After almost 7 Months...And 6 Full Meals...

Wow what an awesome week this has been! First of all I was finally able to go to the Dallas Temple this past week and it was my first time going for 7 months! What a refresher! It was an awesome place to just leave all the stress and worries from the mission and just take a breather. It's super small and aint the LA temple, but it'll do haha. And I also wanted to give a shout out to Dani and a congrats on getting your call to Tampa FLORIDA!!! It was seriously a couple minutes before I started writing this letter I had watched a video on mormon.org about a Professional Golfer who was called to serve as a Mission President, and while I was watching the video I thought for sure I know someone in his mission due to the tons of people I know that are serving now. When I saw Tampa, I just thought ah bummer I don't know anyone in his mission...and a couple minutes later I got the e-mail informing me on the big news haha! 

Well as for this past thursday...it was a Thanksgiving I will always remember but NEVER live again. I just can't imagine how bad it was for my health but the scoop is that a member came and took us out to breakfast at 8:00 in the morning, and we kept running back and forth from one dinner to the next until 8:30 at night, which accumulated to 6 full meals. I made sure that to embrace the Thanksgiving meal spirit, I would eat a turkey leg and some pie at every house, and the results were not pretty. After time my body was able to restore itself to the normal skinny looking form, but that Thanksgiving night...my stomach looked like a nightmare. But again, thank the Lord for the metabolism that he has blessed me with and I have promised myself that I will never try to eat that much food ever again! 

Some other experiences that were way awesome this past week was when I went on exchanges down in Rowlett and we just blitzed that area and just about tracted a couple neighborhoods out! One of the coolest times was while we had just got out of a lesson and were just walking down the street, we just said "hi" to this one black family. As they gave us the courteous "not interested" deal, and while we left we heard the little black kid say, "Dad...what are they doing?" He responded, "They're just out spreading the gospel." His kid replied, "Where???", and then we just heard hiim say, "Everywhere..." It was so sick we heard music play in the background and it was like everything started going in slow motion as we were "carrying the word." But it did make me think about the standard that we are held up to and just what other people think and expect of us as members of the Church of Jesus Christ. We sure are excited for this time of the year, almost as excited as I was when I met Kobe...the original Kobe haha that was about 74 years old while we were tracting, but it's a time of year where others are humble and willing to accept. We get to focus on the birth of our Savior, and really what changed the world. So again, what a great opportunity to share what we know with others! One of my favorite sayings is "The Best Time To Share The Gospel Is Now!" We are just lucky enough to live in a country that devotes a whole season to it, and I hope yall can take advantage of it! I'm way stoked that everyone is leaving on a mission, getting calls, preparing, serving, or just about to return! Its crazy and awesome to see just how many are involved in this marvelous work! I love and miss yall and hope you enjoy the rest of November! Happy Birthday to Mom and Brett!!! 

Elder Justin Wilson

Dia De Gracias!

First off...I gotta give a huge shout out and congrats to Hermana Starke for getting called to serve in Costa Rica!?! What a dream mission haha I just hope that my Texican Spanish will be able to keep up with all the homies serving/have served in Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, Florida, Argentina, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and of course Costa Rica haha. This past week I was able to learn a very important lesson through the scriptures, and wanted to extend an invitation to everyone who wants to be more Christlike. As I have looked for key attributes and characteristics that our Savior had, one stuck out to me in Luke Chapter 19 and I thought it went along perfectly with Thanksgiving. So during the travels of Jesus, his fame began to grow and continued to do so as he entered Jericho. As he came to enter the city, there was a bunch of excitement with the citizens and many came to follow him to see what the famous "celebrity" was going to do in their city. As more and more people came to follow him, there was a man named Zacchaeus who "sought to see Jesus...; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature." As I thought about it, all of us know so many "Zacchaeuses" or people that maybe don't fit into "the press" because of whatever reason...they're too short, too tall, not smart enough, not happy enough, and all that jazz. Well Zacchaeus "ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house." I know that these first few verses display a very simple and common principle that we seem to hear all the time, so I wanted to put it into a more nowadays analogy. So what I got from these first few verses would be like if I was going to a Brad Paisley concert...and halfway through, he would just point me out and say "Justin, come on down here and were taking a road trip!" And then we'd get on his tour bus and head on down to Cancun, Mexico while I serve as his translator and all that haha but enough getting carried away with that. The whole reason I bring that up is because we gave it try to go out of our way and give some random "surprises" to a very large and struggling family, and I want to promise everyone that you will feel 10 times more humble, grateful, and happier if you give someone something to be grateful about in comparison to filling out any list of things you are grateful for. So reach out to the Zacchaeus or Zacchearina that you know and help them enjoy this Thanksgiving! Then maybe you can enjoy it just as much as I have, especially when we cleaned the septic tank another family of Zacchaeuses. Greater love has no one than he that cleaneth the septic tank of his friends haha...it was shockingly disgusting. But on the bright side, I got to wear jeans for the first time in 3 months haha bonus!!! 

