Mission Conference and Building a Chapel....

Man i love mission conference, just because there is only 40 missionaries in our mission so when its time for mission conference its truly like a brotherhood, every missionary in the mission knows each other so theres always a lot of fun and enjoyment together when its time for mission conference.. But this mission conference we learned all about stress and communication, twas good twas good.. Got to see elder mitchell and Bradshaw, two friends from the MTC and everytime i see them its like seeing a brother, especially elder mitchell.. we've been through a ton together so we are super close. After that was christmas.. twas very good, loved the chat, josh and zach look like scruffs with their beards.. but looks like sweet living back at home. 

Yesturday at church we had the 2nd counselor of the district in our meeting and he announced some pretty nuts news.. first, three of the 5 branches here in Luanda are being split.. the number of branches is almost doubling in 2 weeks.. NUTS!!! and the extra big news is that they finally announced that they will begin construction of the very first chapel here in Angola.. and its just up the street from where i currently live.. what a historic time for this country and the church here.. such amazing growth has taken place here and the saints are thriving and working so hard to have a stake.. it will come very soon i have no doubt its crazy to see. All the missionaries are hoping they will here for the chapel to be completed but in actually ill be lucky if ill be here to see it finished.. sad.. but im super happy to have been a part of the growth here in angola. 

Learned 2 important things this week.. often times the lord only gives us just enough to get by, blessing us with the things that we need and not always the things that we want.. hes always willing and open to bless us with anything but its up to his timing and what he thinks is best, its our job to see that and to align our will with his accept it when it comes. The other is that there is not a check list for salvation or for this life.. we cant go through live checking things off and moving on.. the principle of "Enduring to the end" is often over looked and should be stressed a lot more... satan will find even the smallest hole in our ships to make it a bit bigger and bigger until eventually we sink to the bottom of the ocean.. continually progressing and enduring to the end.. just as important as anything else.. 

Love, 

Elder WEbber

A Pizza Hutt?

Short email since ill be able to talk to your guys face to face on friday

So this week was a ton of fun, a lot of things happened that im not sure if i should write home about... so i wont.. ill save those for later.. But this week was really good for work, just as always here in this beautiful area child of mine, just always walking talking and teaching with the spirit.. nothing new honestly. The branch had their christmas party last week and that was a ton of fun, just being able to relax and have fun with the branch and eat food, talk, watch the skits.. its all very fun here and they have a huge love for the christmas season.. especially about Christ.. they love santa and cookies and presents and all that but since the majority cant afford to have a nice christmas they really love to center the season on Christ as it should be.. so other then that this week was mainly planting.. as it is every single week here.. plant plant plant.. and i love it, sure it gets super frustraing when you have barely any investigators in your area book and when one investigator fall through on a lesson you know exactly what you are going to do.. contact! Contacting man what a wonderful thing us missionaries do.. and one thing that i learned this area is how to make contacting fun, since we do it for about 3 hours a day you find new ways to meet and greet, you find little games you can play with your companion, all very interesting, anything to make it more fun and enjoyable.. because when youre having fun, your happy, and when your happy you have the spirit, and when you have the spirit you can teach by the spirit and when you teach by the spirit you can convert other and bring them unto christ.. very interesting..

 But pretty much the highlight of the week is when the shopping center right next to our apartment finished, huge fireworks at 11 oclock at night and a huge shining christmas tree you can see for miles all around fun stuff.. but even better then that is that inside this shopping center they have... PIZZA HUTT!! ohhh boy some good ole pizza.. as soon as it finished all 5 of us in our house where gonna go eat there, we walk into the center turn the corner and see it.. the american pizza, the first American restaurant here other then KFC, we walk up and see the menu and almost started crying.. a small pizza is about 2500 AKZ which is about 25 dollars... so with empty stomachs and a heavy heart we walk all the way back to our apartment and scavenge to find some rice and beans to make for lunch.. twas a sad day.. very sad..

but sounds sweet at home, Thats sweet for BYU he'll be great for them, tell my siblings to hook a brother up with an email.. i know they dont have anything else to do.. 

Elder Webber

Mirror selfie in an abandoned hospital turned Canteena.. had to go using a candle

And me with the trees...

HARD Work...

This week was just a nice long week of learning more about the atributes of chirst.. mainly patience a whole lot of patience.. So immediately following last weeks email Elder Maxinho said that he had to head into the city for some visa stuff we thought no problem its p-day nothing big.. 2 taxis and hour and a half later we get there and he forgot his ID... you're kidding.. so we go all the way back home with nothing, the next day we had to go again but 2 hours the other direction by taxi.. we get there and stand in line for hours and walk from one building to another trying to get all his papers when finally we get it and head back home.. we left at 8 in the morning at got back home at 4.. We then on Saturday had to go 2 hours up to a city called viana so elder maxinho could do baptisms for 2 of his friends, so saturday we did zero work in our area, supppppper frustrating week.. we are also about 30 minutes late for everything because he takes forever to get ready.. theres no sense of urgency for anything, this last week I've had to be like a drill sergeant, "get in the shower.." "eat," "study," "put your shoes on.." "we leave in 5 minutes," "walk faster," it just really grinds my gears when we are late to things.. 

This area though... oh man this area.. its a love hate relationship... i often wake up in the morning with zero motivation for the day because i know that all of our appoitments will fall through and it will be 6 hours of walking around and contacting, our investigators arent keeping their commitments either, so many times this week we had to tell them to shape up, this will probably be the hardest area of my mission or life, elder conde said it was for him and the same with elder Dum.. but boy do i love it, i gave birth to this area and it gave birth to me, i was molded by it and shaped by it, I love the few investigators and member so much here, i learn so many lessons here that i will probably use my whole life, everytime we go on exchanges the missionaries that come in for the day are shocked at how hard this area is.. one time the ZL came into our area to work and when i saw him that night he said " this is your first area? man im sorry this area is rough.." its my area, its my wild stallion, and one day i will tame it and make it into a progressing baptizing area!

Fun teaching experience we had last night thought.. we met with john and his girlfriend Suzanna, and their friend Lou who are hair stylist (they give us free hair cuts), we met with them a lot before and they had a lot of questions about the BOM, so last night we decided to answer their questions.. started out really well, nice easy conversation.. but turned south so fast.. They just werent understanding the importance of the BOM, so elder Dum and maxinho started showing scripture after scripture and at times insulted them a little.. i was shocked... i just sat thier silent, they have a great knowledge of the scriputres my comps but sometimes thats a bad thing as they really to much on scriptural evidence and zero testimony.. so finally jon cut in and said "you just gotta ask god your self" and that was my time to shine.. pure testimony cant beat it.. just told them gotta ask for yourselfs, sorta rebuked my comps by saying "we could be here all night showing you scriptures but this means nothing.. you gotta ask god yourself" really interesting.. we will see if they do ask god, 

anyways sounds good at home.. happy birthday joseph.. keep killing it you little boss!

Love 

Elder Webber

Canteena Boys...

