Elder Reed

Elder Reed is here and ready to go! He and I are working really hard and getting a lot of success out of it. So far, we've doubled the amount of people that are on date for baptism in the zone! So that's exciting. Hopefully it keeps on going. I think it will though, because there are a lot of potentials that the zone has to be able to be invited for baptism. :)

Scott Hodges and his family took me and Elder Reed out for lunch! That was a lot of fun. We were catching up since it's been a while. They're doing really well. It was fun to see how well their family is doing! Elder Reed thought they were pretty cool too. We'll have to do it again sometime. 

Elder Reed is getting to know the area really fast which is good. He knows a lot of the members, and almost all of the streets now. It's been so incredibly hot this last week! But it also rained (thank you Utah) so that cooled things off a little bit. We went through the area book to find people in it since Elder Ahrens was losing the faith to find pretty quickly after being there for about 6 months. We met a ton of potentials, and set up times with them. This work is so exciting! This is the salvation of people's lives we're talking about!! We met with Chris and Nestor's mom. They're still improving.

We had interviews with President Moffat last week which went really well. That meeting was full of inspiration! The Assistants came up with a plan to help out the mission. When we sacrifice, the Lord blesses us. So they brought in a porch barbecue thing and had us all write down something we would sacrifice so that we could have the Lord bless us with success. What we noticed, and the Assistants noticed, was that every single one of them could be traced back to having a lack of focus. so that was very beneficial to find out what we could be doing better as a mission. We met with Britannia, but we found out that she moved to West Valley. So we sadly had to hand her over to some other missionaries in that area. Hopefully she will still get baptized!

Chris is doing very well. He is a little bit hard to teach sometimes because it's hard for him to focus on things for very long sometimes, but he is progressing very well. Right now we're shooting for the 17th of August so hopefully that will go well. As for Nestor, we're shooting for the 24th of August. His mom keeps pushing the date back it's frustrating. But we talked with her and helped her to realize that he really can be ready in just a few weeks. So she agreed to the 24th. They both made it out to church this weekend which was awesome. So keep praying for them! Satan is trying really hard to get us to fail but I know that we'll make it through!

Hope all is well, I love you.

Elder Wilson

I got a surprise visit!

This is Elder Reed and I! My camera has a sketch feature, so I was trying it out on this picture.

Transfers! [But not for me]

This week is transfers! But I'm not moving anywhere. Elder Ahrens is finally getting out of town, he's been here for 5 months now so he was ready to get out, I could tell haha. But I'm getting Elder Reed, he's a really great missionary and a hard worker. So it will be fun. I'll be here until at least September 4th so that will be cool. 

We gave a member named Chris Nutting a blessing this week. He was having a down week and so we went over there to teach him a little bit about how he can be happy again with the gospel. But yeah we gave him a blessing, and he said he felt really good and warm afterwards. Thank goodness for the Spirit!! But something that was super cool was that during the blessing, I literally felt like someone's hands were on mine as we were giving him the blessing. So much that I looked during the blessing to make sure there wasn't a pair of hands there. They say that angels whisper to you when you're giving the blessing, so it's very possible! It was an amazing experience and a definite testimony builder. 

Nestor is progressing well, he is going to be interviewed for baptism this Saturday. He's been coming to church every week and loves it so that's pretty cool. He's a great kid with a big heart. This week there was a lot of cancellations in appointments, but I know that that's just to strengthen my/our faith. It stinks that people use their agency to drink and smoke and just choose bad habits in general instead of using their agency to do something good and productive that will bring them closer to God. ugh. One of the most frustrating things as a missionary. 

