I'm home!

So now that I'm home, I have decided that I will upload some of the awesome pictures that were taken at the airport. It's really a weird feeling, but I think that I will adjust well to it. Just give it a little time. (that's normal, right..?)
Anyways, yes, I made it home safely and on time! Thanks for all of you back in Utah that I was able to see and meet on my mission. You definitely have changed my life for the better. Don't forget me!!
Contact me so that we can stay in touch.
I'll be back. =)

When does his flight come in..?

Well, while we're waiting let's just take a family picture.

..and sit down for a little bit.

Luke is getting kinda sad now.

Oh! His plane is coming down the escalator!!!

but... he's not coming down with them..?

(I was the LAST one to get off the plane. Sitting in the absolute back of the plane has it's benefits I guess haha.)

There he is!! HI!!!

Alright Elder Bairett, make sure we look good coming down this thing. Put on your best pose.

Look, there he is!!

It's a weird feeling...

...and I really don't like it at all. I've come to love the people here in Utah, and I know it would probably be even worse if I were somewhere around the world like Brazil or Uruguay or something more foreign, but still it's hard.

WARNING: This letter is probably going to be long.

We gave our "departing testimonies" on Friday. We met as a mission for a meeting to go over some procedures for how to plan better, and then at the end President Moffat got up and said, "Now because this will be the last time we will meet together as a mission, as a tradition we like to hear the testimonies of the missionaries that will be departing this next transfer. So we will first like to hear from Elder Barrett, followed by Elder Montesdeoca, Elder Hodge, Elder Torres, and end with Elder Wilson. After which we'll sing Hymn #100 Nearer, My God, to Thee (btw, HORRIBLE song to sing when you're sad, just letting you know.) and a closing prayer by...". So of course, when he said, instantly my heart sank to my stomach. Honestly I never want to go home. Sorry mom, don't get offended by that. ;) I just love the work here too much. Life outside of this really just doesn't seem to matter anymore! It might sound weird to hear that but it's true. So finally it was my turn, and I just started talking not knowing what I was going to say. But it felt good and I had been praying beforehand to have the Spirit guide me to what the other missionaries needed to hear at that time. I kinda broke down though and started crying. I felt like an idiot but I couldn't help it, haha. A lot of people came up to me afterwards and said that they loved it, and thanked me for being "such a good missionary". A few said that they didn't know I was even going home, which made me feel good knowing that I had kept that hidden for the most part. A few missionaries wanted me to sign their journal, so I did. Kinda like a missionary yearbook I guess!

So yeah that's where I was this last week. But, it's not all bad. I'm learning and trying to accept the fact that it is coming, in a week from today. And I think it's going well. I actually feel a lot better about it. Not that I'm excited for it to come by any means, but that I'm just going to accept what's coming and deal with it. Maybe someone's praying for me to be happier about it. If so, thank you, it's working! ;) I'm glad that I was able to witness Henrietta's baptism this Saturday. That was awesome. Such a good way to wrap up the mission. She was so INCREDIBLY prepared. Maybe you're all getting sick of me bragging about her, but maybe not. She knows the bible really well. Which is perfect! Because the people that don't know the bible, who just pick out random isolated verses to try and prove a point. She was really excited to be baptized. Elder Reed showed up! He lives downtown, so it was easy for him to come up to see it. She ended up showing up 17 minutes late! (But who was counting...) It was a little stressful but it ended up being really good. She was baptized by her friend, David Lowery from the ward. BY THE WAY, they are super awesome!! She needed a place to live, and so they offered up their home for her to stay in until she found her own place, so that she could stay in the ward. How many of us would offer up our home for a stranger in need? Not very many I don't think. But she was so happy afterwards, she was glowing!! And the next day at her confirmation when she got the gift of the Holy Ghost she was even happier. It was testimony meeting and a lady got up there and said "I don't really know you that well Henrietta, but you usually sit in front of me in Sacrament meeting, and you have such an amazing spirit about you. Thank you for being so kind and loving! Like I said, I don't know you all that well, but from what I have seen, I already love you so much!!" So awesome. I love this ward.