One of the capping moments of this past week was when we spent about 15 minutes running around the church trying to find this 15 year old kid that we're teaching. His Dad had to go to the Hospital that day, but he still got someone to drop him off while we were doing stop by's and reminding everyone to come to church. So we came to church to see our choir practicing, only a couple of members...and no Jeremy. So we kept running around frantically asking members if they'd seen a short 15 year old kid, only to be met with a negative response. We were so worried do to the fact that he was just barely trusted with us, and as we took a second to sit down, relax, and try to figure out where our short and nervous new investigator could possibly be, we looked up at the choir to see short little Jeremy singing his heart out haha. And he performed with the whole choir during sacrament meeting on his first time going to church haha....I'd like to see anyone else try and wave that flag! Well I hope you all know how grateful I am for you and your support! Thank you!!! I love and miss yall!

Elder Justin Wilson

Where Do We Go These Next 4 Years???

Dang I just can't help but be bummed about what happened this past week as far as the election goes. It makes things look pretty dismal for those who are looking for a brighter future, but then again, makes sure that the only thing that we really have to hold onto are living the principles of the Gospel. So in God's eyes I guess it's a good way to weed out the righteous and eliminate the natural man by having everyone on one side or the other. I also thought it was pretty funny if you happen to look up how the Voting went in the Counties of Texas, its a pretty Red State with some Blue majorities along the borders...oh yeah...and that one County up in Northeast Texas called Dallas! Of all the places to have a Liberal edge in Texas it would be Dallas haha lame. 

But other than that HUGE bump in the road, we have had a pretty positive last week. On the bright side, the "Boil Water" Notice was lifted, so that means that our Tap water is somewhat clean and safe to use! We also got the opportunity to start teaching a family of 8! They came to the Halloween party last week and are starting to get more and more interested in our church. It was one of those lessons where you truly do see that serving a mission is marriage prep, because sometimes our companions don't treat all situations like you would expect...and demands some work and patience. So as were teaching a young couple that are dating and each of them have 3 kids (and they're not living together which is a miracle!), the oldest of which was 15...and my companion is just SPEWING doctrinal fact that really take a while to truly understand, but he was throwing stuff at them so fast that he lost the kid's attention in a heartbeat and left their parents trying to have them sit still and pay attention and all that jazz. So then I was able to use some other teaching techniques that I had learned from some other great missionaries throughout the mission to help them understand very simply what we had just talked about, but then my comp just kept trudging on (still trying to decide who was more interesting...my BYU Book Of Mormon teacher who put me to sleep every tuesday, thursday, and friday, or my comp...). He turned the time over to a member who started talking about his testimony of Joseph Smith and the Gold Plates before we had even finished the whole concept of a Prophet, but his wife was super awesome and was able to calmly notify him that he was jumping was too far ahead and she was able to tailor her testimony to their knowledge and progression. As my comp just started giving fact after fact on the reformers and the kids started running around and just going crazy while their parents were saying "Sit down!" and "Stop That"...and "Put that down!", and my comp just kept talking to them like he had their complete attention during the whole process. The Sister member that we had brought was doing a great job at putting the doctrine simply and applying it to them (God bless the Relief Society), so I saw that we needed to call an audible and change the whole plan before my comp decides to challenge them to baptism and they've completely spaced on the idea that there was an apostasy. I decided to take my experiences from the 4 months up at Mitchell Eagles and was able to just teach the little kids with my picture book and play games with my whiteboard very quietly while I trusted the parents and the 15 year old to Sister Parton who was saving the dry teaching. I would try and listen in for a couple seconds and give my input on what they were teaching while occupying all the kids, and my favorite part was when Jeremy, the 15 year old said, "When you were telling me about the Book Of Mormon, I said a little prayer to ask if it really was true, and I heard, 'Yes My Son'" As funny as the whole experience was, especially when he explained his answer on the church, it did teach me that no matter what we say, it will only be the spirit that will be converting others, and we can only do our best at setting the stage for him to come and for the investigator to understand him. So as frustrating of a lesson as it was for me, it taught me a few lessons, gave me an opportunity to play with some kids (haha it's been so long! You have to treat them and single women like the plague as a missionary), and also gave me the opportunity to teach my significant other haha. 

