It´s funny you talked about being pagan at Easter, Mom, cuz that´s what we were called just the other day. allow me to explain.
So we were headed to a house of a girl we had been teaching, and she´d already been to church twice, so we thought it might be a good idea to teach her, and all that, but when we got there her Mom answered the door, and wow... she wasn´t happy. She goes to a church called *the tabernacle of Faith* and started a barrage of all her beliefs and how all ours are wrong. Here´s how it went:
1. Our baptism is wrong cuz we do it in the name of the father, and the son and the holy ghost. but the godhead is just one person, with three duties. not *three persons in one like the Catholics believe* and not *3 different people like you pagans believe* just one person, with three jobs. you should only baptize in the name of Jesus Christ, duh.
2. We are antichrists because we believe in another scripture besides the bible.
3. We´re ignorant because we don´t read the bible all the way through once a month.
4. We´re ignorant because OBVIOUSLY Melchizedek is just another name for God, so god came to the earth once before with the name Melchizedek.
5. There will be a 3rd coming of Christ.
6. The fact that Steven saw *Christ on the right hand of god* is just an idea I made up.
Pretty much these last days me and elder erickson have been making fun of her for being so....so...."misinformed". She was way angry at us cuz her daughter had been going to our church and reading the book of Mormon instead of the bible, she´s just scared of the truth.
Anyways, talking about apostasy, IO found an old book in our house the other day. It´s entitled *what does the bible REALLY teach?* It´s a book from the jehova´s witnesses, so we spent a few minutes during study time to read a bit, and this is what we have learned:
1. Michael is Jesus Christ
2. Blood transfusions are forbidden by god
3. Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and birthdays are evil and should be shunned
4. Rebellious angels left the presence of god and came down to earth, and had children with the people here, and that´s why god sent the great flood. And that´s also why there were giants.
5. In 1914 Jesus finally became king of heaven and that´s when the *great war in heaven* happened
6. The star that led the 3 wise men to Jesus was the devil.
It´s bad to laugh at other peoples beliefs, but it was hard for us to resist.
Yeah, the other day we met a guy in the street, who was already reading the book of Mormon, and wanted us to help him out to learn more about the Jews, so we willingly passed by his house later, and his wife gave us a book that he had left for us, along with a note asking us to translate certain parts. The book is the encyclopedia Britannica and he wants us to translate a whole 5 pages of it or so. Good luck to us.
So yeah, this week we decided to to a division with one of our district leaders who is suffering because of all the crappy companions he has had, so i brought his slacker companion here to my area, it wasn´t too bad, we actually accomplished more that we normally get done on a normal work day, so that was good, but then I realized that elder erickson still had the keys to our house with him, so I had to call Elder Van Zeben (or Elder Harry Potter as the members call him) and arrange an emergency sleepover. And in the morning, I was surprised to find out that the only one following the morning routine, and doing exercises was... me. Of course, so I got "very angry", I started yelling at all three of them telling them to get off their fat butts and do something with their lives. So I was relieved that morning, to finally return this terrible missionary to his rightful companion. how sad. I don´t know why president hasn´t sent him home yet.
We taught a couple pretty awesome girls yesterday, we were visiting a recent convert, and she has two nieces living with her, so we taught them the first lesson, and during the prayer as we were all kneeling down, the one that was doing the prayer started crying, then the recent convert, so that was AWESOME!
Anyways, I sent off Mariah´s letter, so that should be getting home sometime.
Easter really isn´t that big here, just a bunch of chocolate eggs in the store, all the stores are closed, and all the churches packed full of screaming, jumping, rolling people.
But that´s about it that´s happened this week. we´re running after just about anybody that can be baptized this last Saturday of the month.. ugh, how nerve-wrecking. There are a number of things adding to my frustration, but that´s best left for another time.
*Brigham young headed west in his bullet-proof vest*
LOVE YOU ALL!!
Elder Webber
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
A GREAT week...
Well congratulations on the great talk mom, haha, sounds like it was quite smashing! Yeah I loved Elder Bednar´s talk as well, I´m pretty sure it was my favorite, and it´s PERFECT for kids going on missions or just starting in the MTC, or the field... or coming home... good for everybody.
