Last P DAY letter

2 Years is exactly how long a mission needs to be. This has been the most influential and strong learning experiences of my life. I feel like I could write volumes on what I have learned from each of my days here in South Florida, it’s amazing. One thing that strikes me as really neato is how in the 4 Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) Only 52 days are covered of the Savior’s life, and in those are recorded 37 miracles. What John said in John 21: 25 is spot on
“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that not even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”
I know I am no where near the caliber or quality of person that Jesus Christ is, but I am striving to be. I believe that the mission is the training wheels for life. No it’s time to really ride, to take all the practice, all the power and knowledge and Spirit and testimony and work ethic and apply it into being a true latter-day saint. 

 

Elder Smith and I saw some cool miracles this final week. We decided to go visit a lot of the former investigators of the church that I had taught either with himself or with Elder Flake. We found a lot of families that welcomed us back with open arms. We ate breakfast with one of them yesterday, and lunch with another.

I love being a missionary. It is hard to go home, because then I don’t get the blessing to do this every day. But, change is good. We need change because change is progression. 

 

One more thing. I love the Book of Mormon. It teaches us God’s purpose, and how President Nelson said in the Face to Face broadcast from Sunday Night, the most important work we can do is Gather Israel. So, read the Book of Mormon, daily. It will help you more than anything else. It will teach you how to receive answers to your prayers, because it has mine. It will teach you your purpose in life, because it has done that for me. It will teach you how to better fulfill your family role, it can teach you another language, it can guide you in big decisions, all these because it has done that for me. I testify that the Book of Mormon was written for us, right now, in these last days.

Love,
Elder Webster

FFLM4LYFE

Hi Family

hi family. This is Elder Webster, but thats a given 🙂 This is like the last week I have before come home only got one PDay left, but it’s been a good time. Ive had a few moments of reflection on everything Ive learned ovet these two years. I am writing they all down and now I just have to live them.

 This week was pretty good, unfortunately all of our dates fell through, meaning that they wont be baptized this weekend. We have been working with some cool people there are progressing and baptism little slower than we would have liked, but they are progressing. We better Smith and I are working hard there is no stopping… “ain’t no stopping us now.” Thats a song I think….

We have interviews with President this week. I also my final interview on Friday with him. No time to be trunky. All in all it’s going to good time. Look forward to seeing everybody alright I normally email bigger one next week. It all include pictures because I love finally remembered to take them.

I have been reading a lot in Jacob 1, especially in verses 7 and 19,

7 Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness,

19 And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day.

Its a good time to be a missionary 🙂

Love you ,

Elder Webster

Happy Mom Day

Jesus Said, “Behold thy mother…” and so last night getting to do that was awesome. I hope everyone told their mom that they loved her, because a mom is a blessing. My mom is a superhero, she’s the best.

 

We are doing well. We really worked hard to extend baptismal dates this week. Baptisms really only come as we extend dates. Pretty simple stuff. Dulce and her son Larry, and his wife Romina accepted to be baptized, as well as Jesus and Kevin, two sons of a less active member. It was just fun to be a missionary.

I was reading this morning in the Words of Mormon this morning and I had a scripture question answered that I have been wondering about my entire mission, about how Moroni received the records and epistles from his Father, and well, Mormon just tells us.
Words of Mormon 1:1 And now I, Mormon, being about to deliver up the record which I have been making into the hands of my son Moroni, behold I have witnessed almost all the destruction of my people, the Nephites.
he just gave them to him himself. Mormon talks about how dangerous the situation he is in, and his son. Their lives are at stake for the records which Mormon is carrying, this is their everything. It made me have a greater appreciation for the scriptures.

