4/28/14

 Sounds like y'all are really busy!  Did everything work out okay in the move?  I hope everything is going okay, I have been praying for y'all frequently.  Every week we get to take an hour and go on Mormon.org and check out the website and go to Mormonchannel.org.  There is a video y'all should watch.  It is called Come Unto Christ.  It is awesome.  Anyways, on Saturday night I found out that I will now be being transferred.  There are only a few places I can go being Kingwood, Summerwood, Beaumont, or Vidor.  I will let y'all know next week.  I am sad to leave Baytown and one of my greatest companions, Elder Davis.  Elder Davis and I had a really good week.  As y'all know we have been having a hard time finding new people to teach.  Well, this past week we were able to find 9 new people to teach!  2 of them are really awesome.  Their names are Travis and Chris, Travis is 23 and Chris is 18.  We have been teaching them daily since we first taught them and they keep wanting us to come back.  They will be getting baptized soon I am sure.  I guess I will find out later on.  We were also able to teach a Family this week!  The parents names are Jorge and Erika their children, beginning at the eldest, are Isaiah, Romeo, and Mia.  It was really awesome, the lesson went really well.  I hope that they will continue to thirst for the gospel and get baptized.

  We were able to teach Paul the Mann this week.  He is disappointed that I will be leaving and Elder Davis will be going home in June, but he is still improving.  We have a member over with us every time we teach him, his name is Robin.  They get along really well and hang out all the time (it is such a weird relationship, but hilarious), so Paul will be okay when we leave.  He continues to struggle with smoking, but we are planning on doing the Stop Smoking Program with him which gets you off the addiction of smoking in one week.  He is a character. 

   We did a lot of tracting this week.  My feet really hurt, but by the end it was all worth it, being able to find those whom our Heavenly Father has prepared.  I love being a missionary it is such a blessing to be able to go out and serve.  Throughout the week this week I have had the wonderful opportunity to read through the story of Abinadi.  I love how Abinadi does not fear the opposing King Noah and his priests.  He stands strong and finishes his message and then when challenged about what he has shared he continues to stand strong to it.  I love his strict obedience to the Savior and his willingness to "stand completely and utterly alone" (Jeffery R. Holland).  I pray that I may have the strength to always stand strong against adversity and never give into those yelling from the tower in Lehi's dream. 

  I love y'all and hope y'all have a great week!

Elder Willden

4/21/14

Elder Davis and I had a good week this week.  We were able to go out and work hard!  We didn't teach too much, because we are struggling to find investigators that can meet often and will keep commitments.  We did a lot of knocking doors this week.  Our feet were sore, but we are glad to be able to go out in the spirit of the Lord looking for his prepared children to deliver his message to them.  Yesterday we were looking for a spot to tract and we found one, parked the car and started knocking.  A few doors in I realized that on exchanges another Elder and I had knocked it before.  We decided to just knock it again.  As we were going we went up and talked to a guy and he told us that he used to live in Utah, got baptized a Mormon, and eventually stopped going to church and moved.  That was over 30 years ago!  And, since then he had not seen missionaries until we went up and talked to him.  We tried to convince him to let us come over and teach him, but he didn't want that.  He said he had too busy of a schedule.  But, he told us that he would come to church sometime soon when he has work off.  We got his name and address and will be following up with him if he doesn't show for a while.  It was a miracle!  God placed us into his path.

  We also had another miracle right after that.  We were walking up to a door and a guy just runs outside and says, "I have been waiting on y'all to come talk to me!".  He proceeded to tell us that he has always wanted to know what we talk about, but has never had the chance to.  He was 21, engaged and going to college.  He doesn't live in the house we were at, he was just there for Easter.  He had lots of questions, then he asked us to share our message with him.  We were able to teach him on the front porch, the spirit was very strong.  We gave him a Book of Mormon and some reading assignments.  We aren't able to teach him again because he goes to school in Louisiana, but he committed to request the missionaries to come by on Mormon.org.  It was an awesome experience and I was so happy that God lead us there and we kept going even though we had knocked it before. 

  We got to teach Paul the Mann quite a bit this week.  On Friday night we had an appointment and when we showed up he was really drunk.  He had, had 5 beers.  It was the funniest lesson I have ever experience.  He made us go to his back room and show him how much we benched at the start and then we went to the living room and he started bringing out dumbbells for us to curl with.  We kept trying to get him to sit down, but he just wouldn't.  We decided to video it.  I can't wait to be able to show y'all this video, it is so funny.  But, anyways long story short, he lifted a little bit and sat down and we had a pretty good lesson.  We got him to church on Sunday, but he felt sick so he went home.  He is a character.

  We had a great week full of spiritual experience's and hard work.  I love y'all and pray for you nightly, by name.  I know Heavenly Father is taking care of y'all as he is taking care of me. 

Elder Willden