Wow, Mariah´s birthday party sounds like it´ll be pretty awesome, I´ll have to send off her letter today then, it´ll probably show up late again, but at least it´ll get there.
Speaking of mail, I got the package you sent, so thank you! we took a few boxed of macaroni and cheese to a member´s house for lunch and at them with her, she liked it.
So this last week we had another ´grand council´ with President and all the zone leaders, but this time it was in his apartment. It was the second time I´ve been there after arriving in the mission, and it was nice to just sit on the couches and not be dieing of nervousness. So we all sat around, talked about *where are we?* *where do we want to be?* and *how do we get there?* fun stuff. In short, we all had the same feelings and came to the same conclusion that most of the missionaries on the mission don´t know Preach my Gospel like they should, and NOBODY knows how to use technique. so we´ve been instructed to bash PMG into the heads of all the missionaries, now companion study can ONLY be PMG. Slackers. The lack of technique on the mission blows me away sometimes. Except with Elder Black.. cuz I trained him, and I taught him how it should be done. What we like to call *the right way*. Afterwards we rounded up the troops in our zone and went to the mission office and had interviews. President told me to prepare myself to take care of all the newbies in my zone when Elder Erickson leaves, and then told me that I can´t let my companion be trunky.... hahahaha.
The mission office receives the papers of missionaries bound for our mission long before the missionary himself even knows about it. And it has ALL their information with it. So... naturally, the secretaries know everything about every missionary coming in for the next while or so, especially a certain sister missionary they were particularly excited about, oh sinners. Though it is fun being friends with the secretaries (and assistants... and pres.)
Food news: I ate candied orange peels the other day, they were green :D
We taught a lady a few days ago, I think it was Sunday, and she was pretty excited to learn about the church, and we marked 3 Nephi 11 for her to read and pray. And when we went back and asked how the reading went she started talking about all sort of stuff that have nothing to do with that chapter (Christ´s baptism, brothers who rebelled then got cursed, Zenock, Isaias). So we asked her what part she read... and she showed us. She had started at the very beginning and read to Alma 33... in 4 days!! Oh wow. So we asked her how the prayer went and she said that now she´s sure that Christ´s true church exists on the earth. WOO! So that was mind-blowing, never had that experience before.
We also taught a bunch of boys, and when we asked what they´d do after they knew that the message was true they said: *well... get baptized duh, and share the gospel with the world* oh yeah! Exactly the responses written in the instruction book, haha.
But Sunday didn´t go so well, nobody could go this week, *only next week* but we met an old investigator girl on the bus to church, and she said that after her church ends she´ll go to our sacrament meeting... and she really did. Can´t complain about that, and I think she really liked it.
We taught a lot with the members this week, we had three days when we just spent the whole day walking and teaching with kids from the ward, so that was fun. They liked it too.
*if a tree falls in a forest... and there´s nobody around... and it hits a mime... does anyone care?*
LOVE YOU ALL!!
Elder Webber
Wow, Mariah´s birthday party sounds like it´ll be pretty awesome, I´ll have to send off her letter today then, it´ll probably show up late again, but at least it´ll get there.
Speaking of mail, I got the package you sent, so thank you! we took a few boxed of macaroni and cheese to a member´s house for lunch and at them with her, she liked it.
So this last week we had another ´grand council´ with President and all the zone leaders, but this time it was in his apartment. It was the second time I´ve been there after arriving in the mission, and it was nice to just sit on the couches and not be dieing of nervousness. So we all sat around, talked about *where are we?* *where do we want to be?* and *how do we get there?* fun stuff. In short, we all had the same feelings and came to the same conclusion that most of the missionaries on the mission don´t know Preach my Gospel like they should, and NOBODY knows how to use technique. so we´ve been instructed to bash PMG into the heads of all the missionaries, now companion study can ONLY be PMG. Slackers. The lack of technique on the mission blows me away sometimes. Except with Elder Black.. cuz I trained him, and I taught him how it should be done. What we like to call *the right way*. Afterwards we rounded up the troops in our zone and went to the mission office and had interviews. President told me to prepare myself to take care of all the newbies in my zone when Elder Erickson leaves, and then told me that I can´t let my companion be trunky.... hahahaha.
