October 27, 2014

Well it was a good week.  We had YSA Family Home Evening on Monday. Only one YSA showed up but he wanted to stay so it was basically a missionary FHE. It was still a lot of fun.  We played the game where you write or draw a picture to the person next to you and then you go around asking questions to what or who you are.  I basically am the worse at that game.  The funniest thing though was that when I was asking questions for mine the only things I got from the people were.  It is condemned by God, but two missionaries would like to have it but not the YSA that showed up. See if you can figure it out.  Okay I'll tell you.... It was the the Ring in Lord of the Rings.  WHAT THE HECK! SO DUMB. 

On Tuesday we just got flogged on everything so we just did finding and worked hard can't really remember that day in all honesty haha.  Wednesday we did a lot more finding and visited a less active member who is struggling with anti.  I personally don't understand why people struggle with anti.  Its like just read, pray, and ask God if the Book of Mormon is true and no anti can or will affect you.  Questions are good to have but we should not let them forget what we believe and know to be true.  If we truly trust in God then we will not go astray.  Anyway we saw another less active and he just basically is happy where his life is and doesn't want to change, but is okay with the punishment he will get from God.  So sad.  Oh well just got to keep visiting and loving him!  Thursday we had District Meeting.  We also saw Pam my recent convert.  She had slipped and fallen in the bathroom and bruised her ribs real bad.  Poor girl!  Bishop gave her a blessing and we taught her a really good lesson about the Holy Ghost.  It was epic.  We then did balloon contacting.  Its where you put scripture into a balloon and then ask people to pop it.  I was surprised at how many people are scared of balloons haha.  So funny. But we had some success from it. We did it Saturday as well and it was even more successful. We hand out two book of Mormon's got some details.  The best part of the whole night was when these two Born Agains came up and started chatting with us.  It was a good chat and then they left and little bit later chased us down and gave us two books they had written! It was really cool cause they were expensive but being a missionary has its perks:) Can read some Born Again doctrine if they have any that is? 

Anyway back to Thursday.  After balloon contacting we met with our baptismal date who then had to drop her date because she has been living with her partner for 4 years and wont move out or get married. But she really wants to find a faith in God so that is good! Love her to death! Friday we met with our neighbor and taught the Restoration to her.  She said she didn't like going to church or reading but she has now come to church twice and wants to read the Book of Mormon! Is so awesome what the Spirit can do! I just love this gospel so much!  The coolest part about Friday is my last companion Elder Belnap, his dad was in England this week and came to the Island Friday to meet Pam. So we went to dinner with them.  It was awesome being able to meet him and talk about how awesome and great Elder Belnap is! His wife and another missionaries wife gave us a bunch of American candy which was awesome! Pam was so funny around him and all excited about talking about Elder Belnap and I.  She is like are Grandma.  So awesome! Had a great time! Well that is basically all I got for ya this week!  Our Mission President committed us to do 4 hours of finding everyday this week and the promise is that we will have at least 4 new investigators.  Going to be exciting to see what happens!  

I hope you all have a great week this week and love ya to shredzz!! 

Happy Halloween and Love,

Elder Wilson! 

Pictures are of Elder Belnaps Dad, And some awesome random clone troopers in Newport! 

October 20, 2014

There is a country song that perfectly describes missionary life to a tee I just have to add one word in it.  

"God is great, root beer is good, and people are crazy."

This week was just full of meetings!  This month has just been full of meetings! I have only taken the sacrament once this month and have probably sat through at least 20 hours of meetings this week and I'm only a grunt work missionary with no responsibility!  I hope I never become a zone leader.  The church and all there meetings haha. 

