Elder Wilson in Utah!: 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