Ok so I'm super sorry about not writing you yesterday! as you could probably tell by no letter, i got transferred!! but it was not what everyone expected, i got sent to the complete other side of the island to satins furnace in DAJABON! right on the Haitian border. But right now its December so its not that hot, but there are tons of mosquitoes. More than Esperanza. haha its the area no missionary wants to go, but i think its actually kind of cool. There is like nothing here but things are so cheap. I can buy shoes for 3 dollars, and ties are really nice for 15 pesos. My companion is Elder Leonardo, he is really cool and goes home 6 weeks before i do! We live with the zone leaders so i love how its a 4 man house. The zone leaders are also Dominican so its me alone with 3 Dominicans, but i know all 3 and they are super cool and i know Spanish, so its all good!

So ya i started traveling at 7 in the morning and got to Dajabon at 7 at night, it was a long day! We had an activity at the church and we played basketball. so it was a good day!

Well i woke up this morning and totally forgot it was thanksgiving until i was writing in my journal and wrote the date, and was like, no!!!!!!!!! Why did i remember haha. it sounds like you guys will have a great time eating turkey and pies and all that good stuff. I told the Elders in my house today was a very special day so they are going to buy me pizza and turkey haha! so ill try to make it a good thanksgiving until next year with you guys!

We had our baptism on Saturday and it was really good! i think that is like number 15 or so. We have alot of cool people here with dates so ill try to work super hard, this zone is the most baptizing zone in the mission, so pray for me! ill give you more details on my area next week.

Well i don’t got much to write this week, but i want to tell you guys what I'm thankful for, i don’t know if you are all together right now eating or not, but here it goes...... I'm so grateful for the chance i have been given to be here in the Dominican Republic serving my Lord Jesus Christ and bringing souls to him. I love this Gospel and would give my life for it! I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon, it has changed my life! and thankful for two loving parents who have raised me in the gospel my whole life and have constantly taught me lessons of life. I love you Mom and Dad, and i love my brothers Jared and Josh. You guys are such great examples for me, especially the example you guys made going on missions. Thanks for everything, your my best friends and especially my little sister Jakelle. ill never forget the times we have always shared and the time i would take you and pick you up from dance and show you all my favorite songs! Thanks for being a great sister. I'm thankful for all my other family and there support. i love you all and hope you have a great day! We will talk in 4 weeks so I'm excited! I love you, bye!

Elder Jesse Westergard

Well mom i will correct you on what you said about my wrist and the boys beeting me, you and i both know that that is impossible right? me losing to the boys in golf? thats like saying michael jordan will lose to a 15 year old one on one! by the way, dad, Phil Mickelson will never receive 3 million dollars just to show up to a golf tournament, i think you just need to face the facts now, Tiger is the best! wow Josh that stinks so bad that your knee is all messed up! que vas a hacer por 6 meses? jaja tu vas a ver mucho juegos de balancesto y tiger woods verdad? oh y tienes que beber mucho dr. pepper y recordar que tu hermano en la republica dominicana tiene que beber coca cola....hmmmmm. no hay aqui, pero en puerto plata si hay Dr. Pepper y mt. dew! bueno buenas suerte y estas en mis oraciones. te quiero! sorry mom and dad and jakelle and lexi, you guys dont know spanish, ask Jared or Josh what that meant, but i cant believe the Suns are in 1st place! thats insane, im jealous you guys get to see them good this year.

Here everything is going good! this is my last pday in this area and i will know where im going on Monday, about everyone in the zone is like 98 percent convinced ill be the next zone leader, plus president told me in my interview i was going up next transfer and the zone leader right now is going home next week. soooooo ill let you know on Wednesday ok?? so dad your teaching an inactive and there having trouble with tithing....well something i like to do is teach by examples. like ill say, ok you have 100 pesos(think of dollars for your situation) and tithing is 10%, so you should pay 10 dollars. sure 10 dollars is alot but look at how much you got left, 90!! so if they look at it that way it could be alot easier. like someone who has 1million pays 100,000 but still has 900,000. so really it helps with me and the people here. and then you just tell them experiences you have had or heard of. so i dont know you can try and talk about that.

We have a baptism on Saturday and im super stoked for that, baptism on my last week here. so that will be fun. Well the big news of the week is that Elder Russel M. Ballard was here in the Dominican Republic to have a fireside with all the Caribbean, so we got together as a steak and all the missionaries here and watched this fireside. there was talks from the area presidency in spanish and last Elder Ballard talked! but i was so glad he did it in english! he said it first and then someone said it in spanish after! i will tell you right now that i have never heard a more powerful talk in my whole life! he talked about how we have the rights to know what we should know through revelation. it was amazing! he shared about 7 stories of pure revelation that would make the hairs on your back stand up! i want to share one of them with you....

Elder Ballard was going down to Chile to sperate a steak into 2 steaks. so he got there and met with the Stake President and said, ok President where are all the other people i am to interview?? the President only brought 3 people with him he thought could be the new President. and Elder Ballard said you didnt get my letter?? i wanted all of the Bishops here, counselors, high councel, of all the steaks. you call them now and tell them to get here so i can interview them! by the time they all got there it was late so they didnt do all the interviews, all but 2! so they had to do them the next morning before church where they were going to anounce the president, but Elder Ballard had not recieved a answer yet. so in the morning one hour and a half before church started, the first of the two came in and they shook hands. Elder Ballard instantly said, do i know you?? the man said we shook hands last year at general conference. Elder Ballard thought, i shook thousands of hands last year, but he sticks out to me?? Elder Ballard went on to call him as President and then told him im really sorry but now you have to think of your bishops and counselors and high priests in an hour and a half, the man looked at him and pulled out a peice of paper, he said Elder Ballard last night i received witness that i would be called as president and i knew the people that would be called as leaders to, these are all the names! WOW!!!! so can you believe that story or what?? talk about revelation, i cant tell you how much my testimony grew because of that story. After Elder Ballard said jokingly, father why didnt you just let me know you had something in mind so i didnt have to worry about all that haha.

