SNOW!! :D

Hey hey heeyyyyyy! :) SO I forgot to write this up beforehand, so I'm writing this right now. I hope it isn't too jumbled! This week was super cool! actually not really, it got extremely hot this week. But after talking to the natives up here they say that that's pretty normal for it to get cold, then a week of it being hot, then it gets cold again and stays that way for the rest of the winter. yay! :)

So Chaz Peck isn't going to be progressing anymore, or at least not for a while. I think his parents put the kibosh on it again which stinks, but hopefully he will continue to progress later on. But we asked him who he knew that might be interested in hearing from us, and he said that his friend Ty Hull might be interested. So that was cool! We stopped by there and have taught him a few times. He's a good kid.

We had too many appointments again this week, so we went on splits with Elder Tuiketei and Elder Shreeve to teach Mikayla and Alonso. They live right next door to each other hahahha so it was funny we were both standing on the doorstep knocking on the door haha. But Mikayla wasn't home, so they went out and tracted the area and Elder Tuiketei and I went in and taught Alonso. He is awesome! He accepted baptism for the 24th of November. :) He is a really really good kid about 16 and has had a lot of troubles in his life. So he's pretty mature for his age and knows what's good and what's not so good for him. He's pretty interested in religion as well.

Lloyd wants to come with us tracting!! haha that's so freaking AWESOME. And he is about to get his patriarchal blessing too! That's so freaking awesome. He's going to be a general authority someday I know it haha. I love Lloyd!

Speaking of General Authority, there was a General Authority that came to our mission this week on Wednesday. He's over the missionaries in the Church! Under Elder Holland. It's crazy.He talked about missionary work and how to find new people :) He told us that we should ask recent converts, less actives, and part member families. I agree with him, because those are the families that will know the most non-members. The confrence lasted for about 6 1/2 hours! Closer to 7, actually. 

I went on exchanges with Elder Tuiketei and I had Elder Shreeve come here and be with Elder Bass so they can have a "Green day" hahahaha. (Two greenies together. They've only been out 2 weeks! hahahaha.) IT SNOWED!! Elder Tuiketei was so excited because he's from Florida so he has never really seen snow before. Correction, he HASN'T seen snow before. He had me take pictures of him holding a snow ball and I was a part of his first snowball fight! haha :) The weather here is so ridiculously weird. It snowed, then got really hot, then windy, then snowed on and off throughout the day! The weather is so bi-polar here it's weird. 

We put in a new sidewalk for the Simpsons! That was cool. We poured the cement, and then we smoothed it out and put the brush over it so it has texture and it's not as slippery in the winter. I carved my name into the side of the sidewalk ;) A couple of the wards here had halloween parties which we went to. Those are always really fun. We saw some of the people we were teaching there, too! :) 

It's really good to hear from you all! 

Love, Elder Wilson!

So many cool connections with this family! The dad looks exactly like the guy from King of Queens in real life but older. Kevin James. Their daughter is Janet Ralph, and their other daughter's son dated Kiera Davis until he left on his mission! Pretty cool.

It snowed!! :D

These were freaking gross! Peanut butter bars with a pretzel in the middle of it for the bone and an almond for the fingernail!

Aren't we so cute??

Elder Bass and I came home to find that some of his family friends had decorated our door!

...we made bunk beds. :)

It's weird having P-day on Monday again!

This is an exception  not a new thing where my P-days are going to be on Mondays. They'll still be on Tuesdays, it's just that we have a meeting that will interfere with our usual P-day.

It's starting to rain really hard! :) Well some days. Other days it's just kind of cold. Which is still awesome. Speaking of awesome, I got a letter from the Sharps this week! :)

We had zone conference on Wednesday. It went really well! It was about the Book of Mormon and how we can use it to our advantage when we teach. In Preach My Gospel, they tell us that the Book of Mormon coupled with the Spirit is the most powerful teaching tool. And I agree with that. We can use the scriptures to back us up, because just taking our word for it doesn't do anyone any good. 

