Saturday, January 24, 2015

BLAST 2 FROM THE PAST

Editors’s note: Elder Eli’s and Elder Max’s parents recently accepted a call as part-time service missionaries, working with a Spanish branch in Kearns, UT. More on that shortly:

January 12, 2015 
Hello readers!

Alright, it’s official, I’m learning Spanish when I’m home. With only Max speaking it, my reasoning for not learning was, “Meh, I’ll probably be so busy when I’m home. Besides, by the time Max is home I’ll have moved out, so when he and Dad have their dumb Spanish parties I’ll be long gone. Psh, who needs Spanish anyway? Not this guy. Definitely not this guy...”

But now that Mom’s going to be learning Spanish, it’s more along the lines of, “ALERT! ALERT! Def Con One! Exclusion from dumb Spanish parties is not an option! I’ve got 14 months between my arrival and Max’s homecoming. I can find time to fit in an hour of language study every day, minimum. Food and sleep can be sacrificed! Friends? Who needs ‘em? I’m sure BYU offers introductory Spanish courses. I can visit Mom and Dad’s Spanish ward every now and again. I’ll have returned missionary friends who spoke Spanish that I can practice on. 14 months, 14 months. Failure is not an option!” Brace yourselves, world.

For the time being, however, that is not my reality. Here and now I’m still in the tundra. We’ve had some reasonable cold these last few weeks, but apparently starting tomorrow the temperature is going to be above zero for the rest of the week! It’s a miracle! (By the way, above zero degrees Celsius is delightful after you’ve had around -30 for the past little while.)

Congrats to Mom and Dad on your mission call! That is so cool. Our entire family is on a mission! It’s going to bless all of us in so many ways. I am so jealous that 75% of my family gets to be around chunky little niños. There are very few things cuter than children speaking a different language. A brother and sister were behind me last week when I emailed. The brother must have been 2 or 3, and the sister was probably 4 or 5. Forgive my ignorance, but they were speaking Chinese or Korean or Vietnamese. I want to say Chinese because I’ve mostly heard that and I’d say it sounded like it, but I don’t want to be wrong. Regardless — adorable.

The work slowed down considerably during the Christmas season, but now things are starting to pick up again. We’ve got appointments scheduled this week with Scott and Matt, and hopefully after those we’ll be able to meet with them more consistently! Jessica is still not committing to a time, but we’ve been in touch with here and we’re still on good terms. It’s been great to be able to get a hold of people over Facebook who were previously pretty hard to reach. We get on Facebook every day now. Our tasks include (but are not limited to): teaching investigators and less-actives, posting inspirational goodness, getting connected to new investigators through members, keeping in touch with contacts from previous areas, researching inspirational goodness to post, etc. It’s amazing how the Lord has prepared a way for this to be a productive tool in bringing others unto Him. The mission is still working out some kinks and figuring out the best way to do it, but we’re already seeing cool things! For instance, I was able to get in touch with a less-active member we were meeting with in Red Deer, and while we were catching up I found out that he was no longer meeting with missionaries. I told him that he knew better than that and that I was going to send the missionaries over, and he agreed! Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg. The church is true!

Thanks for all of the love and support! Y’all are wonderful people. God loves each of you and He wants you to be happy. Many of us have habits or behaviors that hold us back from being happy. Through Christ, those weaknesses can become strengths and we can find joy! Evaluate what’s holding you back from being happy right now, then take the necessary steps to change it! Keep reading!

Mantener la fe,
Elder Webb

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