Nobody got baptized this week. :( Well for us at least. There were 5 baptisms that happened in the zone though!! So that was awesome. And Kennedy Ferguson is getting baptized this week at 1pm! :) She is pretty awesome. She has wanted to be baptized for a while now but her mom didn't feel like she was ready. But lately, she has asked her if she can be baptized. And she allowed her to!

But there will be more later. Next week.

We had zone training meeting this week which went really well. We had prayed beforehand that we would be able to to teach by the Spirit and I think that that definitely happened. A lot of people came up to us afterwards and said that it was good. We trained on finding, improving street contacting, and praying. Because we need to focus on those things as a zone. Especially the praying part. There is no way that we can do this work without Divine help. So I thought that it was cool how it worked out. 

We have been meeting with Lauren recently, and she is so legit. We have taught her a few times and she is really moving towards her baptismal date that she has agreed to, on the 22nd. She lives with her roommate, Allison. She is a primary teacher. And a very good friend to her. She told us though that she and Allison went to visit her old house where her dad had just recently died. She was pretty shaken up about that. I felt really prompted to offer a blessing of comfort. She accepted, and she said that that really helped. Thank you, Spirit! =D

We're also working with a 12 year old boy named Skyler Peterson. But he is definitely not the average 12 year old. He is SO SMART. and very mature. He also has cerebral palsy. But he is so happy and LOVES THE GOSPEL. He loves going to church, going to boy scouts, going to mutual, meeting all the people in church, everything. He's so legit. He is super excited to be baptized too. He's on date for the 22nd! :)

So yeah. A lot of good things are happening right now. And I love it. I want this to keep going forever! Never slow down. And neither should any of you out there!

I love you guys,

Elder Wilson

 A weird text that we got from our mission president. It definitely did not sound like him. 

He is usually really serious and formal. We still have no idea what he was trying to get at. haha.

The best looking Elders out there, hands down

Februaryyyyy

Okay so I'm sorry if this is getting old of me saying this.. but THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME!

Saturday: It was Kristi's baptism!! That was really awesome. Definitely one of the best ones that I have seen or done. The Spirit was really strong! Kristi's two boys came (7 and 8 years old), her mom who isn't a member, and her boyfriend Shawn. That was cool. Her mom was crying and I could tell that she felt the Spirit. So remember how Kristi went down to temple square? Oh actually I guess I never told you. Whoops. So Kristi called us up one day and wanted to meet. Prior to this she had said that she wanted to be baptized but never really showed a lot of interest or real effort. So she met with us, and OFFERED TO SAY THE OPENING PRAYER!! It was like pulling teeth before that. But in it she said that she was thankful God had answered her prayers and told her that this was true. So I was like dang!! What happened? So apparently she felt prompted that she needed to go down to temple square. So she went, and was looking at the painting in the north visitor's center on the very left with the two angels. I think it's when they're moving the stone for the tomb of Christ. Not sure. But anyways while she was looking up at it, thinking, two sister missionaries walked up to her and started talking to her. (She later said that she called them her angels haha.) But they ended up talking for 7 HOURS STRAIGHT. 7 hours!! So that was good. She admitted that she and they mostly talked and laughed and cried though... haha. When Elder Smith and I heard that we both laughed. But yeah so later on we all went on a temple square tour. Us, Bro VanDyk, Kristi, and the two sister missionaries, sisters Wettingfeld and Whisler. That as good. Kristi really liked it. We took her to the model of the temple, watched some mormon messages, and took her to the Christus statue and took pictures by it. But anyways back to Kristi's baptism, those two sister missionaries wanted to sing at the baptism. So they did a special musical number by Janice Kapp Perry called "Power of Heaven". That was really pretty. The assistants came, and brought someone that they are teaching, and they said it was pretty good as well. I'll send some pictures of it all!

Lauren is someone new that we picked up this week as well. She's awesome. Maybe I should stop using that word. But I feel like everything is awesome. Oh well. We found her at church! I felt like I needed to talk to her, so we did. And it turns out that she had been going to church for 4 weeks by herself! And she agreed to be baptized on february 22nd. So that should be good. :)

Sadly, we don't have any people getting baptized this weekend. :( It's a weird feeling! haha. But Kennedy is looking good for the 15th and we have two working towards the 22nd. So that should be exciting. I'll let you know as it gets closer!

Love ya!

Elder Wilson

Kristi Tift's baptism!

This week was awesome!!!