An Elder in my district, Elder Tuiketei (Too-ee-ka-tay) got his bike stolen, so that kind of stinks. I guess he left it out at night and so it got jacked. So now I lock up my bike even at night haha. 

There was a guy named Thomas Henry that died Wednesday night :( He was the dad of one of the people we were teaching. We went to the funeral service at the church, and when they were all at the grave site, Elder Bass and I stayed behind and got 16 Book of Mormons and wrote in them and highlighted certain things in them. (The introduction page's first, and then last two paragraphs; Alma 40: 11-12, and then wrote our number in the front of them if they had any questions or wanted to learn more.) We left 2 on every table. When the crowd came back for lunch, we left. Later on we went back and all but one of them was gone! :) We even looked in the lost and found and none of them were there. They took them! :) We had too many appointments later that day, so we went on splits with some of the people in our wards that we cover. I went with Tom Seipel, and Elder Bass went with Joseph Bjork who just recently got off his mission maybe a month or two ago. Tom and I went to teach Malaysia and Britain, and Elder Bass and Joseph went to teach Lloyd and to get the baptismal program made. When Tom and I got to Malaysia's house, they weren't home! So instead we went to Aubry's home which is right next door and taught her. We read Alma chapter 12 with her which is a pretty sweet chapter. She called it a "spiritual slap in the face" hahaha. 

We found a new person this week, Frankie King. He's this really cool guy 29 years old. REALLY chill. He accepted November 11th as a date to get baptized, after we taught him the Restoration. He's excited and ready to get baptized! There are people everywhere for us as missionaries. We just have to have the faith to find them! :)

We met with Mikayla this week too. She's improving, slowly. ha. She wasn't interested in reading the scriptures, so instead we read out of one of the pamphlets about the plan of salvation. She seemed to understand it really well, and had a desire to learn more about it which is sweet. 

Lloyd got baptized! :) He asked me to do it, and I was honored to do it. haha ;) The service went really well. The talks were great, the baptism itself was great, and they had a lunch at their house afterwards (also great ;)) President Moffat showed up and he said it went really well! After that we went back to the church to help the Sisters set up for their baptism. Gordan Andrew Gray III. They asked me to do his baptism as well! That was a cool experience. He's a really great guy. I love baptisms in general. There's such a good Spirit at them. If any of you are reading this and don't know what I'm talking about when I say there's a special spirit at them, GO TO ONE! :) They're so cool :)

I love you, thanks for reading!

Elder Wilson

Okay, so I know that you can't see the rain but it was pouring!! haha.

This is infamous Lloyd I've been talking about. Elder Bass thinks he's tall with his shoes on ;)

Here's a picture of Gordon, the other baptism that I did on Saturday.

I was so excited to get this cereal in a package my family sent me! I've always wanted to try it! :)

Elder Bass is in tha HOUSE!

I'm in love with this weather. It's cold and raining and purely amazing!

Bloomfield is gone! That's kinda sad I think I'm gonna miss him. He went to Murray and is with someone from the same district as he was in the MTC. 

So I went to the mission office to meet the other trainers in the mission, and most importantly my trainee! :) His name is Elder Bass (pronounced like the fish) and he's from a little town in Oklahoma. He's a little guy! haha. He goes up to about my shoulder. :) I found out that his stake president used to be David A. Bednar! That's pretty cool. But he's a great missionary. He was really excited to go out and start working! During the training meeting we were in, he leaned over to me and asked "so what's the plan for today??" haha. He plays the piano I guess, so that's cool. :) When we teach, he's pretty bold (especially for a brand new missionary!) which is really good. Obviously he's not super comfortable with the lessons yet so I'm still doing most of the teaching, but he jumps in every once in a while with some good insights. 

