Mom...You Would Have Been So Proud Of Me!

Hey hey hey howdy hey! Dang weeks are just flying by like days and I feel like I wrote yall yesterday...but I guess a lot has happened in the past week. I'll try and keep it simple. And I'm not going to lie...after a year and some of this...communicating in e-mails just drags on....so as I was thinking...I remembered that "Re-Runs" were popular and thought it would be a good idea to send whatever I sent a year ago and yall could enjoy that haha. Go ahead and tell me what yall think and I'll take it from there. But I first of all wanted to let yall know that the members had me give a musical number for a Branch activity where everyone acted out Lehi's Vision. It was pretty crazy because they didn't ask me or anything...and I think most of yall know what my thoughts are on singing to anyone except for my steering wheel...but then I thought about you Mom and how you wanted me to embrace High School choir...and how I did not...embrace it. I just thought about how proud you'd be watching me sing my little heart out in Spanish in a suit with my name tag and the whole nine yards. So go ahead and try to wrap your head around that...I know it's difficult to imagine, but I did it and it's over with, and you would have been so proud of me Mom! 

We had two investigators at this activity so that was neat, but this other family that we're working with is just about driving me up the wall. I'm not even going to go into detail on how things are going, but in their situation, they just don't seem to understand the blessings that come from the Gospel, and a good explanation of what they're going through is like....If they were drowning in a lake and we were to throw them a Yellow Lifevest. With only their head just barely above the water, they are complaining about how they were thrown a Yellow one instead of a Red one. It's way frustrating and sometimes I just feel like saying "Look! It's either this way or the highway. I know yall believe in the popular verse 'I am the light and life of the world' that all the Catholics have a poster of. This is the only way so yall just need to quit complaining and take it!" But whenever I think like that, I always take a step back and think "Well there's probably a lesson to be learned here..." So we're making progress with them...not at all like I'd like it to be or as fast as I had hoped, but progression. And I'm thinking wayyyyy outside the box and am teaching them from pretty much every side and every way possible, but it's looking good as far as the big picture goes. 

We also had a pretty sweet experience this past week as we are getting things started on the 'Just Serve' program that the church is piloting out here in Dallas, and as encouraged by the General Authorities, we went to some of the other faiths to see if we could somehow offer service. Given the way that all the other "Christians" have treated me while tracting and throughout all my mission...it became the bane of this week as we decided to do something exciting and humbly grovel at the feet of...(as sarcastically as I can ever say it) our "Christian Brethren" for an opportunity to serve them. Like I said...we tried to make it an interesting week and decided to start with our prime enemies....'The St. Mark's Evangelist Catholic Church.' All they were missing was the name 'Jehovah's Witness' to make them the Ultimate 'Trifecta of Doom!' As we walked up to the office to look for our opportunity to serve, I

really tried my best not to imagine the size of the comet that will fly down from heaven to destroy thier whole campus...but it went just as I had imagined...we talked to the Facility Manager and after a couple smart remarks and me biting my tongue while patiently answering questions about how Mormons actually can be in the same building as an Evangelistic Catholic, and how we do actually look for opportunities just to serve others as disciples of Jesus Christ. His face was pretty priceless when he found out that service was the only reason we were there, but just like I expected as well, we got set up to see if we'd actually come to 'serve.' They got us an opportunity to do some paperwork (putting one apostate paper inside of a binder and repeat the process about 10000 times) with "our lady crew." I knew he was testing us so I couldn't turn him down, and we showed up at the scheduled time. In the 'Just Serve' program, they said that the only point is service (hence the name), and we should only wear our tags, normal clothes, refrain from contacting, and if questions are ever asked, just set up an appointment to answer them later. Well, we showed up with normal clothes and the tag, and I remember the smirk on that lady's face as she said "Welcome Welcome! Let me take you back and introduce you to the crew..." I just sighed and whispered to Elder Stead, "Just wait till they tell us they're all out of water and only have coffee left..." So, again, just like we expected, we came in and met the crew of about 6 Catholic ladies, the youngest of which was probably 65+. I knew that dude was testing us again, so we grabbed that bull by the horns, became our charming selves, and to put it shortly, have 6 Catholic Grandma's out here in Plano Texas. So if yall ever need a place to stay or something to eat or are itching for a game of bingo...just give me a call and i'll hook it up for you out here in Plano Texas! 