So then this last week, we had a miracle happen! We had been praying for someone to show up at Church that had been prepared to hear the Gospel, and we found a lady named Paw Baw!! (she's from somewhere in Asia). Her and her boys had just moved here from Ogden. And she really really wanted to come to church! So we arranged with the relief society president to pick her and her 9 year old boy up for church. And they came! We met with them later that night, and they agreed to work towards a baptismal date of May 24th!! So awesome. Then we also met a lady named Angel. She is a refugee from Africa. Her family was all killed in a war in Africa and she fled here. It's pretty sad. But she was SO EXCITED TO SEE US. Literally jumping up and down when she found out that we were "mormons" haha! It was cool. She barely speaks English though, so we had to get a french translator to help us talk with her. Man I love this work. So many cool things are happening.

I have learned so much on this mission. I am so grateful that I made the choice to go, and that I was able to grow up so much over these two years. When I left on my mission, I thought that I had a testimony of this Gospel and this Church. But since being out here, I have definitely seen that I did NOT. (In comparison at least). I can safely say that before my mission, I feel like I was definitely self centered and even though I could focus on the needs of others, I don't think I did it very well or very often. Now after being out here, serving others literally all day every day, I feel like I am way more focused on helping others out and don't really care what happens to me. Obviously I'm not perfect and obviously I need to improve a LOT still, but I feel that personally I have come a long way. I now know for a FACT that God is real and that He loves me. I know for a FACT that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He loves me as well. I know that They both love every single one of us, and that They know us PERSONALLY. I absolutely know that. There is so much more to life than any of us can even imagine. The Atonement, it's real. There are so many things that it can help us with. Our sins, the temptations we go through daily, our weaknesses, our sicknesses, our pains, heck even the bad hair days. I can definitely attest to the fact that it can heal us. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. And obviously spiritually. The more I know and the more I learn, the more I find out that I don't know much of anything, ahhaha. It's pretty humbling.

I can honestly say that I don't have any regrets about my mission. I'm not perfect, I'm not a perfect teacher or testifier, but I did try. And I learned from my mistakes. I love my mission. I can't wait to never stop sharing the Gospel.

"These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly; But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."

I love you all!

Elder Bryce Wilson

 Haha such a depressing realization. (Look at the date on the bottom right.)

Henrietta's baptism!! 

A cool billboard that I saw!

Today is... tuesday.

Alright, here's a quote from when we taught Henrietta this last week. She is so awesome!!!!! She resolves her own concerns, using bible scriptures. haha. She's on track to be baptized this saturday. That's going to be fun. :) And also, spiritual!

We were teaching her the plan of salvation, and talking about the pre-mortal life:

Henrietta: "Whaaat?! is that doctrine?"

Us: "Yeah."

Henrietta: "Oh wait, is that what it's talking about in Jeremiah 1:5?"

Us: "Well, yes actually." [ Who reads and memorizes Jeremiah 1:5?! ]

Henrietta: "Oh wow, that makes more sense!"

In a different lesson:

Us: "Have you ever heard of tithing?"

Henrietta: "Oh yes, it talks about it in Malachi 3:10, which says bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Us: 8^O

People sometimes tell us we don't believe in the Bible.  I just have to laugh on the inside when they say that.

We're teaching another lady named Susan.  She believes all conspiracy theories.  We're having a harder time helping her believe the gospel, but she really likes the Book of Mormon.  She was fascinated by Gadianton and Akish.   She relates everything back to the latest conspiracy. ["Wow!  Secret combinations!  That's exactly what we have today!  Have you heard about..."] Among which are the Fed, the Government, [I think that the Fed is the same thing as the Gov't, but I might be wrong...] the Illuminati, the Chinese, the Russians, the Rockefeller Family, Banks, Pharmaceutical Companies, the FBI, cattle-stealing government agents, Big Businesses, etc.  But not Cigarette Companies.  Cigarettes are very American, so they're okay to smoke! Because obviously that makes complete sense.

Are you excited for May 2nd????

I hope that all is going well back home, don't forget to say hi to the person sitting by themselves at lunch or at work!

I love you!