We taught Oscar again finally, after him giving us the run around for a while. I purposely didn't tell Elder Bass anything too specific about him just so he wouldn't profile him and get a biased view. He did really well though, he talked a lot. That was the first thing we did when he got in the field too! He dropped off his bags, and we went and taught Oscar. :) Anyways, Oscar finally read a scripture! But when we were going over to his house to pick him up for church, he was sleeping. So we woke him up, and then he said he didn't want to go to church. Or read the Book of Mormon. or pray. So we told him that we are only here to invite, and that we can't force anyone to do anything. And when he changes his mind to let us know. So that's the situation with Oscar sadly. :/

District meeting went really well this week too. The zone leaders were there, but they said that they were going to leave because "you have some other visitors coming". President Moffat and Sister Moffat came!! That was pretty crazy. But it went really well. President Moffat had to leave early to go do an interview for someone, and so Sister Moffat stayed for the rest of the meeting. Sister Moffat didn't have anything to say that I could improve on! :) I asked her but she just kept saying things I did well. 

We had district lunch, to get to know each other. I love my district! :) Elder Bass didn't know how to do the Rubik's cube so I taught him and he picked it up pretty fast.

So, since Elder Bass is fresh from the MTC, I had to pull a prank on him! ;) I went to the Warnicks with him. As we were riding up towards their house, he asked me what we were doing next, so I said hey let's tract this street. Then we "started" at their house. I rang the doorbell, and the light came on but nobody answered the door for about a minute. Then all of a sudden Brother Warnick slammed open the door, holding a gun and yelled "I thought I TOLD you to never.." and right then I took off running and left Elder Bass standing on the porch! hahahaha :) I guess he stood there in astonishment and then started to say "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry" and then ran away after me hahaha :) When he got to me he said was that for real?? Then I just busted up laughing and said no Elder, it's okay it was all just a joke! Then we walked back up to the house and he was outside. Then Brother Warnick said" Haha hey, I'm Jake Warnick. Sorry about that!" Then he gave Elder Bass some pie to calm him down. He said he was pretty scared. :) 

Lloyd is the man! He got interviewed for his baptism on Saturday. Elder Reid was excited to see him, haha :) Lloyd wanted to have some of the pamphlets that we gave him so that he could teach someone in jail! Isn't that freaking legit?? Our investigator is being a missionary! :) He is getting baptized this Saturday, October 20th. He's super pumped to do it, and he asked me to baptize him! :) 

I also interviewed two of the people that the Sisters were teaching, John and Gordan. They seemed like they knew their stuff pretty well. It's so exciting seeing people getting ready for baptism! They seem so happy :)

So we were on our way to teach a family yesterday, and right as we were about to go inside, Mikayla walked up behind us and said "I saw you guys and wanted to say hi!" So I told her that we were about to go teach this family (they live on her street) and if she wanted to come in with us. She wanted to and so we taught her and the family the restoration of the gospel and the Spirit was really strong. :) I could tell Mikayla felt it. She took a copy of the Book of Mormon and promised to read it and pray to know if it's true! :) That was super exciting. :)

We have a few potential investigators that we found this week. Orlando we found when we were riding down the street, and he was working on his car trying to fix his alternator so we helped him out and he was really appreciative of us. He said we could come by and meet his family. :) There's another guy named Frankie who is just waiting to get baptized he said. He said he knows everything is true which is super super awesome! And a few others so hopefully they turn out. :)

I think Elder Bass and I are going to get along pretty well. :) How are things back home? Hopefully going well! 

I love all of you! :)

-Elder Wilson

Don't we have a Dyer Lane? Isn't it haunted??

We tracted into the Grinch!! hahaha. :)

Yes, we did end up knocking on this door. :)

I saw Elder Clark at the local bike shop!!! :) I have no idea how...

Elder Bass and I

Transfers!

It's starting to actually get cold! :) I love it! I wore a jacket the other day. BRING IT ON, WINTER!

So transfers is tomorrow, and I found out that Elder Bloomfield is moving to Murray and I'm staying here again :) And I'm training! I'm gonna have my first son! ;) I don't know his name, so I will let you know next email! We're also splitting one of the sister's areas, and white washing (bringing in two missionaries that have never been in the area before). I'M GETTING ANOTHER SET OF ELDERS IN MY DISTRICT! :) I'm excited. Elder Tuiketei (Too-ee-ka-tay). He's also training.