Monday we went bowling for P-day.  Were suppose to go with the sisters but the member that was coming couldn't so Elder Allen and I had  a little bro date and played 8 games of bowling! Man we were both so sore the next couple days.  Yes and just as a side I won 5 out of the 8 games.  It was intense and I have learned that I am so out of shape.  Tuesday was DLC.  Just where the district leaders go and chat with the zone leaders for hours on end about what we are going to do this transfer to be better and set some goals.  Had a good dinner with some members after which is always the greatest.  Taught them how and why we teach the Restoration the way we do.  It was really good and effective.  That is right over here in the London South Mission we train our members.  No petty spiritual thoughts. Just kidding Spiritual thoughts are always good too.  Wednesday we went back down to the southern part of the island to finish knocking that road with the red squirrel.  Nothing happened expect for epicness and God showing his love for me.  We walked up to the same tree we saw the red squirrel last time and yes there in that big tree was a beautiful red squirrel. This time I got lots of pictures and videos.  To awesome!  We then also found whilst walking down the road the smallest church building in England in the 12 century.  It was free to walk in and see.  It was really small and pretty dang cool.  We had a really good teach with our investigator Mark. Watch Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration with him at members house eating ice cream.  It was great! Mark makes movies and is an actor so he really appreciated it.  Really cool! He also showed us a movie he made that was 15 minutes long and it was actually pretty dang good!  

Thursday we had a funeral for a member that died in the ward. I never knew her cause she had a stroke right before I came in and then died.  She was 90 and seemed like the coolest member! We then ate over at a members home.  Tried to train them on how to give a proper referral and we had an epic lesson planned out that was spiritually up lifting and then they just like ruined it by talking the entire time on how missionaries do things wrong and why they don't give them referrals.  Even though in our lesson we would cover those concerns and how to overcome them.  So frustrating.  FAMILY! If missionaries come into your home don't talk forever and do the things you are asked with willingness and a cheerful heart.  The Lord will bless you as you do this.  After that we took the ferry over to South Hampton to stay at the zone leaders flatt to go to zone conference the next day.  Had fun there! 

Zone Conference was great.  We had an area seventy Elder Adler there. He and his wife were just so great.  Learned so many things that I can be better at and was a great spiritual recharge. Also got to see for the first time in a year two elders that went home early but returned this last transfer.  They were in my very first district and it was the greatest joy to see them back out in the mission field. I truly felt like Alma when he son the Sons of Mosiah again.  Such and amazing feeling! Rest of the week was just finding and the stake conference.  Was just supercharged this week with the Spirit and ready to just thrash the nations with His Spirit! I love this gospel so much and I know that it is true and that this is the ONLY true  church on the earth.  If we will but humble ourselves and pray and ask God to know if it is true and be willing to act on that answers he will pour out his Spirit upon us and we can know for ourselves that it is true.  

I love you all to shredzz and hope you have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Wilson

Pictures are of the red squirrel and the Elder Clark and Elder Probst who came back! 

October 13, 2014

Hiya! (How they say hi here)

Well in case you didn't know I am staying for another six weeks on the Isle of Wight with Elder Allen.  Its going to be epic!  This week was seriously just so weird.  Since it was transfers we had P-day on Wednesday so the Monday of week 6 is known as Black Monday, but I like to call it Miracle Monday.  No there were no miracles this time, but you got to have a positive outlook on life.  Especially missionary like.

Monday was pretty relaxed.  We just went and visited our baptismal dates and did some finding.  Only bad part about it was that we got a text from one of our baptismal dates that he was dropping us so we asked if we could meet the next day to talk.  So we met him at the chapel and started talking and he just felt overwhelmed. But we did some testifying and then he just sat there looking at the ground for what seemed like forever! It was about 5 minutes of just complete and utter silence.  Elder Allen and I felt like Ammon standing in front of King Lamoni for an hour.  It was so epic.  He decided that he would keep meeting with us but that we would go slower.  He doesn't have a date anymore, but we are still meeting with him which is great! After that we had an amazing teach with our other investigator Elizabeth.  She opened up to and I feel like we have a really good friendship now.  Its always amazing when you finally have the love and trust on both sides of the ball.  Makes things so much easier! Tuesday was just an intense day. Wednesday was P-DAY!!! Oh my goodness it was much needed.  We just chilled and then went and played tennis cause Elder Allen use to play.  He was pretty good I sucked terribly but still held my own.  I just kept trying to smash it and sent it to outer space.  Good times.  

