today has been a good ole slice out of the celestial kingdom, i mean glory to the highest to be able to serve another blessed day in the beautiful valley of stockton cali for niaaa in the beautiful brookside ward. #shakabraman
Family and Friends,
As you can tell the first part of my email was inspired. It magically popped up on the screen so it must have been God's will. I had a great week this week. Especially on Mother's Day. I was so glad that the whole fam was there and that I got to finally meet my brother in law.
This weeks letter is going to be pretty short because of skype. I am so thankful for the mission and how it has blessed not only my life, but my family's lives as well. I hope that you all can find the peace that this gospel brings. I listened to a talk last night by Henry B. Eyring. It was from the 2015 general conference. He talked about the Holy Ghost and how it can lead and guide us. If we seek for the will of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost we can know what we need to do and magnify it. President Eyring has become one of my most loved General Authorities. He is so powerful and brings the spirit so much.
I love the Lord and I love this Gospel. If any of you are debating a mission...GO. It will be the greatest experience of your life. Your testimony will grow so much. I am thankful for the opportunity that I have to serve.
I love you all.
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Love,
Elder Willden
May 8, 2017
Family and Friends,
This week flew by! We got our transfer calls last night and I will be staying in the Brookside ward. I am so excited because they moved the zone leaders to Spanish work. That means that Elder Payne and I will be covering my whole old Weston ward area as well. The Lord has blessed me to be able to work with this ward so much. We are also seeing a lot of success right now so I am very satisfied with staying. It still won't be easy. But I will always remember what President Waddoups said in my setting apart blessing. "Happiness is a choice...always remember this."
So.... My bike is always trying to bring me down now. 3 days after I got it fixed another spoke broke. 20 more dollars!! I am definitely donating this bike when I am done with my mission. I HATE biking haha.
I had a pretty cool experience this week. We showed up to a dinner at a park with some members and it turned out the Sister's parents were their. Well they introduced themselves and said that they were serving in the mission presidency in Spokane Washington. I asked them if they knew Elder Jon Christensen and they said that they did and that he was only 20 miles away from where they lived in that point of time. He pulled his phone out and texted him haha. It was cool to see how small the world is in the church.
We had a zone training this week and found out that Elder Weatherford T. Clayton is coming to our mission for a tour. This is a great opportunity for me to memorize the first vision. President Palmer told us to do that because each of us have a chance to be interviewed by him. That will be a nerve-racking experience if that happens, but it is a small chance.
One really cool experience we had this week was with our investigator Larry. We had a member named Brother Harper come with us. He is a recent convert of about a year and he investigated for 14 years. He came with us and said the spirit told him to say some things. And BOY DID HE SAY SOME THINGS. It was so cool to be in there. But as I was in there my jaw was dropped. He started talking about racial problems in the world (Larry is African-American). And then he told Larry, "The reason I am here tonight is to welcome you to the ward. I don't care if you get baptized tomorrow, next week, or next year. You made it this far and you know that you are going to join. It is just a matter of time." That is one of the many quotes that I remember. But overall it was just a great experience haha. Afterwards Larry texted us and told us how much he liked Brother Harper. So that is what needed to happen. I forgot to mention that as we were leaving Brother Harper did a gangster handshake with Larry and hugged him. This was so surprising. Larry is from Compton. Enough said.
Andi's baptism was soooooo spiritual. There were about 20 non-members there supporting her. And it couldn't have gone any better. I cannot wait to tell you all her conversion story. She will be such a great member. She already got her temple recommend so I think we will be heading to Oakland soon. I am so excited. I hope to keep in touch with her for the rest of my life. She is going to be a great missionary. She already has her Mother's name to take to the temple. After Andi's baptism we went to lunch with President Palmer. A funny story is associated with this. I got a steak and cheese sandwich. Well they decided to put horseradish and red onions on that bad boy. You all know how I am. My taste buds have changed, but not that much. So as I was trying to choke this thing down I got to my third bite and just gagged super hard. I almost threw up in front of President and Sister Palmer. President saw that I wasn't eating my sandwich and Sister Palmer being so kind took my sandwich gave it to President and he got me a new one. Haha. It was embarrassing, but President was cool about it. I guess Sister Palmer is very picky too. So I got off the hook.(: Cool experience too: We decided to go back to Andi's that night. Which we weren't really planning on and we showed up and she was having a very hard time. I am not going to go into details, but basically she told us she was so glad we were there and we stayed and talked to her family and friends. I actually got to talk to her friend Dave whose wife recently passed away and he was very interested and involved in the conversation. It was cool. And to top things off I confirmed her on Sunday and it was so cool. I could feel God's love for her so much. It was crazy. God LOVES his children.
My spiritual thought for this week is just my testimony that I know God know's his children. He knows what we need, when we need it. I know that Jesus Christ Atoned for our sins. I have recently been reading pretty close to the end of Jesus the Christ. I read about his trial and condemnation to death. He was truly the Son of God. And everyone knew it. Christ felt everything. As he suffered for our pains he truly saw each and everyone of us. He knows our weaknesses and knows our strengths. I have been able to see this on my mission especially with things He has blessed me to go through. I love Him. He is my Savior and He is your Savior.
I love this work. Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Willden
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| Elder Rivera, Elder Hacking, and Elder Bonola. And of course YOURS TRULY:) |
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| Andi's baptism |
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