Family and Friends,

This week was pretty awesome except my throat has started to flare up because of the cold weather. My new glasses came too and I think they are super sick! Thanks Mom. And Corie for doing the shopping for me. I also very much appreciated the letters that came this week. I don't know about other missionaries, but the hand written letters is what I like most when I get them. They are the best!

I have been thinking about our mission vision a lot lately..."We are one with the Savior in doing the will of the Father." I have found this to be very profound. It is such a simple and sublime phrase, but if you dig into it you can never hit the bottom. A lot of scriptures from the Book of Mormon and trace back to this phrase...a lot of what we do here in life traces back to this phrase. President Palmer did not come up with this by himself. He held a mission council on what the vision would be and this is what came of it. It also is not just a mission long vision it a life-long commitment. Sometimes when the mission is hard and I feel tempted to just take a break I don't necessarily just think of the mission vision, but I feel that it has been ingrained into my very being. We cannot just dive into being perfect...and none of us will attain that status in this life. But we can TRY...we can STRIVE. I recently studied the hymn, "More Holiness Give Me." Every phrase in that hymn I attached to a scripture from the Book of Mormon. We can always try to get better in the little things....Until we truly can become, "More, Savior, like thee." 

We had a special training this week that is going on here in the northwest area of the church. I really liked the re-emphasis on the rescuing of Melchizedek Priesthood holders. 50% of them are less-active in this area of the church. These are men that have served missions...have served in bishoprics... It was cool how Elder Rasband and Elder Ballard chose the parable of the prodigal son to teach this principle. As I have studied this I realized that we have all strayed from home at one point in our life and it is our duty to help those that have. No matter how far they have gone away. We can also be in the position of the jealous brother...why be jealous? God loves each of his children perfectly. We should rejoice when someone fixes the things in their life that have been contrary to his will. I cannot wait to go out with the Branch President to rescue these Brothers.

We found a new investigator this week! His name is Vini. He is just graduating high school and we are super excited to teach him. We taught him a very quick Restoration lesson and committed him to read the Book of Mormon. It was awesome when he told us that he would have a lot of questions next time we came back. That is how you know when someone is interested. We are very short on investigators right now. We hope to find some more in the coming weeks. Tyler, unfortunately, has kind of drifted off and we have not had any contact with him in awhile.

Please keep praying that someone from our pool of potentials or someone that we find will be ready to hear the gospel. Thanks for your prayers and support I love you all.

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Love,

Elder Willden