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Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters.  That's cool you guys got to go to the temple. That's awesome that the temple was so full, here in Panama it sometimes gets full on Saturdays but when we were their it wasn't to full. The recent convert that we went with could only see the temple, but it was a really good experience for him because we could go in to the waiting room and he said he felt the spirit very strong and he didn't want to leave, the next trip is in June and we are hoping he can go and do baptisms for the dead. 

On my birthday was a normal day, we didn't do anything exciting but someone gave me a pair of shoes which was pretty cool (it wasn't a gift) they just saw my old shoes and wanted to give me new ones. 

We had Zone conference and we had another Conference, Elder Duncan of the 70 came and spoke to us. He gave us many ideas and ways we can work harder and work more effectively it was really great.  I really enjoyed what he said, and at the end he said that he was happy for what he saw, for what we are doing, and it really meant a lot to me because when I got here there was a lot of disobedience and it was a little hard to have pride in the mission, but I've have seen a lot of changes and I see the missionaries are working harder and the spirit is stronger in the mission. I know we are improving little by little.

There is an Elder in the Zone that is from Colombia and he once lived in Cali, Dad what areas did you serve in? Did you know a Family named Franco?.

That's to bad Michael's wrist is messed up, tell me when he has a surgery.

I love you, 

Elder Weston

A mola Eric bought

The bus they took to the temple

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primary chair in the bus

Dear Family,

Thank you for the birthday wishes and it sounds like everything is going well at home. That missionary fireside sounds really cool. I hope more young men decide to serve missions.

Mom asked what do the missionaries buy here in Panama to bring home: usually mola ties and also hammocks, and sometimes hats. But usually they buy mola.

I don't know what you would like to do for the Panama trip, you might want to go to Bocas del Toroinstead of San Blas it would probably be better because it's cleaner, but really I have no idea.

Dad asked about object lessons we teach. We need to teach better with object lessons but something on Sunday for the Gospel Principle class, we have two people act out how a boss talks to his employees and have two people act out how a loving father speaks to his children. And we explain that God is not our boss, but is a loving father who wants to helps us and not boss us around.

This week was really cool, the branch had a temple trip and my companion and I went with a recent convert. We took a coster bus that holds about 30 people, but there was not enough seats, so we put some of the primary chairs in the center aisle and I sat in the primary chair. It wasn't comfortable but it was worth it. The drive took about 8 hours there and 10 hours back because there was a lot of traffic.  We stayed the entire day and a half in the temple. We helped with baptisms 2 times, we were the witnesses. We went to 3 sessions and someone in the branch got sealed and my companion and I were the witnesses for the sealing, it was sweet. Even though it took awhile, it was totally worth it.

While in the celestial room I was thinking a lot about how peaceful the temple is, but I also tried to think about the Atonement, I thought at first ''there are not pictures of Jesus or him in Gethemine in the celestial room, so I wondered how does this room help us think of Christ?  Then I thought of a scripture in Isaiah in 53:5 ''the chastisement of our peace was upon him''.   I understand know that when we have peace or when we feel peace in the temple it is because the Savior died for us.  The peace we feel in the temple is also I sign of the Atonement and the peace that it can bring into our lives.

I have pictures of us in the bus I'll send them next week.

I love you guys,
Elder Weston

Book of Mormon Questions

Dear Family,

Thank you for the letters, I am staying in the same area with my same companion and we had a lot of new missionaries came to the zone. Out of the 12 missionaries that are in this zone 9 have less than 6 months in the mission. It's really great being around these young missionaries because they never talk about going home and they are really teachable.  I really enjoy that.

Our area is doing Ok we get investigators to came to Church one week and the next week they don't come, but we continue to work really hard. We will continue to focus on finding new investigators this week. But we have a few positive investigators that are reading the Book of Mormon. Recently it's been raining a lot, which is weird because we are in the dry season, that's weird that Utah is so hot for this time of year.

Today for P-day the zone went to the chapel and we played a few games with the Book of Mormon. Here are a few questions we asked (there not the easiest questions) but they were able use the Book of Mormon to find the answers:

Who is the dad of King Benjamin?
Who is the first Anti Christ in the Book of Mormon?
Who was the last Jaredite?
Who was the Grandpa of Enos?
The people of Zarahemla (before the Nephites came) were decedents of who?

It was a lot of fun.  That's super cool that Michael can get his papers started right now. What if he goes to Africa?

I love you guys
Elder Weston



The answers are
1. Mosiah
2. Sherem
3. Coriantumr.
4. Lehi
5. Mulek

yogurt or Coke

Dear Family,

Thank you for your letters, you asked if yogurt helps your stomach feel better, it doesn't but I learned that Coke does. I usually don't drink to much Coke but it does help a little but. We've been eating pancakes almost everyday with peanut butter and jam and syrup.

The trip your planning sounds pretty cool, I don't really like the city so its good to be a little outside of it, I looked at a map and Santa Clara was part of my area in Chorrera but I never went, the furthest I got to Santa Clara was ''Anton'' and Cordonado. We could probably get there in bus or we could rent a car, but you can't take to many taxies.

We had two investigators in church today, I was really happy and a lot of people came to church. This Wednesday there are changes and I'm happy, I believe I'm staying here, but there are a lot of missionaries that are returning home. We are excited to have new missionaries. But there are a few missionaries that are leaving that are really good and I will be sad to see them go.

I continue to learn a lot, I feel like we need to be more obiedente, but it's getting better.  I know if we keep on trying it will get better. We had a conference with the President via Skype with a bunch of missionaries. The goals in the mission is to read Preach my Gospel more and read the Book of Mormon. The only bad thing is the internet drops every 10 minutes so we watched about half of the conference.

We are having a good time, and staying positive.
I love you guys so much

Elder Weston