Speaking of missionary work, as a mission we are reading from The Book of Mormon and looking for how often it references missionary work. It's pretty dang cool!, I found so much doctrine of Christ! He is all over the place in there. But what I liked from my reading this week was in Jacob chapter 3 verse 1. "Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions, and he will plead your cause". That gave me so much comfort knowing that He will be there for me. He will help us find more people to teach, more people to baptize. But the key that I found was that we need to pray to him with EXCEEDING FAITH. Not just a little faith, but with exceeding faith. And THEN will He answer us. He's up there willing and waiting to hear from us and wanting to help us but He respects our agency so much that He waits until we ask first. I love that! :)

I'm excited to be with Elder Reed. He's a great missionary from what I've heard, and so I'm excited to see what we can do in this area and in this zone. I love this work!! 

Love, ElderWilson

Jewel_Eye

This transfer went by so fast it's insane! Next week I will know if I'm getting moved or what's happening with transfers! It's been fun being with Elder Ahrens, we've definitely had some funny moments together.

So we got a text from President Moffat saying: "I'd like to work with a ZL or Assistant companionship from 6-9 tomorrow night. Any volunteers before I choose 1 of you? :) " So scary! Elder Ahrens and I volunteered. But it went really well! He came out with us after dinner from 6:00 til 9:00. That was pretty fun actually. He wasn't sitting back and observing as much as he was helping! He did some OYM's with us and taught Ashley with us. We gave her a calendar and she's like "Oh, you guys did this for ME?? Ah, dang!"  It made her feel special but it was pretty funny. But yeah, President Moffat wasn't that bad, it was actually really fun to spend the night doing missionary work with the President!

Vivian is a new investigator that we found this week. She is very religious and very faithful. She accepted baptism for August 3rd! So that's cool. I hope she reads and prays so she will be ready by then. The member we took with us was a convert to the church from Catholicism, which is what she is so that was good. He really enjoyed coming out with us. He asked if he could come out with us the next time we go over to her house. 

We picked up a new investigator, Chris Senn. He's 11 and recently adopted. His real mom apparently mentally emotionally and physically abused him. So he's really messed up which is sad. :( His mom was on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list for the things she did to him!!!

We took Ashley to a baptism. She really liked it and said that she noticed how everyone was happy, so we pointed out that they were feeling the Spirit and she really enjoyed that. So it's exciting! We also picked up another new investigator named Randy. He lives in some extended stay hotels because his house recently burned down. That would really stink. But he's a really nice, loving guy with a big heart. He as crying when we first talked to him, and during the lesson we taught him yesterday. We taught him the Restoration, and invited him to be baptized. He accepted August 10th! So that's cool. We're finding a lot of people lately, and it's all because of the Lord I absolutely know that. 

Sundays are always so hectic and crazy. And way stressful! Nestor came to church! He was outside waiting for us when we came by to pick him up. Such a huge relief as a missionary, let me just tell you! haha. Then we found out that Chris came to church too. A miracle happened! Britania called us and said she was outside of the church. We taught her a little bit, then gave her a blessing. We invited her to stay for church,m and she said yeah! She really loved sacrament meeting. She asked me how she could always be this happy, and I said well it all starts with baptism. She asked how she could do that. I said well we have to decide on a date. What about August 10th? She agreed! :) :) I love miracles. 

I love this work!!!!

Love, Elder Wilson

Wow crazy week!

This week was insane in the membrane! First off, I had my first zone training meeting as a zone leader. It feels like such a long time ago now since this week was packed full of things, but it was only 6 days ago. It went really well! We focused on getting the missionaries the tools they need to get people baptized. And those are inviting on the first lesson, getting them a calendar to show them the dxays we will come by and when they will be baptized and things like that, getting them a good fellowshipper that will stand with them and encourage them (and read the Book of Mormon with them). Then we did a really fun activity with dodgeballs where the investigators had to run through an obstacle course with "temptations" (dodgeballs) being thrown at them. But they got different shields for different things. They all god different scenarios. 1. if they were invited on first lesson to be baptized then they got a clipboard with a piece of paper saying "baptismal invitation" on it. If they got a calendar they got a big cushion to help block the temptations. If they got a fellowshipper, one of the assistants guided them through the course, heling block the temptations as they were thrown. Then, if they got the fellowshipper to read the BOM with them, they got a chalkboard rolling next to them to completely block the balls so the could get to baptism. The missionaries all loved it! Then we had them practice/role play inviting people to be baptized in the first few minutes they meet someone. (OYM's). That was effective as well.