Elder Wilson

 We took Henrietta to temple square!! She is so awesome!!

 Look at the awesome omelet I made!!! 

Plus a really really comfy sweater that some really nice members gave to me.

 It has been randomly raining... A LOT. So right now our house consists of a bunch of coats hanging up to dry. It's kind of annoying when it's early in the morning and you forget they're there hanging up so you walk into them all trying to find the lights.

I'M GOING TO MISS THIS GUY SO MUCH! Brother VanDyk.

Hey!

Happy [belated] Easter!

I hope that everyone's was awesome and that you remembered the true meaning of Easter, not the typical tradition of hunting for plastic, colored eggs in the grass. Although that definitely is fun! I am so glad that I am able to be a missionary right now, through Easter, and being able to testify to people that I KNOW that the Atonement is real, and that I KNOW that Jesus Christ suffered, died, and was resurrected for US. Because He loves us. I KNOW that. I'm so glad that I have that knowledge.

As far as this week goes, it went pretty well!! Not a whole lot happened though. We met with Henrietta, and she is doing really well. She came to church, and loved it! She has a 1 year old daughter who is seriously the cutest thing I've ever seen haha. I don't think it's possible to get mad at her. Well we were sitting in the pews in church, and all of a sudden we look down... and she isn't there anymore! All we saw was the toes of her feet as she was crawling up under the pews to the back of the chapel. she got all the way to the back, and of course Henrietta was laughing so hard and trying to keep quiet, but I'm sure she was embarrassed too because this was only her second time being there at church. So anyways, Elder Durfee gets up to go get her from the back of the church, and I turn around and he shrugs his shoulders at me like "I don't know what to do!" So then I turn around trying my best not to laugh because right after he did that, he reached down and picked Adeline up and held her out in front of him as if she had a poopy diaper and he had this really awkard looking expression on his face hahahhaha. He didn't want to break mission rules for not being able to hold children! (Missionary handbook p.35) But he didn't know what else to do in the situation because a lot of people were already looking at him by that point hahahaha. It was really really funny and I'm still cracking up, even typing this up right now.

We're also meeting with Jim Romero. he's doing awesome as well. Not quite sure if that was correct grammar or not... sorry dad. We have been meeting with him daily and either reading out of the scriptures with him or reading talks from the Ensign or other talks from prophets and apostles recently. He really seems to enjoy that. And he is getting so much closer to God it's incredible. It's almost like the Spirit is touching him! It's almost like what we're talking about is true! It's almost like this whole CHURCH is true!
...

So yeah. I'll send the talk that we read with him. It's about Grace. It was pretty awesome. I love brad wilcox. He is an awesome speaker.

Want more funny things that happened this week? Of course you do.

Jim Romero: "I don't know... I was just thinking again the other day.."

E. Durfee: "Don't ever stop thinking. Because if you do, you'll die."
later on, after the lesson.. E. Durfee "You know, that's the problem with this world. people just stop thinking."

Then as we were walking down the street we saw these middle school aged girls walking together in front of us, and we were about to stop and talk to them when we heard

Girl 1 "I'm not loud!"

Girl 2 "You're VERY f****ing loud!!" RIGHT as we were next to them about to talk to them. She turned BRIGHT red, covered her face, and kept repeating "Oh my gosh I am SOO sorry!!!"

E. Wilson "Good, you should be!"

Man. Fun times on the mission. I promise that they were much funnier in real life if you're sitting there in your chair thinking man, that really wasn't too funny..

Take care! I love ya!
Elder Wilson

Sorry it's super old, but here's the picture of David Archuletta coming to our district meeting!

Okay, I'm repenting!

Okay so I was going to put this part towards the end BUT I realized that most of you will just read the first part and then skip to the end of my letter. haha. so EASTER is coming up. And that means that it's Christ's resurrection. Or at least the day that we celebrate it on. So look at this video from mormon.org. And put some headphones in so that you don't get distracted by anything around you, because it's powerful.

wasn't that so awesome!?!?!? (Watch it if you haven't....)

