Pentecostals, Cockroaches and (no) Water..;;

Well this week was a fun week. We have 2 investigators who are confirmed baptism for this transfer and we are super excited about that.. Its been a long time since anyone in this area has seen the shining water of the baptismal font. We are slowly but surely getting this area to be super cool. The members are limited but awesome and the people that we are teaching are elect.. the weather is cooling down which is also really nice. We had a fun little lesson with one of our investigators and his "friend". THe investigator is on date and is doing really well, when we wanted to sit with him he invited his friend to come and sit with us as well.. BIG MISTAKE!! He a strong member from the a igreja assembléia de deus pentecostal de angola  (the church of the assembly of god pentecostal of angola) Let me see if i can describe these people for you. They are great people with a lot of faith, and are very firm in their believes, but i would say that they are jehovah witness on steroids, but don't have as much bible knowledge. All they wanna do is bash and fight with their crazy.. and i mean CRAZY doctrine. Sooo long story short it was about an hour of trying to stay calm, testify of truths and trying not to enter into their mind games of bible bashing. Its pretty hard to do when you hear things like god is christ and they are a spirit the size of a building but went into a mortal body to teach people the truth with magical water and crazy healings. And that we don't need to be baptized by water before the holy ghost and blah blah blah... its was one of those moments we just had to sit and listen trying to not to laugh or blow a cap. It was a true test of patience.

Also we are having a war of wars in our house. Its currently us 2 against thousand of ants and hundreds of cockroaches and i'm sad to say that we are losing. It came to the point this week that as i ate my cereal i would see ants running around in it.. and i cant go hungry and the cereal was expensive so i am sad to say that i lowered my standards and kept eating.. Its become natural at this point. This is even after me sealing the cereal bag and putting it into 2 plastic bags.. they still get in! the refrigerator isnt even safe from cockroaches.. I also believe they play with us.. we will be studying or eating and they run on the ground wall just out of our reach taunting us.. its pretty frustrating. We were also out of water for 4 days this week and used all of our reserves.. we came of the 5th day after a long day of work and still.... nothing... so we tried our best to drink some water and clean our selves and went to bed... but around 10:50 i hear the rushing of water.. if sweet dew falling from heaven had a sound it would be this.. so i quickly got up, cleaned dirty dishes that have been there for days, filled the reserves and cleaned a little.. some would say it was disobedient.. but i say it was survival.. 

Thats about it.. the adventure continue and miracles keep popping up. Time is flying by and i'm trying to hold onto it as much as i can but the harder i work and the more i try to use my time with wisdom and have fun the faster the time flies.. pretty frustrating.. 

Shout out to Elder Brett Mills... you're a fubeca that i love and will see you on the hipster band-wagon soon

Elder Webber

"Just" Another Week...

This week was pretty cool nothing to big happened, we are just doing the usual work and having fun while we do it. We are finding new people and slowly getting this area to be an area that all missionaries would want to serve in. SO we continue on following the spirit and doing what we know best. Its interesting as i enter the last transfer how the lessons that i should learn are learned and the things that i need to become are slowing becoming. I

ts been fun to serve in a branch that i know and that i'm familiar with. WIth a lot of familiar faces and people its easy to work with the members and have fun while you do it. I also had a fun little division with Elder Mielacher, hes an Austrian. Hes super cool, its always fun going on a division and mixing things up a little bit. 

Other than that nothing's new, life continues on. 

We saw a car crash this week... that was pretty crazy.

Elder Webber

Life Lessons... (and no water)

This week was pretty solid to be honest, we just taught some sweet lessons, found some new investigators and slapped some people into shape. Ive noticed in myself that i am slowly losing my patience with retarded people, i've turned to be more direct and honest with everyone and its come to be a big time help especially here where so many people beat around the bush. I realized a little bit ago its better to be honest and direct then to beat around the bush and drag it on a little bit. So that's what i've learned recently. Its really come in handy. My comp elder chiua is a boss, he doesn't talk much which is perfect he leaves me to myself and allows me to ponder and think about life and reflect on things that i need to change. Hes super funny though, he just says the funniest things sometimes and we all have a solid laugh. He doesn't speak a lick of english and i haven't seen anyone more determined to learn something more than him. Every free time he has hes reading the dictionary or asking questions to try and learn english.. its pretty impressive. 

This week though we've been out of water for almost 4 days.. i bet aaron josh and zach didn't take showers with mineral water on their missions.. cause here in angola we do.. living the high life. We are hoping and praying that water comes tonight because if not we have zero water to drink, to take showers and to cook with.. We will see how it goes i guess. Yeah elder mitchell and i are coming home on the same flight.. how we went is how we come back.. together!! 

Man i have learned many many lessons on the mission.. its hard to choose just one or just a big one to focus on, i have summed up my life and mission with 7 motivational quotes that i have lived by for a long time and that i will continue to live by for the rest of my life. It is true.. the mission changes people, you will change on the mission, whether its permanent, or temporary you will change. I read something somewhere that said you can tell who was a great missionary by what hes doing 10 years after his mission.. its interesting.. if you just change your behaviour for 2 years nothing will benefit you, but if you change your nature on your mission you've just opened many doors and many ways for the lord to bless you and use you to do many great things.

For Mothers' day, we will give you a call around 6:30 our time.. we have to be home at 8

Elder Webber 

"Alma the Younger" experience

Sorry i'm writing today.. yesterday was a holiday here in angola and

the whole city was pretty much out of energy.. so it was pretty

stressful to find a place to email.. so president let us email today

and not worry about it yesterday which was nice.

So this week was cool, we had elder hamilton in for a a week to tour

the mission which was really cool. Sadly i didn't get to walk with him

but we still had a nice leadership meeting and zone conference with

him. The thing that i thought was very interesting was that he could

be teaching and saying something and the spirit would reveal something

completely different that i needed to do or change as a missionary and

as a man. Pretty cool to see how the spirit was just around him and

how even though he didn't mean to teach that, its exactly what i needed

to hear and do. This week i came to a lot of necessary conclusions on

what i need to do in my mission and in my life and some of the changes

i need to make. Its been really cool to see the changes the lord makes

in me. If i really want something and i work hard for it and i'm

exactly obedient the lord will bless me in incredible ways. Even

things i worked for years on before the mission have turned to be so

easy as i work and am obedient here in the mission.. it was pretty

cool to see.

Also this week i had a nice little alma the younger kind of

experience.. i wont go into detail but i realized a lot of things and

looked at the past and realized how incredibly blessed i am even

though i was not who i should have been. It gave me a new desire and a

fire in the chest to keep working to finish strong and to continue on

doing the lords work after the mission. It was a nice little rebirth i

guess you could say that helped me make necessary changes and do what

i needed to do.

This week i also had the chance to baptize Flanis.. hes the younger

brother of wilma and yolene the 2 sisters i baptized almost a year

ago... after a very short year the whole family decided to get

baptized and i was luckily enough to do the interviews for them all and

to be the one that baptized Flanis.. it was a super cool baptism, i

don't think I've seen so many people at a baptism before.. it was

packed!

My left shoe has a hole in it and we are in the sandiest area in the

mission.. so when i go home at night i can fill up a litter box for

the stray cat that lives outside our house.. so i guess that's pretty

cool.

Also found out this week that a lot of mothers of missionaries here in

angola read my blog.. soooo shout out you my fan club.. your sons are

the best in the world and its been a sweet experience to serve along

side all of them.

Elder Webber