Leaving My Joventud In The Past

Wow it's not even September 19 yet and this has already been (totally serious) my best birthday yet!!! It is so humbling to know that you all remembered my birthday and I feel even more grateful than Ammon in Alma 19:14 so I guess I'm pouring out my soul in thanksgiving haha. And just a shout out to everyone that has sent me letters and packages...I will get a letter out to you but I did make a promise to my Mom that I'd write in my Journal every day so that’s kicking me back just a bit...but I will most definitely get one out to you! They have made this week pretty much the best!

 I figure it's because the work has been super, super busy out here in Oak Cliff, and while we've been working so hard to love everyone that we teach (even though at times it may get difficult haha), it really is a fantastic time to forget yourself. But all these birthday wishes have just reminded me of all the people that I love and miss so much and let me know that you guys are still thinking about me and made this birthday better than any others. Thank you so much!!! 

Still cannot believe that I won't be a rebellious teenager anymore, but I guess it's onto bigger and better things. While thinking about how old 20 sounded a while back, I remembered a conversation I had with one of our home teachers when I was back in the primary. I think it was Brother Wind, and I remember it was his 50th birthday or something like that and everyone was wishing him happy birthday, and I began to think about how cool being old was. I thought, "You can drive...go wherever you want....you can eat wherever you want and whatever you want....you can go to any movie....you have a bunch of money...", and after all of those thoughts running through my mind, I was so on the getting older boat! So I went up to him and told him that it must be way awesome to be as old as he was, and I just remember him laughing while he said, "It's only fun to grow up, but it most definitely isn't fun getting old." I didn't really get what he meant for a while, but I guess I feel like I'm getting so old now haha. 

Well as far as this past week...Elder Rodriguez and I have planned a pretty Dynamic transfer. Things are seriously going to explode here!!! Our ward has a goal of 25 baptisms for the year, but before we got here, we only had 3. So the past transfer Elder Rodriguez and I were able to pitch in 6 while the East Elders added another, and we're off to a good start with baptizing Manuel and Kevin this past week. We have some pretty huge ambitions for this transfer and are definitely going to get work done around here haha. 

We're always super tired and I guess that's a good sign that we're ready to put in the effort that the Lord wants. These past few weeks we have been able to see how as humans, we really can't do much, but when we do the small things that the Lord asks us to do, he is most definitely ready to work miracles and put his pieces into place. (Even though the Lord isn't ready to have the Bishop pronounce the difficult name of 'Wilson' correctly haha.) This week it somehow changed from Wooford to 'Wool-Fur', but it's a work in progress. We have been seeing so much success out here and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be a part of it! 

I also would like to hold a moment of silence for the first time I had In-N-Out for 6 months and 5 days................................haha it was so awesome! Well I wish I could write more but I love and miss you all! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes!!!

Elder Justin Wilson

The End To A Solid Transfer & The Start of Another

Cannot believe at how fast this transfer has gone by...but it's another one down and I'm so stoked to have another one down here in Oak Cliff West! We have 2 more baptisms coming up this Saturday and are super excited for those because we're going to finally be able to baptize Manuel Jara, our 47 year old friend and future Bishop.