Sorry for such a short email last week! I will try to make it longer this week. But in case you're mad at me, here's some awesome quotes that Elder Durfee and I experienced this last week:

-"If life was easy, what's the point of heaven?" --Daniel, one of the recent converts in the area.

-"Do you mind if I call you guys the God squad?" --random kid on the street.

-"Americans are weird. They put lettuce and hamburger in their tacos."  --Elder Durfee

-Elder Wilson at Walmart:

"Hey, look Elder Durfee, Mexican cheese!"

"That's not Mexican cheese."

"Yes it is, it says so right on the package."

"No, that's false advertising." [walks to the Hispanic aisle] "THIS is Mexican cheese."

-Elder Wilson in our apartment,

"Hey, Elder can you heat up my pizza?"

[walks to the microwave, opens it, and finds that the glass turntable isn't there, and is buried at the bottom of a pile of dishes in the sink.] 

"No, that's not an option."

[Hands Elder Wilson his cold piece of pizza and walks away.]

-Elder Wilson to a smoker:

"Are you trying to quit smoking?"

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because I embrace it."

[puzzled look] "What do you mean 'embrace it'"?

"I like it."  [takes a slow puff]

"Even though it's bad for your health?"

"Says who?"

"Oh, I thought that was common knowledge..."

[Awkward Silence]

"Well, we offer a free public service to help you quit."

"No thanks."

"Okay... Well have a great day!"

Being with Elder Durfee never has it's dry moments. hahahaha.

So first off, I want to say that zone conference rocked! It was so spiritual. I learned a lot from it! I love the Spirit that comes when so many missionaries meet together. I loved the part towards the end as well, with the last week of the Savior's life. "Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit." Can you imagine the reunion between the Father and the Son? I loved that question that our mission president asked all of us. Then with the painting of Christ meeting Mary. That was a really strong Spirit that was there. I love this time of year, with Easter coming up. It helps us just focus on the work and what we need to do as missionaries! Look up that painting. It's called "Why weepest thou?" by Simon Dewey. LOOK IT UP!

The work is going well. Right now Henrietta is working towards baptism and is looking great!! She is so awesome. She had some awesome questions and was actually willing to get the answer. From reading the scriptures. (A lot of time people just ask us questions to question our beliefs or to try and trap us in our words or whatever it is.) But she was legitimately wanting to know the answers to things! Some of them were:

"There weren't any prophets after Christ."

"Christ told the Apostles he was going to give them the Spirit, so prophets weren't necessary."

"God hasn't appeared to anyone in history before"

"God doesn't have a body of flesh and bones"

"The curtain in the temple rent meant that there were no more prophets needed after the law of Moses"

"God appeared here again?? [in awe] "That is so amazing! What evidence do you have of this?" 

Okay so looking over these, it really sounds like she was trying to "bash" but honestly she wasn't. And was satisfied when we showed her the answer in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I love using the scriptures to resolve people's concerns!!

The 5th ward set up a lesson with us and their non member friend Sam! But we need to talk to his parents to get permission for baptism. So that's why he's not on date yet. He said he wanted to be baptized though so that should be good. We have another appointment with him tomorrow evening.

Jim fell off because of the word of wisdom, but we will get him back. He felt the spirit really strongly when we read him some talks out of the general conference that happened last October. he has been struggling with some depression, so we read Jeffrey R Holland's talk Like a Broken Vessel and the one from President Monson "I Will Not Fail Thee, nor Forsake Thee."

so awesome. He is really progressing well.

Alright. So this email is a lot longer. I hope that I have redeemed myself from last week!! Except I forgot my camera. So I will try and go home to get my camera and get back in time to email them home from last week. If not, then I guess you'll have to wait until NEXT WEEK! haha. Anyways, I love ya guys!

-Elder Wilson

GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS SO AWESOME

Okay, who watched general conference...????? If you didn't, seriously go look it up online right now and watch it!!! There were so many awesome quotes. my favorite talks were Elder Holland's, Elder Rasband's, Elder Eyring, Elder Scott, Elder Oaks, Elder Uchtdorf, Elder Aidukaitis, Elder Christofferson's, and President Monson's. okay so that's the majority of them. But still, they were so freaking good!!!

