2-24-14 Faith=Power, Obedience=Price, Love=Motive, The Spirit=The Key, Christ=Reason, Joy=Reward

Hey everyone!

 

Another beautiful week gone by in the TDM (Texas Dallas Mission). We had a good week, taught a lot of people and are working hard to teach more. The weather is perfect, we couldn't ask for much better. 

We were able to witness the re-baptism of an excommunicated member, Brother Chapman, it was excellent. It's amazing to see what the gospel can do in our lives and seeing someone come back to the gospel after years of being away only strengthens my testimony that this is the truth. 

 On Tuesday night we visited one of our crazier investigators, Richard. He is always drunk when we show up, the evidence being a glass of beer that is half full sitting next to him when we show up. He is a good old guy, in his mid 50's and he talks our ears off. He knows he needs to change his life and loves when we come to talk. We left him a pamphlet on the restoration and he read some of it and kept telling us ," I only have one question about your prophet", and would proceed to go off on a tangent. Needless to say we never found out what his question was but we told him that he would have more control over his life if he would stop drinking and invited him to stop, we'll see if he does. 

We found a couple new investigators this week and a lot of them are very promising. Two of them are a couple from Nigeria, Danny and Roseline Nnaji. They are awesome! We set up an appointment with them and they actually smiled at us when we came to the door. Roseline told us she had heard odd things about the "mammons" and wanted to do some research online about us. Luckily her husband knew that we are the Mormons and she was able to find mormon.org and request missionaries. We set a baptismal date with them and have another lesson this week.

 

On a more contentious note, we knocked into a woman who told us that we didn't worship Jesus Christ so we corrected her and she told us that she knows we don't worship Christ and that we are being deceived by the adversary. Some people. And then we knocked into a man from the church of Christ who couldn't get over the fact that he isn't allowed to go into the temple. We told him that because he hasn't been baptized and wouldn't understand the things that happen within because he doesn't know about the fullness of the gospel or believe it. He just couldn't get over it, apparently he tried to walk into the Salt Lake Temple one time. Crazy guy.

 

We had a visit this week from Elder Stanley G. Ellis of the Seventy this week and he was amazing. He strengthened my testimony of the divinity of this work, it was very evident that this was a man called of God. He taught us that we must do things in the Lord's way, I loved it. His wife gave us a great training and it included this little .... thing for success in missionary work and life , I think it is powerful:

 

Faith=Power

Obedience=Price

Love=Motive

The Spirit=The Key

Christ=Reason

Joy=Reward

 

Something I think we should all ponder and remind ourselves of each day.

 

That is about it for the week, it was wonderful. Elder Porter and I are getting along great, we are sad transfers are coming up next week, we will probably get split up but that's how it goes. Yes mom I got the package, thank you! It sounds like everything back home is excellent, the new temple will be amazing. I love you all and pray for you often, have a great week!

 

Elder Williams

2-17-14 "I am grateful for the blessing of spiritual strength and the power that comes to us as we are willingly obedient."

Hello Family,

 

Well another week gone. We had a great week, we were able to teach a lot of our investigators and we have been working really closely with our new ward mission leader, he is a stud. He didn't serve a mission but I've never seen anyone so excited to be involved in missionary work, it's awesome! 

Not sure if I told y'all but we have been working with an older man who was excommunicated a long time ago. His wife is a convert and they have been returning to activity and we have been teaching them for the last while, they are hilarious. They fight with each other and joke and smack each other around, I love them. Well last Sunday he went and met with the high council and he passed the interview or whatever it may be (Dad might know the official term), but he is getting re-baptized on Wednesday! We are looking forward to that. 

We also met with the Elliots, the contentious couple who we go and gently bible bash with each week. We talked about who the great "I AM" is and about prophets and they asked us how we felt knowing that apparently 90% of the people who leave the church go aethiest. It just makes me think of all the Nephite dissenters who, after they had fallen away, were worse than the Lamanites and were the cause of all the wars, so it didn't really surprise us. They are so hard to teach, all they want is for us to either show them facts and proof or admit that we are wrong. They know the scriptures way better than we do but they are missing the fullness of the gospel so they don't understand half of them. Our meetings are kind of pointless but there is a hint of hope so we are trucking on. 

We also set a baptismal date with another part member family. They chose to do it on a Tuesday, kind of odd but it is apparently the day that the husband got baptized when he was a kid so great! 

Tony didn't propose this week, they got in an argument so it wasn't quite the romantic atmosphere he was looking for, this will be the week. We had ward conference and we were eating dinner with the choir pianist on Saturday and she roped me into singing with the choir the next day, it was decent. The Behunins came to church, they are a part member family. The husband is a less-active member and the wife is a nonmember but they came to church and were touched by the talks and now he wants to get active again and we will get to teach his wife! Blessings from the Lord, not always in the way you expect but always amazing. 

I'm grateful to be out here serving a mission. I'm learning first hand the true power of faith and am building a foundation on my Savior Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the knowledge I have gained so far about living life but more importantly I am grateful for the blessing of spiritual strength and the power that comes to  us as we are willingly obedient. I love my mission and I know this is where I need to be. I love you all!

 

Elder Williams

2-9-14 As we knock on doors in the cold, people tell us "It's cold outside. Stay warm!" as they shut their doors on us.

Hello Everyone!

 

Another week of bi-polar weather here in Texas. It snowed on Thursday for about five hours and a little bit on Friday as well, I was a bit out of my element but luckily Elder Porter is a Utah boy so he kept my head on straight. It was a good week, a bit frustrating at times though. Our investigators seemed to think that they should cancel on us because of the bad weather so we could stay home and be warm like them but they failed to understand that if we weren't meeting with them then we would be out tracting in the cold and snow. We had five lessons drop in two days because of it so we spent most of the time when it was the coldest out knocking doors. The people we met knocking had the nerve to tell us it was cold outside and to stay warm as they shut their doors... Sometimes I really question people's intelligence. Oh and one man told us that what we taught was wrong and that we were leading people to hell.. We got ourselves into that one though because we were knocking in some serious Baptist country. 

