Family and Friends,
I would just like to start off my letter this week by giving a shout out to my oldest Sister Corie. I think that you are 25, but I could be wrong. Love you anyways. I hope you got the card I sent. This week was a very good week I have officially hit 8 months on the mission. Time is flyin' man! I was also happy to see my Sister's engagement pictures... it is definitely weird not being home while a Sister is getting a married. Nothing else I can say about it;) haha.
I am happy to say that I attended Cafe Rio 2 times this week. So... yeah it was a good week. So there were some really cool things that happened this week. Elder Payne and I went to a potential investigator's house and bonded with his black african geese. These things are not something to be trifled with let me tell ya. But we went in and with the Lord on our side we were able to bond with Drako, Matilda, and Daisy. I will send pics... I think. One more miscellaneous thing that happened this week... I put one of my suit pants on bent over and they ripped. I will send pics.
So a couple crazy stories that happened this week. First off we attended a funeral on Friday and it was just a super good service. After the service we were in the hall and I was waiting for Elder Payne to come out of the bathroom. Well, these two guys that were dressed really weird said hello to me and it just felt creepy man... Turns out one of these dudes was at one point inviting missionaries to his house to curse them. But the issue was resolved and everything was good. He was wearing this really weird necklace with a jewel in the middle and looked like a creeper man. He had slicked back hair and it was just crazy. Well.... Second story. So we have an investigator named Larry, he is Muslim and lives alone. We were over there earlier in the week and shared a message centered on Jesus Christ. Muslims do not believe in Christ. Larry listened and told us he would be willing to give it a shot. At the end of the lesson I was saying the prayer and I felt a really weird feeling. As I was praying I heard whispering and it was really freaking me out. Elder Payne and I had debated on if we were going to go back or not. We felt impressed that we needed to go back to Larry's. We went in and started talking to him on Saturday night. As we were trying to get into the lesson Larry stopped us. He told us about how this girl that had been staying in his house about a month ago was doing Louisiana Voodoo in his apartment and how he felt uncomfortable ever since. Chills ran down my spine so hard... I was freaking out. So Elder Payne and I offered to bless his home and he accepted. We ended up praying over the house. That night he ended up praying in the name of Jesus Christ and he decided to come to church. It was super cool. He told me at church that he slept like a baby after we left.
Update on Ralph. We went and taught him and had to drop him. This is a really cool story as well. We went in knowing that we were only going to use the Book of Mormon. After long conversation and us reading 2 Nephi 29 (calling him out) he did not know what to say. The Lord promised that we would not be confounded in front of any man. And that is exactly what happened. I am not bragging about what Elder Payne and I did, but we were able to leave a man with a Theology degree speechless. And he expressed that he was not going to put any more time into this. We invited him to always keep the Book of Mormon close to him and to keep reading it. If he ever decided to progress we would be there.
Andi is progressing super well. This is definitely a once in a mission experience. We had dinner at her house the other day. We had taught her a lesson before hand on tithing and offerings. She had explained that she had already looked at tithing and figured out a way she could pay it. She said that since she is retiring and won't have income she is deciding to stop paying a maid to clean the house and use the money they would use for that and put it towards tithing. Her husband said that that would be fine. Now going into fasting... She said that she was going to fast this Sunday and that is what she did. She as well as us and some of the ward members fasted that she would find a baptismal date and that her Dad would be okay with her joining the church. She was really worried about this. She said that when she called her Dad he was actually really okay with it and talked to her about the Book of Mormon. She said that it was a miracle. I thought that that was awesome.
For my spiritual thought this week I want to write about a zone conference we had this week. It was all on repentance. I loved it. I studied purity a lot this week and also repentance. Something I really got from my studies is about the word and feeling of guilt. We need to feel guilty during the repentance process, but we need to feel the right kind of guilt. Are we guilty because we know our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ would not approve of our actions? Or are we guilty because the fear of what others may think? There are two types of guilt that stem from either pride or humility. fear of God, being humility. And fear of man, being pride. God always tells us to be humble and repent. This has really been a big thing in my life. I have been very prideful and still am. I definitely need to keep working on it. A scripture that always helps me is Mosiah 3:19. As we yield to the Spirit God can help us.
I love this work.
Love,
Elder Willden
Monday, February 27. 2017
We started off our week super good. I got to play basketball for 4 hours. I definitely felt it through the week too. Thank heavens for deep blue. I might have to hit that Lone Peak conditioning when I get home haha.
So our teaching pool has been growing and growing. As we have been working hard: finding, asking, and cleaning our area book. We have been finding a lot more investigators. Currently our teaching pool, not all are progressing, is 20 investigators. We are really really busy. It has definitely been a good couple of weeks. Now that I am loving the work and we are busy I feel like I am going to get transferred. We will see what happens. I have been here for 6 and 1/2 months and it has been such an up and down experience. I hope that this area keeps getting better and better. I love it here in Stockton.
So we found Manuel and we finally got to teach him. His wife joined the lesson. We taught about temples and families. Manuel explained that he really had a desire to get into the Temple. We extended an invitation for them to get baptized on the 18 of March. We hope that they will accept they are thinking about it right now. Pray that they will find their answer.
Andi is also pondering a date right now and we have extended the 11 of March. I think she knows that she is going to get baptized she just doesn't know when. We taught her the Word of Wisdom and she thought she couldn't have caffeine. So she was dying haha I then explained that my Dad has a drink called Diet Coke with Lime that he drinks. She was relieved. I don't know what drink she is gonna choose but we will see.
My spiritual thought this week is about a quote I heard from Pres. Uchtdorf. It was a talk on pride. He said that, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking less about yourself." This hit me to my core. Because sometimes when we think of humility we think that we need to beat ourselves up. But in all reality it's about thinking of others and what you can do for them.
I love the work!
--
Love,
Elder Willden
No comments:
Post a Comment