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