I wish that I could write things up on here but we have to go now. :( I'll type it up next week! Remind me though!

Oh yeah, another thing that happened this week. So we were visiting Elder Chandler's district meeting. And we were just sitting there.... and uh.. David Archuleta walked in. hahaha. Elder Chandler was like "Hey brother archuleta" and at the same time another missionary was like "Oh, hey David!" When I put two and two together, I knew it was him haha. It makes sense, because I missed him in the MTC by 3 weeks. 

Love you!
Elder Wilson

wow impatient missionaries... see ya. sorry.

It's a boy... it's a girl... it's a... zebra..?

Transfers happened this week. Well actually they're happening tomorrow. And I'm staying in the area! Elder Iwertz is leaving. He's going over to Midvale, in one of my old areas. That should be good. (The one where all the delgado's, and kody, and aubrianna, and mikayla and everyone were baptized). I'll be getting Elder Durfee!! Do you remember him? He's the one who trained Elder Lamb, the one that my sister Sydnee taught. And he's super crazy so it should be fun and interesting! haha. Crazy in a good way. But he speaks spanish, so that's why it's called a zebra companionship. One english speaking zone leader and one spanish speaking one. I think so that we can go on exchanges with (and it be more effective) the elders in the area. but yeah things should pick up really quickly, I'm excited for it. So as far as the address goes, it will be the same!

We went to the temple this week! As a mission. We went to the jordan river temple. That was pretty awesome. The Spirit is so strong inside of the temple. Prayers get answered 100 times easier, and you can just sit there and ponder about things and get answers or learn things that way. I love it. The Gospel definitely is true! and so is this Church!

We found a new investigator this last week. On saturday night. His name is Jim. He is so awesome!!! His son who lives with him is a recent convert to the Church. He got baptized in February to the young single adult ward. And now he's being a missionary! He told us to visit with his dad. And so we did. he was really down in the pits, and feeling really depressed. We shared a few scriptures with him, and talked abuot the gospel with him for about an hour. At the end of it he was crying a little bit (he's a pretty rough looking 55 year old man, so it was cool to see that) and knew that this was the time for him to change his life. He accepted the invitation to be baptized on april 26th! That will be awesome. His son is a great support for him. We met with him yesterday, and he was totally 180 degrees different! He was happy, and really excited to read the Book of Mormon and just to soak everything in. I was sad that we could only stay an hour with him. 

Other than that, we gave a talk in sacrament meeting! That went really really well. I think a lot of things clicked with the ward so things should pick up there pretty soon. I'm excited! haha. I love this work and never want to stop doing it. I don't think I ever will, either. =)

Love you!

Elder Wilson

This transfer went by so quickly, it's insane.

MIKE CLARK GOT BAPTIZED! That was definitely the highlight of the week. He had been working with the missionaires in the past, and had to have his baptismal date pushed back because of the word of wisdom slip-up he had, the day of his baptism. Which wasn't very good. But he had a miracle happen in his life, and that's what helped him to agree to baptism. We made daily contact with him all the way until his baptism, to make sure that he didn't slip up again. He said it was kind of painful us always reminding him about it but at the same time it helped him to stay on track. Once the day of his baptism came up he was pretty excited about it. When he said the closing prayer in one of our meetings, he mentioned "and I thank thee for allowing me to be baptized this weekend, I'm pretty excited for it." That was so awesome!! The actual baptism went really well too though. The Spirit was definitely there really strongly. He was baptized by the bishop. And confirmed the next day in sacrament meeting. That was really cool. he's a good guy.

Jake Fisher is someone that we've picked up. He's a 16 year old guy and plays rugby for his school. He's pretty awesome too. But really nervous and scared. When we first met with him it looked like he was so scared he would just get up and run out of the room. So we built up some trust with him by just talking with him. And he accepted baptism for April! But we have to talk to his mom to make sure she's good with it too. We also have a lot of other people we're working with right now and a bunch of potentials which should be awesome. Next week I'll let you know!!

