Anything Can Happen!

Do you believe in miracles? I do, for sure. Last week was pretty long and slow, so I prayed for miracles. And the Lord definitely listens to prayers! When we were walking in an apartment complex that we cover, we saw Heather and her daughters getting out of their car. It was awesome! We were trying to get a chance to even see her outside because we weren't able to get a hold of her by phone or the door. So we went up and talked to her! After we talked for a while, we asked her if she wanted to get a blessing sometime soon to help with the sickness. She said definitely yes, and so when we went back there we invited her to be baptized again and she agreed to April 13th! She doesn't want to have a big one like her daughters, she wants it to be smaller. So that's good. Sister Watson will also be [hopefully] baptized soon. We're going to shoot for the 13th of April as well.

There's a ton happening on the 13th! A boy we were teaching in my first area is finally getting baptized then. He has been wanting his grandpa to baptize him and he lives in Alaska and owns his own business, so he doesn't get a chance to come down here very often. That will be cool to see that! His name is Cruize Johnson, but I always want to call him Crush Johnson for some reason haha. It just seems like that would fit him well I guess.

The weather here has been crazy bipolar. It was hot one day, enough to sweat while wearing a jacket, and the next day it was FREEZING with a blizzard going on. It makes it hard to know what to wear when we don't have access to the weather forecast. So usually we're caught up in whatever mother nature throws our way. I asked Elder Dean if he were cold or not, and he said me? nope! He's lived in Ohio for a while so that makes sense I guess.

We wanted to surprise the Watsons, so last P-day Elder Dean and I went over there in shorts, tshirts, hats, and shades! If I got a picture of his face when he saw us I would definitely send it home. It was priceless. hahahaha. And before anyone freaks out and tries to pretend that they're a mission president... yes it was still P-day hours, so, we weren't breaking any rules! He said he almost didn't let us in because we looked like complete strangers. I forget how different we look not in a suit and tie.

Another awesome thing happened yesterday. We got a referral to visit someone, and so we went there. It was a long bike ride but it was well worth it! Turns out he's a really nice guy and was wanting to hear more about the gospel! He was really nice to us. He wanted to have us over, and so we set up a time on Thursday to visit with him. We're going to invite him to be baptized on April 20th! Wish us luck.

Just now a lady walked up to us and asked us where we're from, and then if it were Pday and we were emailing. We said yes, and so she told us to tell our families hi for her. So, hi.

It seems like Spring isn't going to happen! I feel like it will just go straight from Winter to Summer. What about you? General conference is coming up in a few weeks so that means that we will be able to take off the suit coats soon. I'm excited for that. And not just that we'll be able to take off our coats but I'm just excited for General Conference in general! It's fun to pray about a question we've been having and then to get the answer in one of the talks that are given. Pretty cool. I don't know if I'll be able to go to it again, but I hope I will be able to! Last time it was an awesome experience. And Sydnee said she wouldn't try and look for me again. haha. Doesn't mean I won't try to! Just kidding, honest!

Well I hope everything's going well back home. :) 

love ya!

Elder Wilson.

 Elder Dean and I took a picture with the Easter Bunny!

 If you don't have any haters, you're not doing it right.

This is something I expected to see in Ghettolope! Not Midvale!! hahaha.

Transfers!

So this transfer call came and turns out that Elder Dean and I are staying together for another transfer!! I'm STILL the District Leader. But our district got a lot smaller which is nice. Except now all we have are sisters in it. Me, Elder Dean, then Sisters Cordoba, Guerrero, Norman, and Young. And then the senior couple Elder and Sister Moore! The other two Elders are in another district. They closed down one area and merged it with the area next to it.

This week was definitely dodge-the-missionary week. On Friday, we had 5 out of the 6 appointments we had scheduled fall through. Either they cancelled or just didn't answer the door. Saturday was the same story, except it was 3 out of the 5 cancelled. So a little better. But Heather's baptism didn't go through. LONG STORY short, she was too sick and so we pushed it back to March 30th. :/ Satan's really working hard on our area lately but we're not giving up. We're hitting the pavement hard and eventually the Lord will give us success. Also, we're devastated but not discouraged!

