December 9, 2013

Hello Family!

Well this week was amazing or should I say Sunday was amazing! The other Elders had two investigators at church and we had our one.  One of Maidenheads investigators I found while on exchange the other day and she is golden! She is so awesome and I am so jealous or was jealous until later in church:)  A lady just walked into church halfway through and at the end she loved it and said her  family wants to come and she wants to be taught! She has a husband and two teenage kids boy and girl.  So two future missionaries:)  I haven't talked to her to much but we are trying to meet with the family today and set up a baptismal date for this month.  After church we had a meeting with a guy who was suppose to come to church but got called into work.  The teach went well and he accepted to be baptized!" There is a bit of a language barrier, but he will probably be baptized next month so I'm super excited for that! GOD IS A GOD OF MIRACLES!!  Remember that miracles don't stop because God doesn't want to show them, they stop because we lack faith.  This message will be short and that is what my spiritual thought is on.

A lot of us think we can't see miracles because we are unworthy or Heavenly Father loves us less or something.  WRONG!! If we go forward with faith and are obedient to the things the Lord commands us and do all we can to do his will we will see more miracles then ever.  I want to challenge all that read this to go to the temple or some sacred place and kneel down and pray and ask Heavenly Father to give you the strength to do his will and then promise him that you will do everything the way he wants it for that week.  As you do this you will see more blessing and miracles then before.  Remember that during this Christmas season the only way to truly get the meaning out of Christmas we must drop the last three letters.  I love you all and have a great week!!!

Love

Elder Wilson

Merry Christmas from Elder Wilson and Stewart! 

December 2, 2013

Hola Familia!

Well I thought I would type this up first before any other long letters since from what my Dad tells me you all want to know whats going on with me apparently;) Well I have been fantastic the last two weeks! I forget to mention that three weeks ago we had stake conference and they released the Stake President so that what cool to see that, but it also meant a member from the Seventy came and also and Area Seventy.  Elder Walker was the Seventy and Elder Herbertson was the Area Seventy which is cool because he use to be the bishop of my ward, long before I ever came here but still pretty cool.  We were able to go to the adult session and priesthood leader session which was amazing.  Elder Walker said that one of things President Monson worries about the most is how members give talks in sacrament meetings.  He says that the way the General Authorities give their talks in Conference is not the way a talk should be given in sacrament meeting.  They do that in Conference because what they say has to be translatted so they have to send in their talks early. But outside of Conference they only make outlines for the talks they will give around the world.  President Monson also said he does not want to go to a sacrament meeting and hear what Elder Packer or Holland said (Funny because they were in front of him so he could point at them). He wants to hear how that principle or doctrine has blessed and helped that person in ther life.  The Holy Ghost will affect people more when things come from the heart.  That means prepare a talk, but only an outline so when you get up to talk you can allow the Spirit to guide you through your talk and to say the things that need to be said. 

This week we had zone conference and Elder Teixeira from the Seventy and his wife spoke to us.  It was so amazing and he made us a promise and a challenge so that was pretty amazing.  You can't tell during conference because of the apostles, but members of the Seventy have such an amazing spirit and power about them its so cool.  Sister Teixeira also spoke and she talked about over coming fear.  She said the 4 things that lead to fear are 1. Lack of Knowledge 2. Lack of Prepration 3. Lack of Faith and 4. Lack of Love.  These are all so true and I hope you can take what I have told you and strip yourself of pride and fear and become the disciple that Christ needs you to be. 

The rest of the week was a lot of hard work.  We had a lot of cancelations and just people not wanting to talk to us.  Last week we had a guy walk into church and so we have been teaching him a lot.  He doesn't want to be baptized because it is not the in thing to do haha.  He has a few mental problems, but he is the best! He loves church and meeting with us so we know its going to happen.  His mom wants to meet us so that is exciting as well.  Elder Stewart is the funniest guy and so humble.  He can remember all the lines from movies and funny comedians.  The best is when he quotes stuff from church movies that are really cheesy.  We also quote kid history a lot haha.  We didn't have a Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving, but did get fed so that was great.  We did get our Thanksgiving dinner though last night which was so amazing.  They don't have pumpkin pie here, but the member made some from scratch and it was amazing! It was a fun and hard week at the same time as it always seems to be.