Thursday we got dropped by another baptismal date which was just fantastic.  But we picked up a new investigator and she seems pretty solid.  She is from the Philippians and is having a crazy life right now.  Rest of the day was finding and taught one of our eternagators (investigator that been teaching for eternity).  He is a Pentecostal/Born Again and is super nice but just doesn't understand the fact that all he has to do is read and pray to know if what we say is true.  Just takes what he likes and does his own thing.  Friday was epic!  Not really.  We had to travel to no mans land at the bottom of the island to knock this road a member gave us and then found out it was a no cold calling zone.  Oh yeah the English don't take to talking to people so much that they have signs on the doors saying no cold calling, no trades men, GO AWAY, and my favorite NO RELIGIOUS GROUPS ( MORMONS AND JEHOVAH WITNESS')  I just love my English people. Anyway we decided to knock it any way.  Everybody hated us it was great, but we had a funny thing happen.  We were walking up to this house with a massive tree and a sign that said Red Squirrel crossing.  Elder Allen said, "I bet you there is a red squirrel in that tree."  We then get to the door and I say, "There is no way there is a red squirrel in that tree."  Elder Allen had his back to the tree so I look to my left and sitting on the nut feeder in the tree is a FLIPPING RED SQUIRREL! I starting screaming like a little school girl that there is a red squirrel! Elder Allen gives me that look like yeah right you aren't going to get me to look.  Well he looked and saw the red squirrel.  It was so close and getting its little nuts and running up and down the tree and I took to long to get my camera out and then it disappeared!  Funny but frustrating. (Dad's Note: The Isle of Wight is known for the Red Squirrel) Later that night we went over to Pam my recent convert and she works at a shoe store and brought home a whole bunch of shoes for me to try on.  I found a pair and they are super awesome and have a heel and then she surprised my by buying me a pair of posh shoes to wear to church.  I am just so grateful to her! Feels weird wearing good shoes though. (Another Dad's Note: Pam is an amazing lady and she is the one that we met when she came to the states last month. She reminds us of my mom)

On Saturday we just worked hard but taught Elizabeth in a coffee shop the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity.  It was great and super awesome.   Sunday we had our neighbor come with us to church.  We run into her all the time going into our flat and so we invited her to church and she came! We walked with her and she really liked it.  We watched the last session of General Conference and it was amazing!  If you want to be successful for the rest of your life just listen to those talks over and over again.  I will talk about them in a sec.  Rest of Sunday we went to Freshwater got our baptismal date lady back into teaching with us but will be taking things more slowly.  So that was good. It was also pouring rain and I forgot to get my jacket so that was awesome:)

Now back to conference.  I'm going to basically tie together the three apostles talks.  

Elder Ballard spoke on staying in the boat or "Old Ship Zion".  And the Elder Scott gave us the 4 greatest tools in life to stay on that ship.  

1. Prayer (morning and night as family and personally)

2. Scripture Study(morning and night as family personally) 

3. Weekly Family Home Evening 

4. Regular Temple Attendance (With family names)

I can testify to you that if you do these things that it will bless your family so much. I have for the last 6 months been drilling my family to do these things and the last month they have been doing the first three pretty well and now my two stubborn brothers actually are coming up with ideas for Family Home Evening.  My mom mentioned to me that they get along better and there is more peace in the home.  The one thing Elder Scott mentioned about doing all these things was that it would bring peace into our hearts.  It wouldn't take away the trials but would bring peace.  The greatest example that always stick out in my mind is my mom.  One time I got home from school dropped my back pack and my mom came running to me wanting to share a scripture she had just read.  It was 1 Nephi 7:12.  At this time my Dad was going through all the extremes of cancer.  Of course my mom was affected by it.  And I always notice how it wore on her.  But she came to me that day after reading that scripture I saw new energy and light in her eyes and I could tell she felt peaceful.  My dad still had cancer, she still had 3 boys to raise and take care, she still had to work and deal with all of life's other waves.  But I could tell and knew she was ready to trust in the Lord and do his will.  This is the kind of peace that is promise to us.  My family still has to work on there temple attendance but I know they will get there soon if they keep doing the small and simple things.  And once we make these 4 things happen then Elder Bednar's talk because so easy to do.  Just like his son with the ointment, and Lehi with the fruit, and Enos we will want to share the gospel and it will be a natural enjoyable experience.  I know that these things are true and am so grateful to have living prophets and apostles to lead and guide in today's crazy world.  