This guy is seriously an example to every member and it is just humbling to see how hard he works to do things that we so easily take for granted. First off, we have been having plenty of appointments with him, but he lives pretty far up north and it takes  a little longer to get there on bikes. So one day he was so stoked for the appointment that he wanted to just come pick us up, and since then, he's been giving us rides all the time! But the best part, was the one night that we were stacked with appointments and were calling a bunch of members to see if any could come out with us and take us to these cross-town appointments that we wouldn't be able to fit in one night on bikes. After calling about 8 or so members and finding that everyone is "busy", we decided to just throw it out there and invite Manuel...our investigator. As shy and reserved of a guy he is and even though he was super nervous, he wanted to come and understood how important sharing the Gospel is and just totally saved every lesson that night. We decided it was time to start a new "Key Indicator" with not only "Lessons Taught To Investigators With A Member Present", but "Lessons Taught To Investigators With An Investigator Present." His big challenge was being able to come to church, because he always has work on Sundays, but we had never seen someone with such a desire to come and be baptized. This experience really helped strengthen my testimony that we truly are representatives of Jesus Christ, and what we say will happen. He had been praying for weeks that his work would let him come to church, but nothing had really changed. So we promised him that if he prayed and fasted, the Lord would open a way for him to come. He started fasting that week...and guess who's schedule got changed haha. Just as it says in the scriptures, we have the power to move mountains, but such is impossible without prayer and fasting. So he was able to come to church, but he wanted to share this so badly with his family who was really reluctant to learn anything (except for his son Kevin, he's way solid too and was coming with Manuel). And guess who prayed and fasted again. Yup, and after a lot of work with his wife and daughter, we set a baptismal date with them and they'll be able to be baptized this October! We had the baptismal interviews for Manuel and Kevin this past Saturday, and Manuel was fasting again haha. We just have to make sure he doesn't starve himself and he'll continue to see more and more miracles in his life. I could see him taking any leadership position in the Church and has been such a solid example for every member, including us. But we also had a Ward Activity this past Saturday which is always the best part of the week! Working with Latinos is by far the best haha because they don't need any reason and will just throw a party just because they feel like it. This past one also had a talent show where we put on a skit that was way awesome and I'll still try to figure out how I can send the video of it, but the best part was the paparazzi (primary) on Sunday. All the primary kids came up to us and asked us if we were "the guys that ate the frijoles" last night and would just tell us how much they loved it and all that stuff. Haha it was easily one of the coolest parts of my mission, and this whole past week has been one of those weeks where there was nothing that I could think of that I would rather do than serve these people. I so didn't think it was true when I first cracked open Preach My Gospel, but as it says in the introduction, "There is no work more satisfying that this." It's even a cherry on top when you get to hear latinos try and say "Wilson", and the best pronunciation is "Elder Wooford" haha. It gets funnier and funnier every time I hear it. Another newsflash that is totally crazy is that I'm past 6 months now and was able to celebrate the day I got my call a year ago! Time flies by! But out of all these expereinces....possibly the best...was when some random contact guessed, for the first time...ever...where I was from, and got it right. As a missionary everyone will ask you where your from, and for these past few months, I just ask them what they think. Knowing that we're Mormon and since it seems like 90% of the missionaries are from (what is always referred to as) "la favorica" or "the factory", known as Utah, they'll always guess Utah. Well, one day, our contact's first guess was....LOS ANGELES!!! Totally put me on cloud nine! Well this work is awesome and you get tons of experiences from everywhere! Thank you so much for all the packages and letters you've sent me and I hope everything goes well! Please let me know if there's anything that anyone needs help with and I could probably get Manuel to fast for it! Love you all!
Elder Justin Wilson

Justin dancing with the Primary 

Another Successful Week...With Some Speedbumps

Well I've tried to load some pictures but it turned into a huge mess so I'm going to try and figure out how to do it another way. This past week has been absolutely crazy, but we did have two more Baptisms this past Saturday! Still cannot believe at how blessed we've been to have been able to Baptize 6 people in this past transfer! Everything went down just perfectly for Adrian and Berenice, and another bonus is that their Dad is super impressed with this change that they've gone through and our ability to teach them what we have. Bonus! He's so going to be the in that font one of these days!

