Letter from Jamie Phillips

Hello, my name is Jamie Phillips. My husband and i are ward missionaries for the Greenville Texas ward. I am sending you this to let you know that your son is a very uplifting spirit with a great love for the Lord. The Holy Spirit continues to work through him like a light in the dark, and we were fortunate to have  him here for a short while. I am sure that he has brought you many moments of Joy with such an uplifting spirit. He arrived a couple of days before my husbands baptism, and we will not ever forget all that he has brought to our lives. Proverbs tells us that it is okay to be proud in good works for the Lord! And you can be proud in your son, for his good works for the Lord! May our Heavenly Father keep you and bless you through our Lord

and Savior Jesus Christ!

                                          Jamie Phillips

Off To Some Plano City...

Dang there sure has been a whole lot going in these past few weeks, but I guess I'll start off with saying I'm going to miss the good ol' Greenville tons! It's crazy because it totally feels like yesterday that I said I was going to miss serving in the Cliff but from what I hear, I guess that's just how time goes. So I was recently called to serve in a Dallas suburb called Plano, which from what I hear is a pretty cash money area, but I'll be doing only Spanish work out there in a small branch, so we'll be handing all of our English contacts over to the English Elders, but I'm stoked to be so much closer to the city! It's also an area where a bunch of my mission homies including Elder Lee and Elder Henze have served so I've heard a lot of good things about it and I'm way stoked to get things started out there! We
also have the one Purple Fusion in the mission out in Plano...so time to be taking the Laker-mobile for a little contacting haha. 

And speaking of Fusion, that leads to the best story of the past week while we were up in the far outskirts of a Godforsaken town known as Celeste. We were out to visit some less active members that lived out there, and as we finished work within the "population 817" town, we headed on out to some County Road houses, until we hit CR 1100. So we stopped by the first house which had three huge dogs that went nuts as we came up to the fence, but we got them to calm down and then just chill with us as we tried to get ahold of the member, but the gates were locked, it was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and his phone was out of service, so we took off. As we were making our way down to the next member's house, we began to notice that as we made our way down a darker road, the car started going a little slower, and slower, and slowerr.....until we realized what we'd gotten into. Being from the city and trusting what the GPS told us to do in order to save miles, we decided that we should just go a little farther to pass this mud spot and we'll find a clear patch on the way. But in order to keep the car moving at a moderate speed, I got out and decided to push, and as I was pushing the car on this (what looked like seemingly dry dirt), I noticed that my foot would gather about a half a pound of dirt for every step I took and it would continue to allocate until I was about 3 or 4 inches taller. We finally got to the turn that we were pushing to get to, and saw this same dirt for mile and miles, and decided that it was time to visit this member another day....or we would get stuck and miss one of our appointments. So we turned around and started to head back the other way....but lo and behold, we got stuck in the sticky clay of Texas.

 

This whole deal led to an adventure that lasted the whole day as we fought the earth to get that car out. So we had first gotten stuck at about 2, and had an appointment at 3:30 with the Cavenders contact, but we weren't worried, it was just a little mud...what's a little mud going to do. Well with a little advice from what we had heard about previous experiences, we tried to wedge stuff under our one moving tire that was caked with mud so that we could get some traction, but it just didn't seem to even help me budge the car. That led me to a search for something else, and I ended up finding a bunch of small concrete blocks from a burned down shed, so after that and an experience that involved me fighting a long loose strand of barbed wire, we were able to put some of our other findings under the wheels to help the tire catch. It moved, but not by much, maybe about 3 inches (give or take.) So we searched for more stuff, and did even more placing and so much pushing that I was completely exhausted, that we decided to find some help from some hicks that would know a thing or two about this deadly clay. We had prayed a bunch to get this car out and make it to our lessons, but again, we battled this deal for an hour and a half and could only get so far, and from what one of our buddies told us, the only way we're getting out is with a tractor, because nothing else would be able to get outta there. So we went on the farm right next to us with the burned down shed to knock on the mobile home that was nestled in what seemed like an endless patch of land, but found to our disappointment that nobody was home. We even tried the classy red bar that was right next to the house, but again we couldn't find a soul. So we continued down the road, a few hundred yards and started to go down to the next house we could find. This property was littered with faded "No Trespassing" signs, "Beware of Dog", and then "Forget Dog, Beware of Owner!" It was a pretty janky looking place, but he had a tractor, so we had to try him. He was a super nice guy, but he said that his tractor didn't work and that we chose "the wrong road to be on." Yeah, go figure, we learned that about two hours before. So he sent us on over to his neighbor's house and then the next one, but none of them were home, and before we knew it, we have knocked every house within a 3 mile radius of us. 

(There's also a story within that story...It involved an experience with two donkeys, a lake, making Elder Downer jump multiple barbed wire fences, increasing his fear given his fence jumping history, and the three dogs earlier mentioned somehow escaping their barred tight property and becoming our dogs for the rest of the day. I named them Bleu, Rex, and Fluffy, and it even got to the point that they were always with us and would always respond to the names we gave them. But I'll save all the details due to time...)  