This week we had also brought out a couple of recent converts with us to go teaching, and as we started teaching the Word Of Wisdom, it turned into a complete drug war of stories with how much drugs someone had used or how bad they were or what they saw and all that. It turned into a fantastic lesson with us barely involved (due to our ignorance on being addicted and what to expect), but the recent converts were able to give strong testimonies and experiences about how they were able to overcome their addictions only through this church. In the words of Tommy, "The only inspiration I got from AA was to run across the street, go drink a beer, and never come back!" So he was able to show how the Gospel dwarfs any other addiction facility and they connected super super well. It turned into them sharing experience after experience and what principle would help them the most while we would just listen and laugh at what turned out to be our favorite quotes haha. One of my favorite stories was (viewer discretion advised) was when the member Jamie walked in her house and got a call from an Addiction therapist asking how her husband Tommy was doing and she said, "Well he's over in the corner messing around with the lamp, but he hasn't made a bong out of it yet so I think we're doing alright..." and then when she got another call she said, "Yeah he's just fixing the televi...wait a second..." It was hilarious but a good lesson and easily my favorite of the week. 

Well I hope that yall don't let the liberal cloud hang over you and if any of you are interested, Texas starts handing out residential forms if you live here for 6 months or more for when Texas secedes from the United States. Just about every living soul I've talked to here said that they would vote for it in a heartbeat haha. I've invited everyone over to California for when we blow away the borders and become an Island. It may be dominated by liberals, but all I know is that they don't have guns and won't stand a chance as we become our own country in alliance with Texas. Happy Birthday Grandma and congrats to Kenna for getting called to Temple square! I really can't believe just how many people are serving missions now, but at least I'll be able to tell my kids that I was serving a mission when there were only 55,000 missionaries. So good luck to whoever else turned in their papers, I'm always surprised because someone new makes the choice to serve just about every week now! Love yall!

Elder Justin Wilson

WILSON!!!!!!!!!!

Well first off I want to give a shout out to Dad who is just about to get even older this Viernes. Sure love you and Happy Birthday! Well Fam I figured that I'd send a sort of small e-mail this week so that I can send y'all a bunch of pictures as I just figured out how to do it haha. This past week has been super awesome and we got to meet a ton of people and get a bunch of referrals at the Halloween Festival. I got to judge Chile which was way cool and the people out here didn't hold grudges against us after the judging, contrary to the results after Chile judging out in Oak Cliff on Pioneer day. For my costume...I decided that I should do something to get all of the members to remember my name, given that I'm a new Elder and all people remember about me is my Wyatt Earp comment that seemed to spread like wildfire. But I figured that I would be Wilson from "Cast Away", especially because there's white people in this Ward (the Mexicans in Oak Cliff didn't even know who Tom Hanks was so they didn't really get the comparison that I pulled from the movie...)

