* It is not impossible, it’s sad. The servants did their part; it’s their brave, delusional, time-ignorant father who did not his part.
BEHOLD a run of five (5) letters from Elder Max, presented in reverse chronological order:
March 2, 2015
Actually, these birds weren’t sick, just malicious. They were both just up in trees waiting for me to pass under. Luckily they were just on my hand and my arm. I just wiped it off and sanitized.[Note: This next part was expressly for Elder Webb’s saintly mother, who seems to ignore her opportunity to learn Spanish as part of Ma & Pa Webbs’ new calling as service missionaries with a Spanish branch in Kearns, UT]
YOU WON’T BE BLESSED WITH THE GIFT OF TONGUES IF YOU DON’T DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN. What happened to the mom who taught me how to work? And watch? And fight? And pray? Lemme break it down:WORK - You’ve got to study! You’ve got to write down words you don’t know. You’ve got to practice memorizing them. I know I left behind a Preach My Gospel. You are a missionary. Read Chapter 7 AND DO WHAT IT SAYS.WATCH - Listen to the natives! You’ve got a great opportunity here! Imagine what you’ll be able to do when you can actually speak Spanish! Ask them how to say things. Ask them to speak more slowly. Let them know you’re trying to learn, and ask them to help you with your accent, vocabulary, usage, etc.FIGHT - It’s gonna be hard! You’re not going to understand everything! You’re going to say things wrong, and people are going to laugh at you. Doesn’t matter. You give your effort, and you report your efforts to the Lord, and no one else.PRAY - Like all gifts of the Spirit, you’ve got to be worthy! You’ve got to pray and ask God every day to bless you with the power to communicate! Ask Him to untie your tongue. Ask Him to place a hot coal in your mouth to purify it and to be able to speak on His behalf (which is part of your calling as a missionary)God really knows us well. That happens all the time on the mission! We think aw crap, they’re not married or they’re alcoholics, how are we going to teach the Law of Chastity/or the Word of Wisdom but then we teach it, and we invite them, and they know they need to be obedient! So they do it! It’s pretty awesome.I love you, and I’m grateful every day for the things you taught me. I bear testimony about you guys all the time.Élder Webb
• • •
February 23, 2015
¡No soy un sinvergüenza!
Well, nobody else guessed for this contest, so I’m giving up. They were the names of streets in my area! Crazy. This week starts the new contest! You can use a translator. The prize still stands! You want to see me doing a little jig? Send in your guesses!This week, I owe birds an apology. I’m eternally sorry for whatever I did to you. I didn’t mean it. I actually think I’ve treated you pretty well over the years. I’ve defended you to my brother (who is afraid of your kind). I’ve attempted to draw you on numerous occasions (actually, I should apologize for that. Art isn’t my strong suit). I’ve envied your ability to fly. Nevertheless, you keep pooping on me. FLIPPIN’ FOUR TIMES.I would like to ask you, readers, how many people you know who have been pooped on by birds at all? Maybe you know one other person to whom it’s happened, but I bet the odds are that you don’t know anyone else. You would be hard-pressed to find someone so afflicted as I. FOUR TIMES. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I have been pooped on four times in my relatively short time here on this earth, and I can only imagine it’s going to continue until I’ve paid whatever debt I owe to the Cosmic Owl.Also this week, I saw a dog who looks exactly like William H. Macy.The work is still slow. We’re working a lot with members to try to find references and teach less-actives, but we really just don’t have lots of investigators.We were teaching a less-active family about the Restoration on Saturday, and the 8-year-old, Roide, kept interrupting with some interesting questions. We’d get quiet and he’d say “I have a question...” then he’s look off into space with a weird look and say “¿What is the true nature of God?” What I said in response was “Good question! We’ll cover that next time.”, but what I thought was “Whoa. Creepy.” That happened like 3 other times, different questions, equally disturbing. Then we found out he just had a pass-along card and was reading the questions from the back. Clever boy.“It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson (typed from memory! So I didn’t have to break the rules and use Google). I would like to apply that with a Gospel perspective. I asked myself once “What can I give to Heavenly Father? He’s given me so much, how can I do anything for him?” The scripture Juan 14:15 came to mind “If ye love me, keep my commandments”. Wow! That’s so simple! All we have to do to express our love for Heavenly Father is keep his commandments! AND He’ll continue blessing us on top of that! A little more specifically came the response of “service”. I’m tasked with the souls of those here in Matamoros II, and I can show my love for our Father in Heaven by serving his children (See Mosiah 2:17).Love you guys. Be good to your parents. It’s one of the original 10 commandments!Élder Webb
• • •
Elder Webb unsuccessfully guessing a clue from
his mom’s Valentine’s Day treasure hunt*.
