Week 25: It's such a good feeling

Let me just start out by saying how this was a great week! We split the area and Elder Cardenas and I are still working together. We make a great companionship, but we do have a little weakness.. He's a little bit quiet and I'm a little bit quiet in spanish still, so we're still having a little bit of trouble making contacts in the street. There are a lot of times when he'll look at me like he wants me to take over the conversation and I look back with the same expression because I don't understand what the person said. But speaking about my Spanish, I am getting a lot better at it! I'm understanding a whole lot more and I feel like I'm really able to apply spiritual messages personaly to the people that we're teaching. I still have a whole lot to learn, but I have a big enough vocabulary now to at least express myself... in a round about way at times :) 

We have been working a lot with the less active members in my area, it's really nice now that the area is half the size we can focus more on the people because there are fewer. We found this huge list of members and we don't know most of them, so this week we went knocking doors and found a ton of awesome people that all it took was one visit and the came to church on Sunday. We jumped up about 15 in attendance yesterday in church! we had 99 people! The first Sunday when I came here there were 36 counting Elder West, Huefner and I. It's such a good feeling seeing the ward get stronger like this.

We found this one less active mom of three kids and her kids aren't members (missionary dream right there!) Her husband isn't a member either but is a really great guy. She had cancer and is recovering from treatment right now, but she's getting a lot better. She came to church yesterday alone, and that night we had a family night with them that went really well! We're super excited because it seems rare to find whole families together with a father and mother here. We watched some mormon messages about the relationships between parents and their kids and both the parents seemed really touched by the massage. I really look forward to teaching them more!

So... people here also think that I look like Tom Cruise. I really don't understand why, I don't see it at all. But but they keep bringing it up like they did back home. 

Well I just want you all to know that I'm doing great! Missionary work is a lot of hard work, but I'm really enjoying it! Thank you for all of your support and letters! they're great and always give me a big boost for the next week!

Lots of love

Elder Twede