But sadly...volleyballs were apparently "out of season" (even though they sell every Hunting Weapon imaginable out here at all times of year, no matter what season it is haha), but I did get a basketball and cut through it for a mask and was able to wear it with a huge "WILSON" marked at my forehead haha. Most of the members got it and when the saw me would just yell "WILSON!!!!!", but when Elder Larson asked Bishop if he knew what I was, he thought I was just being a "Goofball"...we'll work on him a little more haha. But for trunk or treating, we were just about to head out to a family that we were teaching, but as we got to our car, all the kids came up to us and had their bags open...expecting something. So while everyone else gave them just a higher Dental Bill, we were able to spiritually strengthen them by bumping some Mo Tab and handing out cards or pamphlets. So for the rest of the night we saw a bunch of kids walking around trying to read "The Law of the Tithe and Fast Offerings" in Spanish. Oh yeah...and guess who we started teaching....Kenny Chesney. Well his name is Cory, but he looks close enough that I'll take it and we met him at the activity and took it from there so hopefully all goes well with him! Well I sure do miss everyone, especially at the start of this holiday season and I hope that all is going well with everyone...especially the Doughmans! I can't help but say that y'all sure picked a choice time to go live in Manhattan I sure hope everyone's safe and invite you over here to Texas! It's what all of Louisiana did during Hurricane Katrina so we're expecting a crowd to come down here for sometime! Love y'all and Happy Birthday Dad!
Elder Justin Wilson

Weekly Letter from the Mission Office

From the Assistants

Elders and Sisters,

This past week during Zone Leader Council one of the items that was discussed was our baptismal goal for the rest of 2012. Right now the mission has baptized 533 for the year. The goal that was decided was 670. In order for us to reach that goal there will need to be 69 baptisms in both November and December. That is 8 baptisms per zone per month. This past week there were 10 souls who were confirmed and brought unto Christ. That is a great start and we know that we can do even better! We can reach this goal with diligence and hard work. The Lord will bless us in our efforts to reach this goal. Currently there are 165 baptismal dates in the Texas Dallas Mission. Elders and Sisters it is possible! Continue to work hard and help all of our investigators make covenants with God. We know that they will be blessed with the strength to overcome their trials. Whether it is the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity, through diligence and faith in Christ all things are possible. We love each one of you and look forward to working right alongside each of you as we work towards this goal of 670 in the year 2012. Thank you for your hard work!

Love Los Elderes Beatty  Flitton

From President Durrant

Congratulations to those of you who have reported reaching your individual Ward or Branch 2012 baptismal goals.  And many of you will do the same in the coming weeks.  Make sure that your ward leaders are aware that you are striving to help them reach their goals.  And take opportunity to celebrate success when it is reached.  Attaining these goals is a group effort - missionaries and members working together.

Elder Johansson update:  I spoke with him this week and he told me the healing process is taking place.  He had surgery on his ear about a month ago and he has another month or two of healing time before he will be allowed to return to the mission field.  He is doing all he can to be a missionary while he recovers at home in Gilbert, Arizona.

I want to commend Elder Visser, Elder Larson, and Elder Wilson.  They have reached their zone's Standards of Excellence in Greenville for three straight weeks!

My memorization scripture from last week was Matthew 28:19.  It states, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."  What a privilege we have right now to be doing exactly what Jesus Christ asked of His early apostles!

Over the weekend, Elder Tuma and Elder Stufflebeam were punched several times as they tried to visit a part-member family.  Elder Tuma's nose was broken and Elder Stufflebeam's jaw was broken.  They each received other cuts and bumps and bruises.  Through it all, they were strong and demonstrated positive, cheerful attitudes.  We pray for their prompt recoveries. 

Please do all you can to avoid situations that compromise your safety and security in all phases of our work.  Also, drive slower in your cars and on your bikes.  Safety first in all situations!

I love each one of you and I hurt when you hurt.  Please be careful!  I am praying for your spiritual and physical welfare every day, as are millions of others around the world.

M a M.  With love and admiration,

President Durrant

Texas Dallas Mission

"Mission of Miracles"

Overcoming fear with the Spirit.