* All within the confines of a standard-issue UPS box.
(Ingenious, if her husband does say so himself.)
February 16, 2015
Coral
One more week! Woot! Submit your guesses!
So first things first, I ate another bug this week. I was outside throwing a frisbee on P-day with the Elders in my District. I bent down to pick it up, and I connected with a mosquito flying in an unfortunately-upward direction. Again, right to the back of my throat. Nature’s out to get me.
Things have calmed down a lot here this week. We worked like normal and we got a lot more stuff done, which is awesome. I was going to go crazy. That said, we’ve heard rumors it’s going to be bad again, so we’ll see.
So there’s a graveyard here in my area, and it’s super creepy. There are really high walls all the way around it, and, in true Mexican-style, all the graves are above ground in tombs or sarcaphogi or whatever they are. Anyway, also very Mexican, almost all of them have either a cross or a full-blown crucifix at the head of the buried person, and you can see lots of these statues over the wall. However, there’s this one part if your walking North along the West side of the graveyard where you can see that at least 3 of the statues of Jesus are missing their left hand. Maybe I’m paranoid, or just white on the Mexican border, but I think that’s a warning. Somebody better be careful.
Another thing about Mexico! So a great way to find new investigators is look for old ones. A lot of the time, the old missionaries left some investigators because they just weren’t ready, and sometimes, other missionaries get to see them progress really well! So the old missionaries leave the address and a record of what they’ve taught. Sometimes, the new missionaries are walking down a street, and they can see that on the left side, all the numbers are odd and on the right side, all the numbers are even. Makes sense, right? These directions are very easy to find.
This never happens.
We were looking for a house, and we had only the name of the street and the house number. So we found the street and went looking for a pattern in the house numbers. What we found was almost horrifying. I wrote down the numbers so you could get a sense of what I’m talking about. The first house on the right side of the street was the number 414. I looked to the left across the street, expecting (praying) to see 413 or 415. What I found was 24. I thought “Ah well, maybe they just changed it” because that happens sometimes. I turned again to my right and found that the immediate neighbor of the house 414 was numbered 1611. Come again? 1611? I felt like I was in an episode of Doctor Who (I guess; I’ve never actually seen it).
We didn’t end up finding the house.
Finally, I ate something called “sincronizadas” this week. I mentioned the tacos I ate last week. Well, if the tacos I ate last week were this earth life, sincronizadas are Exaltation, they are the Celestial Kingdom, they are living for ever eternally happy. I don’t even know what they contain aside from several kinds of meat, cheese, and a wheat tortilla the size of a frikkin’ bicycle tire. I literally almost cried. I literally dreamed that night about sincronizadas. There is a hole in my heart that will never again be full unless I’m stuffed to the rafters with sincronizadas. Viva Mexico.
So I shared lots of temporal things because the work is really slow right now. Nobody’s progressing very well, or those who are have left town for a few weeks because of the danger (as I mentioned, now much less, but we’re still being careful). I have learned this week that love is the easiest way to do everything. Love for the people makes it easy to start a conversation in an otherwise-awkard situation. Love for your companion makes it easier to teach with the Spirit, and love for the Lord makes it easier to keep going, keep pushing, keep working, and keep being happy, even when you don’t get to see the fruits of your labors.
I love you guys. Teach your children the Gospel. Bless them with a testimony early in their lives.