Man oh man i now know why it says in the scriptures the gospel will be taught two by two and not three by three.. first off we only have one shower and an hour and a half to get ready in the morning.. so if someone takes 31 minutes to shower and get ready then the scheduale is messed up.. teaching is especially hard because you have 3 elders who are all recieving revelation as to what they want to say in the heat of the moment, plus we have to train elder Maxinho so this week was really hard to have to get the timing of everything down and how we want to do teachings and lessons and pretty much every part of our mission lifes just got a whole lot harder with just 1 more elder.. but its been fun and interesting trying to figure it all out.. 

Still teaching my beloved Canteena boys Leandor, Manuel and Nunu, they all just got off of school so they are currently all at the canteens all day long everyday of the week, so we always pass by to say hello just for 5 minutes and keep going. Friday when we taught then was awesome.. We get in teach our lessons for about 30 minuetes because they usually have questions, then the mother came and joined us for our closing prayer as she always does and when she closed she asked if we had time for some food.. ummm yes we always have time for food, so we ate some home made bread, with ham and cheese (reminded me of home) so we ate that and just as we were about the leave elder Lematua and Dlimini (two elders who live in our same appartment) called us and said they lost their keys.. typical, so we had to walk 15 min to go give it to them on the division line but it was all good because Leandor and Manuel walked with us and we just talked all the way up, Leandor is learning english and can actually speak it really well, he likes to say he was born in the wrong country because the only music he listens to is from the states and his favorite is country.. pretty interesting.. We also asked the mom if she would let them get baptized.. she said yes for manuel.. SCORE! maybe for Nunu because we have to first ask his parents.. and another maybe for Leandor because he was already baptized in the catholic church and she doesnt understand why he needs it again, we explained it she said it made sense and shell think about it.. she also said shell come to church this week so that will certainly help in the process.. Pretty exciting stuff!! 

other then that more finding and more teaching, we have a couple of really solid invesigators and families so itll be fun to see how those go this week.. The language is actaully coming pretty fast, i can communicate and listen with people pretty well, and everytime i teach at a members house or talk to someone on the street and they ask how long ive been here and i say 2 and a half months they are shocked.. "What two and a half months.. and you know the language this well? how?" the gift of toungues my friend.. the gift of tounges..... missionary life is pretty easy to get into the rythm of you life it everyday so the sooner you surrender yourself to the work and the schedual the easier and more fun it will be.. 

Love, 

Elder Webber

The canteens boys.. Manuel, the mother. Leandor, me, Elder Dum, and Nunu

And a group of little kids who when everytime i walk by they run up to feel my skin and high five me and shake my hands.. all the time while yelling "amigo" and "chinesse" because they think that ime chinesse... interesting.. 

Wearin' out His shoes...

I recieved my new companions on Wednesday Elder Dum, and Elder Maxinho who actually lives like 30 min away from our area so he actaully sees a lot of his friends in taxis and at the stores which is pretty interesting. When they got here we didnt do anything all day because President said that Elder Maxinho just got off of a 9 hour flight and would probably like to rest, but said it was up to me if we should go out and work or let him rest.. and after a tough decision we decided to stay in to let him rest and we talked about our area for a couple hours and planned that next day, which i made sure was going to show all of our area and visit our investigators and i planned it perfectly so we would have to walk a lot.. just to welcome them into our area, nice little strole around town if you know what im saying.. When we got home that night Elder Dum looked at his shoes and was shocked and said "looks like im going to have to tell my mom to send me some new pairs cause this area is going to kill my pair" Elder dum you are 100% correct.. after i transfer in this area ive already worn down my insole to almost nothing and i have a hole on my right shoe.. This area is going to kill my shoes then its going to kill me soon after.. gotta love the Nova Vida 3C area life baby!! 

But this week was really cool cause we've had to drop a lot of investigators due to them not keeping comitments but we also found a new place to contact and we did a lot of contacting there and found a lot of solid families and people which seem will be really good so we are really excited for that. Yesturday we went to my beloved Canteena boys as we do every sunday and sat down to teach our lesson.. but to my surprise that mom came and joined us!! we taught her and it seems like i might actually get to baptize these 3 kids.. YEAH!! blessing from the lord after 8 long weeks the mother is actaully starting to join in on our lessons! Then of course after our lesson they came and brought us juice and cake.. ohhh it was perfect, just what i needed after a week like this.. probably the hardest week of my life because i had to take over the area, help train, tell them all about our area and investigators in portuguese and the baptism we had for this week wasnt ready so we had to postpone that.. i thought my head was going to explode and a lot of times i just wanted to go back to our appartment curl up into a ball and sleep.. but i cant and i wont.. the work must continue and so it did.

Glad my letter finally got there, sent it off about a month ago, kind forgot what it said by im happy it made an impact. sounds like lifes killer back at home, keep me on the update on the dating life, sports life and schooling life of my  kindred 

Thanks, love you 

Elder Webber

Transfer,.. But Staying...

Transfer time!! and im staying here in my birth area still working this new area.. my comp however is leaving me and im receiving 2 new companions one named Elder Dum hes been here a while, from portugual but hes still fluent in engilsh and portuguese so that will be very nice.. very nice indeed. The other one is a brand new missionary Elder Maxino hes from right here in Luanda just waiting for his Visa to go to portugual.. so in other words im a part daddy and helping giving birth.. Itll be weird i just finished getting trained and now im helping to train another missionary.. dont know how long he will be here but regardless it will still be a lot of fun. 

This week was fun, Quienta has his baptism marked up for this satruday and hes really excited for that so its gonna be sweet to finally see some fruits for our long labors here in Nova Vida, we didnt meet with him as much as we should have but the times that we did were really good and he seems to be really prepared, we didnt get to see leandor this week which was really sad.. whenever we dont see him it feels like a huge part of our lifes is missing. But elder conde and i have been working really hard this week to find some new investigators becasue we were in need of some new ones and sure enough the lord answers our prayers and we found a ton of really good families that are really excited to learn more and to meet with us so that was really cool. The language is coming along super super fast which is a huge blessing from the lord.. elder conde yesturday told me that my teaching in lessons is really good and i can pretty much teach on my own now.. Crazy how fast you can learn a language.. super cool. 

We also had disrtict conference here in luanda.. we heard from the district president and our beloved mission president.. we also got a satalite broadcast and were taught from Elder cook, and elder Rasband.. they announced that the two 2 temples here in africa will soon be finished and the memebers here are so excited for that. Elder Rasband was sweet though, he spoke really well and is going to be an awesome appostle.. he even spoke perfect portuguesse.. just kidding there was a translator.. but it was really good to hear from them and to see all the missionaries all 36 of us and to see all the 1600 members gathered into one conference center.. pretty cool stuff..

other then that nothing much happened this week, just more work in our new area.. Elder conde says that this has been his hardest area yet, and hes even been in the provincial life.. pretty nuts.. we walk a ton, talk with few and are still getting lost.. opening areas is super hard.. but i know that in time it will all pay off.. and i cant wait for that day.. 