Time for the spiritual thought.  I just want to talk about praying and scripture study just a little.  These are probably the hardest thing for us to do. I know that it was for me and thought I was going to struggle with it on my mission.  WRONG! If I don't get personal study in I want to cry because I love it so much and it helps me with my day so much.  And as far as praying, if I'm not on my knees I have prayers going through my mind and heart constantly.  I want to sorta of aim this towards the youth, but its good for the adults as well to remind them how important prayer is. 

Because of ONE prayer from a teenage boy I am now serving a mission in England.  Because of One prayer from a teenage boy priesthood authority was restored to the earth and has given me the chance to give my dad a blessing of comfort and healing.  Becasue of ONE prayer by a teenage boy families can be sealed together forever in Holy Temples all around the world.  And let us not forget that because of ONE prayer given by our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ we can all be saved and return to live with our Heavenly Father again.  Never under estimate the power of one prayer no matter what age you are.  We have to remember though that prayers are answered in the Lords time not ours.  Heavenly Father knows exactly when we need something and sometimes he is testing our faith to see how much we really desire something.  Also most prayers are answered through other people.  So pay attention in church, seminary, to parents, and to chilrden because they may hold the answer to your prayer.  One of my favorite sayings is "If we want to talk to our Heavenly Fathere we pray and if we want to hear from him we read our scriptures.  So read your scriptures! John Bytheway said its interesting "when youth go to EFY or on missions how they say that was the best week or two years of my life.  So you mean being surrounded by people with same desires as you, reading you scriptures every day, praying everyday, and serving others makes you happy?  Living the gospel makes you happy?" I hope we can all realize how important prayer and daily study is.  Personal study everyday in the morning will help the Spirit to be with us more and will soften our hearts and give us courage to follow the promptings it gives us and to help us be the answer to others prayers.  Harold B. Lee said, "I don't worry about the youth that pray two times a day."  I think that applies to adults as well.  I promise you that as you strive to pray morning and night and study the scriptures everyday your life and the lives of others will be enriched and blessed.  You will find the Spirit to be with you more abunduntly, you will have the strength to overcome your temptations and weaknesses, and you will be moer willing to share the gospel.  By doing the simple things we will draw closer to our Saviour Jesus Christ and he will draw near to us. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Have a great week and LOVE YOU TO SHREDZZ!!!

Love,
Elder Wilson

November 25, 2014

Collin must have been busy this week since he did not write a email to the whole family.  This is an insert from part of a letter he wrote to me(Dad)

Life is still going good for me and I keep loving missionary life more and more.  Home honestly feels like an imagnary world.  I feel like it never existed really.  Can't imagine what it will feel like when I have been out for ages.  I'm getting along well with Elder Stewart. He is such a funny guy.  He reminds me of Robbie in how he can remember all the funny lines from movies and youtube so well.  He is always quoting something funny when we're walking around and its the best! He told me that I'm the first companion he has had that he feels like he can be himself and not be judged for saying something weird.  Everybody keeps telling me that and its weird.  I don't feel like an example or a nice person, but I guess I am.  I don't it was just cool to hear him say that.  Helped me to know this will be a good relationship.

Love,
Elder Wilson

November 18th, 2013

HELLO!!!

Well this week has been very eventful.  I got a new companion on Wednesday and his name is Elder Stewart.  He has been out for 18 months and a really good guy.  I'm geetting a long with really well and he likes Slough a lot cause people listen a lot more haha.  I also got a new Distric Leader whose name is Elder La Mazza.  He is INSANE.

He goes home in 3 months and was a zone leader for the last year and just does work!  Haha he is a good guy and I look forward to serving along side these great missionaries and laerning from all their experiences.

We are starting to see the work pick up little by little.  We are finally starting to get some solid appointments and people to teach.

I pray and hope that we will be able to say and do the things the Lord will wants us to do so that we can help these people enter into the waters of baptism.  I love being a missionary and all the challenge it brings.  It sounds crazy to think challenges are fun or good but they are!  That is how are Heavenly Father tests our faith and when we succeed we gain and even stronger testimony and a deeper conversion.

Alwasy remmeber our Heavenly Father sees us in an Eternal perspective and knows when and why we need things to happen in our lives.  I hope all of you have been doing  your part in hastening the work of salvation.

My spiritual thought for this week is on charity.  Charity is a really hard topic to speak on and hopefully I don't just mess it up.  In todays world people just think that charity is love.  It is so much more then that and we know that charity is the pure love of Christ.

