Hello friends and family,

What a great time to be serving The Lord!

Elder Lamm and I had a very good week. We are starting to see the desire that the Weston Ward has in bringing it's members back. Oh how the Lord loves his children. We have a few progressing investigators and we are excited to bring some new faces into the Weston Ward and Stockton Stake.

The investigator we are working very hard on is Shawna Richardson. She is a very good lady. We went to her home over the week, but could not get in to give a lesson because we could not get any members to come with us. She was out of town this last Sunday so she could not come to church, but she told us without us asking that she was going to come to church this upcoming Sunday. It has been such a spiritual experience to watch her growth and how her desire to know if this is true is working. Please pray for her and her kids Aiden and Gavin as they are preparing to make some decisions that will give them salvation.

I do not know if I told you all about Simi Pomana last week. He will be getting baptized on the 24th of September. We had to push it forward a week because of his football schedule. This kid is 9 years old and has a pure desire to get baptized. We taught him the 10 commandments, Word of Wisdom, and the Law of Chastity. He learned all three very well. I am not gonna lie the 10 commandments were very hard for me to memorize this past week. haha. But Simi has good parents that want the best for their children and they are very excited for their son to be baptized. I am so very blessed to have touched this boy's life and I am thankful for the opportunity to be serving where I am serving.

We have a part member family that we have been working really really hard on. Their names are Brett, Alejandra, and John Luke (their son). They are not married at the moment. Alejandra has been divorced and it has led to commitment issues. She is the only member in their family. Elder Lamm told me that Brett is willing to be baptized and go through the process he needs to go through to go to the Temple and be sealed with Alejandra. He has great faith. haha. They are one of my favorite families I have ever met. One of those moments where I thought to myself that this is one of the families I was supposed to see on my mission. It is very humbling to have those kind of experiences. Elder Lamm says they have not been open to anything until recently. Alejandra has been open to hear the lessons. And I think she wants to get married. She has not told us that, but we think that is what's going on. We will be eating dinner with them tonight and we are trying to set up a family home evening with our ward mission leader Brother Roberts. I love Brother Roberts haha.

The spiritual thought this week is based off of my studies in the Book of Mormon (again).;) I absolutely love the record of the sons of Mosiah. In Alma 26 after all of their labors with the Lamanites they returned and Ammon started talking about their experiences. He talked about how they had brought many unto the fold and if they would not have gone to the Lamanites many would've perished. After a little bit of this Aaron, Ammons brother, rebuked him. He said that Ammon was boasting in himself and being prideful. But, Ammon then said in verses 11-12, "I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever." I really liked this because as missionaries we do things that we could never do by ourselves. It is easy to become prideful and think that we are doing all the work. But to think of how long the Lord has been preparing people in the world. It is a blessing for us to be that "instrument" in God's hands. I absolutely love the work and the experiences I have been having. Stockton is so great.

Tell the fam I love and miss them all and look forward to seeing them at Christmas!! The time here flies so fast.
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Love,

Elder Willden

I did not take any pictures this week so I took this after I gave myself a haircut.

Haha I imitated Chase this week hahah.

We made a golf hole we can putt into.

This is what I eat everyday hahah.

This is my Zone!