I love you all and have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Wilson

By the way I forgot to mention the Lightning and Thunder Storms. Tuesday night at 2:30 in the morning God decided to play his drum set right on top of our flat! Holy cow I have never heard thunder so loud and seen some much lightning in my life. It was literally right above us and the lightening was so big and bright it blinded you and then the thunder.  It sound liked dump trucks where getting thrown at our flat exploding and then 5000 horses running around. It last like that for about half hour and was just incredible.  I just sat in awe.  But I was to stupid to record it with my camera.  DANG!  Anyway just wanted to share that with you:) 

P.S. Pictures are of the southern part of the island I went to on Thursday

Old Shoes

New Shoes

Our True Identity- Pres. Uchtdorf

October 6, 2014

This week was just really weird.  A lot of service and just trying to be everywhere at once.  I had an exchange with the zone leaders in South Hampton. I was with Elder Vandoughan which was a blast!  They have a 4 man flat and the other two missionaries are Chinese.  One of them is from Utah and basially has changed the face of the mission for both languages.  He is so smart and basically learned chinese with ease.  But they have an investigator they need to be the priesthood holder of their chinese group and he wanted to play some basketball.  So once we got off the ferrry and dropped of the sisters we played some ball.  It was a lot of fun and I learned that I still suck terribly at basketball, but am better then the English:) We then changed and went to a dinner at a members home which were planning on feeding us in a couple days, but the other zone leader messed that up but they were super cool and took us to get McDonalds.  On the way back we had to keep to ice cream cones from melting for his daughters and basically it was crazy and they were melting so fast haha.  Just a bunch of men screaming and making game plans on how to get out of the car.  After the zone leaders from another zone came to teach one of their investigators who is Romanian.  One of the zone leaders is Romanian as well so he taught in their language for an hour and me and the other two missionaries played with kids and ate amazing food:) Such a fun day! The next day Elder Vandoughan was really concerned because both my shoes are completely messed up in the soles and we knew there was an ecco store in South Hampton. Well turns out it had been torn down a little while ago so then Elder Vandoughan was freaking out cause I have no shoes and its winter in England and I'm stuck on an Island with no place to get new shoes really. So we had a crazy adventure on exchange and then took the ferry back to the island.  

The rest of the week nothing to crazy really happened We had a really spiritual teach with a guy that we found on the bus.    He accepted to be baptized on October 25 which is awesome! He is so epic! Then of course there was general conference.  WOW! I swear general conference as a missionary is just magnified by like a hundred! Especially since we watch three in a row since we are 7 hours ahead of time.  So good! President Uchtdorf's talk in priesthood really hit home since I had just studied it that morning.  Well I had studied the "Lord is it I" part. For you that didn't hear his talked was based off the Lord's last supper with the apostles when he says one of them will betray him. He notes that non of the apostles pointed fingers, but asked if it was them in humility. The main messages I got out of conference were that We need to LOVE, Follow & Sustain the Prophet, Keep the commandments, and Come unto Christ!! I flippin love the quote by Elder Holland, "We are called to love, not count the statistics."  That is not an exact quote since I'm going of of memory.  But you get the point.  Sometimes as missionaries, fathers, mothers, bishops, or kids we get so quote up in the numbers game that we forget that loving is the most important thing we can do.  Whether its loving a child, member, investigator, Father or mother, a teammate, or more importantly Christ.  Quoting Elder Tad R. Callister 

"Do we give are children the left overs after a long day, or do we save the best for them?" 

We can apply this in every aspect of our lives.  Do we give the people most important to us in our lives the left overs of our efforts or the best we have to offer.  As a missionary I see that when I give someone my best attention or best love I can give it changes them.  They feel the Spirit and desire to Follow Christ more.  I pray and hope we can all strive to humble ourselves and not only love those that love us but love those that hate or misunderstand us.  Remember for God maketh the sun to shine on both the good and the evil.  

I LOVE YA'LL TO SHREDZZ!! 

Love,

Elder Wilson

Zone Leader Splits

Time for new shoes or a resole