When we taught Lloyd this week, he is still reading the Book of Mormon and progressing really well :) He watched all of conference, and he wrote down questions that he had. ALL OF THEM GOT ANSWERED!! That was so cool :) He said he really loved conference and that he learned a lot from it. :) He's a great guy.

We stopped by Russ Howell again this week, but we weren't able to schedule an appointment until yesterday night. But that was good, he's a really cool guy. We brought Jordan Simpson with us and he really idols Russ haha. Because he's trying to learn how to skateboard and since Russ is a pro skater (the first one, actually which is super super awesome) he wanted to meet him. Anyways, Russ was talking with Jordan and he said "hey, we should get together and skate sometime!" Jordan almost fainted hahahaha.

So we went to Subway and right as we were about to pay a guy came up and said no put that on my card instead. That was super nice of him. But the main reason I'm telling you this is because his son's best friend is in the Roseville California mission!! His name is Elder Coburn. Is he in anyone's ward back home?? That would be cool.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. We had an appointment with him on Wednesday at 6, so we invited Tom Seipel to come out with us. He said he really liked coming out with us! :) We answered a few of Oscar's questions, and then I taught the background of the Restoration, emphasizing baptism. Then after that we went to 2 Nephi 31 and read from there about how Jesus Christ was baptized and how he said to "follow me". :) which means to follow His example and to be baptized! He accepted!! :) So we set a date for October 27^th, and he said he would, but that he will have to double check to make sure that works for him. Ah! I'm so excited!

We had zone training meeting this week too, which was awesome! They taught about how to get and keep people on date, which was good. Elder Bloomfield and I were the missionaries, and there was another missionary role playing the part of one of his investigators, so that we could show him how to get over the obstacle. That went really well, and Elder Bloomfield brought up a really awesome scripture that really brought everything home that we were "teaching". :) I think that missionary really got a lot out of the role play which was really good.

GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING! I learned sooo much from it. It was definitely the highlght of my mission so far. Well actually I don't know about that. But it was super super super good! And the news about younger missionaries was incredible! We went to a family's house to clean off our shoes from doing service that day, and they invited us to watch conference with them. So we accepted, but the dad wasn't home yet so Elder Bloomfield and I waited outside while the family was inside. They turned it up loud and left the door open so we could hear it haha. When President Monson announced that guys can go on missions at 18 and girls at 19 the whole house erupted in screams and cheers and everything it was insane!! That was really cool. I'm excited to see how well the 18 year olds are prepared when they come out. I think they will be. And it's definitely going to be weird having sister missionaries my age. What was everyone's favorite talk?? I think mine was probably Elder Holland's. When he was speaking as if Christ was talking to us and said "Do you love me?" That was so intense! Haha. Anyways I hope everyone loved it as much as I did.

The zone went to the Saturday afternoon session together which was really cool. We took the trax (which is basically like the bart or above ground subway) to the Salt Lake City and walked the rest of the way. It was a really cool experience. I got so much out of that session! :) And afterwards Sydnee found me! Hahaha that was really strange. I didn't recognize her at first! I was like who is this girl walking up to me right now? And why is she smiling so much..? OH! That's Sydnee!! haha. We caught up for a while and took a picture (the one on her camera is better but I'm sending the one from mine too.) That was really good. And I bounced right back into missionary mode after that, don't worry mom! ;)

I felt so bad though, not talking to someone on the trax to go to conference. I saw a lady that I swear I've seen before, and it looked as if she had seen me from somewhere before too, but I have know idea where from. I really really hope the Lord puts her in my path again to be able to talk to her. I felt prompted to talk to her and I ignored it. :( :( I hate that feeling!

Hope all is going well back at home, I pray for you all every night!

Love, Elder Wilson.

 A basketball that I got. Pretty cool, eh? ;) 

For those times at night when there's nothing else to do, hahaha.