So many awesome things happened this week. Tiffany's baptism is first priority, obviously! That went really well. haha she is crazy! (See the picture I sent). There's an even crazier one that we took too haha :) She is and was so excited for her baptism! She said after she came out of the changing room that she was "FREE LIKE A BIRD!!!" at the top of her lungs hahaha. She is really pumped to share the gospel with her friends too which is really cool to see. She told her little brother that he needs to be baptized now too. Too bad he lives outside of our area. She will be an awesome addition to God's Church!

Also, Elder Smith and I are doing really well! The zone had it's highest baptizing month ever in the history of it's existence! And it was the highest baptizing zone in the mission, too. There are so many people that are being prepared to hear the gospel. It's incredible! There are so many that are already prepared to hear us by the time that we find them. AND, there's something called the "standard of excellence". Basically it's a perfect combination of things that missionaries can do to help the most amount of people in the best way possible. Well our whole district hit the standard of excellence! It's usually pretty rare for a companionship to hit it, let alone a whole district. So that was awesome. :) Things are going really well right now and I'm definitely praying hard to keep the success rolling, WITHOUT me or Elder Smith or anyone else getting big-headed. That will kill the success faster than anything else.

Other than those two things, we also took Kristi to temple square! That was really good. We were able to go on a tour of temple square with the sister missionaries that have been working with her from the temple square mission. She felt the Spirit really strongly, and knows that she needs to be baptized and really has that strong desire. So she is doing really well. She is scheduled to be baptized this Saturday. I feel so bad though, because she is going through a really really hard time right now. Physically, mentally, and spiritually. But she's strong and I know she'll make it through. When she meets with us she starts out really low, but gets on that spiritual high by the time we're done with the lesson. Her friend in the church, Richard, is a big help too. He's an MMA fighter and we think she has a crush on him but she will never admit it. hahaha.

I love you guys! Tomorrow is interviews with the mission president that we do every three months. So that should be fun. And zone training meeting is next week!

Love ya!

Elder Wilson

 Tiffany's baptism! She's awesome hahaha.

We took Kristi to temple square! She really loved it. 

These are the sisters that she spent 7 hours in one day with, and has seen pretty much every day since then. 

They've really helped her out and are planning on coming to her baptism this Saturday!

January is half over. Okay a little more than that.

Bryon and Janessa got baptized!!!! It went really really well. Bryon asked Elder Smith to baptize him and Janessa asked me to baptize her. They are so awesome. I love the miller family! JaNeina was really happy. She started crying. She said that she has wanted this for a long time. For her kids to have some guidance and direction and morals in their lives. But they are really really good kids though, regardless. No drugs, no swearing, obedient (for the most part! ;) , and much more. They've been going to mutual for a while now and they really like it. Bryon has even gone out with us to help teach! hahaha. But the baptism was really awesome. They brought their friends to their baptism and everything. The Spirit was really strong. Everyone felt really really happy and peaceful. We went over to their house yesterday and the Spirit that was there was so overwhelmingly peaceful. This Gospel really is true, and I love surrounding myself in it!!

The next day at their confirmation in church, President Moffat was in the ward, having a speaking assignment. He talked about missionary work (obviously) and how easy it is for people to do it and some ways that people can implement missionary work in their own lives. He said "I wish that they would change the words of the hymn to 'I'll stay where you want me to stay dear Lord'! because we don't have to leave our homes or cities to do missionary work, we can do it right HERE!" It was pretty funny.
Then he started talking about when a king was converted in the Book of Mormon, King Lamoni's Father. A missionary named Aaron was teaching him, and he was converted. He then read us the account of it, and said here is how you know when you're really converted. When you immediately begin to testify and PREACH THE GOSPEL! Right when the king was raised from his "conversion coma" he began to preach the gospel. It was pretty cool. A lot of members came up to us and said how awesome his talk was and how much it inspired them.

So this week was pretty awesome. Tiffany Sotelo is going to be baptized this Saturday, and Mike Miller and Kristi Tift are scheduled for the 1st of February!! This is such an exciting time. So much work to do. I love my mission. :)

We also had zone conference this past week. That was really awesome! President said that he wanted Elder Smith and I to teach how to utilize members, but he changed his mind and had us train on how to find new people to teach. That was pretty fun. We got a lot of good ideas when we all collaborated together as a group. New ones that I hadn't used before, and ones that other missionaries haven't used before either. President saw that one too and was pretty impressed he said.

Love you!
Elder Wilson

 Bryon and Janessa's baptism!

The Miller Family!!!