Elder Webber

you can send food a lot of elders send packages with food its fine.. fedex and dhl are best and send it to this address, but my name on the senders spot and presidents name in the recipient and it should be very good. 

President danny merril 

Condominio Concha, de Talatona #77

Bairro Talatona VIA AL 16

Municipio da Samba - Luanda

Angola

Baskeball, Soccer and Independance

This week was fun because it was the Independence of Angola, so what that means is that Wednesday the day before it was the pre-party people were just super drunk everywhere, Thursday the independence everything closed down and military people and police were all over the streets, and once again people were still hammered drunk, then the next day it was people super hung over had no idea what was going on. So needless to say there wasn't much contacting going on, and the few contacting we did make it was with drunk people which is always super interesting and fun to do. But this week we met more with Leandor and his uncle Manuel and his cousin Nunu, and these guys are straight bosses, we only meet them saturday and sunday, and we always look forward to the weekend just so we can meet with them. Yesterday we waiting for them to get done with the chores and they brought out french toast and drinks for us while we waited.. it was so good! after our lesson we were about to say the prayer and the mom walked in and asked if she could join.. of course you can! After the prayer we shared photos and funny story about that they saw our family photo and said your parents look so young to have so many kids. and while looking at the photo of me playing rugby they all said i look like Christiano Ronaldo... no big deal.. So these kids are awesome! and the mom is liking us more and more which is sweet her heart is being softened a lot my the lord!

I went on divisions this week with Elder Lematua, and he showed me a lot of different ways to contact instead of the usual way of just knocking doors. The main activity we did was playing basketball, and turns out i balled up against some professional basketball players here in luanda, they play for Petro luanda and Premerio de Agusto.. pretty cool!

Also i told Elder Conde about how people back home are fighitng against the prophet and arent agreeing with him, and he pretty much lost his mind he said "really.. REALLY people fighting against the prophet.. no no no..  how can they.. hes called of god, hes doing what the lord wants.. people in the church complaining against the prophet nooooo man this is really not okay..." haha man its so true, so many people here in africa love the prophet and apostles and would do anything just to see them in person, and they would never think about going against the prophet.. just thought that was pretty cool. I love having elder conde as a companion, hes great! I tell him some situations that are happening back home and in the world and he is shocked about what is happening and how people are going against the prophet.  

Love you miss you

Elder Webber

Rain Rian, Rain...

Man looking at the photos of Halloween Joseph looks nothing like joseph dressed up as a warewolf.. scary stuff! and looks like Zach is back to being is silly goofy self.. classic! 

This week was a solid week, they are starting to fly by faster and faster as the weeks go back, next thing ill know ill be at the year mark! It was really stormy this week, but storms here in angola is mostly just a slight mist which is actually really nice walking around in, except for sunday night where it was a down pour, Elder Conde and i were on the other side of our are and it starts down pouring... super bad.. we look and we have 0 kwanza so we cant take a taxi.. so it was a long long long walk back, but we made the best of it and busted out some solid missionary raps.. our album will be coming out soon! haha but it was actually a lot fun. 

We have a couple really good investigators who are on date and look like they will be baptized. Leandor is really good (the cantinna boy) and his mom loves us, we went over yesturday and she gave us cake and some drinks, leandor when we left said "i love you guys, your like the older brothers i never had" it was awesome to feel so important to someone and to brighten their day just by talking with them a couple times of week. Made me feel a lot like our savior..  the other is Paulo, a 18 yr old guy who when we met him said that he had always dreamed about being a missionary or a pastor, we taught him the first lesson and went back to teach the second and he said "elders i read the chapter and more, i have a lot of questions for you.. and i know this is the path for me to accomplish my dream!" ohhh man the boy, we were so excited. The last one is Quienta he was really frusting at first because he wasnt coming to church,  but he came yesturday and loved it, we saw him last night and he had his friend their that he wanted us to teach.. already giving us referals!! so the work has been really good this week, super exciting and the language is coming a long really well. 

Yeah the world is a terrible place. so many people losing sight of what is truly important, the adversary is doing a great work on confusing the hearts and minds of men and telling them that its okay, its acceptable and that its natural. The sad part is hes working really well with the younger generation making it hip or cool or accept it and that is truly the sad part.. we are suppose to be the chosen generation and so many are not doing what they should be doing and getting confused.. sad sad sad

Anyways, thanks for everything...

miss you love you

Elder Webber

Doin' Well....

This week was pretty, just a lot of teaching and a lot of finding as usual with our new area.. Leandor one of the cantinna boys is loving the gospel hes 17 years old and is really working hard. We can only teach him on the weekends because during the week he heads into the city for school but everytime we see him on saturday he comes with a paper full of questions and things hes learned from the book of Mormon, its awesome to see casue hes so excited about baptism. He was baptized a catholic at 6 but we told him to read Moroni 8 and to pray about it and we came back and he said elders i know i have to get re baptized and i want to join your church and we thought perfect in a couple of weeks we can do that easy.. but of course Satan always has something to say.. we had to ask his mom for permission and she said no.. its was heart breaking.. but after a long conversation she said she would pray about it. Then Sunday leandor came to church and loved it so he went back home and told his family all about it and when we visited him last night he said his mom was going to let Nunu and Manuel go to church and she might even come herself. The lord is really softening her heart and telling her that this is the way for her family to follow. So hopefully this week this positive feeling will continue.

One of the nights this week we got out of our lesson late and our next appointment was all the way across our area which is super far.. so after strapping on our bags and getting ready we sprinted for what seemed to be miles to get to our lesson with John, we finally get there just a little late and we teach him and his sister, They were super invovled in the lesson and really enjoyed what we were saying, they even accepted the invitation to be baptized! Elder conde and i were so excited and after the lesson he told us "Elders you guys are awesome, i dont want any other missionaries teaching us, i dont know how it would be" we were pumped but weren't sure if we could teach them cause they lived just outside our area.. and surely enough they do live outside our area so we had to pass them along... AHHHHHHH!!!! NOOOO!!! but John works in our area on a street that we often walk on so we get to check up on him and talk to him every now and again.. hes a profession hair cutter and one day he cut our hair for us.. turns out here in Africa they cut hair a little bit different.. they use an exacto blade and a comb to cut your hair.. pretty nuts but its probably the best hair ive ever gotten so its all good! 

I have a lot of advice for the Priests but ill share 1 that i really learned this week..  love your family, spend as much time as you can with them because you will miss them on your mission. But really Learn the real meaning of praying continually.. instead of walking with head phones in or texting, learn to say pray in your heart and have a conversion with your father in heaven, prayers are more then just morning and evening they should be continually talking to your father above through out the day and talking with him. Replace headphones, twitter, facebook, music, and tv with times to ponder about the gospel and pray to your father, really talking to him.. itll help a lot when you walk miles a day with only your thoughts to entertain you. 

