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