Well, after not finding a soul that could help us, we returned to the car to find out if we could get it out some how with our now recruited help of Bleu, Rex, and Fluffy. We found burned down storage house with some more materials and wood that we could use, but as we tried to employ that in the job of helping us escape, we were back to square one, moving back and forth only a couple inches. We had been fighting the mud for about 3 and a half hours now, and didn't know what to do....so I just took out everything we had placed to give the tire some grip....and miraculously, one of the greatest events in my life came to pass before my eyes. I don't know how many angels helped me push, or if God just hardened the ground under or what not, but I pulled everything out, and right before the count to three with me pleading that we could get outta there, we started to move 4 inches, then 6, then 10, then 3 feet, then before I knew it I was running behind the car pushing with all I could until it caught solid ground and took off! I was just on my knees absolutely shocked, so grateful, and especially thankful that we had gotten out of the horror of the Texan Clay. So now we know that all the missionaries before us obviously didn't pray for help when they got stuck and needed a tractor to come and get them haha....or maybe our situation was so bad that Heavenly Father had enough pity on us to help us out. Whatever it may be....Texas gives terrible Valentines day gifts! 

Well I miss you all tons and thanks so much for all the Valentines Day goodies! I was blown away by the present and can't tell y'all how grateful I am for it! Music! Finally!!! I was wondering what the stereo was for, but the next package answered the question! And I need to know who chose the pie because it was the last thing I opened for the day and the last thing I would've expected haha. Love yall and we also got a visit from Elder Audikitais, a member of the Seventy! He amped up our mission and things are going to just get better so I'll keep yall posted!!!

Love
Elder Justin Wilson

Obey The White Handbook!

Hey howdy hey! This has been such an exciting week where we have been able to be more obedient than ever! If you read in the white handbook, it stresses the importance of respecting other's religious and cultural beliefs....and in doing so we couldn't find a house yesterday that wasn't worshiping the religion of Football in this great state of Texas. Luckily we were going around with a three-pound bag of chips that was gifted to us by a member and we were welcomed warmly into every home! It gave us the idea that we should go tracting sometime with a Corona box full of copies of the Book Of Mormon, The Restoration Movies, and all sorts of other commissary haha. I can just see everyone beckoning us to come in their house and share our goods! 

So yesterday did have its ups and its downs, because we had two baptismal interviews for Carlos & Brittany Riveroll, a Spanish family that we have been working with since my first week out here in Greenville! I'm seriously way stoked for them, but as always, Satan is starting to amp things on up again. After being out here a while and seeing the pattern that he works in, it just gets super super annoying and I just can't help but wonder if he's ever going to give up! He's just ridiculously predictable and is that constant speed bump that we have to jump again and again. But I also am thankful that I get to be a part of the work that he's constantly attacking and am super blessed to see the success that he's trying to stop. The problem with this Family is that their Dad is...well to put it mildly would be to say he's an alcoholic. We had been working with him a ton back in November and December to get him over this daily drinking problem of his, and at the beginning of December....he was finally able to just give up! He had been keeping our commitments and even fasted with us for a day! I remember we passed by while he was fasting just to check up on him and see how he was doing, and we found him just trembling as he had gone 24 hours without drinking. He was shaking really bad so we made sure that he ate something and we kept his spirits up. Whenever we would talk about it, he would always start crying and would end up stuttering out in Spanish, "I want to stop so bad! But I don't think I can do it!" Well after crossing that bridge back in December and going without for about 2 months, we found him drunk and completely passed out on his bed. It's a test of faith for Carlos and Brittany as we try to continue to unite their family (where the mother and older sister are very very inactive members). They were still able to do the interviews and the little super bowl party that they had planned, but the mood was dampened a little as we saw that Hermano Riveroll had fallen back into previous temptations. So as always, the battle continues, and as always, we know who's going to win and just have to trudge through whatever trial is put in our path while helping lift others on the way. I just hope that I can keep going without letting all the stress get to me. For example, It's a mission norm, especially out here in Texas, that the missionaries gain an unbelievable amount of weight on the mission (like Elder Downer whose gained 40 pounds since he left haha crazy!) But one of our members told me I looked like I'm getting skinnier and skinnier, which as y'all know aint good, so I just have to get over all the stress and whatever else is going on out here. The good news though is that the Spanish Group is continuing to feed us fruitful referrals and the stake is finally seeing through all the schedule changes that we've pushed for...so what we've been doing these past few transfers is finally working! I'm seriously super super super stoked for this area that is continuing to grow and progress! Yall are in my prayers and I want to thank you for yours! They seriously work and have blessed me tons out here! I hope everything's going great back home and that yall had fun for Natle's birthday! Good luck for school Shane and Brett! You've got this week! Even if your teachers do want to kill you haha.

Love
Elder Justin Wilson