September 23rd, 2013

Hey family!

Well this week wasn't really filled with anything to exciting or really worth sharing.  Last Tuesday we went and did service for one of the members in the ward whose name is Robin and he is always feeding us and helping us with teaches and basically awesome.  He is fixing up his home and he gave us the job of cleaning his radiators and then hooking them back up and putting in new piping.  Let me tell you those radiators were disgusting and were so heavy especially with water in them.  It took us two hours to clean two of them and it rained on us the whole time so that was fun.  Putting in the new piping was fun though and I learned a few plumbing trades which was awesome.

Wednesday I had my first zone training and had to give a presentation with Elder Anderson!  It kind of sucked, but was good for us as well.

It went great and the zone leaders were happy with they two new missionaries talked about being bold and extending commitments!

Interesting topic for us huh.  Saturday Elder Anderson and I had the privilege of going on splits with the zone leaders since we struggling with our finding efforts a little bit.  I went with Elder Aragones who has been out just over a year and is from Barcelona, Spain.  He was converted only two years ago and has the coolest conversion story!

Well anyway we went and did finding for three or so hours and it was the fastest three hours of my mission!  He is incredible at talking to people and getting them to talk as well.  He is a little bold and does some weird things for example showing people a picture of Christ and asking them if he knows his friend Jesus.  It works well and he does some many other crazy things.  We had good success and got 4 new investigators!  One even said she got the chills when we were talking to her about the first vision.  Pretty cool if you ask me.

I realized throughout the week that I haven't really said much about my area besides that it is full of Muslims haha.  Slough itself is a dirty small city, but amazing anyway, but once you get out of slough and get on the back roads it is all country.  And the roads are super tiny with huge trees and bushes on both sides that make the roads feel smaller and people just fly around like its nothing.  It is so beautiful in country and reminds me of Oregon especially where Pacific University is located.  I live by a park which is really nice so its quiet and peaceful.  The park is also very beautiful.  The people are great and if you give them the chance are quite nice and friendly even though they look like they want to kill you.

My spiritual thought is short this week, but it was really powerful to me.  Its from President Snow and you can find it in Chapter 18 out of the book President Snows teachings. Anyway there is a quote in there by him that says, "Don't be to great till grown."  How simple and yet powerful that was to me.  In the mission field you are surrounded by Elders who have been out for over a year and are just amazing and even some younger missionaries that are amazing.  You want to so bad to be like that but you haven't even been out a two months.  I basically summed it up as trying to be a 15 month missionary in 1 month.  In life we do the same, we start at a new job, sport, and in church and see someone who has been there longer and want to be like that.

Something the Elder Quorum president pointed out to me is that if you were a 15 month missionary in one month think of all the blessing and experiences you missed out on to grow to become a 15 month missionary.

 So in life Heavenly Father prepares us to be the missionaries, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, grandparents, employees, and church leaders we need to be at the time he wants us to be it and how to be it.  Everyone wants to be great right now, but don't want to put the effort in to be great they just want it.  Remember Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us and knows what we can become.  When times become hard or easy never lose focus on Christ and always turn to him as much as possible.  We see ourselves as in the past and now, Heavenly Father sees us in an eternal perspective.

I love you all and am always praying for you!  Continue to endure to the end and stay on the straight and narrow path!

Love,

Elder Wilson