Adventures of Isaac the Great

Just this morning we went to the edge of the beach to watch the sunrise. It was really nice to be by the water (even if we couldn't get in) On Tuesday we went to the Elder's Quorum president to return some dishes and on our way back to the flat we saw one of our friends that we've been trying to get in contact with. We were able to do some service for him as well as set a time to meet with him again and have a proper discussion.  On Wednesday we had our transfers and I stayed in the Cranbourne area. my new companion is elder Latu from south Auckland. We were also able to read the introduction to the Book of Mormon with another friend and he decide that he would give the "Book a chance"  Just like our friend  if you haven't read The Book of Mormon closely or recently I would invite you to do so with REAL intent and to follow the invitation in Moroni 10:4 and reaffirm the truthfulness in the Book of Mormon . Thank you for reading my letters. Love, Elder Westover...

  Every once in a while from now on  I'm going to start writing not just my experiences but something that I'm grateful for as well. This will not be a scheduled event but more of something that I do when I feel impressed to do so. Because I do not have a computer to type on I am using the voice to text feature on the phone so if there are any weird spelling or grammar issues that is probably why. I also noticed that it repeats sometimes words that I say. I will try to delete these as best I can. This is the last week of this transfer which is very weird to think about and right now all I can think about is things that have happened the past few weeks, so I'm going to do my best to just say things that have happened this last week. Unfortunately all of my flat except for me has been sick all week although on one day we did a mini exchange and this time I was with Elder Aulick. Because we were sick and didn't know if he was still contagious. So, we did tracting which led...

  Not too much has happened except in my last e-mail that never sent, we did a service for one of our friends named Jane and she needed us to catch 2 sheep because one got injured. We have several people we have been teaching but our main focus is on the part member and less active families. We have a baptism scheduled for the 16th with one of our friends. His name is Enoch. We are really trying to reactivate his family so he can have the support he needs.  We gave out 2 book of Mormon's this past week one to the sister of one of out friends and another to our neighbour today. The best part of my week is seeing our friends at church because it means that they are actually trying to learn and it makes me so happy to see them wanting to grow. On Friday we had a youth devotional with elder Christofferson which we watched over zoom. I took more notes in the one hour that he was there than for any other speaker before. He had the youth ask questions and he answered them. One questi...

Today (I'm writing on Wednesday so I don't forget) was probably one of the worst days of my mission. The morning was very slow and nobody seemed to want to talk to us. Even one of our friends slammed the door on us. As the day started to end, both me and Elder Taua wanted the day to be over and we had a long as bike ride so we were ready to accept defeat for the day and return for our flat. But we remembered that earlier that morning we had received a referral. We decided to stop by the house because we were in the area and we are told to respond within 24 hours to referrals. We said "hello how are you" "good how you" "good, good, that's awesome that your doing well, my friend and I were just in the area and we share messages on Jesus Christ, is that be something you would be interested in" and typically when we mention Jesus Christ people shut the door or say "I'm busy right now" or right now a really common one is "I'm ...

Unfortunately I don't have my journal with me. Right now we are at the chapel playing some basketball. And all the days and weeks have started to meld into one. Because of that, I'll share a quick synopsis with you about this week. Monday I found a violin at one of the second-hand shops. It had no bow or bridge but it did have 4 strings so I think that it was worth it. Now I just need to find a second hand violin that has a bow and a bridge.  Tuesday we had district council as per usual. After that we did some biking and we went down to a place where I hadn't been yet. Our appointment that we had for the day fell through so we rode down to a big pond and did some personal study on a bench. We then rod our bikes to a member's house and we found out that one of them was having surgery the next day and that she wanted a blessing. Then we went back to our flat for Fafaga. Wednesday was a hard day. First, we had to get our car serviced, and the service station is out of our ...

Hello everyone, Sorry for missing out on the past couple weeks.  It's really hard to find time to write although I will try to do better So far there have been so many miracles I can't even begin to count them all. but all them have been special in their own way and I will just share one with you right now. There was this crossing guard that we stopped to talk to and I don't remember her name but we talked to her for a little bit. As we were talking with her, from across the street we saw someone wave to us and she called "hello Elders!" and we responded with the hello. And as we were riding our bikes past her we decided to stop and talk to her. What we found out was that she has been divorced from her husband and when they got divorced that they kind of left the church and stopped being active. We found that before they got divorced her sons had the desire to be baptised. She called her sons and they said that they still want to learn about being baptised. Now sh...

I'm grateful to finally be able to be out of MTC. it's been really good so far. We Rode our bikes around the neighbourhood I, along with my companion elder Taua. He is from Sydney and he is been on the mission for about a year now. I share a flat (or an apartment) with 4 other elders. One is my companion the other's name's are elder Aulick elder Cooper and elder Stewart. We taught one if our friends this Sunday and I think that he and his twin brother are going to be baptised soon. The first night I was here we had dinner at a members house. We had taro, curry, and corned beef. There were four baptisms this Saturday and all if them were great. While we were waiting for them to change they had us missionaries sing Love at Home. Today we went shopping which was weird after the MTC. When we got back we found that one of our friends had left us some groceries. Here in Melbourne people are so thoughtful and kind toward each other. I love you all so much. Love, Elder Westover

  Hello Luke,  Thanks for writing. So far I love my mission, but I miss all my family too. I'm sorry that you've been sick, I've been praying for you to get better soon so that you can start winning baseball games. Before I go to Australia I need to learn how to teach people, so right now I am in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in New Zealand, which is close to Australia but I'm not quite there yet. My plane ride was good. First I flew to California. Luckily for me there were seven other missionaries that I flew with so I had people to talk to on the flights. The second flight, we almost missed because our first one landed late. The second flight went all the way to Tahiti in Hawaii and that lasted for eight and a half hours. We landed at 5:00 a.m. and went to get on our last flight which landed in New Zealand. When I landed I met my MTC president. His name is President Rudd and we talked about why I wanted to serve a mission. I do share a room with ot...

The NZ MTC is not nearly as big as the provo MTC. It's very small even in the largest room where we do sacrament meetings. All of us barely fit. President Rudd told us that this is the largest group to ever be in this MTC. This group that I am a part of has 100 missionaries, whereas the group before us only had 34. Because there are so many missionaries, almost every room has 4 missionaries versus the usual two.per room. I love the missionaries that I share a room with; the other companions are Elder Funk, and Elder Nolan. Elder Funk is from Highland Utah and Elder Nolan is an Aussie. My companion's name is Elder Tokavakarua or Elder Toka For short. He is from Fiji and I just learned a couple days ago that he was in "T he Other Side of Heaven 2" . Personally I think that my district is the best district in the MTC. I think my district teacher is the best as well. His name is Brother Randell and he is a convert to the church. I have so much more to share but I'll t...

Hello, mom and dad. I just got here about 20 minutes ago. I am just writing to you to tell you that I made it to the MTC safely and everything checked out. My P-day is on Thursday (NZ time) so that is when you'll hear from me next. i'm sure there are many things that you want to know about the trip but none are coming to mind right now. when things slow down i'll let you know more about my experiences. until next week. Now officially, Elder Westover PS please feel free to forward to whoever you two are the only E-mails I have saved and i don't have a lot of time right now.