Love you, Miss you

Elder Webber

Baptisms

This week was really stressful, we had a baptism so we had to make sure that it was going to go well, and it did. i baptized rochanna a 9 yr old girl and confirmed piter a 14 year old boy. pretty cool the lord really helped me out on the prayers as i didnt mess up once, and gave a short and simple blessing so that went really well. But this week we had to drop some investigators and be super straight up with others. A lot of them werent keeping the comitments and making excusses on stuff so elder conde and i had to go in and with a sweet kind tone tell them to "stop acting like little kids and start keeping your commitments go to church and follow the savior or else theres no point in us teaching you." sorta scared them straight and had to remind them of our purpose, not just to talk about christ and stuff but to work them towards their salvation. So the last couple days consisted of that which was fun. But on the bright side we found a lot more investigators that will be awesome to teach.. we found 2 guys that are aweseome Paulo and Folo we are really looking forward to this week teaching them. The cantina boys are still doing great as well.

pretty crazy experience happened yesturday.. we were walking back from a lesson at like 8 at night and we saw a guy ahead of us walking, we hear a car come zooming up behind us barely misses me cause i was on the outside but actaully clips the guy ahead of us pretty bad, so the car pulls over and the girl gets out, and i thought okay shes getting out to see if hes okay, good girl... NOPE! she gets out to fix her mirror and see if her car is okay.. then starts getting back in the car, the guy ahead of us was hammered drunk and starts yeling at her and confront her at her car, we walk by and the guy says "mormons mormons you guys wont lie.. tell her shes wrong" we didnt take anyside just had her apologize and she drove off after the drunk tried to smash her window in while driving away.. we talked with the drunk guy for a little but neither of us could understand him becuase he was speaking portuguese\english with a drunk slur, so we decided to leave but of cause not before we gave him a word of wisdom pamphlet with our number on it.. hopefully when hes sober he´ll give us a call.

sounds like some good stuff back at home, not gonna lie kinda missed home this week as zach came home and this week was especially stressful. tell zach not to get married until i get home, i wanna kick it with him before. hows the world cup? yes some american candies would be fantastic... anything would be great to have.. sounds fun sounds cool

Love you miss you

Elder Webber

after playing a little bit of soccer with the kiddies

Piter and Rochannas baptism 

Miracles

This week really flew by because of the amount of miracles the lord has sent on our mission, I can really see that the lord is in front of us and behind us protecting and guiding us as we do our work. i'll share 2 experiences with this that we had this week. The first  on Tuesday when we were planning we had 3 hours where we had no idea what to do, all our investigators couldn't meet with us or weren't picking up the phone.. so we felt that the lord wanted us to go contacting. So thats what we did, we went out and many times had no idea where to go but an impression would come where we would go. After many closed doors and no answers we finally came to a door, knocked.. and the man let us in, he said he was suppose to go back to work with his wife 10 min ago but something kept him back *cough the spirit cough* so we taught him and his wife a really powerful lesson about the Restoration, they gave us cookies, water and juice since we were their guests they treated us awesomely haha and we then saw why the lord wanted us to have those 3 hours of contacting so we could find this family. 

the other was a bit more sketchy, so we started off our day going to our first lesson we knocked and of ocurse they werent there.. classic, so we sat on the stairs of the apartment builidng thinking of what to do for like 15 min, finally we decided to heat our somewhere for some contacting.. as soon as we leave the building a car pulls up and its one of our investigators, with her dad.. she asked where we were heading and we said "your house!" so she gave us a ride to her house where we shared an awesome message with her and had some cookies. Right after that visit we were walking down the street and the 2nd councilor of the branch pulled up and asked "elders where you going?"  we had to go all across our area which is like a mile so we gave us a ride which was a life savor... After our lesson with Jose we started walking back through the dirt streets of Fobu where once again a none member of the girls roles down his window and said elders get in.. we get in and he said that his whole family is members but hes not, but knew we are men of god and wanted to help us out, he gave us a ride and even offered us dinner next week just so we can talk.. also said that the area we are working in is really dangerous at night so if we ever needed a ride just to give him a ring. We were dropped off close to our apartment right next to our short cut that we take through this ghetto farmland, right before we were about to turn into the darkness and disappear from the road a taxi driver pulls up and yelled at us to get in, said hed take us to the corner of our street free of charge, first of all that never happens here taxi drivers offering free rides, but we got in and he dropped us off and we headed home safely. I can understand the first 3 rides, the lord wanted us to meet these people, but the fourth one was super random, a second later and we would have been gone.. i think that lord sent that taxi driver just in time because there was something really bad in the farmland he didnt want to have happened to us, in which i am very thankful.. 

but missionary work is going great here, we are teaching a lot of people, Leandro and nunu, 2 kids that work at a cantina.. Voldemar and his family, which are prime, Quienta who has a ton of faith in christ just not in the right church, Arrone the miracle family, and Jose and his family, Joses is super sad cause hes been investigating the church for like 3 years but cant be baptized because hes not married to his girlfriend, (they dont have enough money and the wedding process is super bad here) they have 4 kids though and they are about the strongest family in the gospel i have ever seen, family night every week, scripture study everyday, and everything that is commanded they do.. This last week they decided since they cant be members they at least want their kids to be saved.. so we have Rochana and Piter coming this week, almost breaks my heart everytime we talk to them about is, my companion and i figured if we live off of bread for the next 4 weeks and save up as much as we can we can almost pay for it.. but its against mission rules to do that so its pretty much torture!

anyways pretty fun week

Love you miss you 

Elder Webber

Settling In....

This week was pretty nuts and oh so long, it seemed like forever. Our area is huge and we have spent most of the time trying to figure out where everything is so that means walking for miles a day. i dont keep track because i just dont want to know haha but we have found some really good investigators that are really eager to learn moer about the gospel.. and teach them we will. Im still struggling with the language but im doing a lot better, im contributing more and more to our lessons and slowly starting to understand what people are saying to me so thats a plus. Ive noticed while on my mission that the lord is really wanting this generation to be super strong in the gospel. (Like a kid named Bruno who is doing so well and wants to learn more) Most people we find are teenagers that are really interested but thier parents arent. about half the people we taught this week were people under 20 years of age, super interesting.. and frusrating because as a mission we are focusing on families so to grow the church here.. just gotta keep finding. We have a weird area.. youll be walking surronded by nice houses with pools and electric fenses and guards then BOOM suddenly youll be in the shanties teaching a family in aone room house with a tin roof and dirt floor. Both kinds of people have been prepared by the lord and we have found a lot of great invesitgators in both areas.

Angola is super interesting, the country pretty much ships everything in, so its all pretty expensive.. except for juice and bananas those are really cheap. The government doesnt like the outside world here but the people love it. You hear the backstreet boys while shopping at the super market and nobody knows what it means all they know is that its from the US and has a good beat to it. hahaha but the cool thing is they have luxury flakes here and they are pretty cheap so thats great!!