We saw a miracle this week again with Larry, he was trying to tell us how he doesn’t feel like he is ready to be baptized, but we explained to him that he is already showing forth his repentance, as he is reading, praying, coming to church, and keeping other commitments. We shared with him that the “firstfruits of repentance is baptism” and then he said, “oh, okay, I ‘m ready then.” and so now he is going to enter the waters of baptism. Yay! 

this is Elder Smith and I with our old ward mission leader

Live like Larry

DCIM100GOPROGOPR1211.JPG

This week was really great. Elder Smith and I saw lots of success through working on Fire Exchanges and Blitzes within the zone. We decided that in order to best teach connecting and listening and ministering, we are going to only work our proselyting time through fire exchanges and blitzes. We believe that through the example of “Come, Follow Me,” will be the best way to teach and inspire the environment of teaching in the Savior’s way. We have been reading a lot in Preach my Gospel Chapter 10 to best learn about teaching skills, that way we are best prepared for all these opportunities to be with missionaries this week. Elder Durrant taught me that Love is spelled T-I-M-E, and we are looking to apply that within our stewardship. We have hopes that it will also foster more zone unity.

This week Elder Smith and I proselyted for 9 hours and found 7 investigators.

We have been trying to connect with our members as well, so tomorrow we are teaching seminary on Moroni 6. Moroni 6 is so awesome, it’s super short, but has so much Doctrine just stuffed into 9 verses. I really liked verses 5-6

5 And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls.

6 And they did meet together oft to partake of bread and wine, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus.

Yesterday we had an awesome testimony meeting, where we certainly spoke one with another about the welfare of our souls. We are working with a family from Venezuela that has some fears that they are trying to overcome in order to be baptized, and yesterday their souls were touched. They told us they want to be baptized, and Larry even said the closing prayer in Gospel Principles Class, the first time his wife has ever heard him pray. Yay Larry and his family!

Love,

Elder Webster

 

 

Count on 1 hand

This week went by too fast, which is scary. Elder Smith and I have been doing good work. There’s no room for being trunky, We have too much work to do.

We saw a cool miracle this week, Elder Smith and I have been going past 9 every night looking for people we can Teach how to repent, and Baptize them as Converts, disciples of Christ.

I realized that this being my last transfer, I really want to become like Jesus Christ. I want to live how He lived, and Be as He is. For this, I have been studying a lot of the Christlike Attributes, focusing on Charity and Humility. There is an awesome scripture in

Alma 29:10 that explains a lot of how I’m feeling as a missionary.

And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.

Repentance is awesome, Charity is the greatest, and humility is the way to accept them both. Humility brings the blessings from heaven, like Charity. Moroni tells us that we must pray for Charity, as it is a gift from God, and Alma teaches us that we receive the blessings from heaven through Humility.

ELDER Smith and I saw a cool miracle through our friend Bob, who is our security “guard” at our apartment complex. Bob is this like, 70 year old Jamaican man that I gave a banana to about 3 months ago, and now we have nightly conversations with him about the gospel and whenever we get food from members I give him it. He really likes bananas.

Thank you so much for loving me and following this journey!

Heres my address

3452 Coral springs Dr, Coral Springs, FL 33065

Love,

Elder Webster

Trios

This week has been very interesting. I was on exchanges almost every day, into Creole, into Coconut Creek. It has been a really fun and uplifting experience that has brought me a lot of joy.

We were able to go to the temple and have an outside tour with some of our friends this last week, Dulce and Doris, and then there was a ward party that night that the Medina Family grilled at. Those are the Recent Convert children and their super-active parents. It was so good.

I shadow exchanged Elder Spottiswood and Elder Mickelson. They do a very good job connecting to Haitians, which is good. I was able to even help out, for the Creole book of Mormon I have been reading and studying. I had a 20 minute conversation with a man in Wendy’s yesterday in Creole, and the Gift of Tongues and Patriarchal Blessings are real.

Elder Jackson is only on his first transfer in Coconut Creek, but man, he is awesome. He has applied everything that he has needed to, and we were able to progress together. He came pre-trained almost.

He said something that became my scripture study this week. We decided that we were going to go out and find 4 investigators yesterday for Coconut Creek. We studied the commandments in the morning, and decided that we would ask this question to people “Why does God give us commandments?” The results were all over the place. People gave us great, insightful answers that we were able to use to find not only 4, but 8 New Friends. It was a great day.