Some funny things happened this week though, not gonna lie. We were in the middle of comp study when suddenly we hear this lady's voice coming through the side door of our apartment. We both look at each other like uh.. who the heck is that...? (Our landlord/lady were in Colorado so we knew it wasn't them.) so we get up, and come to find out that there's the landlady's sister who we've never met just walking through our apartment!! She didn't even say hi or anything, the first thing she said was "if you didn't lock the front door we wouldn't have to come in through here!" hahaha. Then she said "Hey, do you have border patrol's number by a chance?" hahahaha. it was weird. So they went upstairs to use the Jividen's computer and look up the border patrol's number. And we went back to comp study.

Then as we were tracting we heard this weird sound behind us and we saw a guy rollin' down the street in one of those electric carts that you can use at walmart or a grocery store. He was driving down the road at about 2 miles an hour. Complete with camo shorts, flipflops, a visor, and some shades. Then he started down a really busy street still going that slow!! I know he didn't need it though because it got stuck on the HUGE gutters that Utah seems to always have and so he got off, and lifted it onto level ground then kept on going. haha it made our day.

Sister Watson said she wants Elder Dean and I to baptize her!! So we were a little scared that we might not be able to if one of us got transferred out but both of us stayed! So we're going to help her realize that maybe that was a sign from God to get baptized since He let us both stay here. :) I'll let you know how that goes!!

Other than that it was just a normal week this week.
Until next time,
PEACE.
Elder Wilson

Found out the reason why some Elders didn't answer their phone...

apparently it "fell out and Elder Nuttall ran over it with his bike".

So they taped it up to hold the battery in. 

 How often do you see this?

Our excuse when they complained about the sign: But we needed to visit
you to MAKE an appointment!

How do you like me now??

Elder Dean and I got haircuts today. I'll send a before and after picture, tell me what you think! hahaha. I might as well try it while on my mission. (Yes, it's allowed mom don't worry.)

This week went pretty well. We found a new investigator, Jasmine Cozac! Does that ring a bell to anyone? When we met her we were asking the usual get to know you questions like what your religious background is, where you're from, stuff like that. She said she was from California. So naturally I said what part? "The Sacramento area" what part?? It's not often that you get this. But turns out she's from ANTELOPE! hahaha. My literal home town. She went to Wilson C Riles and everything. So Natalie, you might know her. She's 15!
Anyways yeah that was cool. But she's pretty solid, she wanted to read the Book of Mormon when we started talking about it, and asked us if there was a church nearby that she could go to. haha apparently she hasn't noticed that there's an LDS church every few blocks here in Utah it seems like. So she's "on date" to get baptized on the 30th of March. That should be good.

We also are going to pick up another one and hopefully 2 more tomorrow when we meet with them. They're the ones that were sitting at home for 3 hours reading the Book of Mormon because they couldn't go to church. I know a lot of people that don't even do that. And these kids aren't baptized yet even!

We went on exchanges with Elders Silva and Nuttall last week. That went well. Elder Silva is the one that Elder Dean was with for about 2 days then got transferred up here with me after that weird transfer. But we worked hard that day in his area, and talked to everyone. We got about 5 return appointments with people, and found a pretty golden family. Her name is Mikayla, she's 11, and her and her dad want to get baptized. The mom is a member already but they're all supportive of the dad and daughter getting baptized. Plus, the bishop and his family are really great friends for them and live right down the street. We also found another guy who was pretty interested in hearing about the Church more.

We also went to the Jordan River temple last week. MAN that seems like such a long time ago! We went after emailing and were gone until about 5 at night. We went as a zone so that was really good! That temple is really pretty and I like the inside. I think someone said that it's the busiest temple in the world! Or it used to be at least. I'm glad that they were able to squeeze in time for the missionaries to go through it. I love going to the temple, it has such an amazing Spirit about it. And I got an answer to one of my questions when I was in the Celestial Room.

We went out to lunch with one of Elder Dean's recent converts, Shana and her husband Mike. We went to Dickey's BBQ. I had never been there before but it wasn't too bad! It was fun for Elder Dean to catch up. I had met them when I interviewed Shana so they recognized me too.

Heather got interviewed for baptism! (and passed). She's still not doing too well health wise from the pregnancy but she's hanging in there. We gave her a blessing a while ago and we found out that she was totally sick free for 2 days she said. Which is pretty good seeing as she was throwing up about every ten minutes she said. So she's still going to get baptized this weekend as of right now as long as she's feeling up to it. So keep her in your prayers!