While walking around and during lessons you have a lot of time to think. esspecially when you dont know the language at all. You think about everything in your life and all youve done, you think about now and what your doing, and you really think about the future. but one thing my companion and i have been talking about this week a lot is just living in the moment, i feel thats so rare now a days, we are always looking back for memories or looking a head for the next big thing and never talking the time to enjoy the time you are in right now and who you are with. So we promised to live in the moment about looking back on my live regreting not enjoying fully where i was or who i was or who i was with. you just gotta make the place, time, and people your in right now the best and thats all that matters.. no need to worry about the past it cant be changed, and with faith the lord will prepare your future after you put the work in today.

Sounds like sweet living at home

love you miss you

Elder Webber

also sister merrill has a mission blog for the whole mission, if you could take those photos that im in and save them somewhere that would be great

merrillsangolamission.blogspot.com

P.S>  We were teaching a family and in the back ground i heard the wildkrats them song going off and my mind instantly went to joseph and my promise to him.. Sadly the area where you get to be in the wild and the country side is closed, president has focused 32 missionaries in the capital and 4 missionaries in the second biggest city Lubongo, so tell joseph i will try to get a photo of an animal while im here but it doesn't look like i will. All I've seen so far is a lizard and a bird.. which was probably eaten later that day. But hearing that song made me think of joseph and how awesome he is..

The " 'Eagle' has landed"

I havent died yet here in angola but i think i might soon.. let me better explain my situation in a parable... i am a little grain of rice, among a huge swimming pool full  of chocolate chips, and all these chocolate chips are speaking chocoguese while the grain of rice is speaking riceguese.. you know when you wear something youve never worn before to highschoool and its a bit werid and you think everyone is staring at you but they arent.. thats how i feel. everyone, i mean everyone looks at me like im an alien, the kids love high fiveing me becuase they like touching my white skin.. pretty nuts haha but there is seriously nothing you can do to prepare for angola other then just dive into what is going on. the streets here are nots, theres absolutely no rules here for the roads stop lights and cross walks dont exist. in order for us to cross a 6 lane road we find a solid place with a resting spot in the middle and when we see a gap we start walking, but dont run becuase the locals will laugh at you. while walking you hold up your arm hoping that cars will slow down or stop for you, siometimes they do, other times not so much and your left to your skills to junk and dodge these cars blazing down the road. Pretty crazy. In order to travel long distances you get packed into these tiny vans that are known to be the homes of a lot of pick pocketers and travel down these super bumpy roads to where you need to go, this place is great!! and really safe.. i mean all the guards for banks and apartments have AK-47s on them, perfect!! our apartment is actually really nice, better then my house in arizona, and im not kidding. we have a washer machine, dish washer, 2 showers with hot water, a couch. its really nice, the church got these apartments for the missionaries because they are the only safe ones around haha. but ive loved this place its been a blast so far

My companion is elder conde, hes from mozambique and can actually speak a lot of english which is super nice in learning portuguese and with everything. president decided to split the APs area in half and give our companionship half of it for a brand new area, so what that means is that both of us have no idea where anything is, one of us doesnt know the language at all and we get lost about twice a day, we got lost one day and had to cut through a sauper ghetto farm between neighborhoods, pretty sketchy haha they gave us the area with only 1 invesigator so our days consiste of a lot of finding. which is easy here because so many people here are prepared for the gospel almost everyone will give us their numbers and say to visit them again which is sweet, we found a 14 year old kid named Adilson and hes a boss, is so curious about the church and really wants his family to learn more so we are working with them on that, we found another family and currently have them on date ofr the 24th the parents arent married but they still want thier kids to be baptized so we are gonna do that for them! we also had mission conference this weekend which was good even though i couldnt understand a word but president and sister merril are awesome working with our huge mission of 36 missionaries!! its HUGE!! hahaha 

Being here in angola and seeing how these people live really makes me miss home, and makes me so grateful for having the family that i have. many times you see kids with torn up shirts and their dad is gone and mom is caring for 4 kids. you see how they live and i think back to how i was raised and how so grateful i am for a father that worked so hard to provide for us and a mother that contnually loved us and cared for us even when we were dumb in our teenage  years. many times this week ive wanted to go home and give my parents a big huge for all theyve done for me even when i wasnt the best child but i cant so that will just have to wait a few years. Its interesting seeing peoples prioraties here, they all live in tin houses and all their clothes dont fit but they also all have satalite TV hahah 

Much love, miss you

Elder Webber

All the americans and english speakers all 10 of us jammed into a back room to watch the one Saturday morning session. 

a photo of a farm land in between neighborhoods

My companion showing how africa really, gives a whole new meaning to helping your neighbor doesn't it.... 

and me doing my thang on one of the streets of our area with the little filhos playing soccer behind me.. 

heres the address for mail,  if you break down the package to 2.2 pounds its a lot easier and a whole lot better for sending stuff, letters are pretty easy. 

President Danny Merrill

condominio Arte Yetu

Bloco A Torre V Apt. 302

Talatona, Luanda, Angola

On his way to Angola... :-)!

This week was a normal week in the field, nothing big happened and nothing small happened just a normal typical week here in Tucson, which I won't be here for much longer, I got my travel plans for Angola and I'm leaving tonight.. Which is really sad, I'll miss this wonderful place. The people here are the greatest, they are so charitable and full of love always looking for ways to help each other. I've certainly learned a lot while I've been here, but I don't think I've learned the full reason as to why I was sent here and I may never find out until much later in my life. But one thing I do know is that I am very thankful for the time I had here. It's been a great experience that I'm sure will greatly help me in my life.

One of the people we taught this week is named Dana. She is the sweetest lady ever, and already has such a strong testimony in the gospel. This week while we were teaching her a lesson we asked her if she was going to come to church, she said of course she was but she still needed a ride, which was crazy because the buses are running and we asked her why she needed a ride, she said that she wanted to pay her tithing instead... WHAT!! That's nuts, we were so happy for her and it's so sweet to see how much she has progressed and come to love Christ and the gospel. She is the greatest. 

Other than that nothing much have happened, just more of the usual work. It's now time for me to prepare my mind and body for a 22 hour total flight time and 32 hours total travel time. Pretty nuts but I know it'll all be worth it! Next time I talk to you I'll be in Africa! 

Elder Webber

A Baptism...!

This week flew by pretty fast because Elder Huntington and I were focused on making sure that CJs baptism happened and went smoothly, because our area hasn't had a baptism in a couple months so it was a pretty big deal. but as always there's always something that comes up because Satan is trying so hard to prevent people from coming unto Christ and boy did that happen Saturday. It started with CJ arriving when the baptism was suppose to start.. at 9.. We thought okay at least shes here no big deal she'll just change and we can get started.. NOPE!! She's about to enter in the room but sees all the people that are there to support her and starts having a nervous break down and wont come it. We should have taken into account that shes a thirteen year old girl and would be nervous in front of large crowds haha so we had to go out there and talk her through it for like 20 min.. she finally went into the room after we told everyone to look the other way so no one would see her. The speakers kept it short which was good and it was finally time for me to baptize her.. but she wouldn't get up unless we closed the curtains and only her family and the witnesses saw her be baptized. So thats what we did. We got her into the font, i said her name and everything and dunked her she sprang up out of the water and was normal CJ again, she cracked a joke as soon as she saw her dad and was totally fine. It was so sweet to see. The spirit was super strong and she was so different before and after the baptism! We confirmed her after church in the privacy of the bishops office, just the bishop, her dad, a family friend and us elders.. As to avoid any problems or nervous break downs again haha but it happened and she was baptized which was awesome! 