The Thing Elder Jackson said to me was this, from Mormon 9:21 “Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted unto him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.” And here’s where the Spirit shot down like a lightning bolt and made the hairs on our arms stand on end and an overwhelming feeling of joy come to us. Elder Jackson, fully speaking through the Spirit to Jeanette said “even forgiveness.” Woah. Something that had never occurred to me in my entire life. If you don’t doubt that you will be forgiven, you will be.

I am very grateful to be staying here in Lauderhill to finish my mission. But right now, I’m right in the middle of it. There’s so much more work ahead to do.

Love,
Elder Webster 

English Speaking Elder this week

I got emergency transferred into Coral Springs area this week. My new companion for a short time is Elder Goff, From Liberty, Missouri. He is a great missionary. He is waiting on a visa so he can go serve in Lisbon Portugal.
Elder Goff is doing great, he is sharpening up to be a very successful missionary. It’s not the worst thing in the world that he hasn’t gotten his visa yet. 🙂

We saw a cool miracle this week with our friend Lindsay who is having a little bit of a crisis in her life that my sister went through a little bit ago. So, I had her text my sister, and my sister all the way across the country is helping her right now. I didn’t expect those words to come out of my mouth when I said them, but I know that it is what the Lord wanted, so act on your first prompting. (Elder Rasband, April 2017 Conference)

 

Read conference talks, especially the one from President Nelson about receiving personal revelation. It was really good.

I am doing well, not too much news. This is a really great area. There are no hard areas, just places where the faith needs to be strengthened.

Love,
Elder Webster 

 

you can write me a letter at 

3452 Coral Springs Dr,

Coral Springs, FL 33065

Happy Easter

 

 

I sliced my hand open and went to the hospital this week. I got 4 stitches.

We have seen the Spirit of the Lord this weekend. President Nelson really is a prophet of God. Elder Smith and I saw many little miracles this week, a lot of which came through  a companion study we received from the assistants of using the 3 elements of faith in our leadership.

For those of you wanting to increase your faith, focus on these 3 things

1)What you really believe in your heart

2) Positive Words that are full of faith

3) Actions that show faith, not just words.

After finding our weekly and daily goal for finding, we set out to help our stewardship find as well. We went into the area of Cypress Creek, and emphasized the 3 elements of faith and we ended up finding their weekly goal in 1 knocking session, and then we went to Tamarac and helped them find a new investigator as well. We saw a lot of miracles by being diligent.

I had all of my prayers answered with the questions I had in this conference. I am very grateful for the blessing of living prophets and Apostles.

happy Easter! Focus on the Savior!

Love,
Elder Webster

Abuela

Dear Everyone!

So as I am staying here in Coral Springs, my new companion is Elder Smith from Prescott, Arizona. He’s pretty cool, we baptized Abuela Maria together.

This week was so awesome! We got to talk with a living oracle of God, Elder Uchtdorf, and the President of the Quorum of the Seventy, Lynn G. Robbins, and An Area 70, Elder Stephen Thompson, and Sister Garns, and you! There was just so much spirit there it was outstanding. One thing I noticed about the general Authorities is that they are the exact same when they are talking with us as they are when giving a conference address. They just speak to us as friends. In my mind, I was expecting to be just blown away with new insights and crazy fix-alls, but they just spoke to us as they would speak to their best friend. Elder Uchtdorf is a man, a really really good man. Elder Robbins is a man, a really really good man. Elder Thompson is a man, a really really good man. They are righteous men, men that know God, they keep his commandments and are blessed by it, and they have gained testimonies and knowledge through experiences. These are mortals on the path of perfection, doing what it takes daily to accomplish God’s purpose of bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I realized that I didn’t need to be blown away by the Spirit to receive a witness that these are the inspired and ordained servants of God, I just needed the belief that they were, and their fruits proved my belief that it was made sure. I testify that Dieter F. Uchtdorf is an ordained apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I testify that the Lord has chosen Lynn G. Robbins to lead the quorums of the 70, and I testify that Stephen B. Thompson is the Lord’s servant over this area of Florida.