Love yall and hope that you have a fantastic Easter! It truly is an amazing time to follow the example of our Savior and do as he did. I encourage all of you to read over the sacrament prayers and remember the covenants that you renewed yesterday. It seems like we are better at living up to those commitments on the Easter weeks than normal, so I invite yall to think about how you celebrate Easter, and just live that way all year long.... I hope all my little cousins are thinking "JELLY BEANS AND PEEPS ALL DAY FOR A WHOLE YEAR!!!" I love and miss yall!!!!

Elder Justin Wilson

St. Patricks Day???

*(Justin's reference below is from the little "half-way" package we sent him. Each of us contributed. Joe's contribution was half a roll of toilet paper). 

I'm not going to lie it was pretty funny yesterday while Elder Stead and I got matching St. Patrick's day ties, leprechaun hats and all that jazz along with the sister's matching their fully green outfits, and we show up at church seeing that not a soul was wearing green. It was odd having grown up in an Irish-Holiday embracing family, and it seemed like all the hispanics we're avoiding what I found out to be a totally white people holiday, but I guess I have that much more to look forward to cinco de Mayo! This week has had absolutely beautiful weather and made me feel like I was back home in the sunny 80 degree days watching Audi R8's roam the streets right next to the Ferrari and Maserati dealerships, but the work is going very well here. There's a family that we're working with and hoping to get them all baptized on the 30th of March and another person we met from Honduras that is super prepared that we're looking to baptize along with her Daughter in April. It was kind of a bummer because some of the families we were going to baptize got lost in our plans, but will still receive the blessings of the gospel. For example, the Laffe family we were going to baptize is getting a big job transfer out to Florida, and they already have contact with the missionaries and ward out there, so they'll still become members along with their Mother, but it's just a bummer that they left our area, along with a few other people. So I guess I should have been more specific in my prayers as to "where" and not "when" I wanted these people baptized, but we're still seeing miracles and loving the area that is growing more rapidly than it had before so I truly can't complain, especially after my favorite dinner appointment where my three year old homie started hand feeding me my food because she thought I was eating too slow haha! It's crazy to think that all my friends will be entering or leaving the mission field in just a couple weeks and how many people are still turning in their papers. Thanks to everyone who is preparing to leave because your service is most definitely needed out here! *I also wanted to say thanks for all the year mark stuff haha. Dad's made me think of one of my favorite quotes that I've heard out here that says..."the mission is like a roll of toilet paper...the less you have the faster it goes!" Love yall and hope life is just fantastic!
Elder Wilson

August 25, 2013

Whats happenin yall!?!? I don't have a ton of time today because we're going to hit up the Big  D today, but I had just a couple cool stories to tell yall. So this last Teusday I was on exchanges with Elder Adams (who actually turns out to be Riley Coggin's roomate up at the Y haha, I've apparently walked into his room all the time just to get Riley's stuff so that he could basically live at our place and I've said Hi a couple times. I just remember seeing him watch Harry Potter on his computer haha.) But we were on exchanges out in Carrolton (another cash money city in north Dallas), and I found out that my beloved brother Adib Jacobo, that I baptized from out in the Cliff, had moved to their branch!!! And thats not all...I don't know if y'all remember it or not, but he was the one that was looking for a lady friend down here, and apparently a month ago he got married to a member who's already endowed!!!!! So we had a little reunion with him and his awesome new wife and talked about the good old days back in Oak Cliff, casting spirits out of his house, cleaning out a whole sleeve of Tortas for lunch, and then our competition to see who could eat more Jack In The Box tacos back when Elder Rodriguez and I were tearing it up as the dream team in Texas! Then we talked about the temple and I remembered that he was baptized on the 25 of August, and then they told me about how it was their plan to get Jacobo endowed on the 25 of this August, and after that, they're going to get sealed! I was about to cry it was so amazing. 

