It’s good to be out here in the mission field to be able to bring miracles to people everyday...

Hey guys!

 

I got to give a blessing this week to a nice old lady in our branch who had her toe amputated and was really infected so me and Elder Zander went to the hospital and I gave her a blessing.  We visited her yesterday and said that her toe was now fine and didn’t hurt whatsoever since the day of the blessing, just more evidence of the power of the priesthood.

So the baptism with one of our investigators didn’t go though. It’s ok though I guess he just isn’t ready yet. We have about 6 investigators who are so close to baptism it’s pretty awesome the spirit just has to help them in this last little stretch. We got two new investigators this week which is pretty crazy as well. Both of them are super interested and are soaking up everything we say like a sponge. If they can keep commitments they will be in very good shape.

This week I have been to some pretty poor houses, it’s really humbling to see how some of these people live out here. One crazy experience we had with one was a lady who pretended (very poorly I might add) who pretended to be blind ha-ha! Elder Zander and I couldn't believe it! It’s crazy what some people will do out here ha-ha.

This week we also helped a lady who is one the sister missionaries investigators move out of her apartment ALL BY OURSELVES, we were so tired by then end, good thing she only lives in an apartment and didn’t have too much stuff.  There was lots of other service we did as well but I don’t have time to go into all of it.

 So in our stake we have 3 people who work for the Northern Virginia daily, including Pres. Wright and me and Elder Zander are getting a big ad space in the paper advertising us missionaries to help out with service and share messages. It even has a big picture of us on it.

 When it comes out I will cut it out and send it to you so you guys can see it. It was awesome to see you guys went to Curtis’ and Midge's farewells. I am so glad to see some of my other friends going on missions.  I hope tanner and Rob end up going on missions. 

Anyways its good to here from you guys, I love you all very much and miss you guy’s everyday. But it’s good to be out here in the mission field to be able to bring miracles to people everyday. I hope to get your letters soon. You’re in my thoughts and prayers everyday. Have an awesome week you guys and make sure you all have fun!

Love Wes

 

Elder Zander and I have been super busy

Hi Guys!  

So the baptism didn’t work out for Sunday because we had stake conference! But it’s on for next week so don’t worry. Stake conference was really good; president Richards came and spoke to everyone as well as Pres Wright and many others so it was really good. Elder Zander and I have been super busy this past week that I haven’t even had a moment to think about anything else back home or anything, but I guess that’s a good thing. I’m super stoked that UTAH won, me and Elder Zander who is an avid BYU fan had a bet on the game and he was not happy that they lost Haha.

That’s cool you met up with Elder Sander’s parents at the real estate thing. This email is going to be kind of short, I’m sorry to say, but I will write you all a letter today! I hope you are all doing well; We are doing well here in Woodstock! BTW we got a new super enthusiastic investigator who already wants to be baptized so were excited to teach her! I love you all so much, I hope work and school is going good for all of you. All of my friends and lots of people from the ward have sent me emails so that made me happy! That’s good you guys spoke in church with Russell, I am sure it was a great sacrament meeting! Tell Russell to write me next time you see him and till him I miss him! Anyways I got to go ill talk to you guys soon.

Love Wes

 

On his birthday

Thanks for all the birthday wishes and everything! I have had an awesome day so far. I just got my hair cut by one of the member, so that was really good.  I will... go to McDonalds. I feel really bad because I don’t have enough time to answer hardly any letters or emails so please thank the family for all the things that they have sent me and all of the kind encouraging words. Imp glad you had a good time at dinner with Brandi, by her emails it didn’t sound like the missionaries bothered her, but don’t push her in to it. It sounds like the birthdays were crazy and fun, so I hope they enjoyed their birthdays. I also hope the girls got the letters I sent to them. So on Saturday I got to go the temple with sister Wooster, and it was really awesome. The DC temple is very nice, but I wrote you a letter explaining it more into detail you can read. Me and Elder Zander are always busy whether were teaching or giving service we are always working hard. The members have been feeding us really well since I have been there so usually we don’t have to make dinner, so that’s really nice. We postponed our baptism for two weeks from now but that’s ok, he will be ready then. We have two other really good families who are getting really close to baptism and are really embracing the gospel and already telling there co-workers about the church! We are really blessed here in Woodstock; there is a lot of success here compared to most of the areas in the mission. We email at our church, they just put in another computer so we can both email at the same time, so that is really nice. Our branch is getting really close to becoming a ward, so hopefully we can get it their. There is a ton of stuff you get when you become a ward, such as a building expansion, priesthood keys etc. The weather here is getting cooler really fast; the leaves here are also turning really fast already, its going to look so cool when all the leaves have changed. I will send the memory card really soon, I'm not going to have time to do thank you cards, so I know you want me to send them but I don’t think its going to happen. All my friends back at home, all sound really bored with everyone going on missions, college, etc so I’m glad I left before everyone ha-ha. I have not heard from either tanner or Robby yet though which is kind of weird but oh well. I hope you are all doing good back at home, I miss you guys allot, the work here is good and so I’m just trying to stay really busy so I don’t have time to think about anything else ha-ha so that helps most of the time. Thanks for the gift cards and food by the way. They will put to use very soon ha-ha. Well I am going to wrap this up, but keep sending me letters and emails as often as you can, I love to read them! I love you guys very much; I know the lord is watching out for you back at home.