Paul and Mormon both say exactly what charity is.

" Charity suffereth long, and is kind, and enveith not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in inquity but rejoiceth in the truth, bearth all things, believth all things hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Now the question for many of us today is how can we have charity become who we are.  It first begins with humbling ourselves as Mormn says in Moroni 7:43.  We must  come before God meek and lowley in heart.  We then must exersice our faith in Jesus Christ and always be doing the things that increase our faith.  Once we have faith then we will get hope.  If we have hope then we will have charity.  "The meek and lowly in heart, and confess by the power of of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity." (Moroni 7:44)

As I was doing my personal study today I have been focussing a lot on light and darkness.  It hit me that charity can also be considered light.  As we make decisions and feel our lives with light we will be filled with the love of God. Just as Christ tells the Nephites that men do not put a bushel over a lit candle, but that he puts it on a candlestick to shine light on everyone in the house. I was watching the Joseph Smith movie the other day and in there Joseph says "A man filled with the love of God will not only want to share it with his family."  As we strive to feel or lives and ourselves with light and the love of Christ we will become a beacon to others will be drawn to Christ through the love and light we show them as we strive to follow Christ.  We must remember as Paul counsels to not just think faith and hope are enough.  For as Paul says, "Though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

Hold up your light and shine the love and light on Christ with all thoughs you come in contact with.  As we increase our faith and hope we will not want to keep it to ourselves, but share it with everyone and let them benefit from it.  Our Heavenly Father will then in turn pour out the blessings of Heaven upon us.  I promise you that as you do this you will feel the love your Heavenly Father and Christ has for you.  In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

LOVE YOU TO SHREDZZ!!

Love,

Elder Wilson

Taken in Front of Windsor Castle

His new companion Elder Stewart

November 11, 2013

Hey Family!

Well transfer are this week and I am super nervous.  I have been told that it is either your second or third companion that are you hardest ones.  It doesnt look like I will be training just because there are so few new missionaries coming in and much better qualified people to train them.  I am going to miss Elder Anderson so much and can't wait to hang out with him in Utah!

This week end and such a great note.  We found a golden new investigator and will be teaching her Thursday so I cannot wait for that.  She is so nice and amazing and just a lovely person.  She is from Africa which makes me happy cause then I can say my first baptism was a person from Africa and that I sorta of kind of was in Africa:)  We are still working with less actives a lot and starting to see the blessings of that happening.  Missionary work is just the best! It's funny though that when good things start happening Satan starts working even harder.  I have never felt the power of the adversary so much as I have on my mission.  It is real and it is scary.  He has such holds on the hearts of the people that it makes me cringe and want to cry because of the hold he has on them.  When you read in the scriptures about the prophets being weighed down with sorrow because of the wickedness they see I know how it feels.  It is an awful feeling and makes sharing the gospel so much more important.

The spiritual thought I have for this week is on being better Member Missionaries again.  The missionaries this month have had to teach the primary about how they can be missionaries now.  It has been nice to remember what it was like being so young and just dreaming of serving a mission.  I remember how it felt like it would never happen and that it was something old people do.  I was reading a talk by Robert C.

Oaks and that had a story about sharing the gospel that I really like so I thought I would share it with you.

Consider that you are invited to a friend's house for breakfast. On the table you see a large pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice from which you host fills his glass.  But he offers you none.

Finally, you ask, "Could I have a glass of orange juice?"

He replies, "Oh, I am sorry. I was afraid you might not like orange juice, and I didn't want to offend you by offering you something you didn't desire."

The orange juice is the gospel.  Now the gospel is much better then orange juice and yet we as members are afraid to share it because we might ruin a friendship.  I think it would be better to share it in this world then to pass through the veil and have our friends come up to us and say why didn't you share this with me!? If you are living the gospel the best you can your friends and family will see that it means a lot to you and that it affects your life for the better.  They will feel honored that you would want to share something precious to you with them.  They may not want to join, but don't get discouraged.

You will see that your friendship with them will be increased and you will find greater love for them.  Remember again that even the Christ himself was rejected by his own people.  When we share the gospel though we don't have to say they will be damned if they aren't baptized that minute.  A simple testimony or inviting them to meet with the missionaries in your home can be much more affected.  As you strive to do this you will feel closer to your heavenly father then you ever have before and you will see blessing coming in truck loads.