A small speed bump in the mission this past week...was that my backpack was stolen. Well that just about makes the Oak Cliff experience complete, but it has quite the story behind it. So we were taking the Dallas Area Rapid Transit train deeper into Dallas and we had our bikes with us so that we wouldn't get stuck waiting for the bus. Well once we finally got to our stop, I unloaded my bike off of the rack, and once I put it outside, I went to go and get my backpack, but the doors closed and the train just took off! After a couple seconds of shock and running after the train and realizing that there was no way it would stop...I called DART and had them send a sweep team in at the stop that was 3 minutes away. So they went in and found nothing. Welcome to Dallas. It didn't have much...just my scriptures, planner, a good amount of Pamplets and stuff...oh yeah...and my camera. The camera had about 8 gbs and 2 transfers worth of pictures so I was always frantically calling lost and found hoping and praying with a zeal that I don't know I've reached before. I was hoping that some good Christian person would have turned it in or something like that, but when I reached the lost and found they reported that they get all their items at the end of the week and that they'll be closed on Labor Day. So at least it kept me hopeful. I so badly needed my camera...it's so expensive and had pictures that I couldn't just go out and replace. Well after more praying and even fasting (believe it or not haha I needed that stuff!), we got a call on Friday from Hermano Ruiz, one of the Ward Missionaries. He said, "So Elder Rodriguez, did you loose your camera?" I just immediately looked up and gave a prayer of thanks and for the little miracle that we saw. So what happened was that Hermano Ruiz's Nephew found my bag on DART...and I guess to put it simply....he's not a good christian soul, and he started looking through it to see what was good. He found my camera, a tool set, and just some other random stuff that he took and then decided to make some money. Getting off at the next stop...as the story goes, he decided to make a little moo laa and sell my scriptures, backpack, and everything else. But when he got home, Hermano Ruiz said that he saw his nephew looking at pictures on a camera he knew he didn't own and asked him where he got it. When he replied that it was his, he saw the pictures of me and Elder Rodriguez...and now the Camera was returned back to me with all of the goods he had taken out. So, it was found by a good Christian soul and was turned in, and yes, to all of the atheists I've talked to out here in Texas (which aren't many), there is a God and he listens to us haha. Now I'm just praying that someday I'll get to hear someone bear their testimony that they decided to join the church when they bought a pair of beautiful scriptures that were marked with the best verses! It's going to be so awesome! 

But this week has been absolutely amazing, so much success, and even though me and Elder Rodriguez have both felt a little sick, we can both testify the "When you are on the Lord's errand, you are entitled to the Lord's help." And he will most definitely give it to you at the times when you need it most. It truly is amazing about how he never forgets about you. Well I hope and pray that everything is going well with everyone and am especially excited to hear about Rachel's start at BYUI!!! Such great memories of my last few weeks back home and then starting my career at college! I know there's going to be some crazy stories somewhere in these next few weeks Rachie haha so to anyone that's going to BYUI, be sure to keep an eye out for her. I'm working up to be like Grandpa John and Papa and getting to the point where I have eyes everywhere and can hear everything haha. Love you all! 

Elder Justin Wilson

Just Another Week

Well for this week I would also appreciate it if you guys kept it for our family. Getting all the letters and news from you guys, I just can't really believe how badly things are going. It really is shocking just how everything seems to be going just as south as possible. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean for our family, maybe that we should look outside of Los Angeles (which would absolutely kill me) or maybe we're just getting hit with all this stuff to prepare for something bigger and better, but then again I feel like I'm just stealing the blessings for our family. We did have a baptism this last Saturday which I know you guys would've gotten a kick out of seeing it. His name was Adib Guadalupe Jacobo Hernandez ...which makes it just about as Mexican as you can get. I felt like I was quoting the Nacho Libre"...from the Sisters...ladys...mountains...of guadalupe..."during the baptismal prayer which I had to keep myself from laughing, but what was more on my mind was how I was going to dunk and lift all 250 pounds of this 6 foot 3 inch dude. Well through some miracle and another testimony that there is a God, I was able to successfully baptize him and embrace him as my brother that speaks zero english and that I've been super close with for all my time out here in Oak Cliff. It was way awesome and really touched me when he got up to bear his testimony after the baptism and he said "Elder Wilson, I'm never going to forget you and how much you've helped me." Man that got me to the core and just like it says in the beginning of Preach My Gospel, there is no work more satisfying than this. (Another bonus is that President Durrant came to the baptismal service.) It sure was an amazing opportunity and we have 2 more baptisms this coming Saturday, possibly one more on the 8th of September, and 2 more for sure on the 15. It is so crazy how much success we are finding here, even on the bikes and everything. 

