The Lord Has Smiled Upon Greenville

Yay for starting my fourth Journal. it's the biggest pain in the behind and is so tough to keep up with but I hope that you know I'm doing it because you asked me to Mom! Well this past week has been fantastic and we've been able to see some serious growth, especially with the work that all the members from the Spanish Group are putting in! It seemed like its taken forever, but all these moves that we've been making to change things around here are really having some pretty drastic effects and it is seriously the greatest feeling ever to see that all the things that we're doing aren't just helping the Group and Ward, but they're helping the Members help themselves and shoulder more responsibilities to help them accomplish their goals! It's seriously almost as great as listening to "In The Ghetto" by Elvis right before we go knock out some of the projects. And I just remembered a super random question, but if anyone knows anything about it, gimme an update because I couldn't believe this when I heard it. So apparently the Mormon football player for Notre Dame had this crazy online relationship with some random girl that turns out that she doesn't exist? Apparently they had a bunch of phone calls and the crazy part was when they told me that it was to a 661 number in Southern California?!?! Out of all the area codes...it would be the Palmdale/Santa Clarita one haha so I figured that must be a big deal going on back home hunting down the person that did all this media hype. So keep me updated on what good old Canyon Country is doing to get its name on the map! 

Okay...so now to the best story of the week for sure ...and I'm expecting only good things to come from this story! So this past Monday, we were getting our weekly grocery shopping done, and as we drove back, I finally convinced Elder Downer to go pull into Cavenders Boot Shop so that we could go for a little real Texas Shopping. So I finally got the opportunity I had been looking for my whole Mission to go in a western wear store! So I cruised in and the situation was way good as I could smell the fresh leather and hear the country music in the back ground. Then the situation went to great as I started walking down the boot isle looking at all the Larry Mahans, Luccheses, and Justins. Then I kid you not, I was only in the store for about 25 seconds and the situation became amazing...and on came Brad Paisley singing "Old Alabama" and it was only a matter of seconds until I was singing along with every line. Then everything just became miraculous as one of the employees came up to us and asked us, "So who exactly are y'all?" So we were able to introduce ourselves and found out that he had a couple distant family members that were serving missions and then we starting talking about other things about his life and it turned into an hour long contact as he just about spilled out just everything from his past and life. And thanks to Mom and Dad for equipping me with their western wear knowledge,  we also talked about everything from skins, to ways to condition the boots, to lemon-wood pegs and different quality stuff that I'm sure no other missionary in this mission is aware of. So now we have a new investigator from Cavenders and I am so stoked for him! Because this one has got to go through! The Lord had me all too much in the zone and prepared this to go down, so I can only expect the best! But for reals, I'll keep y'all updated on it and am super stoked! Well I miss y'all and hope that things are going well back home! Happy 12th birthday Natles because I know you can't be turning 15! Dios da valor Marky! Way stoked to hear how things turn out in Puerto Rico! And good luck with school Shane! You got this one! Just tell your teacher "no entendí." And then you'll get put with the kids that can't speak english and a different teacher haha.

Love
Elder Justin Wilson