Besides that it was a great week, Tony is planning on proposing to Maile this week and he wants them to get married March 22 and he wants to be baptized March 29. We just need to make sure he actually pops the question, any prayers would be more than welcome. We and three investigators come to Church, two come regularly and one came for the first time, they all loved it. We had our follow up lesson with Scott and Claudia, we took our new ward mission leader with us (he is very passionate and enthusiastic) and he and Scott went at it. It wasn't a bash but they talked about almost everything, including Heavenly Mother. So Elder Porter, Claudia, and I just kinda watched from the sidelines. We are going back next week, we'll see what happens. Scott is just too ingrained in his own church and you can see there is a bit of tension in their marriage because Claudia is actually interested in trying to find her testimony of the Book of Mormon again but Scott is dead set in his ways, it's a bit unfortunate. 

We met with Willy Carter, again, he is so weird, he thinks about things with such an odd perspective. We were teaching him the plan of salvation which he loved but his way of thinking is just so off the wall. He likes the Book of Mormon and meeting with us, good signs. That was about it for our week as best as I can remember.

 

Dad, on Sundays we usually spend most of the morning tracting and in meetings, then church from 1-4, and the rest of the night is either teaching or finding. Sundays are great though, church is always good even if this ward is odd.

 

Congratulations to Tiffany and Grant, a little baby girl, how exciting!

 

Well one year down, one to go, time is flying by. I'm excited for what the next year has in store, it's going to be excellent and I wouldn't trade this last year for anything because of how much closer it has brought me to the Savior. I was reading in Alma 39 the other day, when Alma is talking to his son Shiblon and giving him some parental advice and I found a verse that I hope mom and dad can say about me, it is verse 2 : And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your ^asteadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he that ^bendureth to the end.

 

I love y'all, talk to you next week!

 

Elder Williams

 

2-3-14 I Love the Lord and I Know Joseph Smith Was a Prophet!

Family!!!

 

Well another week has gone by in the TDM (Texas Dallas Mission) and the Texas weather is as bi-polar as ever. It was nice for a few days, then painfully cold, then perfect, then freezing again with rain. It can't make up it's mind. The cold always makes tracting more .... well I wouldn't call it fun bit it adds a nice twist to it. It was a good week for us. Since I got here we have been teaching a part member family. The mom, Maile (Miley, she's Hawaiian) and the three kids are all members. Tony, the boyfriend living with them, is not. He has been investigating for a few years and they consistently come to church. The only problem is that he won't ask Maile to marry him so we went in on Tuesday night and told them that we love them and that they need to stop living in sin, repent, and get married. We didn't know how they would take it but they loved it and appreciated us being open and bold with them. We are meeting with Tony this week to hopefully discuss marriage plans. So that was definitely a highlight this week. 

We also got back in contact with a referral we taught a few weeks ago named Gay. She has been through a rough time these past few weeks because she is behind on rent and may get evicted and her electricity will be shut off soon unless she can pay it. We taught her and set a baptismal date with her, she loves the church and what we share and we promised that as she had faith in the Lord and drew closer to Him that He would take care of her and he has. She hasn't been evicted yet, still has electricity, and will get her disability check soon so she can pay for things. We are really excited for her. 

We also met another part member family this week, Scott and Claudia. Scott is not a member, Claudia is a long time less active and they go to a Bible church. They have met with missionaries in the past but it hasn't gone anywhere because Scott is a really nice guy but will not budge on his beliefs or opinions, basically just a very stiff-necked person. So we will see how our next lesson goes, they wanted to talk about who God is and the great I AM. Oh boy. 

And yesterday we met a guy who knew a lot of bad information about the church like how Joseph Smith called down the angel Moron and that he wrote the Book of Moron and it isn't inspired. We corrected him on just about everything and he agreed that the Book of Mormon and a living prophet could be evidence that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever but he can't believe it because he has read a lot of bad literature about the Mormons. So he wasn't prepared to hear the message, we'll leave it at that and not call him any names. So that was most of our excitement for the week, it was a good one. 

Elder Porter and I are getting along really well still, we are always just laughing and joking around. 

 

To answer some questions, yes mom I have the list of renewed meds, thanks for getting those for me! For Chase, I had (excuse me spelling): Mr Biltmier for science, Mrs. Chowdhurry for math,  Mr. Schley for industial tech, Mrs. Miller for social studies, can't remember my English teacher, Mrs. Larson? for drama, Mrs. Waldera for P.E. and I think that's it...

 

Sounds like the whole family is doing excellent, makes me happy. Best of luck to Cole and Ash with the window business and to Tiff and Grant for picking out a name for the baby.

 

Oh and one more thing, we teach a guy named Willy Carter, he is a weird one, always has off the wall questions but likes reading the book of Mormon. Well in our lesson this week he told us that Elder Porter has a better sense of humor and that I don't have much of one and that since I don't have a girl waiting for me at home that I am a good candidate to be the next Pope! Not exactly the kind of compliment I want but okay haha.

 

Well I love you all and I pray for you all the time and I'm grateful for all the prayers being sent my way as well. 

I'm glad to be hear on a mission, it is the best thing for me right now. I love the Lord and I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I wanted to challenge you all to have a family mission plan if you don't already have one. I figure if I ask the members here to be involved with finding people and teaching, then my family at home should be doing the same. I know y'all are doing a great job with the temple, just make sure you keep it up once the open house is over!

 

I love y'all, have a great week!

 

Elder Williams