Other than that, we went out to lunch with some cool people lately!! The Sharps took us out last week, and then we went to lunch with the Millers to celebrate Janessa's and mine birthday, and then Elder Reed came back to the mission to visit and went with us to dinner! And brought his *cough* fiance..... *cough*. Then today Brother Bowles the longest-acting patriarch in the Church took us and Elder Smith/banks to a Mexican restaurant. that was pretty awesome. All super great awesome families and people. Definitely going to keep in contact with them!

Anyways my comp is kicking me off now....

Love you!
Elder Wilson!

 Mike Clark got baptized!!

 We went to a district meeting for a district in our zone, and took a picture together. 

It's a fun district!

 Sister Taylor said she always takes pictures with her zone leaders, so she wanted one.... hahha. 

And we stood behind her kind of so that we could be close together in the picture but not too close.

We went to dinner with the Miller family! And janeina (sister miller) wanted to take a picture. 

It was to celebrate mine and Janessa's birthday

We had dinner with Elder Reed! That was awesome to see him. He's going to school downtown.

Patrick O'Brien!!

This week was stressfull! But also really rewarding. Patrick was good to go for his baptism throughout the week because we were meeting with him daily and getting him pumped for his baptism. The baptism itself went pretty well. He was a little scared in the beginning of it, but it ended up going well. There wasn't a ton of people from the ward showing up which kinda sucked but a lot of his family came so that was worth it. The Bishop was suppsoed to give a talk on baptism but it was 7 minutes after 2 when the baptism was supposed to start and he wasn't there. So... we just started without him, I filled in for the talk on baptism. Then the time came for him to welcome patrick into the ward... still not there. One of his counselors came luckily and so we had him do it. During the closing song he finally walked in. Turns out he was meeting with someone for 2 and a half hours. Pretty nuts. But it's okay, he's still a good bishop. And he will be baptizing Mike this weekend!

Speaking of Mike! He got interviewed for baptism last saturday, and he passed! It will be at 7pm this saturday. Which should be good. It was announced in Sacrament meeting so I hope that a lot of people show up! He is a really humble, good, old man. okay not old he's only 60. But still, he's older than I am. He's pretty excited for his baptism this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes next week!

So we were doing a zone workout in the morning, and we were playing ultimate frisbee. An Elder got a little too close to me when I was throwing the frisbee to start off a round, and my arm hit him right in the mouth. And... it cracked his tooth! Well the back of it at least. So he was obviously in a lot of pain. He went to the dentist's office, and they fixed it. Glued it back together and he is a-okay now! But that was a pretty crazy experience. I felt really bad for it. 

Things are going well here in the area though, we're picking up new people to teach so that will be good. Like Jake Fisher! Remind me to tell you about him next week. We met with him once yesterday, but he has to get permission for us to be able to teach him in the future. He's a good kid though, so I think things will go well with him.

Love you guys!
Elder Wilson

This is from my old area, that's that huge hill we had to ride up for 6 months. 

It gets a lot steeper as it turns to the right. Also the same hill I bailed on!

Patrick's baptism!!!

week 3 in transfer #17... done =/

This week was awesome! Patrick and Mike are still on date to be baptized. And Patrick is getting baptized this Saturday!!

Patrick. This guy is pretty awesome. He is 12, and has the attention span of.. well he doesn't really have one. But when you get him interested in something then he's good to go with it. Like his baptism for instance. He was agreeing to it at first, but not super solidly. If that's a word. He was just kind of scared to go through with it. Even though he saw his dad get baptized late last year. But we talked with him, and played a board game with him which was able to calm his fears about his baptismal interview this past weekend, and for his baptism coming up as well. But don't worry, it's the board game that I made! It only took about 6 months to make. We don't have a ton of free time as missionaries, you know. I'll send a picture of us playing it. Basically it's called the way back to heaven, and it teaches us the gospel of jesus christ and the principles that we teach people who are getting baptized. It's pretty fun. But he was able to answer a lot of the questions that were in the game. But yeah now he's really excited to get baptized! 