On Friday, we received a media referral, who was ready to hear the gospel. We met with him, he told us he read the Book of Mormon in 3 days, but was very confused about it. He wanted to learn more, and so we taught the first discussion with him. He is very curious and wants to know why Latter Day Saints are so family oriented, why families are so close together, and why we are happy. We taught him the first discussion which he accepted and wanted to learn more. He wanted to keep in contact with us, he brought it up himself. He is planning on going to the Marines and was afraid he wouldn't be able to serve since he is killing people, but we assured him that many members serve our country and that it was ok to do so. He is such a neat person and wants to do what is right. I, personally, felt words flow out of my mouth, I was calm, and had no problem speaking about the Gospel. Usually I let my fears get the best of me and I am working on this daily, but to see myself do what I thought I could not do during the lesson with him tells me that I can do anything as long as I do not let my fears get to me. And I know that, but when we started to teach him the Gospel, my fears left me and I was able to carry on a normal conversation. How grateful I am for the Lord in helping his servants! It was an amazing lesson, the spirit was there, and we both did a wonderful job in making sure he felt it. There's no way he could not have felt it. But I am so grateful that the spirit was there to teach him in his heart and I hope to visit with him this week.

Elder McLain - The mistake that wasn't a mistake.

Precious is going to get baptized November 4th at 5pm. I have been working with her since my first week in this area. Elder Reynolds and I found her while looking through former investigators. We chose a teaching record of a family of four or five in the Frances Way Apartments. We went to the apartment number that we thought was theirs. Turns out, it wasn’t. I misread a seven and a two in the apartment number. Precious answered the door, read our tags, saying, “The Elders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are here. Come on in and meet the man of the house.” We entered with the member that was with us and met Jimmy, an 84 year old retired Baptist preacher. He, of course, wanted to talk about Genesis 1:1 and go back to the beginning. After he continued to speak up about that in the lesson, I finally requested 10 minutes of silence from him. He nodded and we were able to share the message of the Restoration with all that were present. Precious was the most interested and none of the others in the house have been. The second time we visited her, she had read the Book of Mormon and received revelation from it. Since that week in August, we have dutifully worked with her and she has received a testimony of the Book of Mormon, the truthfulness of the Church. She texted us last night and thanked us for finding her. I will forever remember that.

Elder Clark - Talk to everyone.

On our way into the gas station there was this man standing outside of the door drinking a slurpee. Before going into the gas station we asked him if we could share a message about Jesus Christ with him. He accepted to let us teach him. He is from India. He converted from Islamic to a Baptist and was very open to learning. We taught him the Restoration and The Plan of Salvation in about 30 minutes outside the door of the gas station. He was very receptive and asking questions. At the end of the lesson we invited him to be baptized and he accepted. He is going to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. We have a return appointment with him for this next week. It was a testimony builder to me of the importance of talking to everybody. We could have easily gone into the gas station without talking to him, but we took the time to talk to him. I know the Lord blesses us for talking to everybody he puts in out path. I love this work. I know that this is truly the Lords work.

Elder Adams - Excellent teaching idea for children.

Tambien fijamos una fecha con una nina de 9 anos de una familia menos activa. Hicimos una leccion divertida acerca del bautismo en la cual le pusimos mi mochila y empezamos a agregar pesas, simbolizando pecados (mentir, no hacer caso a la mama, quitarle dinero a tu hermano, etc) y despues quitamos las pesas simbolizando el bautismo y se sintio mas libre y ligera y fue mas facil caminar bien. Ella se animo y la familia acepto esa meta. Esperamos que los padres hagan su parte ahora que la nina tiene ese deseo. Ha sido una buena experiencia ensenar a ninos pequenitos porque tengo que ensenar de manera mucho mas sencilla y entendible y entretenida.

How to earn member trust.

All of my companions have said that spending time with members earns their trust. I feel differently. The best way to gain trust is to go serve the non-members and get investigators and bring them to church. I don't need to spend more than an hour at dinner, or 20 minutes at other times, in order to help a member feel the missionary spirit. There are people that need my help!

Thanks for reading.

JANUARY                     45
FEBRUARY                  56
MARCH                        63
APRIL                           62
MAY                             38
JUNE                            39
JULY                            58
AUGUST                       37
SEPTEMBER                71
OCTOBER                    54
Oct 29-Nov 4                 10
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Total                             533