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