Monday, February 12, 2018

Family and Friends,

This week has been really good! This past Friday we went to the mission office and set up our smartphones. It has been super nice. We have an app called areabook planner that helps us with our missionary work so much! It has replaced our paper planners and maps out all the members, less actives, potentials,  and investigators. It helps us to plan more effectively and to update our records more accurately. The Lord truly is hastening His work. The only downside to this change is that we have to convert the paper into the technology. We have to take our paper area books and convert them into the phones. We have an allotted time that we do it each day, but some of the records are taking forever! Once it is done though it will be such a help to the future missionaries.

Just a little update on all of our investigators out here... So Lizzette is doing sooooo good. She came to church yesterday and she has been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy! She is already in 1 Ne. 12. We are trying to help her understand what she is reading, but the awesome thing about her is that she wants to learn so the Holy Ghost is able to testify to her that what we say is true. She asks so many questions and they are very sincere. She committed to live the Word of Wisdom yesterday even though she loves coffee. She reminds me so much of Andi. Just with how prepared she is. Please pray that she can commit to a baptismal date. She told us that she was thinking of November, then she asked us if that was way far out and we were able to teach her about setting goals according to faith. It went super good. So we will follow up with her next week! Oh and pray that the law of chastity lesson will go well. She lives with her boyfriend right now. 

Vera is doing well...back when I was here 7 months ago we were trying so hard to get members present at her lessons. We would try and she would cancel appointments. So what we did this time is we invited Andi, my recent convert from last May, and did not tell Vera she was coming. It was quite a good strategy...let me tell ya! Vera loved Andi. We had a great lesson on the Apostasy and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Weird lesson huh? But that is what the Spirit directed. And it went really good. Andi was able to explain her conversion and she answered a ton of questions that Vera had. Coming from a recently baptized member, this meant a lot to Vera. Hopefully Vera can muster the courage to start coming to church. Please pray for her.

Speaking of Andi something big that you could pray about is for her husband. We have plans this week to go over and see if I can teach him the lessons before I return home. Andi has been trying so hard to prepare him and I was able to have a conversation with her...we think that it is a good time to pop the question. lol. I am very nervous because I know and love this family. I hope and pray that Dan might be ready to take the lessons and learn what God has in store for him. And also what his potential is as a child of God. 

Mia, one of our fairly new investigators has committed to be baptized on March 10. Please pray that she might be able to keep her commitments. It has been so hard to keep in touch with her and we forgot to get a return appointment last week so we hope that can work out. She is awesome though. She has been trying to read and understand the Book of Mormon. Hopefully she will start coming to church so that she can feel the Spirit and receive answers to her prayers.

We also got a new investigators this week named Ronald. He is an 11 year old from a member family. He committed to be baptized on March 3. I forgot how hard it was to teach a young kid. You have to be so simple. Hopefully we can help him to gain a testimony that will endure through his teenage years and the rest of his life. 

We have another investigator named Mario and he was taking the lessons before I got here. He was struggling with some things, but he says he wants to get back on track. He committed to be baptized on March 17. We know that he will have struggles living the Word of Wisdom, but I think he will be able to do it if we help him.

We had a man named Roy come to church last week saying that his wife who hasn't been out to church in awhile sent him. He told us that he would like to "look into joining the church" and asked us where he could go to do that. We smiled and told him that he was at the right place. That is the first time that that has happened to me on my mission. He comes from an ex-military family and wants to make some changes in his life. We have an appointment with him this Wednesday so please pray that we can have a spiritual uplifting experience with him.

While we were at dinner last Friday...we invited this less active member's wife to take the lessons. We go over there every Friday to eat and we thought it might be a good time to ask if she would be willing to do that. She accepted! We are super excited to get started with her! We know it will bless their family so much. The Hansen's are such a great family. Please pray that her heart may be open to the messages that we are going to share with her. 

Now for the bad news...Tim one of our investigators has a new girlfriend and told us he will not be able to be baptized because of the commandments. We told him to invite his girlfriend to meet us. He accepted, but it still has not happened. We hope that this week sometime we can meet her. Please pray for him.

This week I have been thinking about John 13:3-17 a lot...This is the chapter in the gospel of John where Jesus Christ washes the feet of his Apostles. While we were talking about this in district meeting (I made it a part of district meeting) one of the Elders made a interesting comment. It goes something along the lines of...We need to remember that Jesus didn't only wash the feet of the Apostles who were faithful to Him. He also washed Judas Iscariots feet. Although he was not going to be faithful to the Lord, He still washed his feet. When this Elder said that I thought about how that can apply to anyone accepting the Atonement. We are not forced to do anything. Although Christ has already paid for our sins we choose whether or not to accept that ransom. I know the washing of the feet is much more symbolic than that, but I just wanted to share that with all of you. We can serve everybody we meet no matter what they have done and what they will do to us. Later in the chapter the Lord gave a new commandment to love one another. I thought that was very neat. That is how people will know us.