The mission office receives the papers of missionaries bound for our mission long before the missionary himself even knows about it. And it has ALL their information with it. So... naturally, the secretaries know everything about every missionary coming in for the next while or so, especially a certain sister missionary they were particularly excited about, oh sinners. Though it is fun being friends with the secretaries (and assistants... and pres.)
Food news: I ate candied orange peels the other day, they were green :D
We taught a lady a few days ago, I think it was Sunday, and she was pretty excited to learn about the church, and we marked 3 Nephi 11 for her to read and pray. And when we went back and asked how the reading went she started talking about all sort of stuff that have nothing to do with that chapter (Christ´s baptism, brothers who rebelled then got cursed, Zenock, Isaias). So we asked her what part she read... and she showed us. She had started at the very beginning and read to Alma 33... in 4 days!! Oh wow. So we asked her how the prayer went and she said that now she´s sure that Christ´s true church exists on the earth. WOO! So that was mind-blowing, never had that experience before.
We also taught a bunch of boys, and when we asked what they´d do after they knew that the message was true they said: *well... get baptized duh, and share the gospel with the world* oh yeah! Exactly the responses written in the instruction book, haha.
But Sunday didn´t go so well, nobody could go this week, *only next week* but we met an old investigator girl on the bus to church, and she said that after her church ends she´ll go to our sacrament meeting... and she really did. Can´t complain about that, and I think she really liked it.
We taught a lot with the members this week, we had three days when we just spent the whole day walking and teaching with kids from the ward, so that was fun. They liked it too.
*if a tree falls in a forest... and there´s nobody around... and it hits a mime... does anyone care?*
LOVE YOU ALL!!
Elder Webber
Monday, April 11, 2011
Another Week....
mmm yeah, so on Thursday after lunch the sister brought out desert, and as always I was very excited, it looked like some kind of lemon mousse or something, so she spooned some into bowls and added sugar and gave it to us, I was already eating it when the son told us what it was... it was 3 day old spoiled milk. and that´s it. She´d left a bowl of milk out for tree days until it turned sour, and then just gave it to us with spoonfuls of sugar, aaargh! I managed to eat a few more bowlfuls, but Elder Erickson had trouble finishing his first. How weird indeed. It was all clumpy and... well it felt like eating lougies.
We had transfers again this last week, nothing really changed in our zone, only one missionary left and a n00b showed up, there´s also a new missionary in our ward, his name is Elder Van Zeben and he looks like he is 12 years old, and while we were at church there were members coming up to me all the time asking me *Elder, are they letting the primary serve missionaries now?* And *Elder look! it´s Harry Potter!!* hhahahahahaha, kkkkkkkk, oh poor elder Van Zeben.
Yeah that whole thing about lots of baptisms didn´t go so well, we´re still sprinting to find people who have any interest, and this last week was very low in that area... until Sunday, after our fast we found TONS of people who just fell into our lap asking to learn more about the church, ladies telling us that they already know it´s all true and they wanna read the whole Book of Mormon and go to church, yay!! And then we taught a family at night, cuz we had met a guy who had been baptized a long time ago and moved here, but he´s inactive, so we taught them with a member and the member was all *heyy! you can baptize your wife!! Wouldn´t that be sweet, everybody in white!? You´ll love it. You´ll look so cool, just go to church, talk to the bishop and we´ll plan everything up for the baptism, alright? sweet!!!*
Well..... I´m not gonna complain, he said everything that we want to say during every single visit.
Also, the stake is planning on dividing, and to do that every ward need to get 4 more faithful priesthood holders, and we found 5 in the same weekend, they just appeared in front of us a random times... oh how very awesome.
Anyways, today we had our meeting at the Lago das Rosas, or *Lake of the Roses* you should check it out on google and see where we spend our morning.
But yeah, an alright week, can´t complain too much, my companion is dying cuz he only has 5 weeks left on the mission, poor guy.
*I learned at a very young age that if I talk long enough i can make anything *right* or *wrong*. So... either I´m God, or truth is relative and either way:
Booyah!*
-First episode of Community
LOVE YOU ALL!!