I went on exchanges with Elder Conley this week, too. We were at an apartment complex called "San Francisco" hahaha. It's a bunch of apartments brightly colored and slammed super close together. But we met a very interesting guy there. He pulled up and started yelling at us accusing us of being racist and that our church is all about money and some other pretty ridiculous stuff. So that was pretty funny. Then we were going through the park and we ran into Jasmine Cozak from midvale!! That was cool. Her and her friend Janessa said they would meet with us the next morning, and so we did. We invited both of them to be baptized, and they both agreed! Pretty awesome what the Spirit can do. 

So I don't remember if I told you about the miracle new investigator, Ashley Welch or not. But if I did oh well. She flagged down missionaries and said that she wanted to meet with us! So Elder Ahrens and I taught her and she agreed to baptism. That was pretty legit. She lives by herself though, so to teach her we have to bring another guy with us. But she is straight from Iowa so she has that accent. Pretty cool to talk to. 

Monday was insane!! At around 3, a freaking hurricane powered rainstorm came! Literally the rain was coming down so hard that the gutters were overfilling and flowing off the roofs, the drain gutters in the streets were filled up to the curbs! CRAZY. We took shelter in a church building for about 10 minutes. It was even hailing. In July! Later that day (after the rainstorm it cleared up and was hot again, probably about 90 degrees. Utah. What do ya expect. We got a call from Bishop saying that there was a house where a flood happened. Apparently the rain was so hard and so fast that it filled up a window well in a house and the pressure from the water burst the window, flooding the whole basement!! That happened with two houses so we spent our time doing that. We had to gut the entire basement. Furniture, flooring, everything. Man that was crazy. I felt so bad for the home owners!

Well this work is amazing and I never want to leave. End of story. I love you!
Elder Wilson

Sorry it's a little washed out, but this is a little gift I got from my parents! 

Elmer gave it to me since he's the homie.

July!

Hey everyone. This week was pretty cool!

I had my first ZLC today. Well actually it's called a MLC now since we have sister training leaders. (Zone leader council and mission leadership council). But that was super cool. Also, VERY long. It started at 9:00, and it ended at 4:00. But it was really informative. The assistants and the mission president were there and they were training us on how to be better zone leaders. We reported our numbers for the zone and the plans we have for the upcoming month of July. President complimented us on our plans so that felt good. He also called on me and Elder Ahrens to demonstrate how to ask members to come out with us on Sundays to help us teach (for the rest of the upcoming week). That went really well too, so that was cool.

No baptisms this week unfortunately, but we have people that we're working with so they will be coming up soon! :) Jordan, a 14 year old and his two younger brothers and then Nick who is in his 30's. :) We went on a ton of exchanges this past week. 3 in a row! And since exchanges last 24 hours each, I wasn't with Elder Ahrens for a while. it was pretty weird. I went with two District leaders in our zone, and one of the assistants, Elder Quesne (cain). He's from England and super legit. [And single!! ;) ] He's going home in September and he's going through Sacramento and then down to southern California to explore the states before he goes home. But I learned a lot from the exchanges so that is always good. I went to the Spanish elders' area and I didn't know how to speak Spanish so I wasn't able to help out very much besides just encouragement and support! But they're doing pretty well. Other than that, things are getting super hot lately and super busy which I love! :) This gospel is 100% true, I guarantee it!!!!

Sorry, I will probably be getting an email from my mom about how this is so short but we are super late and low on time today. And I don't have any pictures since my camera is getting fixed. (the battery flap kept opening so since I had the warranty on it I sent it in.) So when I get my camera back I'll send some home!!

Love, Elder Wilson