Monday, September 25, 2017

Family and Friends,

This week was such an amazing week! Elder Stewart and I are ballin' out here in the YSA branch. Seriously...we are ballin'. Last Monday we played basketball for 5 hours total. My feet were JACKED up all week. I had to do some surgery on my big toe because I had a gnarly ingrown toenail.

Last week President Palmer invited all the Zone Leaders to a service project at his house. His neighbor had to take a fence down because they are putting up a new one I guess. So we went there and it took about 45 minutes due to the amount of missionaries that were there. While we were doing this project it reminded me of doing things with Dad and how technical it was hahah. I loved getting Dad all those screwdrivers, holding the flashlights, and picking up sticks.(: Man I miss all the yardwork at home lol.

So...yesterday Juan was baptized! It was such a great experience. He was so ready to make this step in his life. I was so excited for him and for his decision. He bore such a powerful testimony of the Savior and the impact the He has had on his life. He talked about how Jesus Christ has made it possible for all of us to repent. He then went on to talk about how the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith is a prophet. It was such an amazing testimony and I felt the spirit so strongly. It was also a rare opportunity for Juan as he was able to receive the Holy Ghost font side after the baptism. It was such a great day. Cody, one of our members, baptized him and he said when Juan went to the changing room after he said a prayer to Heavenly Father thanking Him for that experience. I am so happy for him. We will be going to the Temple with him next week!

While on exchanges this week we had a couple of amazing experiences. It was a testimony to me that the spirit really does guide us wherever we go and if we listen we can experience miracles. So I was with Elder Christensen this week and as we were wrapping up our night and heading to institute we decided to hop on our bikes...we could have easily just driven up. So we started riding. We felt like we should take the back roads...we could have easily just went up a main road and had the time cut in half. So as we were riding through the neighborhoods we saw a lady that was frantically moving things out of her house to her car. We asked if we could help and she happily accepted. After we finished loading her car she had us pray for her. She started crying and then told us about how hard the past few weeks were. Her husband had fallen off the uhaul truck they had and had to go to the hospital. She told us while they were in Merced the missionaries down there offered to help her as well. We were able to get her info and send it to the missionaries down there again so that they could help her get everything in order at their new apartment and then teach them! It was awesome. The next morning we went out in the morning and we decided to go to this potentials apartment complex. While we were there I had a prompting to go knock on this former investigators door...I had only heard about him a couple times, but I saw the door as we were coming in and I had an impression to go there. Well as we were parking our bikes the door opened and the former's brother was talking to his mom about the missionaries and said as he was telling his mom he wanted us to come over we showed up. We were able to teach him and give him as a referral to the family ward Elders. It was super crazy.

I cannot wait for General Conference this weekend! I am going to miss the spaghetti and cinnamon rolls, but it is a sacrifice that I can make for the happiness I feel right now. I love my area, I love my companion, and I love the work!

-- 

Love,

Elder Willden

"Me and Stewey"

"Clown"

"JUAN'S BAPTISM"