In preparation to hear the words of these men, I read the story of Samuel the Lamanite, who preached on the wall. In Helaman 13:7 Samuel said something that struck me, about receiving the Gospel. He says:

“And behold, an angel of the Lord hath declared it unto me, and he did bring glad tidings to my soul. And behold, I was sent unto you to declare it unto you also, that ye might have glad tidings; but behold ye would not receive me.” And I thought this was cool because in Luke 2 the shepherds received the glad tidings from the angel of the Lord and went to Christ, and then were able to share the message with everyone. The gospel will be preached to everyone, but it will only be a glad message to those that receive it. Otherwise, it will just be tidings. I didn’t really know what tidings meant either, so I looked it up in the dictionary, and it means information about recent and important events. So, the information is only good if the people receive it, making it bad news bears to those that don’t.

We had an awesome miracle this week through Maria’s baptism. She is 90 years old, and we call her Abuela. We feared that she wouldn’t remember anything for her interview, because her brain is degenerating, but she remembered everything! It took for men in the font to baptize her, because she’s confined to a wheelchair, but she went in first try and then cried tears of joy the rest of the day.

Yesterday, on Sunday, to start the day our zone was struggling with finding new investigators, and so our plan was to send out a miracle text to build the faith of our zone, and by the end of the night our zone had found 21 New investigators, just on Sunday. Our district leaders really feel like faith while finding and going through the motions are big problems in their districts, so Zone Conference and the application of it will be the supplication to our plans as a zone.

We are looking forward this week,

Love,

Elder Webster

Guatemala Day

This week has been really awesome, and I’m really excited for this next transfer. Elder Flake has been an awesome companion. He keeps me going sometimes, and we’ve done some good work together. I’m sad to see him head off, but I guess it had to happen sometime. We were just having too much fun. And, to quote Elder Bednar, again, “This is fun, but I’m not talking playing games, this is spiritually energizing!”

On a fun segway into this next point, Alma was also spiritually energized in Alma 29, where in the beginning he speaks of “O that I were an angel…” but the verse I really learned from was verse 5. I think it will be the next scripture I memorize, Alma says:
“Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.”
It teaches the principle of agency, and well, again to quote Elder Bednar, “there is little or no spiritual power in
treating these fundamental elements of the doctrine of Christ as separate things.” So, the interrelation of this principle ties in with all other principles of the Gospel, such as child baptism, eternal marriage, Repentance, the Sacrament. It all ties together, and it’s when we learn about it that it matters for us.

Elder Meredith and I went on exchanges this week to try out what it would be like to be a missionary in Guatemala for a day. Elder Flake doesn’t stop talking about Guatemala, so we decided to live it. We left the house at 10 am, and didn’t come back until 9 pm, and talked to every single person we saw. At first it was hard, because the first people were all really uninterested, but as the heat of the day went on, we got happier. We ended up only walking 13 miles, but we gave out 5 copies of the Book of Mormon, taught a few lessons, and found new areas of the vineyard that we didn’t know about before, one of which we went back the next day and met Tianna, who read the Book of Mormon, then the following day asked us to be baptized, and Cedric, who is almost a carbon copy Elder Meredith. We saw a lot of fruits for just putting in our line in the water for all day. And we slept fantastic that night.

We went on exchanges as well this week with Tamarac North, I went with Elder Moon. He is doing well, we talked about Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego and how they never questioned their faith by using the phrase “but if not.” So we practiced that all day as we knocked and talked to people. “The person behind this door will accept the gospel, and we will talk about eternal families, but if not, our faith will not be droopy and we will press on.”

And we also had exchanges with Lyons Creole, which was awesome. I went into Elder Spottiswood’s area, and we solidified their baptismal dates and found 2 new investigators.

This week will be so awesome, I am so excited to keep pressing forward here in Lauderhill.
Love,
Elder Webster