Tucson is getting a temple pretty soon and the ground breaking for it is on the 17th of October. So for district meeting we went to the area where the temple will be and it was beautiful, they saved the huge cactus that use to be on the lot so they can put them back in and it has a beautiful view of the valley and mountains. Its gonna be a pretty cool temple when its all done. The members here are so excited for it. No word for Angola yet, from what i can tell we will get word the day before we leave so we have time to pack and then we are off. Not much of a heads up so its just a waiting game. pretty lame, i just want to know! The bus strike is finally over so we are starting to get our investigators to church and the attendance at church this week was awesome, its about time these bus drives finally decided to work again. Jeez it was such a pain having to find rides for people everywhere for church, but no more now that the buses are back on line. Missionary work is going to be a whole lot better now. which is sweet! 

Other then that nothing much is happening here in Tuscon, just more work and a whole lot of investigators that don't have time to visit with us which is super frustrating, but we have a couple really good investigators like Dana, after our second lesson with her and coming to church we went back to visit with her and she downloaded the gospel library and was reading the BOM as well as the Ezra Taft Benson book all on her own. We were shocked, how often does that happen? like never! shes studied all this week and is progressing really well, we have a baptismal date with her and it really looks like nothing is going to stop her from being baptize because she really wants to and is learning really well on her own. SHES GOLDEN!! 

that good everything is going well back home, good stuff. Melville about to enter the MTC, he's going to do great.

Love you; miss you

Elder Webber

His Baptism and his District at the Temple site:

Visited the Consulate...

Family,

Sorry the email is a bit late, I was at LAX waiting for my plane back to Tuscon with elder Mitchell, We finally went to the consulate! We had to wake up at 4 this morning to get our flight and were there in the airport in LA for 5 hours.. It was really weird, we showed up sat in a room for half an hour, gave them our paper work and had our finger prints scanned.. It was actually pretty short. It was in Beverly Hills so we had to pay for a cab and on the cab ride there we talked to our driver about the church and he actually is really interested in the church, so your welcome LA missionaries there's a great referral for you guys! Haha but yeah now that we went to the consulate it's now 5-10 days before I'm going to Angola 

This week has just been a lot more work, we are still teaching CJ and we have a baptismal date with her for this Saturday and its for sure going to happen which is legit! But its scary because I might not be here which is super sad cause I really want to be here for that. It's weird I'm really torn right now, I've really grown to love my companion, missionaries, members, investigators and people here in Tucson.. But I also really want to go to Angola and experience all that I have in store there. It's weird cause I haven't been here long yet I'll miss the people here a lot already.. But I'm super excited to get to Angola and do some good work there. 

The bus drivers here are on strike so half the ward isn't coming to church and we can't get any investigators to come to church either, many of the people have lost their jobs because they can't get to work so it's just terrible all around! These stupid bus drivers are stopping the work of good citizens but more importantly they are stopping the work of salvation! 

We went to the Gila valley temple as well this week, which was awesome, it wasn't a good day for missionary work in Tuscon but it was a great day for missionary work in the spirit world.. Either way we are still saving souls! But cool experience, after ward council we went out into the foyer and there was a homeless guy looking super sad on the couch.. So elder Huntington and I went up and talked to him.. He said his wife was murdered a couple of years ago and life was going terrible and we could tell he didn't want to talk to anyone or be apart of any church meeting, all he wanted was to be in the house of the lord and feel the lords spirit and love in his life. He knew our church buildings have it and wanted to feel it so he came here.. Pretty cool and sometimes we forget how important the church building truly is.

Love you miss you

Elder Webber

Having "Fun" in Tucson...

This week has been pretty nuts, been super busy and i came into a area

that has a ton of investigators which is sweet! We are teaching a 13

year old girl named CJ, her dad was inactive but recently started to

go back to church to give her the best life he can which is really

cool of him, they life in a trailer park and after one of our lessons

we come out and see 3 cop cars getting one of their neighbors, elder

Huntington and I were shocked and CJ and her dad just sat there and

said it happens all the time! What in the world!! Another investigator

is Melissa she's "married" to a "active" member of the church, and

cool story with her is almost every time we go over to her apartment

she's sleeping because she has major depression and says she can hear

voices sometimes, so we usually never teach her, so that happened

again last night and her boyfriend told us to give him our number so

she'll call us to make an appointment.. So we left and elder

Huntington was super mad about it because she is a great investigator

and our lessons are great with her.. But we start driving away and I

just said something without even thinking "we could go back and say we

think we left the wrong number" and elder Huntington was down so we

turn around and start heading back and we start talking about a

scripture we could share real quick.. We get back up to the door and

knock and joe answers the door and we say we think we left the wrong

number and lo and behold Melissa is awake and ready for a lesson! We

read the scriptures with her and got her to commit to baptism on the

26th!!! Which is sad because I probably won't be here for it.. Pretty

sweet first week though, here on the mission it's crazy to see the

lord work small miracles in every aspect of your live..

Also like my third day here we were at the church building and I run

into a black lady wearing a Africa shirt so I talk to her and her

friend comes up and we started talking and her name is Lorena she's a

member but it turns out she's from Mozambique and speaks Portuguese!

What are the chances! So we made an appointment to come visit and

teach her so elder Mitchell and I went and did that and it was

awesome, she told us all about it and gave us some tips in Portuguese

and all that.. Pretty sweet tender mercy!

The people down here are the greatest, many of the people we are

teaching have nothing, there's a family we are teaching that has 7

people living in a 2 bedroom apartment and only have 3 beds and a TV,

no couches chairs or anything, yet they still fed us one of the times

we were there.. They have nothing yet have the most to give.. So this

week I've been thinking a lot about charity, because these people who

have nothing have the most and are so willing to help and care for

others it's pretty cool, charity is the most selfless act with the

most selfish reward.. I'll just let that sink in for a little bit..

That's sweet to hear about home and the camping trip, those were

always the coolest! Yeah I heard all about the game in priesthood,

bummer about Taysom but I knew tanner was gonna kill it. Sacrament

meeting was super weird too, a "member" got up and bore his testimony

on his business plan about brining all the churches together for a

music festival and asked the ward for money to help him out... Hahaha

what a great first week here in Tucson, it's actually really cool and

I've loved it so far

If you wanna send anything the address to send stuff too is,

939 w chapala dr

85704 Tucson Arizona

Love you, miss you

Elder webber

Our sweet district killin it in a sketchy over pass while going on a

p-day bike ride, (the second sister may see, familiar to josh.. It's

sister ponanski.. His mission presidents niece.. Pretty cool!)

And an add-on....

