Alright, So zone conference this week was super sweet! I loved learning from our President, his wife ans his assistants, it was great. The best was that I got to sleep in a SUPER comfy hotel bed though... It was like a cloud. Plus because we had 3 in our room I had not only my companion but a super awesome sister I know from the mtc who is from Colombia stay with us. It was a party.

We´ve been really busy and really wet... We´ve had a huge storm here and have gotten soaked every day since zone conference. BUT today it has been nothing but blue skies! Haha look at me a Canadian complaining about rain in November!!!! Haha too funny. Anyways it´s been fun though because people take pity and let us inside. 

We have an investigator Y on date for baptism and she came to chruch for the first time this week! She has the cutest little daughter too, it was fun. We´ll see how she´ll progress now, I´m excited, we met her at english class too, talk about a GREAT finding opportunity.  

Our investigator L is still heading to baptism on Dec 6th, she´s really excited and she´s doing well so far without her electronic cigarrette. I just hope she´s ready. 

Cool miracle is a member has had a friend come to church with her and we´ve started teaching her, she LOVED the plan of salvation this week. Anyways we hope she gets answers to her prayers soon! 

Cool scripture that talks about Isles of the sea... 2Nephi 10:21

I hope everyone´s doing well, especially my 75 year old abuelo and my 18 year old prima! Haha I love them! Keep warm Canada, I know I am. 

Hermana West

My Zone in the Canary Islands!

It's been a crazy busy week this week! Which is always the BEST when you're a missionary. 

We've got 6 progressing investigators, one of which is tentatively getting baptized on December 6th if she can stop smoking and if her family ca make it. 

So basically this week has been so great because we've had so many wonderful spiritual lessons with investigators and everything. Sometimes it's really hard for me to speak... honestly feels like my brain is going to explode sometimes. But when I need to contribute the Lords definitely provides! I love all the tender mercies and being able to share experiences and my testimony with investigators.

I'm on the island Tenerife right now for zone conference! It's sweet because I get to see some sisters from the CCM and also... Elder Smith! Haha it was so fun to see someone from home! So we came here on a boat.. this morning I was a bit sea sick but now I feel great! We played soccer this morning as well! LOVED it! Everyone says I play so well because of the "Canadian hockey blood" in me... Not true but I sure schooled some elders today it was fun. 

I'm excited for zone conference tomorrow and I'm even more excited to get to work the day after! Honestly I love everyone here they're amazing!

Cool miracle for the week. We met with a male less active in a park, he's kinda younger and it was a good lesson. But then he pointed to an older man sitting on another bench and said "El es miembro menos activo tambien" aka He's a less active member too. Anyway we saw him that time And 2 days later on the same bench! Then He came to church yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It made my day, I mean I was glad all our investigators came too but to have him there made my day! I love finding lost sheep! 

Anywho I don't have too much time today but I LOVE this work, Spanish is a cool language but I do not speak it very well, and I know God loves us all and fellowshipping is key! 

Love Hermana West

I'm not sure why I'm so blessed to be in this wonderful place but I am! I love the weather, the wonderful nature and the magnificent people. Every day I just feel so blessed. Last Pday we got some fro yo and ate it on the street. I'm sending a pic, it was wonderful! 

So we've been working on getting some investigators because we only have 2 solid ones and they're both just working on word of wisdom issues. 

So, we have a mission couple on this island in charge of teaching seminary, they also keep a blog that has stuff about all us missionaries as well. this is the link if you want to check it out:

codyandcherylmission.blogspot.com (there are awesome pics and stories of Hermana West in the last 2 blogs, her mom checked it out)

So cool miracle of the week, we went to go teach our investigator R, who is 26 but when we got there (with a member for numbers) he wasn't there... but his 18 year old sister X was! So, we taught her the first lesson ad she ate it all up, we're meeting with her again tonight! I just love how we're blessed with someone new to share the gospel with.