Elder Webber
We had transfers again this last week, nothing really changed in our zone, only one missionary left and a n00b showed up, there´s also a new missionary in our ward, his name is Elder Van Zeben and he looks like he is 12 years old, and while we were at church there were members coming up to me all the time asking me *Elder, are they letting the primary serve missionaries now?* And *Elder look! it´s Harry Potter!!* hhahahahahaha, kkkkkkkk, oh poor elder Van Zeben.
Yeah that whole thing about lots of baptisms didn´t go so well, we´re still sprinting to find people who have any interest, and this last week was very low in that area... until Sunday, after our fast we found TONS of people who just fell into our lap asking to learn more about the church, ladies telling us that they already know it´s all true and they wanna read the whole Book of Mormon and go to church, yay!! And then we taught a family at night, cuz we had met a guy who had been baptized a long time ago and moved here, but he´s inactive, so we taught them with a member and the member was all *heyy! you can baptize your wife!! Wouldn´t that be sweet, everybody in white!? You´ll love it. You´ll look so cool, just go to church, talk to the bishop and we´ll plan everything up for the baptism, alright? sweet!!!*
Well..... I´m not gonna complain, he said everything that we want to say during every single visit.
Also, the stake is planning on dividing, and to do that every ward need to get 4 more faithful priesthood holders, and we found 5 in the same weekend, they just appeared in front of us a random times... oh how very awesome.
Anyways, today we had our meeting at the Lago das Rosas, or *Lake of the Roses* you should check it out on google and see where we spend our morning.
But yeah, an alright week, can´t complain too much, my companion is dying cuz he only has 5 weeks left on the mission, poor guy.
*I learned at a very young age that if I talk long enough i can make anything *right* or *wrong*. So... either I´m God, or truth is relative and either way:
Booyah!*
-First episode of Community
LOVE YOU ALL!!
Elder Webber
Monday, April 4, 2011
Busy,...busy...
I stopped and laughed for a long while after i saw the score of BYU vs. Wyoming, awesome stuff.
That´s cool that you got to see in the MTC and all that, I hear it´s way hard for people to gain access to that place, I dunno why, there have been quite a few articles where reporters have been impressed by the church´s streamlined-ness... until they got to the MTC and had to wait FOREVER to be allowed inside. oh yes, the mysterious MTC. and that´s AWESOME that Brendan got his mission call!! I´ll be sure to send him a letter soon before he heads out. It´s gonna be a while before I see him again... what a bummer. but he´ll do great.
Congrats mom, the Portuguese you used actually made sense, haha. does it translate both ways? if so:
Eu só quero falar que eu sou ´O cara´. tenho muito saudades de minha familia, tó muito animado para voltar e brincar com meaus irmãos de novo, especialmente José. aquele novo trem que ele tem deve ser muito bacana, né? Zach: vc é bebézão!
I dunno if that translator thing translates slang... so good luck :D
A part of me hopes that Joseph´s tree house isn´t finished by the time I get back, cuz I wanna build it, but then again that´s kind of selfish of me....
Anyways, we had 5 baptisms planned for this week... but they all fell through at the very last moment. Bummer. And we didn´t really have much time to work this week either, on Wednesday we had mission conference, and President gave the mission a new program called *total obedience* where we earn points on how obedient we are. Easy. Elder Black gave me a little card from one of the girls I baptized in Maracanã, and it was the copy of the birth certificate of her baby, I was so happy! And kind of bummed that I had missed it. oh well. At least they thought to send me something :D
Then on Friday I spent the day with the secretaries cuz they are temporarily without district/zone leaders, so I had to drop by and do it for them while elder Erickson did some here in our zone. Fun stuff. As the secretaries describe themselves: *missionaries that are part of the world, and part missionaries* they´re amazing missionaries ( at least the ones we have now are), though they can´t help being exposed to worldlyness every once in a while... poor guys. I spent most of my time with Elder Lopes (American) he´s a HUGE movie buff, and he was disgusted with the movies that I HAVN`T seen, so he gave me a list of movies that I need to see when I get home. Then we went out to eat pequi icecream.... very strange, but likeable.