We had a miracle happen with Patrick this week. So he was really nervous about his baptismal interview but after we stayed there and talked with him for a while, he was a lot calmer about it. he passed. Then the next day, for stake conference, we went by in the morning to confirm that he would be coming, and he said he would with his dad who is a recent convert. When we went to go pick up our other investigator, Mike, and went to church. However, when it was about 5 til and Patrick wasn't there yet, we gave his dad a call. He had left his cell phone at home, and the wife answered saying that Patrick wasn't going to come to church. He was throwing a fit. So Elder Iwertz and I prayed, and asked for the Lord's help to get him here so he won't fall off date. Then we went by halfway through stake conference after giving him some time to cool down (thank goodness for it being 2 hours) to go pick him up. He opened the door, let us in and we talked for a good 10 minutes. Turns out he was scared that there wouldn't be any other kids there besides him. Talk about an iceberg concern. After we resolved that, he gladly came with us and we were able to enjoy the last 30 minutes of stake conference. (Sorry about missing your talk). Fighting for our investigators really pays off.

Mike is doing really well too! He is getting ready for his baptismal interview this Saturday, and his baptism next Saturday. I'm excited for him! :)

We also had zone training meeting this week which went really well. We trained on how we can get the people we're teaching to come to church and how to get the best out of it. It was pretty awesome! The assistants came and said that it was an "A+" so that was pretty cool. :)

Love you guys!

Elder Wilson

 Elder Iwertz crashed on his bike.. =)

The game that I made that we were playing with Patrick. I kind of lost in this game.... 

I got a lot of sins.

It's that time of year again...!

Happy Birthday! Thanks for all you who remembered today! It's funny how as time goes on in the mission, more and more people start forgetting about you haha.

But as far as this week, things are going great. The zone is really picking up. When I first got here the zone was pretty low on people the zone was working with. But now it's starting to pick up like crazy!! Obviously it wasn't me but it's just humbling to be able to witness the success that the Lord is pouring out on this zone right now. The wards here are really excited to get new missionaries here and are helping us a ton with going out with us every night and setting up teaching appointments with us. I love the mission!!

Patrick O'Brien is the 12 year old guy that we're working with. he's awesome!! And working towards his date on March 15th. he loves coming to mutual and coming to church (to be able to be with his friends.... but hey he's 12. and has ADHD). His prayers are so awesome haha. 

"I thank you for my friends, and my friends the missionaries, and my family, and I thank you for letting me have cool things like basketball at mutual, and videogames, like call of duty and mario kart, and... for the missionaries again.. oh wait I already said that... uh.. in the name of Jesus Christ Amen!" so awesome hahahah.

Mike Clark. He was here when we got here, but he was not wanting to meet with the missionaries. We met with him once, taught him the first lesson, and he felt the Spirit really strongly. So he allowed us to come back. We invited him to be baptized, and he declined, saying that he has some pretty deep roots in the baptist religion. Even though I knew that he just had to give up smoking and that that was just a cover up excuse. Well when we went back the next appointment, he had had a really amazing experience. His son had to have surgery, and during it things went a little wrong. His artery was bleeding out in his neck and so Mike said a prayer to God, saying that if He helped his son get through it and he made it out okay, then he would join His Church. HE GOT BETTER! To him that was a huge testimony builder. And for me too. Knowing that God sometimes lets us go through stressful times in order to appreciate Him and to come closer to Him. but he said that he's not going to go back on his promise and that he is going to be baptized March 22nd. I love miracles! They are happening around us all the time. We just have to look for them!

Another cool thing that happened this week was that Elder Arnold came to our sacrament meeting in one of the wards that we were in. He's in the quorum of the seventy. That was pretty cool. I shared my testimony in the meeting, and then he got up and shared his right afterwards and he said some pretty nice things about me. That was pretty awesome. He's the same one that came to our mission a while ago, and I had a one on one interview with him along with the rest of the zone leaders. Crazy awesome!

Other than that, nothing else really happened. Well I'm sure they did, but i can't remember them!

Love you!!
Elder Wilson

Thank you family for the package! Such a great, healthy breakfast this morning!