Some more info on the mission cause I feel bad I don't write that long

of emails, but this whole week I've just been super down and super sad

cause I'm not going to Angola, but it's all good I know there's a

reason why I'm down here and I know God has a plan for me, We study

for four hours a day because I have language study and 12 week

training, so my trainer is super antsy and wants to get out and do

work while we do it and I'm the same way so that's great, he's really

cool and super helpful. We have the university of Arizona in our area

but he said we never go there because it's straight up Babylon and

just full of sinful college students who just make fun of you and are

super inappropriate and not the place for missionaries haha, he have 3

lessons night and I'm really excited for that and to have my first

real lesson. Being a visa waiter is hard because I can't drive, I have

to use my companions money cause mine hasn't come yet, my plaque is

different, and quite honestly I feel like I don't belong at all down

here in Tuscon even though my companion is sweet and cares for me I

still get the feeling that I don't belong and shouldn't be here at

all, so to be honest I can't wait to go to Angola and belong there..

Mission president has been really accepting of elder Mitchell and I

but our first interview with him was super short so it was really

weird.. Angola can't come soon enough but while I'm here I'm for sure

gonna work as hard as I can to change as many lives as possible and

come what may I'm gonna do my best until my time comes to go to

Angola. Love you and I miss you very much, talk to you Monday when i

have a week in the field under my belt!

In Tucson...

So Tucson is about as hot as hades... It's was pretty crazy coming off

the plane and feeling that heat hit your face, but the first thing we

did here was as soon as we landed they took us down town and told us

we had to place our first BOM and boy are people rude down here. But

it's pretty cool, we get iPads so I am currently at a pep boys waiting

for our car to be fixed and doing emails... Seems like I'm at home,

our first night was cool, presidents name is Pessey and he's an

awesome guy, super cool super funny.. We didn't stay at the mission

home first night elder Mitchell and I went to a super ghetto apartment

in some sketch neighborhood and we didn't even have a pillow to sleep

with hahaha starting off strong.. My trainer is elder Huntington he's

a really cool guy, he's from Utah and super chill and can tell we are

gonna work hard for the little bit I'm here.. 

Yesterday president told

us that we were going to LA to visit the consulate Wednesday so we

were way pumped to go cause after we go there its 5-10 days then we

are off to Angola! But today he told us one of us weren't ready to go

so they rescheduled it until we could both go and that's in like a

week.. So at least we have a time window for how long we are here,

won't be to long but that just means we have to do 2 years of work in

3 weeks and I can't wait to actually get started, we have a couple

appointments today so that's gonna be sweet to get started! 

Apparently Tucson is actually pretty ghetto so it's a nice little warm up before

Angola which is really nice, so yeah got a lot of hard work before I

leave and gotta get 6 weeks of training in less time.. Which will

actually be really fun so I'm excited! P-days will be on Mondays from

now on.. Short email this week cause that's all the happened just a

ton of meetings and sitting around waiting to actually get started.

Love you it was cool talking to you at the airport, talk to you guys

soon

Elder webber

Headin' Out..

So finally got my travel plans.. and I'm still going to Tucson Arizona and I'm not sure for how long I'm going to be there, hopefully not to long. 

I leave Monday morning (the 31st) at 3:35 am. Still super excited to get out and serve, cant wait to get out of the MTC and actually get into the thick of it. It'll be really cool to actually teach some lessons in English and get it down before I go to Angola. 

Tucson,.. as in Arizona?

So this week has been super weird, a whole lot of ups and downs in this crazy emotional week at the MTC. Started out with our branch presidency saying how well we have been doing and how district is lifting the standard for our whole zone.. so that was really cool to hear, President Dansie is a straight boss and he really knows what is best for the branch, so that was great to hear. but them Friday rolled around and that's when it all went down hill really fast.. so our whole district was suppose to get their travel Friday and the majority of them did.. except for Elder Mitchell and i.. we sat there waiting for ours but they never came, a bit confused we went to the travel office and asked what was up and they said that we haven't gotten our VISAs yet and that if we dont get our visas this next week we will be going on temporary reassignment to Tuscon Arizona, until our visas do come then its off to Angola. Super frustrating, super dumb as to why they didnt come, why it took so long, and why us? but elder Mitchell and i went and said a prayer together for comfort and the rest of the week we have felt the lords love and comfort in our lives. We have a feeling that everything is going to be okay and that its not our work to do but the lords and it doesnt matter where we serve as long as we serve with all our heart might mind and strength. They are still children of god and need to be brought back into the fold of god. so either way im still excited to get out and teach people, whether i can understand them or not it'll still be the lords work and it still needs to be done. 

Sundays are really long here, we still in our class room and do nothing for hours. but the coolest part is our branch has allowed us to watch music and the spoken word! Never realized how great that little 30 min would be. Its really nice to just mix up the usual day of the MTC with something different and fun.. really enjoyable. Also this last week we have really been listing to Elder Bednar alot and he is probably my favorite apostle now. He laws down the law, his talks are so crazy here in the MTC when you watch the recordings of them it still hits you like a ton of bricks, but even his GC talks are so powerful and strong its really cool to read and listen to his testimony. Our TRC this week was fun, we got to skype people from outside the country some got portugal, most got brazil, but what did elder mitchell and i get? a girl that lives across the street form the MTC!! whats the point?? haha but oh well we still taught a really good lesson and it was still really fun. 

Oh remember my lunch time missionaries that were having a hard time and i talked to them, well they are still here and are doing really well i see them with a big smile on their face laughing and having fun now, a big difference to what they were last week. i see them every once in a while and we talk for a little bit and they give me an update and tell me everything is going really well. so thats great to hear. They are finally completely on the lords side and are now seeing the wonderful blessings that come from it. 

any ways thats about it.. still waiting on that visa to come and to go to angola, but if it doesnt im off to Arizona.. 

Elder Webber

LOVING The MTC

This week was a lot of fun, we hosted again this week and instead of getting the elders we were directing traffic and that was really fun because we were given walkie talkies and that was a terrible idea for them to give us walkie talkies... We have the coolest teachers though, Irmao Nore and Irma Read, they are the greatest people ever. Irmao Nore knows Pete really well and has actually been to our home a couple times which is really cool, but our teachers usually speak 100% portuguese but sometimes Irmao Nore speaks in english and when he does you know its about to get real with the gospel doctrine he's about to lay down for everyone. It usually blows my mind pretty bad, We taught TRCs again this week and last week elder Mitchell and i didn't do as well as we could of, but this week we knew exactly what they were saying and could talk back and we killed it this week, probably the best feeling ever when you actually nail a great lesson and feel the spirit super strong, also when you studying here for the full 3 hours that you are suppose to you can pretty much feel the spirit leaning over you and telling you things are true and what you need to study, its a cool feeling and its really nice to have the spirit tell you what the lord wants you to know and to study.. pretty cool stuff..