In my doctor's appointment this past week....it went well, but not as smoothly as we would've liked. I did get the updated prescription and I sent that in the mail, and he did say everything looks great and like the medication is working just fine. But since the DMV problem was in California, he wouldn't touch the paper and said that my California doctor would have to take care of it. He said that he would send a report to Dr. Lekkala and that she could take it from there and he said he would be happy to sign anything if I was applying for a Texas license,  but not a California one. And to answer your question Dad...I believe he is Dr. Lekkala's distant cousin, back in the tribes of India. But I sent the paperwork and the prescription back home with pretty much the same description on how everything went, but I don't know if you guys want to continue to go through all the trouble of the DMV work since it might get all worked out when the transfer ends. 

Another amazing experience we had this last week was when we knocked on the last door for the day, and saw a woman with a brand new baby answer. After congratulating her on that new baby of her's, we asked her if we could share a message with her and she welcomed us on in. After teaching the restoration to her and earning a certain level of trust from her, she told us about how her baby was born with a heart problem and we were able to tell her about the priesthood power and the blessings we were able to give. So after knowing this woman for a total of about 10 minutes, she trusted us with the opportunity to bless her brand new, 10 day old baby. As we anointed and blessed the baby...we both talked after about how miraculous it was to bless someone who just came from the presence of God. It sure is an amazing work to be a part of, and I hope that Rachel is getting prepped and everything ready to start school! Super stoked for her and I want you guys to know that I pray for you every day. As bad as things are now...I am eager to see what they'll look like in the future. And you guys can also do whatever you want with the pictures and everything. love you all! Hope you had a great birthday shane! Thanks for sending the pics Mom! Sure love you guys!

Elder Wilson

Weeks Seem To Be Getting Crazier and Crazier!!!

Well first off I'd like to start out with a shout out for the almost nine year olds! Hope you enjoy your birthday shaners and get my package on time! This week has been full of the good, the bad, and the ugly, but I figured I'd start out by explaining the joy of the rain we've had this week. With all respect to my companion, I really could not believe this plan that he had formed for us as a district to get to this past Zone Conference. It invovled us spending the night at East's apartment and waking up at 4 in the morning to get to the ever so effective Dallas Area Rapid Transit train station, which would end up taking us to Richardson where we had the meeting starting at 12. Well, while we were on exchanges, he had someone drive them to the East apartment and forgot to bring thier bikes, which left us walking to the Dart station at...4 in the morning. That night was crazy with thunder that kept waking all of us up as it shook the apartment and would set off about 15 or so car alarms. Well once 4 came...we dragged ourselves out of bed and got in our suits just in time to see that it was pouring harder than ever to help us meet a flash flood on our walk to the DART station. While we were on exchanges and everyone without rain jackets neccesary to battle this weather, we all trudged through the pelting rain at 4 in our suits for 45 minutes until we got to the station haha. But as the saying goes, "Nothing beats walking around in a flash flood for 2 and a half miles at 4 in the morning in suits in the heart of south Dallas haha." We were all just soaked to the bone as we got on the freezing cold train haha but we most definately got a missionary experience medal! 

