Jesse - E-mail - November 26, 2013

Oh my goodness this week was crazy! so many things happened its hard to keep track of it all! this week my new companion and i started teaching together. it was different at first because i didnt have my trainer, but i have a feeling this next transfer is going to be better than the last. the first day we started we hadnt had time to prepare anything but we went and did the work anyway. and we taught off of each other really well even without planning. his name is elder montaño and is from Ecuador if i didnt tell you already. some pretty insane things happened some of which i wont share with everyone so you wont worry about my safety. but some that were just hilarious. the worst thing we ran into this week really hit us hard. we are teaching a family, ruth is the mother and fernando is the father and they have 6 kids under the age of 6. we had been teaching them and the mother was sick the last two times we taught them, after our second lesson the father talked to us outside for a minute and told us that his wife has a terminal disease and they say she wont live for very much longer than a few months. just that thought made my stomach sick. but it makes me glad to know that she is learning these things just in time, and glad that i know of them for myself. on brighter notes there are some crazy kids in this area! we were looking for a house in the villas and found a group of kids sitting on the corner one of them we had talked to before and told us to come over and talk to them. we found out there names and talked for a bit getting to know them and such then it changed:) one of the kids pulled out a baggie of what i knew was weed. the kid asked if we wanted some and i dont know why but the first thing that came out of my mouth was "oh no thanks man, we have some" they started laughing and we told them it was a joke, then they shoved the weed in our face and  we told them we had to go. and of course being guys we still climb to the top of the roof and just talk about life for p-days. we worked alot harder than i ever did with Elder paredes, which is great because we both want to change the way this area works for the better. there hasnt been a night that we haven't gone to bed completely exhausted so far and it feels great knowing that the work im doing is effecting so many lives.and something else that you should know is that maxii has a brother named mattias. he is hardcore into catholicism at the age of 17, and hes never wanted to listen to thelessons with his family. but this week we changed that we started teaching him this week and things are going great! we even got a baptismal date for the 8th of December r!!! ohh and i think i told you that i got the package the families sent for my birthday. i almost cried when i saw that you made me salsa!!! thanks so much! and one more quick story:D we have a greenie in our apartment named elder brush, so elder davis and i wanted to play a little trick on him. we got with one of the sisters in the ward and went over to her house for dinner. we had already eaten and shared the message with her family,but before hand i had given the sister 200 pesos and told her to ask for a blessing from elder brush. she played it off so well!! she asked for a blessing from the four of us and we volunteered Brush. he said he hadnt given one in spanish before yet but he would try, then she handed him the 200 pesos and said is this good enough. i said yeah because the last time it was 100 pesos. he looked at her and said " this is a joke right?" she didnt even crack, just straight face then we started laughing together. but the funny thing is that one other daughter of this family didnt know o this before so she thought we were serious too! what a great week in the mission feild! and there of course is always drunk guys who want to hold hands and say prayers in the streets at night but thats okay:P im still safe and living life to the fullest! i love you all and pray for you every day and night!!!

love Elder Whetten!

P.s. we really dont have marijuana