Another day in paradise (week, actually)

And I'm not lying or being sarcastic about that statement either! This was a really good week. First off, Callie and Jesus Gonzalez got baptized!!! They really loved the service too. They had people they knew from the ward do the talks and they had us do the actual baptizing. That is always really cool to be able to physically do that. Afterwards we had some refreshments which was cool. Jesus wanted to have some brownies but the ward didn't end up getting any. They got chocolate cake though! ;) They said that they felt really good afterwards as well. AS usual. When it was time for Callie to change, though, apparently the towels that we gave her beforehand to dry off with, we left outside of the changing room so she didn't have anything to dry off with until a lady from the ward walked in there to help her out. hahaha. Jesus kind of made fun of her for that. She must have been too busy thinking about other things at the time.

Tyler's was also really good. It was a lot more rushed though. His sister, Ashley (who was baptized November 23rd) had her baby! That was on thursday. We got a call from him saying that he wanted to move his baptism date back because she was in the hospital and John his brother in law and her husband was supposed to baptize him. That was really stressful. But we called him back, explained the importance of baptism and why we need to continue to work towards it no matter what the adversary tries to throw at us. (Some of you might think that's a little overdramatic thinking that was the adversary throwing that in the way, but BELIEVE ME. The last week before the baptism, crazy stuff happens. Every time. It's so annoying. He will do anything he can to try and stop the baptism from happening, because he knows how much it will help them. In this life and in the life to come.)

We had zone training this week on thursday. Even though I have given a lot of trainings in the past, I was a little nervous at first, so I said I quick prayer and then I felt a really calm feeling come over me. Man I love the Spirit. The meeting went really really well. When it was over, President Moffat analyzed it with us and had only good things to say. He said that he wanted us to teach the whole mission the same training in zone conference (which is tomorrow). He said he really liked what we wrote on the board. I'll try and type it up and send it to you guys. But to be completely honest, none of the meeting was my own doing. I was really really trying hard to think of things we could train on and what the zone really needed, but nothing was coming. So I went to the Lord in prayer. And I pleaded that He'd let me know what I needed to start preparing. Nothing. So, a little disappointed, I went to bed asking Him to let me know in my dreams and to help me remember them in the morning. I don't remember much about the dream itself, but I do remember that it had President Moffat in it, other missionaries, me teaching them something, and it having to do with ties. (Guess what happened btw?? ALL of those came true. Pretty awesome. We used ties as blindfolds in the activity part of it. I didn't even realize it until afterwards when Elder Smith and I were talking about it!!) And for some reason the tie in the dream represented using members more in missionary work. So when I woke up, I realized that Elder Smith and I had to train on members+ missionary work. Man. Talk about receiving revelation. It's hard to describe in words. The best way I think I can describe it would be just.. receiving pure knowledge. It just clicks in my mind and I just.. KNOW. Man, it's the coolest feeling ever. I love receiving revelation from God. And when I was saying my morning prayer, I thanked Him for the revelation I had just received, but after that I got more.. pure knowledge. The words were super clear in my mind and I could visualize it. They are what I wrote on the board, that picture I'll include. Sure it seems probably really basic to whoever is reading this, but to me it was HUGE. Ah I love the Lord. He is ALWAYS there for me whenever I'm there for Him. If I include Him in my life, in my everyday choices, then He helps me. But something I learned a while ago is that He sometimes waits on an giving us an answer until after we use our agency to make a decision. Sometimes that's even better. Otherwise He would just be enabling us.

After zone training, we went to the hospital. Tyler's sister, Ashley, wanted us to give her a blessing. I gave it to her. The words just came to me. Revelation! I remember saying that the baby will come shortly, and that there will be no complications. And minimal pain for her. We left, and an hour later we got a call saying that she had had the baby and that he was fine and she didn't have any pain. (She wasn't on a ton of pain meds either). The priesthood is real. I love it. So many miracles have happened from it on my mission AND before it! (At college especially!)

So yeah. This week was awesome. I hope everyone's week was good too. I love ya!

Elder Wilson

ps I forgot my camera this week, so I'll send the pictures of the baptisms next week! sorry!

 Callie and Jesus's baptism

Tyler Modin's baptism!

Transfers and the New Year!

