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! ;)