You will feel happier and more peace in your life then ever before even when things around you seem dark.  The First Presidency and Quroum of the Twelve have come out with a new way to for members and missionaries to work together.  It is call  THE WORK OF SALVATION.  I encourage you in you family home evenings and personal time to go on to lds.org and learn more about how you can hasten the work of salvation.  There are videos and topics you can watch and learn more about it.  Here are four simple steps we can do to better further the work of the Lord and be better member missionaries.

1. Identify prayerfully your friends and neighbors who would be the most receptive to the gospel message.

2. Introduce the identified individuals to the missionaries.

3. Involve yourself in the teaching of the gospel, preferably in your home.

4. Integrate your friends and any other new members into the Church by being attentive and helpful.

I know that as you do these things more and more people will want to join the church and it will be through you diligence and hard work that it will come to pass.  Remember that missionary work is hopeless if the members do not do their part in it.  We missionaries need your help and want to help you and see the miracles wrought by you.  I love you and hope you have an amazing week! Remember the Lord is with those who do his will!

Love,

Elder Wilson

November 4, 2013

Here are a few pictures that Collin sent after making a yummy cake.

November 4, 2013

Hello!!

Well this week has been a rough one.  We found out as a district that a missionary we are close to will be going home for some major disobedience. It was really hard to take in and made me feel and love him so much more for his willingness to repent and grower closer to Christ through his atonement.  Keep him in your prayers that he will have the strength to keep pressing forward.

We also had to drop all of our investigators which really put a damper on things.  It is hard not being able to teach anyone, but I know that I just need to work harder with Elder Anderson and let the Lord do the rest.  It is his work, not mine.  We are putting our time in seeing more less actives which has been a huge blessing.  We are meeting with one lady who served a mission and still has an amazing testimony.  Just a man is getting in the way of her going to church and she needs to end, but she is close to doing that so I can't wait to see her at church soon.

We have some more less actives we are seeing this week and I cannot wait to meet them and help them feel the love of the Savior again.

A little bit about Slough I thought I would add.  Every place is very compact and a home here is like an apartment in America.  My tiny flatt cost the same as a monthly payment on a house almost.  It is crazy and glad I don't have to pay for it sorta haha.  It is funny when you are knocking though cause sometimes you only have to shuffle a few feet over for the next door.  England is just a crazy place with crazy drivers and people.  I LOVE IT!!!

My spiritual thought for this week has to do with pride.  If you read the Book of Mormon carefully you will realize that every time the Nephites start to fall into wickedness and eventually are destroyed is because of pride.  Pride is one of the main messages of the Book of Mormon.  If we do not rid ourselves of pride and humble ourselves before God we will only find misery in this life and the life to come.

 In district meeting this last week we talked about pride and how when we are teaching an investigator we need them to humble themselves before they can even ready the Book of Mormon let alone be baptized.

When one is humble he or she realizes that they are nothing and need Heavenly Father and Christ Atonement more and more to strength them everyday. In Alma 5:27-28 it says

27. Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?

28. Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.

Pride is one of the hardest things to get out of our system and is something we must continually everyday rid ourselves so they may not be natural men and women, but sons and daughters of God.  Humility is what leads us to have faith and to act and rely on that faith we gain.

 With faith also comes hope and charity that everyone needs in order to do the will of God.  Let us be like Ammon and say everyday "I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therfore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things." (Alma 26:12)  We an ask everyday for the strength to overcome our weaknesses and to become men and women of God.  It will call for us to be humble at all times even when facing adversity.

Salvation is not meant to be easy to obtain and we must walk a few steps in Christ shoes.  I encourage you to read and share with your familes "The Inconvient Christ" by Elder Holland.  It will change your perspective on what it means to be a true Christian.  Remember Christ himself wanted to know if there was another way to go through the atonement, but because he was humble and submitted himself to God's will he drank of the bitter cup.  Because of what Christ willingness to submit to the Father's will we can be forgiven of our sins and return to live with our Heavenly Father again.  It is my hope that we will strive to humble ourselves everyday and align our will with God's will.  I know and promise that as you will strive to be humble you will be blessed and find more happinness and joy then you have ever felt in your life, even when the world around you seems to be falling apart.  I love all of you and hope you have an amazing week and grow closer to the Lord!

Love,

Elder Wilson