December 14, 2015

Hey Fam! 

Well this week was hectic haha--I went on 2 exchanges with other elders because Elder Johnson is district leader, so on Monday and Tuesday I was with Elder Steely because he had a missionary training thing in New Hampshire, and then we did a district exchange between us and the other Portland elders on Wednesday and Thursday so I was barely even with Elder Johnson this week! Haha it was crazy! But during those few days, I had A LOT of fun. It was hectic but I realized how great the missionaries there are in this mission. They all really are huge studs and I look up to every one of them. 

We taught a few lessons during those few days. We taught the less-active brother P-- again and the lesson went well. I was stressed because the Elder I was with obviously didn't know anything about him so it was mostly up to me with the lesson plan but I felt pretty good about it hah I think he enjoys us coming over. Even if the lesson we gave wasn't very good, I think he still enjoys the company hahaha and then we taught F-- again, and we taught her about the Book of Mormon with the senior couple in our mission, and it went very well. The spirit was so strong and we could see it working through F--, because that was one of the only times we had noticed her light up during a lesson, something clicked with her and it was cool to see, I hope it keeps going in a good direction! She's awesome.

Elder Johnson and I did a lot of finding the past few days and haven't had any success really. It's been hard but we saw an amazing miracle yesterday with J-- one of the recent converts that I talked a little about. In Burundi there has been another big outburst of killings apparently because people tried rebelling against the government. They sent out these trucks through the neighborhoods to knock on doors and kill the young men if there were any in the home. And J--'s kids are still in Burundi, and the trucks were in her neighborhood yesterday and Saturday. She knew about it before church but she said she knew that she needed to keep it together and to come to church and take the sacrament. And we didn't know about any of this until after church, but the people in the trucks went to the kids' house, and broke down the door but they were hiding in a place in the basement. They saw clothes on the floor which were her son's who is about my age (so a young man obviously) and they for some reason had the idea that the house had already been checked and taken care of, so they left. And J-- said that is an absolute miracle that they didn't search it anyways just to make sure. But yeah anyways, it was amazing to hear. Talk about conversion. In her time of need she decided that taking the sacrament and doing what she's supposed to by coming to church in stead of staying home nervous and unsure (which she had every reason to stay home and worry), and she was blessed for it. It was a huge testimony builder to see that for sure.

Well, have a good week! And remember the true meaning of Christmas! I love you all so much!!

Elder Webb