Another crazy expereince was when we had my most effective Bible bash yet. Well it started out just like any other normal day where as we were riding our bikes, we heard "Hey Mormons!" We turned around and saw a guy motioning for us to come and talk to him in this parking lot and we decided to go and see what he might need. So as we started talking to him, he started out with the, "I totally respect you guys for what you do, and I don't want to be racist or anything (still have no idea why he said that), but I've got a few questions." So he started questioning a bunch of beliefs that we have and we naturally gave him answers backed up with scriptural evidence. Then he gave us more doubts that we would answer and he would always refer to this little book that he had, and after answering a bunch of questions that he couldn't defend, he said, "Is it alright if we go over to my car so that I can get my book and that we and we can keep going from there?" We figured it would be alright since we had already effectively answered all of his questions that he was trying to battle with us, so we went to his car and he pulled out his laminated Anti-Mormon pamphlet, and everything that he had no debate on before, he threw down and the reasons why what we believed was false. He really started ramming on the Bible, even though we had backed up so many of our beliefs to the words of the Bible, he just wouldn't accept it and would say, "Well you need to give me something more than that." He would deny everything we said, until he finally said, "If you can prove to me that God and Jesus Christ are two seperate people with bodies, then I will believe that Joseph Smith saw the two of them." We had already explained and given him sufficient scriptures for that and it made me so clearly think of the statement from Korihor the Anti-Christ in Alma 30:43, "If thou wilt show unto me a sign, that I may be convinced that there is a God, yea show unot me that he hath power, and then will I be convinced of the truth of thy words." I knew through the spirit that he had already determined his heart to be hardend beyond acceptance of this truth, and I simply told him that whatever we say, he Is just looking to destroy or deny it. I then bore the most powerful testimony on my mission. It was an experience like never before, and instead of feeling like I was speaking, I felt like my body was just a vessel to deliver the words and testimony of someone else. I will never forget the feeling where I KNEW, and there was absolutely zero doubt about the truthfulness of my words. It was like I wasn't speaking, but my mouth was delivering something while my mind confirmed with a feeling I'd never felt before that whatever I was being directed to say is true. It made me think of the words of Elder Russell M. Nelson in the MTC, "Pure testimony is iirrefutable, It is undenyable, It is powerful." He kept trying to cut me off, but it kept going until it was guided to close. I knew something hit him, and hard, because after that he thew down every false conception his mind could concieve about the church, even speaking of doctrines as sacred as Exaltation. I simply said, "As Jesus said to the Pharasiees, why would we teach you of Celestial things if you cannot even believe temporal things." Then Elder Rodriguez said, "Our purpose is to call Repentance, therefore we invite you to repent. You have a nice day sir." As we left, my mind flooded with all sorts of other things that we could have said or scriptures that would have proved him wrong, but it was that moment that I knew that the spirit had ben working with us. We treated him like Jesus did the Jews in John chapter 8, and that was a testimony that what we did was right. It was an amazing expereince, but is sad to show how the world truly is ripening for destruction. 

On a happy note, we have 3 baptisms this saturday with some solid members to keep the world and work going haha. Love and miss you all! Wish I had more time to tell you about all these amazing stories!

Love

Elder Justin Wilson

Lesson Record!

Whats up family! First off...when did you get an iPad Mom?!?! That's crazy haha I guess things definately do change while you're gone but I hope you're enjoying your new toy. 

Well I was a little bummed when I heard about the DMV thing but I guess we'll just keep moving on, and even though bikes seem to be slowing things down a bit, we just broke Elder Rodriguez's record of 26 lessons by teaching 27 this week! It's way awesome seeing things just take off as we decide to teach at the first contact! We ended the week with another record for me of 11 new investigators! I'm way stoked because things are going fantastic with our 3 planned baptisms for the 25 of August and we're also excited to see how things are going to go with President's new battle plan of having the Oak Cliff Spanish mission work with mainly inactives and part member families instead of tracting...which...pretty much anything beats out tracting. It was so awesome to be able to talk to you guys and catch up with everything back home. So, my question for Rachel...how was the date with "the Hair"...and where was Natalie during that call? I missed hearing from her but I guess she's a busy high schooler now haha. This past week has been way awesome because I'm getting to the point where I start to feel like I'm actually in Mexico! More often than not I'm the only white guy in our group of Mexicans that we're teaching or going teaching with. A good amount of them don't speak a lick of English so it's a good test for my Spanish and it feels so awesome being able to understand all the jokes and take part in conversations that I thought were just a bunch of jibberish a couple months ago. But that's life here in Oak Cliff, just kicking it with my brothas from Mexico and staying safe from all of the drug trouble that's going on down here. And a message for you Dad, I remember when you were explaining what teaching the Hispanic population would be like, and all I have to say is you've been right on the dot. In your words, "All you have to do is recite the first vision and they'll say, 'Hey! That happened to my Uncle like a week ago! Where can I get baptized?!'" So in at least two of this weeks lessons, our investigators have told us that they had a dream where, in their words, "I saw a pillar of light, brighter than the sun, decending directly over my head...and then I saw my Lord and God." For some of them it happened a couple years ago and for others it was a couple days ago, but once I heard those words and translated them to English in my head, I pretty much heard your summary of my mission. 