We are very busy and I am very blessed to be in this area. I love the Lord, I love these people, and I love my mission.

Love,

Elder Willden 

Valentines Loot from Elder Kessler's family
No pics of candy from Mom or the weighted jump rope:)

This one is for Corie! hahahaha

Monday, February 5, 2018

Family and Friends,

This week has been great! So we bike a lot more in this area so that means....more bike problems! It was so frustrating this week because we were just riding a long normally, no bumps at all. And then all the sudden I heard a pop and one of my spokes broke. So this week I learned how to install a spoke! I was not about to pay 25 dollars to have someone put one spoke on my bike. I guess it was a good learning experience. Other than the bicycle issues...we had a wonderful week. It was a little bit harder for me to focus than usual this week, but through prayer and wonderful support I have been okay. Luckily I am also in an area that is VERY busy right now. 

We picked up a new investigator this week named Mia! She lives in downtown Stockton...it is so fun to bike there at night;) But she is awesome. She also has a daughter that is 16 so we will see what happens there. We had a great first lesson with her. She told us if she found that the gospel was true she would be baptized. We are trying to work on getting all of our investigators to church. We will see how that goes...but that has definitely been the hardest thing about a mission is getting someone to go to church.

We have another investigator named Lizzette that I mentioned last week. We had another lesson with her this week and she is AWESOME. She reminds me of Andi when she started to investigate the church. So to give a little bit of background. Her and her husband (we hope husband)...moved here to California from New York about a 2 weeks ago. 3 days later the Sister Missionaries knocked on their door. Lizzette has been going through a rough time lately. Her mother passed away and she has been having back problems. She told us that we were blowing her mind with our message. We taught the Plan of Salvation this week and she said that she has wondered about everything that we were talking about and said it just made sense! She also came to church! We invited her last week to pray about baptism and a date to be baptized on. She is a little bit scared because she was active in the Catholic church 6 months ago. We are excited though because she has been reading the Book of Mormon and we think that she knows it's true!

I also want to give an update on Tim and Jim. Tim is doing okay. We will have to push his date from the 7 of February to a different one. Please pray for him to find commitment. Hopefully we can get him to start reading the Book of Mormon daily and to seek for an answer from God. Jim, our 91 year old investigator, is doing good. He has recently been telling us some interesting stories and we think he might not be all there. We talked with President Palmer and he has told us to proceed because Jim knows right from wrong. It will be interesting, but we will see what happens! His baptism is scheduled for February 17. We are excited and nervous. He reminds me a lot of Bob Graser from the Highland 15th Ward...(Originally the Carmichael 1st Ward lol)

Last night we were biking all over the place and we had planned to contacted a referral pretty late because that is when he requested us to come by. Well, we went by and he told us that he was looking for faith in Jesus Christ. He said that there is a lot of evil going on in the world today and that he believes it is a sign from God. We explained some of the Plan. His name is Mike. He is cool! We gave him a chapter out of the Book of Mormon to read! He is awesome, we hope that he keeps progressing. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

-- 

Love,

Elder Willden

This letter to family only is included because it will be a keepsake for Elder Willden:

Hey guys,

I want to share with you my journal entry from Monday. I had a very hard week last week. With Jaxon passing away I was not only shocked, but in a lot of pain. 2 days later we learned as a mission that the church has assigned President and Sister Palmer to close the Modesto Mission. It has been a very emotional week for me so let me share my entry about Jaxon (a few minor changes have been made):

My buddy passed away yesterday morning. Needless to say I am down-trodden and hurt by this news. Jaxon was the best friend I needed growing up. It breaks my heart knowing that I won't get to see him when I get home. Saturday evening he had a seizure and the doctor said it was going to get worse. At about 9PM Saturday evening Elder Kessler and I were riding our bikes and I felt as if something was very wrong with Jaxon (I didn't know why this feeling came to me) but I shrugged it off and kept working that night. It was a very real feeling and I was a little worried to check my email on Monday. I will never forget him. He was always by my side when I wanted him to be. He stayed in my room most every night growing up. During high school he knew the routine...when I got home and told him to go to bed he would go up to my room and I would hop in the shower. When he started to get older I would carry him up to my room and I was happy to do it! I would do my best each morning before school to tell Jaxon goodbye and to give him a hug. When I left on my mission I talked to him for a little bit and asked him to stay healthy...God had another purpose for him. I thank God for bringing him into my life. My last Christmas home was when these pictures were taken (I have taped pictures into my journal). I remember Bailee telling me that there was a possibility of that being my last Christmas with him. I didn't want anyone to notice, but I wept a little bit after she told me that. I cannot describe the feelings that I have right now. I wish I could've seen my dog one more time. I know I will in the next life. I love you Jaxon...Best dog any one could ask for.

Thanks for informing me...I apologize for not getting back to you until now. Hard week last week.

-- 

Love,

Elder Willden