Élder Webb
• • •
February 9, 2015
Tlaxcala
Round 4! New rule! If it gets to week 6 and nobody gets it, I’m giving up. Gimme a break! I’m in Mexico!¡Hola! ¿Cómo están? Que bueno.Friday I finished 6 months on the mission! That’s super weird. My zone leader says that every 6 months, a missionary’s perception of time doubles (I’m planning on writing my thesis about this). According to that, I’ll be home in like 5.25 months! I think. Something like that. I don’t know, I don’t math.You may have heard an earth-shattering gasp from my home in Utah this week. That would be because my mother had just read about some of the activity here. I’m not going to detail it, but basically some bad people want bad things from other bad people, and they do bad things to get them, and good people want to stop it. The mission has taken many precautions, and so now everytime somebody hears/sees something, they call the zone leaders, who call the assistants, who call everyone else and tell them to go home. So we go home, we study, we get bored. We’re all super safe. Pray for the people in the streets.Because of these circumstances, we don’t do a lot of work (we didn’t leave at all on Thursday), so I don’t have anything to report on our investigators.I’ve been thinking a lot about change, and what it is, and why we do it, and how we do it, when I realized something: the change shouldn’t be the focus. Change comes with the work. When we focus, when we do what we’re supposed to do, when we keep the commandments and have the Spirit and magnify our callings and keep Christ in our thoughts, the change just comes. Obviously there are things we may have to concentrate on, but with hard work and the Spirit, nothing is impossible.The most valuable thing I have learned so far in these 6 months is how to work. When it’s hot, when it’s cold, when it’s easy, when it sucks, when people listen, when they close their doors, all that matters is the effort you put into it. I don’t want to devalue baptisms, or teaching, because I love doing those things, and those things are where I put my efforts, but the Lord isn’t going to say I failed because nobody wanted to hear the restored Gospel. I fail when I don’t give it my all.Also, I had the best tacos in the world yesterday. 2 corn tortillas, fried, stuffed with a mixture of shredded pork, sesame seeds, salsa, spices, and eternal life. I ate like 9.I love you guys. This Valentine’s day, instead of thinking about your boyfriend, think about how lonely you’ll be in July of 2016, and how ready you’ll be to go on a commitment-free, super-fun date with a hilarious, mature, recently-returned missionary who speaks Spanish and has weird tan lines.Guarden la fe!Élder WebbPS If you haven’t, read Doctrine and Covenants. If you have, do it again. The whole thing. It’s just pure doctrine! And it says important things about covenants, too. Who knew?
• • •
February 2, 2015
Concepción
Tell me if this contest is lame, or if you want to give up. I kind of do.But hello! I hope all is well. I’m pretty good. But man, have I got some stories.So I went to the doctor last week, because I couldn’t hear and my back really hurt (turns out, the issues were unrelated). Something not-living got into my hear and blocked it up, so the doctor rinsed it out and I was good.However, she had rather a different method for helping me with my back. I was describing how it was hurting, and she started pulling out three or four little bottles of liquids of sinister colors. Then she said “Ok, we’re going to give you a shot”. I thought, ok, that’s cool, I’m pretty good with needles, but then she told me to stand up and undo my belt. What was that? “Just a little bit. Don’t show me everything.” What I had previously understood about shots and what she was saying weren’t matching up. Then, through the giggles of my District Leader (we were on exchanges at the time) and the expectant look of the doctor, it donned on me. “¿Not the nalgas?” “Sí”. So I was very brave, I bent over, received my medication, cried for only like a half-hour, and made my companion buy me a lollipop. Just in case you’re wondering, it really hurts. But now my back is better! Also, I took muscle relaxants for 3 days after that. Unfortunately, I don’t have any stories about that.Also this week, the roof of the house of a member collapsed, so we got to go help them clean it up. The buildings here are 100% brick and concrete, and not built very well, so apparently they were expecting this. No one was hurt, and the ward has been awesome with pulling strings to get them the help they need. Our job was to clean up the rubble in the street and chuck it all into a truck. Weirdly, we don’t do a lot of service, so it was a great opportunity to help someone out with something temporal.We also started teaching the girlfriend of the son of the owner of the house! Her name is Aidé, and she’s super excited to get baptized. She and Hector, her boyfriend, are going to get married (it’s free on Valentine’s Day!) and she’ll be baptized the following week. We’re really excited.We’re also teaching the grandchildren of the Relief Society President. Luis and Ximena are twins, and they couldn’t look more different. We’ll get a picture to send you. They turn 8 this month and since their parents aren’t members, we get to teach them! We’re actually teaching the whole family, but for right now, the parents don’t know that we’re going to baptize them, too.This week, I learned how important it is to have the Spirit. It’s not something that has ever come easily to me, and I imagine it’s like that for lots of people. We need the Holy Ghost even if we’re not full-time missionaries, because the Lord can bless people through us, if we’ll just listen. Please don’t let your pride, or disobedience, or lack of interest get in the way of the opportunity to bless a child of God. Look for ways to help people. Offer service. Pull someone’s weeds. Stop and help people stranded in their cars. Smile at strangers (careful with that one). Everyone wants to be helped, and we are super blessed for service.Love you guys. Read the scriptures every day.Élder Webb
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