June 26, 2017
Family and Friends,

A lot changed this week... A new area, a new companion, and a new assignment. It was so hard leaving Stockton. After preparation day was over we went to Andra's house. It was so hard so bye to her. She is so awesome. Before we went to Andra's though we went to Cafe Rio for the last time. It was a sad day... They don't have one in Turlock. But Turlock definitely has plenty of good things.

My new companion's name is Elder Robison. He is so cool. One of my favorite companions so far. He is from Rigby, Idaho. He likes to ball so we are chillin'. He also likes taco bell so this will be a good transfer. He has been serving in this ward for 3 transfers... So he has been here for awhile. I am worried that we might not be together that long. I hope we are together for awhile though. It has been a good first week. So we cover the whole Turlock Stake, but we live in Ceres. Which is a town up by Modesto. We have a super nice apartment. Funny story about this week. It was Elder Robison and I's second day together and he got onto a roof to fix an A/C unit for a member. Well.... He got done and was coming off the roof, but as he was coming down he fell off the roof!!! BUT. I caught him falling off the roof and we just knew the companionship unity this transfer was gonna be off the charts!! Haha. It was funny.

The YSA work is so fun. We serve in a branch and it is so awesome. The zone leaders here just switched this transfer from covering both the YSA Branch and Turlock 2nd family ward. To just the YSA branch. So we definitely have to work a lot harder to find. And we are definitely going to have to get more creative with finding. But there is a college campus in our area so we will be spending a lot of our time doing work there. Our area is also huge so we also work the area book a lot and drive through farm country to get to other cities. We went to some cities this week that were called Hughson and Waterford. They were cool little cities. It is cool working with younger people too because they are more open. Working in a YSA branch though... There is a lot more drama, crude humor, and jokes than the family ward so it is interesting! I love it though.

Something else that is super cool about this area is that the Stake President here is related to our family. I have not met him yet, but our Branch President said that he talks about Cove Fort a lot so we are definitely related. I also met this kid in our branch that is like our 3rd or 4th cousin. It is weird to have family here. But the people are very nice to me because of my last name... Which is weird because our name is not common.

Fun fact about this area Colin Kaepernick lives here. Everyone hates him, but we are gonna try to get him to YSA hahaa. Probably not gonna be able to contact him. He has a huge gate.

Well I love it here. It is so awesome.

-- 

Love,

Elder Willden

June 20, 2017
Lunch with Elder Payne and Brother Black (ward missionary that Elder Willden calls "the GOAT" because he is the greatest of all time!)  before Elder Willden left Stockton.  He served in Stockton for almost 11 months.