July 3, 2017

Family and Friends,

Turlock is so awesome! The zone is huge and we are YSA so we drive a lot. We drove through the country this week and it was cool to see all of the farming and agriculture. Finding YSA age potential is so hard, but I am enjoying every minute of it. We are trying to get really creative with our finding activities. We spend a lot of time on the California State Stanislaus campus just trying to contact college students. We are in the process of trying to get our branch to start stand at the college where we can go and talk to people about the BoM, Jesus Christ, Restoration...Etc.

We had Mission Leadership Council this week and it was very refreshing. Something that I thought was really cool that happened was President Palmer shared a chapter from the Book of Mormon with us and it was 2 Nephi 4. My favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. He talked about how Nephi got down on himself a little bit. And then he committed himself to the work. I love this chapter because of the example of Nephi. Sometimes we might not feel worthy to do something, but we need to have the desire and the faith to continue on and rely on the Lord. As most of you know my mission scripture is verse is 35.

35 Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen.

This is one of the several really good verses in this chapter.

We had a very good exchange this week with the Elders serving in the Crows Landing Spanish Branch. As we were going around talking to everyone, something came to my mind and that is that Jesus Christ does not leave us alone while we are on our mission. When we contact someone we should have confidence knowing that He is there with us. When we are inspired to say something to someone it is because the Spirit of the Lord is there urging us to do it. As we have found it hard to find YSA potentials we have been trying our best to get referrals for the Elders and Sisters in our zone. We have found such great joy in doing this. Missionary work is just such an amazing thing.

Funny story this week. So apparently Colin Kaepernick lives in Turlock. And we totally went by his house. He has a FAT house (if he lives there). We pushed the call button on the massive gate that he has. Well it went to voicemail so we were about to leave, but then someone answered. We were freaking out. We asked if we could come share a message about Jesus Christ. Whoever answered was super nice and said they had company over, but that we could come back another day to share a message. We are gonna baptize Colin Kaepernick. Haha. If he lives there.

The branch has asked me to speak in church next week. I am a little nervous seeing that this will be the first time speaking in church since my farewell talk. (I know....weird.) But I think it should go well. I am going to speak on the power of repentance helping us gain a testimony of The Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am very excited to speak on this topic because this is one of the things that has helped me most in my life. Daily repentance is a real thing and we can find greater peace as we look to The Prince of Peace. I love my mission and what it is teaching me. It has been a good year.

We are teaching 1 investigator and we have just picked up 3 new investigators. We met 2 girls at Walmart last Monday that actually have a friend out on a mission one of them expressed their want to be baptized...But she said she wanted to do it when her friend got home. We are trying to fix that. It will be an interesting couple of weeks. We are also working with all of the YSA members and teaching them the lessons so that they can better share the message with their friends. These members are what makes us missionaries successful. When they find the joy that comes from missionary work there will be so much missionary work to do! I love it here.

I love the work!

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Love,

Elder Willden

Pictures of Elder Robison and Elder Willden