Elder Kolton William Willden

Monday, March 19, 2018

Family and Friends,

Well, Roy was baptized this past Saturday! It was a wonderful experience seeing him progress and be so willing to follow the example Jesus Christ has set for us. We were able to invite Juanita, Roy's wife, to the baptism and she came! It was just a good, spiritually uplifting experience for everyone. Lizzette even came to the baptism. I will mention the results of that later. But we were super happy with everything that went on this weekend. Roy will be getting the priesthood next week. It has been nice to have this success because the ward is getting more motivated to do missionary work. Funny story from after the baptism. So President and Sister Palmer wanted to take us to lunch so President asked Sister Palmer where she wanted to go. She said Taco Bell lol. Well... What happened was we went to Panera instead, but Sister Palmer said I am the king of Taco Bell!! I was so honored. She wanted to try Taco Bell because of how much I like it. I love Sister Palmer hahah. But also a side note. I met one of Chase's coworkers at Panera. It was weird, but kinda cool. He took a picture and said he was gonna send it to you.

Now an update on Lizzette! So she came to the baptism on Saturday and LOVED it. We had a lesson with her on Saturday evening and she was telling us that she thinks she is ready. It was such a sweet surprise. She also told us that her boyfriend has been more supportive and she is going to invite him to church next Sunday! We taught her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ for our lesson. It went so well. At the end we were talking to here about things she needs to do to prepare herself for baptism. We told her about how our church does free marriage ceremonies and she got really excited. So we will see what happens with that. I am just so excited for her and the choices that she is making. Missionary work is so joyful. The Lord loves each of His children and wants them to be found. I will keep you updated on Lizzette, but please keep her in your prayers.

We had dinner at the Hansen's again this Friday! Our lesson afterward with Tiffani went really well! She committed to be baptized on April 7! We are so excited for her and their family. Tiffani is such a good person and this is really going to bless her as well as her family. Please pray that everything goes smoothly as we prepare for April. She is nervous... But that's normal!

We were able to join Andi in starting her Temple Prep classes this week! It was such a neat opportunity to see how much she has grown in her gospel knowledge. She will be going to the temple on May 12. And I think I have received approval to go to that so I am soooo excited. Andi is nervous, but she knows that this is the right step forward. She is working really hard to be ready for it. She is such a good example to the people around her. We have been inviting her to come out teaching with us and she connects so quickly to our investigators. It is nice to have someone there that these people can relate to. I am so lucky to be able to associate myself with all of these wonderful people!

We are excited for this evening because we are going to start the recent convert lessons with Ronald. We invited his family to sit in as well. So hopefully that can happen. He has a sister that is not baptized and his mother needs to be rebaptized because when she was baptized she was not confirmed. So we will see how it all works. We hope that we can help them all get on the right track! Ronald seems to be doing really good. He will be getting the priesthood next week!

We have an amazing opportunity to start proselyting on Facebook! With that comes planned times to get online and invite others to Jesus Christ. It has been super weird... We have to get super creative on ideas to try and find. We have already been finding success on getting in contact with people. It has been so nice to have contact with so many people at once. It is also such a great opportunity to learn how to use technology better so when I make the transition here in a few months it will be a lot easier!

I have been thinking about agency and integrity a lot this past week. President shared a lot of insight on the meaning of integrity during zone conference. He talked about how he taught primary children in the past and he was able to ask them what integrity meant. One of the kids answered, "it means doing what you said you would do, when you said you would do it." Another said, "it means not only doing what you said you would do, but doing it even when no one else is watching." This touched my heart that 9 year old children would give such a doctrinally sound answer. I love this gospel. I am thankful to be able to be a missionary. I love you all!

Love,

Elder Willden