 

Elder Wes and Elder Ben learning to use a tractor and doing service project

 Elder LeGrande with the sweet sister that has a pet wolf at the Washington DC Temple

Elders at a member's home in Woodstock.

Week 4 "We cut down pretty much a whole forest out here with a chain saw and drove around a tractor"

This last week has been really good. I have gotten used to things out here a lot more. Me and my companion are getting a guy named Dave baptized on Sunday so I am excited for that. The sister missionaries are also having a lady baptized on Sunday as well! The thing that kind of stinks is was not supposed to be the ones to baptize our investigators because President Richards wants members to baptize them, but oh well haha.

Our area here in the mission has not only the highest percent of baptisms but also just the most baptisms period. Our area doesn’t have a ton of people either so we are really blessed to be doing so well here. I have so much other stuff to tell you.  Anyway the members out here are awesome even with only about 120 active members in our branch, the calendar to feed us missionaries is always packed full so that is awesome. Every member’s house I have been to so far has all served me and my companion really good food.

There is one lady named Sister Clark who loveeeeees missionaries, so she’s become a really good friend and always buys us pizza and subway. She always has an ice cold mountain dew for me too :) haha she is soooo awesome. A recent convert named who was recently baptized is another good friend of ours, we she lives on  and over a mountain so it takes about 40 minutes to go to her house and we have to take the sketchiest one way dirt road to her house haha. Her husband died about 2 months ago and she lives on about 10 acres of forest and she needs a lot of help, so we do service for her every week. She’s the lady that has a pet wolf haha, has really cool and friendly but if he jumps up on you he will scratch you BAD and make you bleed so has kind of dangerous haha.

We cut down pretty much a whole forest [out] here with a chain saw and drove around a tractor with a cart full of dirt and filled up a half acre of holes. It was way tiring but fun and good work out. She always gives us fresh jelly and salsa so that’s tasty. The work here is really good, we have 10 investigators total and many of them are close to baptism. So that’s awesome.

Me and Elder Zander went and visited a less active man named brother so and so on Friday. Has about 32 and his wife died two weeks ago of cancer leaving behind him and 3 kids. As soon as we got to his house this full grown man balled his eyes out to us for about two hours. Me and Elder Zander hardly knew what to say to comfort him. We gave him a blessing and he felt a little better but was still a wreck. He had recently quit smoking  but had started up again smoking 3 packs a day. Its really sad and he has a good heart but he hasn’t been able to do anything since she passed away. He has so much work to do including finishing a second house and moving out two massive storage units of stuff. So the next day on Saturday we spend four hours moving 5 dishwashers 3 dryers, 3 stoves, 3 fridges and about 35 cabinets into a storage unit with his sister and brother while he sat at home crying.....

President Wright and our branch president are both super awesome guys they help us so much, President Wright is taking me out to lunch on Monday for my birthday, he is such an awesome guy. I have lots of other awesome experiences that I will share with you later.

Me and my companion play basketball every morning in the local Central high school so that’s fun and we both really enjoy that, my companion is a pretty good player. We have a bench press and abs chair in our apartment so we work out with those quite often. Since I got here I cant already bench press about 15 reps more than I could earlier, its about a 100 pounds.

It is still insanely humid here, although the weather is cooling down so it is a lot better. Thanks dad for updating me on scores I really wanted to know all of those.  I'm so glad the Niners and Utah won, My companion is a big BYU fan so we like to talk some friendly smack haha. I am already known around here for how high I can jump haha, Every chance I get with members or kids on the street I try and dunk it hahaha, I actually got some good white man dunks in here so that’s good haha. I am so jealous I didn’t get to go to the TOTO concert I’m sure it was freaking awesome. Anyways I have to go but I miss you all sooooo much

Ps: For my birthday I’ll be happy with whatever you give me, I could use some snacks and stuff though haha, I buy mountain dew every week so I’m usually good on that :)

 

Elder Wes LeGrande and his companion, Ben Zander eat a meal at Café Rio when taken there by a generous member. Westley's favorite!