We're teaching a man from Ghana, he's so amazing! He just asked us questions and we answered them and he just said "I really like your answers (the lesson was in English so I was able to contribute a bit more than usual)

We are at the Larsens' house right now, it is in more of the outlying area and in the mountains, the view is breath taking! 

We had dinner at a member's house that kinda lives far away last night, it was also a breath taking view.  Honestly it's unreal the things I see every day. 

I'm still getting along with my AMAZING trainer... She's honestly great, she's teaching me how to work hard and plan effectively! It's great.

One thing that really surprised me was how SIMILAR church is here! Honestly, other than it being in Spanish it is the same meetings and same spirit. Shouldn't have been so surprised but it was great. 

I love this work and I am so excited to be here in Las Palmas. Which is we directly translate is is "The hands" Cool parallel because missionaries are God's hands! Haha not really a lot of sense but it's cool. It's also cool to see the scriptures in Spanish because it doesn't translate directly which can sometimes give scriptures a slightly different meaning. 

Love,

Hermana West

Las Palmas

Okay, So crazy week right!?! I´m on the island of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands for my first area with my amazing trainer Hermana Trone from Oregan. She´s new to the islands (only got here 1 transfer previously) but a seasoned veteran to the mission. She has 3 transfers left including this one we are in. She´s a great hard worker, super fun and honestly just amazing! I´m so grateful to have her! Her Spanish is amazing too. Honestly she sound amazing!

Here on the island there are a TON of less active members. You might know that the now stake here on the islands was only made a year ago! Previously it had been a district. It´s so warm here... I love it but I´m kind of dying of sweat. No don´t worry I´m drinking lots of the bottled water I have to buy here because we can´t drink tap water on the island. The members of our ward are amazing! I loved church with them yesterday and we´ve had dinner with a few families. I love the people here so much! the people here are from all over, Mozambique, Ecuador, Columbia... So basically everyone here speaks without the theta... so I´m quickly loosing my Spanish lisp. It´s hard but I´m so new to Spanish that my trainer agrees this is definitely better. So I definitely sound more like a South American Spanish speaker now. 

My hair is so frizzy because of the humidity here. My companion finds it endearing and compliments my ¨voluptuous" hair all the time... I kinda hate it though. 

My Spanish is definitely a lot better, thanks to Hermana Trone but I still don´t feel confident in it yet. Don´t be mistaken though that doesn´t keep me from talking. Just makes me want to either cry or laugh after each lesson and contact. 

So it was Hermana Trone´s birthday on November 1st. I won´t tell you how old she turned but I will tell you she graduated from Stanford with a degree in biochemistry. Basically she´s legit. Anyways on her birthday we had pizza with the other missionaries here in the same ward and the senior couple on this island bought her rootbeer so we bought ice cream and had rootbeer floats. I don´t think I´ll have those again until I´m back in Canada. Rootbeer is pretty expensive. The senior lady (Hermana Larsen) also made us cinnamon rolls. Basically I´m equally loosing my weight in the amount of sweat I´m perspiring but gaining it back in cinnamon rolls. I´m okay with it to be honest. They´re sooo good!

So the buses here are called the "guagua" (pronounced wawa) we take it everywhere it´s super fun but I just love the funny name. 

We have a couple investigators on date. A HUGE problem here is helping people quit smoking. So Any suggestions? I want to help them so much but I know it´s hard. One of our investigators hasn´t smoked all week! Another is off cigarettes but uses an electric one, it´s a good step but she needs to stop using it too if she´s going to be baptized. Basically the work here is good, reactivation is a big goal and I LOVE IT! Honestly my companion couldn´t be better. 

If people ask what I´d like for Christmas I´d love handwritten letters and pictures, those would be my favourite! 

Nathan Smith is on another island BUT in 3 weeks we have zone conference and I get to go to his island for it! I´m excited to see him! 

I love you, I am honestly in paradise, I will take more pictures this week and send them next week. We´ve just been busy so I haven´t taken any.

Love,

Hermana West