Elder Kolton William Willden

To MOM:

I will be staying in Stockton! It is so great here. The people are so humbled here that is easy to teach them. Sometimes I feel like there is nothing to do, but then I remember our purpose as missionaries and that is to bring others unto Christ.

That's awesome that Chase is teching again. Tell him good luck. Everything seems to be going well. I wish sometimes that I could witness it. But I am happy serving the Lord. I read that letter that Papa's trainer wrote. I almost cried. I am a baby now. But Papa is such a good example and I am striving to be like that man everyday.

The other thing I wanted to tell you is that I have really been thinking about Dad this week. What a good role model for me. He grew up with many challenges, yet he made the most of it and all three of his sons are going on missions and his family is close. I would say that is pretty successful. His example of hard work has had an effect on my whole outlook of the mission. I don't know why but I just wanted to share this with you. Dad helped me a lot through high school. I feel like a lot of people in California do not have a Dad to go to like I did. I am so grateful for the things that he taught me in my childhood. So I guess what I am trying to say is you are very lucky, mom. And do not get me wrong, he is very lucky too. Because I do not think he could've done any of it without you. I love and miss all of you! Keep me posted on everything!

And I will start labeling my pictures... haha. Keep being a crazy........good Mom!!!!

Hello Utah!

I guess the Lord thought I was pretty gangster so I will be staying in Stockton! Elder Lamm is still my companion. We get along pretty well! We are in the Weston Ward. It is a very similar situation with the Union Ward. A LOT of less actives. The people here are so awesome though. Really humble people. To explain Stockton a little bit... Everyone knows how California's government is. Stockton has some very nice areas, but because of proposition 8 they have a lot of low income housing in a lot of random places. So there is a lot of gang activity throughout the whole city and Elder Lamm and I cover the south side. The south side is very big and has a lot of those prop 8 housings. So it is very interesting in this area. Do not get me wrong I love this area and the people in it!

I want to tell you guys a little bit about the investigators here. The first one I want to talk about is our most recent one. Her name is Shawna Richardson. She is a single mother of two boys. They are 11 and 12 years old. The 12 year old has autism. She is a great lady. Elder Lamm and I like to call her our golden investigator. I tell you that because she has been progressing so rapidly. The first night we went to her home to teach her she told us she is planning on getting baptized and asked us when church was. She showed up to church on Sunday and loved it. She approached Elder Lamm and I after the meeting and asked us when we could meet next. Pray for her as we keep working with her. She has so much potential and I am so happy I get to work with her.

We have another investigator named Simi Pomana. He is 9 years old and his whole family are members. They are such a good family. Simi is getting ready for a baptism on September 17th. We are so excited for his father to be baptizing him. We are just trying to get him ready for that big step in his life.

Something I don't know if I have told you about our mission is that President Palmer told us he would rather have us not have our white clothes here. He does not necessarily want us to baptize people. He wants the members to baptize. I was confused at first, but then I realized that President Palmer is very inspired. Missionaries are always going to leave their area after a while. So as we get the members of the ward involved and have people baptized by a fellow shipper it makes it so more people stay in the church. I think that that is so cool.

I wanted to start sharing a spiritual message every week, so here it goes. I have been studying in Alma in the Book of Mormon. I have really been able to ponder on the words I am reading. Everything in the Book of Mormon is so good, but what I have really been liking right now is Alma the younger. He completely turned his life around, gave up the judgement seat to go and preach. A certain chapter that really stuck out to me was Alma 14. This is when Alma went to Ammonihah. The people here were very wicked and rejected him. While he was leaving he was visited by an angel that told him to go back. He then met Amulek and started preaching. I thought it was cool that the people would not listen to just him, but when there was two testimonies the people could not deny it. That is how missionary work is set up now so I thought that was very cool. Alma and Amulek ended up watching saints die and seeing the scriptures burn and they were patient in their suffering. In verse 26 which is one of my favorites Alma cries to the Lord asking for help. They end up being delivered from their burdens. This reminded me of Joseph Smith when he was in Liberty Jail. He cried to the Lord and asked him why this was happening and the Lord told him to be patient and he would always deliver.

Sorry that was really long, but I invite you to study these scriptures. They will strengthen you when you feel weak.

The members in Stockton are so great and feed us lots and lots of food.

The worst experience so far with food happened this week. We went to a Hispanics house for dinner this week and she told us she had made menudo with leg tendons in it... So fast forward I end up trying this cow stomach and cow leg tendon. I gagged a couple times.. luckily they did not see that. And I got very sick. So she made me some quesadillas. Wowzers. That was terrible.

Other than that it was a very good week! I love the work!

Love,

Elder Willden