And another little jewel from this past week was when we started looking for a couple families to teach yesterday. It was really a normal Sunday where we left to find a couple part member families to teach, and some of them lived in an apartment complex, so we parked our car (Shelly, the infamous purple Fusion in the mission) and walked out to cross a big street...and we hadn't been out of our car for 30 seconds when we saw this huge Red Van careening down the street with the window rolled down as a family yelled "ELDERS!!!!!" Then as we saw that they didn't finish what they wanted to say (since they were coming down the road at 50+ mph), they flew across all 4 lanes to take a U-Turn at full speed....truly faster than I've ever seen before in my life. As they took this Italian Job-like U-turn, we were able to see their car just tatted up with BYU stickers, and then I just thought oh no...here comes the Utah part of the mission. It rememinded me of the fact that our branch area covers the area of a whole stake and how we're supposed to gather any Spanish speaker. While the Hermana's have the "ghetto" part of Plano that covers 2 wards, we have the better part with Ferrari and Maserati dealerships and we cover 6 English wards....so our area is loaded with your stereotypical Mormon members....but I guess welcome to the rich part of Dallas. I was just so used to being the only missionaries within 900 square miles in Greenville, and it made me miss the diversity of hearing "[EXPLETIVE] YOU!!!!!!!" everyday down in Oak Cliff. So the family pulled up at 600 mph, of course still in their
church clothes, and gave us every question in the book. It was just so stereotypical that I just couldn't help myself from laughing. They begged to give us a ride, and while we told him we were just going to walk to the complex, he asked for the number and everything whipping
out his cell phone and putting the adress and all the info we had in his GPS. I truly felt like a celebrity as they introduced us to their teenage daughter, told us what ward they were in, asked us how much time we had in the mission, talked a little about what they've done in
missionary work, and just about asked us if we miss Utah yet. So I would just like to say that my respect for any Utah missionary had grown a hundredfold for having to put up with that every day. I can't imagine it haha. So next time yall see that family van speeding down the freeway, the question is....Soccer Mom...or Mormon Dad to the missionaries rescue? Well I love yall and hope you enjoy this Spring Break!

Elder Justin Wilson

Mas Milagros!!!

Dang this area is crazy busy! We got it to the point where everyone
was set up for baptism, but then things just started falling apart,
and as I said last week, our Faith was just riding a line. But through
lots of work and of course, Miracles on the Lord's always delivering
part, we were able to salvage one of the lost baptismal dates and
baptize Perla Janeth Rocha Rodriguez de Lopez yesterday. It was an
awesome baptismal service that President Durrant and his wife came to and we were also able to get a lot of branch support there. From what I heard, the last baptism in the branch with a miracle family had only about 15 people in the crowd, but yesterday we got to fill the whole room, and then needed to get more chairs during the service! 

 

But I did find out that the bummer was that as missionaries, we aren't allowed to see the CES Firesides...which is a super bust because Elder Bednar spoke at UTA yesterday which is only a matter of minutes away from us...but apparently the purpose is to prepare the young adults to get married, have families, and live in this crazy world, which is a little different than our purpose as missionaries haha. There was also another family that we are working with that we got to take on a Temple tour and I just wanted to thank you so much Mom for setting up the tour with President Martz around the L.A. Temple for that one Youth Conference. I remembered all sorts of bits of knowledge and symbolism about the temple from that trip that I was able to use and share with our investigators as we walked around the sacred grounds of the Dallas Temple. So many people think that as missionaries we are just chomping at the bit to get people baptized that we'll just throw anyone in! But it is all about the Temple and I am super grateful to Bishop Eddy, President Lindberg, and to everyone else who made it possible for me to work at the temple before my mission! It made me super gung-ho on the Temple and I always make sure that my investigators know that "The House of The Lord" and becoming a "Forever Family" is the ultimate goal! I remember super well after that Temple tour, where we found out that even the flowers, grass, and type of stone used is all symbolic, when President Lindberg personally asked me, "So do you know what the symbolism is behind the title, 'Holiness To The Lord, The House Of The Lord'?" After thinking for a minute, I remember coming up with something, whatever came to my mind at the time, and then he simply said, "There's no symbolism" (because the temple IS the House of the Lord- not just a symbol for it)So I hope that yall are taking super advantage of the Temple and the blessings it brings! Love yall!

Elder Justin Wilson

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