An awesome cloud cover. Unfortunately we were in a lesson when it was sunset, otherwise I'm sure this would have looked even more epic!! Well I guess it's not unfortunately, I love teaching lessons! ;)

Elder Iwertz

So I got moved! Well I guess I told you that last week. But my new companion's name is Elder Iwertz. He's a good guy, and he's from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Apparently he's actually from Oklahoma city instead of close to it, like me and Sacramento. He's been out just barely over a year, and so he is getting the missionary life down pretty well. He and I whitewashed the area that we're in right now though! A whitewash is when there's two missionaries going into an area that they've never been in before, just kind of getting "thrown" into it. But I love doing it that way. Getting to know the area and getting to know the members and everything like that is always a ton of fun. We have 1 on date for baptism right now, but I'm sure that things will pick up soon because we're being obedient and working hard. So hopefully next week I'll have some updates for you!

Patrick O'Brien is the guy that we have on date right now. He's a really awesome 12 year old. He's pretty smart, too. When we came into the area, he was pretty shaky about getting baptized and coming to church and stuff like that. But we've built some trust with him and helped him to realize that church can be and is really fun! So that's always good. His dad just got baptized in November I think, so that's cool too.

So some good things happened in my old area that I heard about!

Skyler got baptized!!! I wasn't able to make it though. =/ because we had a baptism that Elder Iwertz was teaching happening at the exact same time. So that wasn't too great. I felt really bad because he really wanted me to be there. And it took a while to finally get a hold of the other missionaries there to get Skyler's number to call to apologize. But he was okay with it all. He's a good guy. And also, Kennedy finally got confirmed! She got baptized but not confirmed. Which was a HUGE headache. 

Things are picking up right now!! It's getting exciting though, getting to know all the members and people here. 

But yeah, hopefully all's well everywhere else in the world! If not, start praying!

Love,

Elder Wilson

The pumpkins that Elder Reed and I got for Halloween still are alive! Well, kind of. 

Pretty much the best intersection in Utah

TRANSFERS! Finally a new address

So I'm leaving Taylorsville and leaving the bennion zone that I have been a zone leader over for 9 months now. It's kind of a bitter-sweet feeling leaving everything here, because I have grown to love the members here and the people I've taught. It's going to be sad saying goodbye. But I think Murray will do well for me.

Oh, before I forget. here's my new address:

Elder Bryce Wilson

5451s Quaking Aspen Dr.

Murray, UT 84123

So mom if you could put that as the new address on the blog that would be awesome! It will be until April 2nd.

This week was.. good! A ton of stressful things happened but that just makes us stretch right? I feel like I've become a lot better of a missionary since then. Which is good. Maybe it's God's way of making sure I don't think about home. It worked! hahaha. But we put out a lot of fires in the zone since then. Overall it was a good week though. Kennedy got baptized and she really loved it. She is such an awesome kid. She's 12 but definitely is the maturity of at least a 16 year old. She's going to do well in the church, she has a lot of good friends in it.

I also BAILED on my bike. As a district we had a workout, and so I was bundled up going there but afterwards it was a lot warmer outside and I was already warmed up anyways so I was carrying my sweatshirt. We were starting to go down a huge hill (I'll try to remember to take a picture of it before I go to send home next week) so I thought to myself man that would really stink if my sweatshirt got caught in my wheel... so I was trying to adjust it and throw it over my back when it slipped a little bit and you guessed it, it got jammed in my front wheel making it slam to a halt and hurdling me over the handlebars hahaha. Luckily nobody saw since it was early in the morning still. Well except a dog. It started barking at me after I crashed. So I yelled at it to shut up and it listened. hahaha it felt awesome. But it wasn't too bad, I got a small cut on my hands and arm, and I bruised the bones on my hip and elbow. But it's all good!

Man, I'm sorry that this is so short. Transfers are tomorrow so today is spent packing and all the other nonsense that we need to do on Pdays. I'm sorry [mom]! 

Love you!

Elder Wilson

Kennedy's baptism!

[Most] of our zone!

District meeting snapshot

District morning workout! (Just after this was when I ATE IT on my bike, hahaha)

Some awesome chocolate that I got from my Valentine this valentine's day :)

(thanks mom)