tucson and back was a chore. We are also closing an area, so we are splitting up their Wards into two other companionship's. It's like playing domino's with Elders. Enough of the Zone stuff... now down to my area and further changes. Since school will be starting soon we will be dropping our two "Family Wards" to make room to cover more students and YSA Wards. So much is going on it's crazy, but a lot of great stuff!

Earlier this week we got a "sick" referral from a YSA member who is just Golden! Our member who told us about him said we should invite him to be baptized... so on our first visit in the member's home ... we did just that!  And he said yes. Golden right?  He will be getting baptized on August 18th! We've met with him twice this week and he is doing great!

Another major event was our service on last Friday. Some Sisters asked (okay...basically begged) us to help them "clean" a guys yard and house. So we picked up some other Elders to help out the Sisters and this guy they've been working with, but none of us were expecting to be there very long. The Sisters asked if we could start at 6 a.m., so we woke up at 5:30 in order to get there on time. To make a long story short, I'm pretty sure most of the time we "cleaning" we weren't even on ground level! We were ACTUALLY there to help re-roof and level the house. The roof was rotting away so we polished it up with 2×4's and plywood etc, etc. Sounds more like hard labor and carpentry, not "cleaning," but it's all good. We helped them level the house with jacks under the pillars and foundation of the home (BTW which can slip off the structure and crush you). Eight hours later we were still there. It was fun, but not what we were anticipating...thanks Sisters. 😇

During one of our morning basketball sessions (ball is life) I did indeed broke my nose. There's this Elder who is like 6'3" who I was wrecking in the paint. I was playing on him hard, keeping him honest, and he goes ahead and posts-me-up, then turns and the back of his head slams me right on the bridge of my nose. He felt the pop on the back of his head and I definitely felt it. The break lacerated my nose and there was just a waterfall of blood spewing out my nostrils. I'm all good now though. Haha.

Today is our p-day and we are riding up in our large van to see three of the most powerful telescopes in the world! Mt. Graham is amazing! Should be a good day.

Appreciate all your letters and boxes.  You're the best!!

Have a good one y'all.  Love, Elder West