40 Such a Good Number

Family and Friends!

Man, good week. A ton better than the last 6!

So, i was talking to my new district leader and turns out i am a co senior companion...have been for 2 transfers ha.  So, i started taking the lead, just taking it. As Elder Watts told me to do. I managed time, lessons and commitments.  We finally hit, for the first time, 40 lessons in a week, the standard of excellence.  I am so stoked! Usually my companion would plan the majority, but this week i decided to take the lead and plan, schedule and all. haha well it worked! we had 14 lessons with members present also, which is huge here in Delicias.  also, we found 13 new people to teach! one family is a family of 7 and we can baptize 4 of them. they are incredible! so yeah, the numbers were great this week, lets just hope we can put it all together in the month of August and see some miracles and baptisms :) Everything is chill with Elder Espino, i had a good talk with him, ha i sat him down one night and just had a very grown up chat with this 24 year old dude. things are great now. thanks for your love and support.

We were given a reference from other missionaries and we will be baptising this investigator this week, his name is Alfonso, he is so smart! and he WANTS TO SERVE A MISSION! that is so dope! haha but for real, to know that someone we have taught has the desires to go out and serve and preach as we are now is just a huge reward and blessing. :)

Rocio will be baptized next week most likely, but she is doing great, after we took the last bit of coffee away, placed carefully in my backpack, she has been coffee free for about a week now! i will let you know how she is doing next week.  She still has limited contact with her children, but we will soon be passing a reference up north and get missionaries to visit her children too.But Rocio said she feels better and is finding more LIGHT in her life.  That's what i like to hear.

When the mission work gets better, that's usually when the living circumstances worsen and so they did.  We went without gas for 2 days...very cold showers. That's not the worst, haha that's nothing.  Here in TJ, things just break a lot.  So, a water line broke somewhere and we lost water, all water, for 3 days.  Yeah, you cant find clean water to drink, you cant flush your toilet, you cant wash hands, shave, and everything else.  It is awful. But, we did our best to make the best of what we had left for water.  It took some real patience and courage haha, i used to be a germaphobe as you all know, well i am officially cured of that disease.  there is a phrase in spanish that means just "whatever", lets just say i used it a lot this week with the living situations haha "nimodo", after i say that, i can do whatever, its magic.  but, after 3 long days, the water came back, and we were able to flush the toilets and clean up a little haha.  there is actually a cool way to flush toilets without levers but we didn't want to waste our drinking water.  Also, that morning the senior missionaries and the president's wife came to inspect the house, hahaha disaster!

Another rough thing this week, we were walking in a park and a man came up to us, yelling Elderes! Elderes!  Turns out this man's dad is a bishop down south.  This man's life has been literally falling apart...we started to talk to this man and he told us that he was just on his way to commit suicide right there in the street that we were in but then we stumbled into his path and he took it to be a sign from God.  We talked with him and he just cried and cried and cried with all that has been happening. He told us the first vision that Joseph Smith had with the father and the son, in such a way that was gorgeous...and then it got very sad, he told us of his life and began to shake and cry out...he started a prayer out loud....and just as Christ did on the cross, this broken and yes, bleeding, man started to cry out "Abba, Father, Abba, Father!!" and talked with his Father in Heaven, i was moved to almost tears....it shook us pretty hard, all that he has said, done and been through.  Then i saw as he pulled out his alcohol and poured it out all over the ground....the start of a change. I do now know if we will be able to teach this man, due to a few things, but I would sure like to try.

Family and friends, please know that there is always hope, you can always find strength to come back to the good path, which is Christ. through him we can all be safe, and happy.  I know that Christ in fact, lives.  I love you all.

Elder Westbroek