Elder Bloomfield and I

In the Conference Center!! :) 

Look how close we were for watching General Conference! :)

Sydnee found me! :) 

Elder Harvey my previous District Leader is going home tomorrow! He's really bummed about it. But I got hime to smile for the picture!

October Already?

So this week I'm going to change things up a bit on the way I email home. I'm going to talk about people and how they're progressing (or not progressing) and things I've felt or thought about this week and the miracles that have happened. So let me know what you think about it.
Lloyd! He is definitely our most solid person we're meeting with. We found him last week but he is doing really really well. He is already reading the Book of Mormon, praying, coming to church, everything! He even asked us if he can go to General Conference. :) He's a really great guy.

Mackenzie got confirmed Saturday. She actually is moving to Texas, and to make a LONG story short, she had to get confirmed the 29th instead of the planned day of the 30th of September. She has changed so much since we first met with her. She is breaking her mom's cigarettes hahaha and telling her that she needs to stop because she's breaking the Word of Wisdom :) And she is always really eager to pray in lessons and things like that. It's fun to see people progress like she has! But like I said, she is moving to Texas so we won't be able to meet with her anymore. :/ Bishop Booth said he would contact her new bishop down there and let them know that she is coming and is a new member. :)

I went on exchanges with Elder Reid this week. All the Zone Leaders have to go on exchanges (where you switch companions with another companionship for 24 hours) with all the District Leaders in their Zone, and since I'm a District Leader they went on one with me and Elder Bloomfield. Elder Reid is so legit! He's exactly like me. He likes the same music, hobbies, everything. We got along really well. He made doing missionary work even more fun than it already is! Elder Reid got to teach Lloyd with me, and he fell in love with him hahaha. He loved how solid Lloyd is! :) But yeah he is a great Zone Leader. He taught me a few things that I can put to use in my teaching.

Elder Bloomfield is really improving confidence-wise. He and I were riding along one day and we saw a guy walking down the street and I pointed him out to Elder Bloomfield, to try and have him go talk to the guy. He was reluctant, but eventually he got the guts to do it. :) The guy stopped and actually talked to us! He said he was interested in meeting with the missionaries. I could tell that Elder Bloomfield was happy he did it :) Such a proud parent moment! ;) He's opening up a lot, I hope we stay together in transfers happening on October 10th.

This last Sunday was fast Sunday around here since General Conference is this weekend. THIS WEEKEND! Make sure every one of you that is reading this watches it! Especially Saturday afternoon session in case you see me ;) I can't remember if I've told you this or not but the youth from around here are singing in General Conference Saturday afternoon session as well, so watch it to see if they're good or not! (They are!)

ANYWAYS to get back to the point, it was fast Sunday and I was fasting for a lot of things, but one specifically was to be able to feel the Spirit strongly. I love doing that because it is SO MUCH more noticable when I am feeling the Spirit and when I'm not. :) So if any of you have a hard time recognizing if you're feeling the Spirit or not, pray or fast to be able to be spiritually sensitive :) Or read Galatians 5: 22-26 to know if you're feeling the Spirit or not!

Hope all is well back home!
Until then,
PEACE!
-Elder Wilson
P.S. I was super stoked that I found some “perfect pushups” at a yard sale, and the guy only wanted 1 dollar! I also picked up a pull up bar at another garage sale a while ago for a dollar, and I have two 35 lb dumbbells that I got for free! I'm excited haha ;)

We saw this truck and I had to take a picture of it hahaha. There's a hidden message on it ;)

We went to In-N-Out! :)

A cute picture that Mackenzie drew. Elber Wilson and Elber Bloomfielb! ;)

Our district hahaha. It's a pretty fun one. Elder Reid and Elder Willis are our zone leaders, Elder Reid is on the very left and Elder Willis is the one with his arms out. Sister Crockett is the one in the green, to her right with the blonde hair is Sister Young her comp, then in the front is Sister Paongo and Sister Veith.