Everything's going well up here. A lot of work is happening, and transfers is already coming up. By next week we'll know what's going to happen!

Love ya!
-Elder Wilson

P.S. Happy Birthday!!

 Before...

 ...After!

The Jordan River Temple!

Congratulations! This world has survived 20 years of ME!

First off, thank you to all of you who remembered! It was definitely different not being home for a birthday but it wasn't bad since I still knew that people hadn't totally forgotten about me. Even the mission president's wife called and wished me a happy birthday. At 10:25 at night. But still it's the thought that counts right? haha. The Sharps had us over for dinner Sunday which was awesome. Their daughter Morgan's birthday was the 1st so they were having a bunch of family over there for her birthday and they kinda lumped me into it as well so that was cool. haha ;)

This week was pretty good! Elder Dean and I are still getting along really well. No visible bruises or anything like that. Since Heather is on date to get baptized, we went over the baptismal interview questions with her. She is so ready! And excited. So that's cool. She has to push it back to March 16th though because her husband will be out of town for it. But she found out that she's pregnant! So that means that she has to stop smoking for sure. And she's done it before too, when she had one of her daughters. So that was definitely heaven-sent. I was praying for a miracle to happen, and the next day we went over there and she had found out that she was pregnant! So, I hope that she's okay with having to quit smoking that way. Otherwise, maybe I should have prayed for something more specific. ;)

But she was already trying to stop and having a hard time so this was totally awesome. :)

We also have found a lot more people! Two are going to be on date tomorrow for the 30th of March. We went by a lady's house to give her a blessing because she developed an infection from a C-section and the doctors think she might have cancer. :/ But we did that, and she said that she has two children, 14 and I think 12 that aren't members but want to be baptized. They weren't able to go to church Sunday because the mom was sick, but instead they sat on the couch for over 3 hours reading the Book of Mormon to each other!! Super awesome. They weren't home when we went by yesterday but we set an appointment up for Wednesday. There's also two boys in another family that might be interested, as well as another family we're going to stop by soon. :) This work is getting faster and faster!

With the new mission opening up in SLC there's going to be a ton of new missionaries in the Salt Lake City area. I wonder if it will be smaller than the mission I'm in right now, because I'm pretty sure we're the smallest in the world! I've talked with some members and a lot of them say that they had areas bigger than our entire mission, haha. But I think that they're going worldwide with the pilot program they were doing in this mission which is pretty exciting! I'm gonna laugh if some of my friends who are waiting to get their mission call get called to the new SLC East mission. ;)

I went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders on Saturday. I went to Elder Reed's area and Elder Quesne came to ours with Elder Dean. I didn't know how well we would mesh Elder Reed and I, but it actually went really really well! He's a good missionary. He knows how to work hard for sure, but also have a fun time doing it. We got a lot of work done in their area, and contacted a lot of their referrals. We went out the whole day pretty much riding the whole time. We walked a little bit but that was only because we were in a huge apartment complex so it would have been a pain to keep locking and unlocking them. We went down this HUGE hill. Seriously so steep and long haha. Just coasting down it we easily were going probably 40 or 50. Peddling as fast as I could in the highest gear it wouldn't even catch haha. :) Elder Reed is a good missionary but to be completely honest I think I like Elder Dean better! ;)

It rained on Sunday, which was kind of weird. I'm used to it snowing! So Elder Dean and I busted out our umbrellas and walked to church. It went well, except Heather couldn't make it because she was driving John to the airport. We had dinner with the Sharps which I talked a little bit about at the beginning, so that was a lot of fun. They always have the most amazing dinners! Ham, ribs, mashed potatoes, honey rolls, homemade ice cream, you name it! I'm glad I've been able to get to know them.

We're going on exchanges tonight so hopefully that goes well! I'll let you know next week.

Love, Elder Wilson

We were sitting in church on sunday and this note landed on my head. 

When I turned around, a little girl about 13 ran off giggling. hahahaha.

FAIL.

The birthday cake!

Elder Wilson, Elder Dean, and Elder Livingston (RIP) <--he's off his mission