The devotional for sunday we had the Nashville Tribute band play and that was a very new and interesting experience. I really like their music because it mixed it up from always listening to hymns but their music made it seem like we were in some southern baptist church haha it was weird at first cause our church never does that, but it was actually really good after you got over the initial shock of what was actually happening, and my district sat 3 rows back from the front so we had front stage passes as well haha couldn't be better! Lately weve been listening to a lot of GC talks and they are all so dang good, i sorta beat myself up for falling asleep so often during GC and missing these awesome talks that they give, they are all so great theres just not enough time to listen to read them all! ahhh super frustrating! Its interesting to see how some elders handle their missions, some take it as a joke others get super home sick, and we were sitting across from an elder and his companion and they were being so negative about the whole mission, i wanted to get up and slap the baby out of them and yell "Quit being so dang greedy and serve the lord for two years, just keep going" but i couldn't do that so the next best thing was just to bear testimony and tell them what i was thinking, so i talked to them for a little and they finally left and after that an elder in my district was sitting next to me and he turns to me and says " Wow that was crazy, felt as if the spirit was talking to everyone here" so that was a pretty crazy experience, just goes to show that we are just tools for the lord to use, and when we open our mouths and forget ourselves thats when the lord and the holy spirit are able to go through us and to preach and testify to those that need it. 

Spirit is real and boy is it strong, mission is true and it doesnt matter who you are as long as you surrender yourself to god forget about yourself and your only desire is to serve him then he will use you as an instrument in his hands to preach and teach to those that need it most, He the same god that did all those miracles in the bible and book of mormon so why wouldnt he help you with your mission or help you become the best person you can be?

Elder Thompson and i thought up a quote that we really like and are going to use our whole mission "would you rather have legs here on earth, but not have anyone waiting for you in heaven? or have no legs here on earth but be able to walk up to those you baptized and give them a hug in heaven?" food for thought 

Love, 

Elder Webber

President Nelson Visits the MTC ....

This week was really good, just more studying and learning portuguese.. We put up the Angola flag in the back of our class and it legit looks like we are a classroom in a communist country, its kinda weird walking in and seeing it displayed proudly on the back wall of our class. I got my first haircut by someone other than myself here in the MTC and they did really good.. slowly learning to trust people with my hair so thats good. I learned how to do the rubix cube this week and have gotten pretty fast at it.. my best time was 2:50 thats gonna be really helpful.. when i show those african kids my skills and they kill me because of black magic. We also hosted this week and i got to host elder ham into the MTC, it was awesome talking to him and catching up with him. i see him every once in a while and its really good to see him, hes loving it here. We also found out our name tags can be used for musical instruments and our ID cards can be used for throwing knifes.. just another productive week here in the MTC

The Tuesday devotional was President Nelson, and that was incredible.. He talked about our role and how important we are as missionaries, but it was great because he shared his feelings and thoughts about becoming the quorum of the twelve apostles president and that was great to hear. He said how he felt inadequate and did feel like he deserved it.. I feel inadequate when i have to say a prayer in front of people.. so that blows my mind! I finished the BOM this week and thats always a great spiritual confirmation on the truthfulness of the gospel. We did TRCs this week and thats when you have real people come in and you teach them in your language a lesson.. it was really cool and elder mitchell and i actually had a great time doing it.. the language is slowly coming along! (Josh and Aaron should look into doing that, its voluntary so anyone who speaks a language can do it.. its really cool) 

Elder mitchell and i had to care for an elder who had a giant cist on his tail bone and that was really gross, but we also left the MTC to go the health department and that was a nice little breathe of freedom.. Elder mitchell was also called as the online coordinator, they help the new missionaries with their emails and that was really funny because he sits down and says " I dont know a thing about computers" we laughed and realized he was totally right! Oh i invited everyone in the world to read Mormon 2:4, probably one of my favorite scriptures and scriptural proof that my mission is the best mission on earth! it even says in the the scriptures! 

Anyways thats about it.. nothing else really happened here just repetitive and the same thing over and over agian.. 

Elder Webber

Doing Well... The Work Continues...

This week was a lot of fun, it started out with a meeting for our malaria pills and to sum all of that up is was them saying if we miss a day in taking our pills we die, or if we take the pills at the wrong time or lay down after taking the pills we get incredibly sick and wish we were dead.. so that fun to hear haha 

I dont see how the MTC can be hard for anyone.. the hardest part about it is just learning the language because you get so frustrated when you cant understand a word the teacher is speaking so you just sit there with a blank stare on your face trying to peace together everything thats going on.. but its slowly coming and i can see the progress slowly grow in my life as i diligently struggle and work on the language and the mission. 

We taught more mock discussions and those are slowly improving, the spirit is always there whether you understand what the person is saying or not so that was fun.  We sent off quite a few elders from our zone and a sister from our district and it was a really cool experience to be in the circle and bless them as they enter into the field. It was a really cool thing to see so many missionaries serving and faithful and willing to help others. 

The devotionals are always really good and you really see a different side to all the brethren.. Theres rumors that there might be a qourem of the twelve here today so we might have to start lining up at the doors now to get a good spot to see him speak.. but my favorite part about the devotionals is hearing all of the lords servants sing hymns.. Its the coolest thing to be a part of.. 

Other then that nothing much happened.. the days are pretty much the exact same here.. more stuyding, eating praying.. thats about it. SErvice is fun here, the best part about it though is you get a sack breakfast and you can choose the milk and they have cookies and cream milk from the BYU creamery and it is heaven in a bottle. 

Tell joseph to write me back because there truly nothing better then receiving letters in the MTC.. 

Also elder bradshaw got an email from the elders in angola and they told him the stuff that they should have brought.. so ill need 2 more pairs of short sleeve dress shirt (size 16), 1 pair of my gray suite pants (just one pair of pants), 8 more pairs of socks, and my blue tie that we wore at Aarons wedding.. Thank you! 

Love you, Ill send photos in another email

Elder Webber

Yeah our mock discussion was with a guy named Assis (it was our teacher pretending to be a guy from Angola) and it was going really well as first, we could understand what what he was saying and we could reply back so it was doing good at the beginning and we asked him all about his life and family and he told us and we understood, but then we got into our lesson and he started talking really fast to our questions and we had no idea what he was saying because we asked why he couldn't get married right now and we were so confused on what he was saying.. So elder mitchell and i just said "we know know that marriage is ordained of god and we know that god willl help you with whatever you need" pretty sure we didnt answer any of his other questions but the spirit was there so it was still really good. We also got moved up to our 3rd floor with the rest of our zone and district and the first night was crazy fun but dont worry we still obeyed all of the rules.. it was just good to relax and talk to missionaries that we are in classs with.. 

Ill send photos next week, these computers are being dumb

Elder Webber

The only three Angola missionaries in the MTC, Me elder Bradshaw and Elder mitchell 

Our district, Me, Elder mitchell, Elder Nimmo (aka Nemo), Elder Thompson Elder Stewart Elder Bott, Elder Podzikowski, Elder Green, Elder Kaelberer, Elder Jimenez, SIster Hunsaker and Sister Roasbach

 Mine and elder nimmos ensign photo