Well thats about it from here, i cant believe that thanks giving is next Thursday, the day after transfers. it seems like last month i was in Puerto Plata with 3 months in the mission playing football on the beach with my trainer... that was a year ago! well time seems to go by faster as the more time i get here, its weird that in january ill complete a sister mission. haha. well i love you all so very much! your in my prayers and i hope im in yours, especially if im ZL and will be doing lots of work. bye! love elder westergard

Wow this week was going so great until mom made me feel dumb about miss spelling baPtism!! haha it was kind of funny though, but really it was good till this morning playing softball. There was a fly ball to me out in center field and i was sprinting to get it, and i stuck my hand out and the softball struck my wrist, the one i broke, and i dropped to the ground! it hurt really bad and now its just badly bruised. but we did win the game 15-14!! it was an intense game, missionaries verses a actual baseball team. Ill put up a photo we took at the end to.

But as i said this week was super amazing, especially in one lesson we were talking about the 3rd lesson, gospel of Jesus Christ, and i was testifying of babtism and the authority and that were the only church that has it, the spirit was so strong and me and my comp both instantly felt we should put dates with them, so i said, will you guys follow the example of Jesus Christ and be babtized in the true church with someone who has the authority of god?? and they said yes and how they want to preach like us also! that night was a super strong testimony builder for me, its times like those i remember why I'm here and get the biggest animo boost!

Our district meeting on Monday was also very good and i learned so much! i gave the spiritual thought and i shared some verses from Alma 5, its very strong but i love it. How we wont be able to lie to god at judgement day and how Alma asks if we are doing what we should be doing now and not later! then the capacitation by the district leader was about finding people through the members. Its something this country's members need to work on, they don't really like to give us references, but a stat my old president gave us was for every 80 or so contacts, there is 1 baPPPtism, better mom??. and for every 7 references there is 1 baptism. so references are really important. so ya it was super good.

It sounds like everything in Arizona is good except the heat. I'm sorry but not really because its hot here every day, all year, it does get cold at 3-7 in the morning. Wow the Suns are 7-1?? man that's super exciting, i cant wait to go to games again, being here in the DR i have grown to love baseball again since that horrible day i will never forget when i got hit then quit baseball haha. but dad don't get rid of the Diamondback tickets because if no one will use them i will use them all the time. that's good that no one has the flu in the family, stay safe. Josh good luck your in my prayers, i hope you feel better soon.

I cant believe Cameron Tryon is home already! that's super weird and Brandon is getting married?? Wow can you believe that you will be talking to me in 1.5 months?? and that means you only have one more phone call from me in May, which is my 21 birthday......um....ok never mind don't think about that its so close and i don't want to go home. I love the mission and it will be so weird being at home. Transfers are coming up in 2 weeks so we will see what happens with the whole Zone Leader thing, i actually hope i go up, so i can focus on the work these last 9 months. Well family i don't know what else to say, sounds like you are all good. be safe and i love you so much and have a wonderful Veterans Day!

I love you all. adios! Elder Westergard

Snake Snapped at Me.

Sweet Snake

Rainbow after the Storm.

Sandlot Gang!

Hey everyone, how are you all doing? It sounds like everything is good! wow i cant believe that was my last Halloween in the mission, it was sad to think about but ill be home for the next one! I was really craving moms chili with some IBC root beer and black cherry, but i had something else that was really good. To start it off, we had those 2 kids get baptized, Wendy and Nichole on Saturday, then after we went to a steakhouse and got fillet mignon, and here it was only like 9 dollars! it was really good to, so we had a really good week. Saturday we have another baptism, another kid like the others. so were really excited about that.

Yesterday we went to Santiago for our zone conference with President Lee. It seems like 2 weeks ago i was just in a zone conference, that was 6 weeks ago. time is flying so fast i don't know what to do with it! next thing you know ill be home. The conference was good though, we talked about unity between companionship's, it was a super good conference.

We also had our interviews with the President and i learned something very interesting and scary. president told me i was only going to be with my comp for 1 transfer and to prepare myself for a big responsibility! I also know the zone leader here goes home in 3 weeks. I'm about 95 percent sure I'm the next zone leader, so we will see. I'm really nervous.
All in all this has been a really great week, I'm glad you were ready to defend the church. really the book i told you about, the day of defense is so good for that. Well i don't know what else to say besides happy NOVEMBER! oh and don't worry, Christmas stuff has been up here since October1st, ya i hate it!
well OK i will put pics up today. i love you so much!

Love Elder Westergard

Elder Nuñez, Frazier , Westergard. he went to highland

After Church picture

Steakhouse after baptisms

My 2 baptisms and Fraziers 1 baptism.

Wendy and Nicholas family

So comfortable at the steak activity

Matching pants!! Elder Beahrman

Mesa boys!!!!!