Lost my wallet...found my wallet

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters, the ship sounds cool. It's crazy how many people drink, my testimony about the Word of Wisdom has grown a lot, it's really sad seeing adults acting like children when they get drunk. Just the smell of alcohol or beer gets me a little frustrated now, it's funny because before the mission I probably couldn't have recognized the smell. It's also sad that in Panama the people do not get paid much. Minimum wage in the states is way more then a normal job here in Panama, but they waste so much on alcohol.  

This week was good, yesterday everybody in Central America had there stake conference and we watched, by satellite, talks by Richard G. Scott (who spoke Spanish), Dallin H. Oaks, and the President of the Young Woman's.  It was really good they gave advice for the families. 1. Family and Personal Prayer, 2. Family and Personal Scripture study, 3. Family Home Evenings (with Preparation) and 4. Education   

One thing bad, I lost my wallet (I lost it, don't worry it wasn't robbed) so you should probably cancel by card and send me a new one por favor. Everything can be replaced quite easily so don't worry. I will continue looking for it this coming week. Yep that was kinda' frustrating. I just looked at my account, nothing has been taken out. 

[Brian] - Eric wrote us an email on Saturday and said he found his wallet and nothing was missing.  He accidentally left his wallet in a taxi and the taxi driver returned it to him.

The four districts of Alcalde Diaz are now part of the stake of San Miguelito so I hope our branch can soon become a ward that would be really cool. 

We went to the temple on Saturday which was amazing like always. The kid (Michael T....)  that we baptized a few weeks ago has already gone and done baptisms for the dead, because the young men in this branch are really awesome and they work really hard. 

The beaches here in Panama are really blue but I haven't gone to many of them. By companion has showed me pictures of San Blas (the islands) and they look like perfect paradise islands with crystal clear water. 

Love you so much, and have a lot of fun. 

Love you all,

Elder Weston

investigator are like icebergs...

Dear Family,

Thank you for the letters, I really liked the Doctrine, Principles, and Application thing you sent me, I'll try to study that this week. Say Happy Birthday to Grandpa for me. Also have a lot of fun on your cruise, I heard a lot of bad thing's are happening in Venezuela what's going on over there? 

I bet your going to love the heat on your cruise. I'm becoming accustomed to the heat here, when it gets below 80 I fill a bit cold. I've came to the conclusion that when I go home I will die from the cold weather. 

We have a couple positive investigators which we are really excited about, we just need to keep on working hard and I know we will have a lot of success. Yesterday we were teaching someone and the husband was a bit harder, but he must of felt the Spirit because at the end he asked us if we could go to his mom's house, I thought that was really cool.  

This Saturday we had a great reunion with the stake and area leaders about the work of salvation. They explained that the work in the temple for our ancestors and missionary work is the same work, it's the work of salvation. Then they explained that each investigator is like an iceberg, where the missionaries only see the every top, the investigator, but underneath there are 100's of family members that have passed away that need the gospel. They want the missionaries to explain the importance of the family more and what they can do to help their ancestors. One cool thing they explained is that ancestors of our investigators are praying in heaven that their children will accept the gospel and to do there temple work. So if we don't teach them their ancestors will continue waiting. 

I'm really grateful for the temple here in Panama, and the opportunity to go to it a lot.

In the package the Reese's were a little melted but that's ok, it's Panama. Yep, I got the chord. I'm assuming when I get home the car will be mine right ;)

Thank you,

Elder Weston

Our zone in Ciudad Bolivar in Alcalde Diaz

2 baptisms

Dear Family,

Thank you so much for the letters. I don't have changes this week I'm staying in this area for another 6 weeks with Elder Valdez. It's weird but no one in our entire zone has changes except one of the zone leaders because he's completing his mission. I'm really excited because our zone is one of the smallest in the mission and I'm glad I get to stay here. 

This week we had 2 baptisms, they were both really cool, we had the members baptism them it was very exciting. This week everybody in our district baptized it was a very exciting week. Also we had a less active member come three times to church. 

I got your package this week, and all the candy was amazing all of it got here. Also I really like that shirt you sent me. 

This week we had zone conference with the President and Elder Amado of the 70. It was great.  I learned so much. He talked a lot about reading the scriptures and just like D. Todd Christofferson said don't just read, study. There is so much you can get out of the scriptures you just have to study them. He also talked about how we should teach and a lot about marriage which was funny but true. 

Other things I learned this week, was why we need to judge like Christ. Sometimes we are really fast to point out the sins of others before we think about the circumstances of others. Sin is Sin, but because nobody is perfect we need to realize other people have different problems then us, We try to help other people overcome their sins and sometimes that takes time. We all have problems that are really hard to overcome but little by little we can all change.  

Love you all,

Elder Weston