I'm not getting transferred, so all of you who were just eagerly waiting to write me a letter can still send it to the same address. ;)

This week was so AWESOME!!!!!!!! First off, JaNeina got baptized! That was a really good experience. President Moffat came to it. She's amazing! She asked me to baptize her. President Moffat came, and she was still getting changed, haha. Then we took pictures! The service went well though. Very Spiritual. President Moffat came up to her and asked how she felt. She said "wonderful!" To this day, I still have not ever met a single person who doesn't feel amazing after their baptism. She was glowing though. Super happy. Elder Smith and I talked to Mike her husband afterwards and he has been off of the word of wisdom issue for 48 hours as of the baptism, and he is still going strong!!! He said he would work towards January 18th as a baptism. And same with Bryon and Janessa! That will be such a good day. I love the Millers. They're so awesome.

So I got a mysterious card in the mail this week. It was from Kansas City, but with no name or return address on it! So thank you whoever that was, it made my day! And write me again so I can actually write you back! haha.

Tyler Modin is getting baptized this weekend, and he passed his interview. This whole month will be awesome. We have 9 PEOPLE working towards baptism this next transfer alone. I can't wait! This work is getting so fast pased, I have no time for anything else. I am way too busy! I love this work!!

Callie and Jesus Gonzalez got interviewed for baptism and they passed. It was funny, I was filling out the white slip for their membership record, and when writing out his name I was like so it's spelled J-E-S-U-S right? Then he's like you BETTER know how to spell that name!! hahahaha. It was pretty funny. They were both really nervous before the interview but for no reason. Elder Durfee is not a scary guy at all. :) They're excited for their baptism on the 11th also!

Man, I have to get going. I'm sorry if I cut it short this week. Love you all!

Elder Wilson

 JANEINA's BAPTISM!

We took Callie and Jesus and their kid to temple square, that was awesome!

Happy New Years! [Eve]

First off, before you skim over my letter and don't read it, check out this video!! It is really good. But before you do that, are you familiar with Lot and his wife from the Old Testament? You can read two of the verses here. But basically the Lord commands Lot and his family to get out of Sodom and Gomorrah because it's very wicked and is about to be destroyed. And to NOT LOOK BACK. When they're leaving, Lot's wife looks back (spiritually as well) and is turned into a pillar of salt. She longs to still be there, in her heart. So watch the video and think of how it applies! It's pretty awesome.

You don't have to wait until New Years to make a resolution to do better, to be better. Every day is the beginning of the rest of your life. (It just so happens to be New Years day tomorrow, so use it as the first day anyways!) I love these videos.

I hope everyone's Christmas was awesome! Mine definitely was. We were able to Skype home and talk with our families. That was good to see them. Everyone looks so much more grown up! I didn't get trunky from it though, don't worry! I honestly have too much to worry about out here and too much stuff I have to get done that I don't have time to think about anything else. The rest of Christmas was really good too. We were able to spend it with the Pickles. They're an awesome family! They had us over for breakfast, and we hung out with them playing some games and stuff like that. Then we went over to a church building later on and played basketball and some other games with a TON of other missionaries. Two zones combined, so about half our mission. That was a lot of fun. I brought a bag full of candy and chocolate that we had collected over the holidays and I was pleased to see that most of it was eaten! haha. Elder Smith and I are trying our best not to gain weight. ;) 

We had MLC yesterday (Missionary Leadership Council, it used to be called ZLC or zone leader council but now the sister training leaders are invited and so obviously since it's not just the zone leaders there anymore it has to be called something else). That was awesome! We talked about how the mission is doing, and what it needs help with. We talked about who we think should be in leadership (and who should NOT be, haha), what we all need as a whole to do better at, etc. It's always really cool to be a part of that. Usually it's at the mission office, but this time we were able to go to President Moffat's actual home to have it. That was awesome. (It's pretty nice. ;) ) 

We took the Millers to temple square on Friday! That was awesome! But it was way too crowded. Too many people were there trying to see the lights and everything. But it was cool. We watched the family video with them. That was way good. They really liked that I think. They are the perfect family though. So awesome! I wish all of you could meet them. JaNeina is going to be baptized this Saturday!!! She's really excited and so am I! :) Well, and Elder Smith haha.

This week was awesome. Happy New Years!
Love,

Elder Wilson

 Merry Christmas! This was our Christmas Card

 I found the tree of life!!!

I found these perfectly shaped snowflakes on the window of the car!

The group at the party!! So much fun.

 Me and Elder Conley

 Elder Bowie and I

 Elder Bowie, Elder Leyva, Elder Wesley, and I

 Elder lamb and I

 The California group!! Elder Bloomfield, Elder Franco, Elder Nuttall, Elder Gold and I

Elder Villayvong, Elder Haught, and I