The other night we were heading to a lesson, and a bus passed by (not strange), except this bus had a bunch of people that had found their way on top and were moto-surfing. And I instantly was teleported to the world of Surf Ninjas. MOTO SURF!!.... I wanted to join them... and apparently the bus driver was perfectly fine with it. Sweet. And then this weekend was conference, oh how I love conference, just get to sit in an air conditioned room, listening to the prophets in English in a room full of Americans. Woo! I participated in the special musical number for the assistant´s baptism in between the Sunday sessions, fun stuff. Loooooove general conference. and it´s way cooler via satellite, cuz they show so many cool things in between the sessions. like a SWEET movie in between the Saturday sessions, called The Messiah. I loved it. Pretty much I learned that Jesus was a white wizard.... mmhmm.
So yeah, we had just a couple of days to work this week, had lots of things going down, there were TONS of baptisms scheduled for this weekend, but most of them fell through.... how sad. And this next week will probably be transfers (nobody knows with President Prieto, he wakes up one day and decides it´s time for a transfer). Busy, busy, busy. *poof! what do you need? Poof! what do you need?*
*well y´know, ya never know, k´know?*
Love you all!
Elder Webber
That´s cool that you got to see in the MTC and all that, I hear it´s way hard for people to gain access to that place, I dunno why, there have been quite a few articles where reporters have been impressed by the church´s streamlined-ness... until they got to the MTC and had to wait FOREVER to be allowed inside. oh yes, the mysterious MTC. and that´s AWESOME that Brendan got his mission call!! I´ll be sure to send him a letter soon before he heads out. It´s gonna be a while before I see him again... what a bummer. but he´ll do great.
Congrats mom, the Portuguese you used actually made sense, haha. does it translate both ways? if so:
Eu só quero falar que eu sou ´O cara´. tenho muito saudades de minha familia, tó muito animado para voltar e brincar com meaus irmãos de novo, especialmente José. aquele novo trem que ele tem deve ser muito bacana, né? Zach: vc é bebézão!
I dunno if that translator thing translates slang... so good luck :D
A part of me hopes that Joseph´s tree house isn´t finished by the time I get back, cuz I wanna build it, but then again that´s kind of selfish of me....
Anyways, we had 5 baptisms planned for this week... but they all fell through at the very last moment. Bummer. And we didn´t really have much time to work this week either, on Wednesday we had mission conference, and President gave the mission a new program called *total obedience* where we earn points on how obedient we are. Easy. Elder Black gave me a little card from one of the girls I baptized in Maracanã, and it was the copy of the birth certificate of her baby, I was so happy! And kind of bummed that I had missed it. oh well. At least they thought to send me something :D
Then on Friday I spent the day with the secretaries cuz they are temporarily without district/zone leaders, so I had to drop by and do it for them while elder Erickson did some here in our zone. Fun stuff. As the secretaries describe themselves: *missionaries that are part of the world, and part missionaries* they´re amazing missionaries ( at least the ones we have now are), though they can´t help being exposed to worldlyness every once in a while... poor guys. I spent most of my time with Elder Lopes (American) he´s a HUGE movie buff, and he was disgusted with the movies that I HAVN`T seen, so he gave me a list of movies that I need to see when I get home. Then we went out to eat pequi icecream.... very strange, but likeable.
The other night we were heading to a lesson, and a bus passed by (not strange), except this bus had a bunch of people that had found their way on top and were moto-surfing. And I instantly was teleported to the world of Surf Ninjas. MOTO SURF!!.... I wanted to join them... and apparently the bus driver was perfectly fine with it. Sweet. And then this weekend was conference, oh how I love conference, just get to sit in an air conditioned room, listening to the prophets in English in a room full of Americans. Woo! I participated in the special musical number for the assistant´s baptism in between the Sunday sessions, fun stuff. Loooooove general conference. and it´s way cooler via satellite, cuz they show so many cool things in between the sessions. like a SWEET movie in between the Saturday sessions, called The Messiah. I loved it. Pretty much I learned that Jesus was a white wizard.... mmhmm.
So yeah, we had just a couple of days to work this week, had lots of things going down, there were TONS of baptisms scheduled for this weekend, but most of them fell through.... how sad. And this next week will probably be transfers (nobody knows with President Prieto, he wakes up one day and decides it´s time for a transfer). Busy, busy, busy. *poof! what do you need? Poof! what do you need?*
*well y´know, ya never know, k´know?*
Love you all!
Elder Webber
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