Elder Wes first letter from Virginia in "the sticks"

So I'm in the sticks of Virginia in the middle of freaking nowhere! Me and my new companion elder Zander from south Jordan’s apartment is in a town called Woodstock Virginia. It is so different out here than I ever could have expected, especially when I had mentally prepared myself for Baltimore. So first and foremost my mission president and his wife are pretty cool they have a really big nice house in Ellington, where I had a good dinner with the other 35 missionary’s ha-ha. I have to admit while I was there my first day and kept thinking to myself, what in the heck am I doing here?

 

Reality seriously slapped me hard in the face it was super difficult. We spent that night in a nice hotel where they had a good breakfast, and then we went to the transfer meeting where we all had to bare our testimonies in front of a lot of people so that was scary. I found Taylor Petterson there and we were both super stoked to see each other, so that was pretty awesome. My new companion elder Zander and I are really different to say the least. He has only been out SIX WEEKS and he is training me. He’s a good missionary for how long he has been out but we both have different personalities and stuff so we butt heads a little so that’s a little frustrating.

 

Anyway our apartment is really nice by missionary standards. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a decent little kitchen so that’s nice. I just barely went shopping at Wal-Mart (pretty much the only store within 30 miles) and bought some food, I think I budgeted pretty good and got a two liter of mountain dew so that’s good ha-ha. I have already taught so many people I have lost count, many of the people are super nice out here until you travel 5 miles away then all the hicks just want to kill us ha-ha. Living in the middle of nowhere is really weird and hard. There is a little over a 100 members in our branch that covers about 30 miles ha-ha. To put things in perspective of how in the middle of nowhere I am, I have seen two wolves, a snake, a fox and about 300 possums. Apparently there are black bears every where too. The bugs and humidity here are INSANE I look soaking wet all day from how much I sweat, and the bugs just flock to me, there are humongous spiders and roaches everywhere. Mom you would NOT like it here ha-ha. Yes people eat possum and all other crazy stuff out here, its like a place you would see in a movie. I have had lots of great experiences out here but even more hard experiences.

 

 There is so much more things I could tell you, I just don’t have time. We had three baptisms on date yesterday and all of them fell through :( hopefully on sunday though they will be ready. Everyone out here has already heard the gospel from the previous missionaries or already has an opinion so its really hard to get investigators especially with our large spread out area. Anyways please send me letters and things as often as possible. You dont truly understand how important mail is until your out here. Your letters and things sometimes are the only thing that gets me though the day. I am really trying to lose myself in the lords work and focus, but it’s really hard to not think about home. Btw you can send all letters to the mission home, it takes awhile to get to me though I guess because I haven’t gotten anything since I have been here. Anyways enough about me, how are you all doing

 

 LDS members out here are all huge BYU fans including the stake president who is one of me and Elder Zander’s good friends. He writes for the AP and Dessert news, he’s a super awesome guy and has bought us dinner 3 times already. You have no idea how good it is to have so many good members back home. There are only a handful of really solid families out here and they have so much responsibility with multiple callings and things, I feel bad for some of them. BTW one our new investigators are from New York and are a DT (Dream Theater) fan! so that was a cool conversation I had with him ha-ha. I hope school is going good for the girls and they are making lots of friends

 

Anyways I better wrap this up even though there is so much to share. Oh yea btw thanks for shipping my bike, its way to hot to ride it right now ha-ha, good thing we have a 2010 corolla to drive around hahahahaha. Anyways I love you all so much I hope I come back alive ha-ha I almost got killed 5 times already by various things, not to make you worry! hahaha ;) I hope to here from ya soon. I think about you all every single day.

 

-love Wes

 

 

Elder LeGrande's arrival to the Baltimore Airport, Mission Home and Transfer to new area



Elder LeGrande Getting
Luggage at Baltimore Airport



33 New Incoming Missionaries

Elder Dallin Smith and Elder LeGrande with another elder

 

 
 
 

 

Elder LeGrande wonders if this is all a dream

"Another Picture?"



"The cooking by the mission president's
wife is like home cooking"

Elder LeGrande shovels it in- "it may be a
 while before I eat again"





 Group photo of new missionaries
outside mission home





 

Return with honor

 
 


"We are the coolest missionaries ever"

 


Elder Dallin Smith (Wes friend from
Copper Hills 7th Ward) 



Elder LeGrande with Sister & P
resident Richards



Waiting to get new area assignments



"Yes! We are ready to be new companions!"

 


Elder LeGrande meets new companion