We did have a pretty cool expereince where we prayed and were very specific about the details of what we wanted to find. We wanted to be able to get in a door and teach a lesson before we called it a night, and then Elder Rodriguez looked at me and just told me to lead the way. So we walked around this neighborhood and I was trying to feel something special or some direction when I looked at every house, but nothing was really coming to me. So I felt like we had gone far enough, and I decided to just knock a random one that looked good...and we got nothing. So we prayed again and Elder Rodriguez led us to another door, and again, we got nothing. By this time he just wanted to knock down the row, door by door on another street, but I kept remembing this one house that we had passed about 10 minutes earlier, and I felt not much when we passed it, something small enough that didn't make me stop because I expected to feel something more, but for some reason I remembered just that one. So I told him about the house I kept remembering and we decided to go knock it. So once we made contact with the resident, we found out that it was an old lady who had been sick for a good amount of time, and not only did we get to teach her about the Restoration (which she had a dream of), but we were also able to give her a blessing. What a blessing it was to find someone so accepting and to be able to teach her in absolute silence, giving the spirit that much more of an opportunity to be present. Well in all, this has been a pretty solid week, even though we heard "long preaching" yesterday that almost had the result of Acts 20:7-9, but the work goes on. I miss you all and hope that things are going well and that you all are getting just as excited as I am about the Laker's "BIG 4!!!" Keep up all that you guys do to help the missionary work and I'm way stoked to hear that you're getting super involved Mom! 

Love,

Elder Justin Wilson

Complete Chaos

Wow this past week has been absolutely crazy. So with this whole dividing the Oak Cliff part of the mission to East and West basically led to me and Elder Rodriguez being "doubled into" the central apartment and working from scratch with a whole new system of investigators, old investigator transfers from East to West, and getting to know the area...while on Bicycles. 

This past week has been absolutely insane...but the good news is that we had 3 baptisms this past Saturday! It was amazing to have my first out in the mission, and a little nerve racking, but still a fantastic experience. It's been so neat to see the Gomez kids go from no knowledge about the church to their baptism...and even though they were about 15 minutes late...with members waiting and me just about ready to lock myself away in fear that they’d miss it...they finally came and it was amazing to make it the whole way! 

We also were able to get Juan Jr. baptized after months and months of waiting for his Dad to give him the O.K. but it was finally done! The most nerve racking experience though was the confirmation. As investigators, the confirmations are supposed to be held on Sundays during the sacrament meeting in front of the whole congregation. Once I got up there and saw everybody, I totally thought I was going to mess up or get stuck or something! But it was super neat how you are inspired when you use the priesthood...but when you're directed to say what you don't know in a language you can't speak and it ends up working itself out...that is proof that there is a God. 

But overall everything went down very well and it has been quite the week. And on the bike...all I have to say is that in the moment...riding...in 112 degrees...of humidity...kinda  makes you hate Texas...but biking makes for much better stories than driving ever will

. This past week when we were riding to a lesson, it was like my tubes just gave up and decided that they didn't want to ride anymore. And then my bike gave up and didn't want to be a bike anymore and the back tire just...I don't really know how to say it...but it just fell off. Well gotta go given the small amount of email time but I hope everything is going well! Miss all of you!

Elder Justin Wilson