10-18-14 More Great Mission Stuff!

Subject: 18 October 2014

Hi everyone,

Texas has been nice to us the last few days, the weather has turned for the better, I love it! The fall is here, what a blessing. Makes me wish I was back on a bike! We had another great week. On Monday we carved pumpkins, mine is sporting the angel Moroni. I would send you a picture but I forgot my camera chord, woops! Next week. That night we had a great lesson with Robin, he is making slow and steady process, he will get baptized eventually. After seeing Robin we met Amber Dill at the church. She is in her late twenties, we have been teaching her aunt and Amber wants to know more. We gave her a tour of the church and taught her the Restoration. Our discussion took about two hours because she is not afraid to comment! She knows more about the Bible than Elder Nuckols and I combined, so it is great fun. She seems like she is sincerely searching for truth, good thing we have it!

On Tuesday we visited the temple with the group of missionaries heading home, including Elder Larsen. It was a great session. I love the temple. Sometimes we go seeking guidance and revelation, but this time I simply enjoyed feeling the special peace that only the temple brings. I needed it. That night we had a first lesson with a referral in the YSA and she is from Gilbert! She graduated from Gilbert High School in 2014 and is going to UTD, it was nuts! We don't know any of the same people but it was like a bit of home, small world.

Wednesday and Thursday were two of my favorite days in the mission. Elder Nuckols and I went on a road trip with President Taylor out to east Texas to see the three zones out there, interview them, and do some exchanges, it was amazing! We basically had one on one time with President Taylor for six or seven hours in the car. We planned out a lot of things that the mission needs as well as had discussions about normal life, career paths, and deep doctrine. It was fun. We spent the night in a hotel which was odd but sweet! And we got hit on at a drive thru. It was a fun trip.

Yesterday we were back at the state fair working the family history booth again and had a good time. There was an old lady who volunteered to be there with us but she spent all of the time running around looking at different booths and talking on the phone so we did all of the work! But that's okay, we enjoyed ourselves.

Those are all of the big highlights for the week. Life is good here in Texas, I couldn't ask for much better. Sounds like things keep changing back home, I will be in for a bit of a shock I am sure but I'm okay with that. I love all of you!

Elder Williams

Scripture- Moroni 7:41

Preach My Gospel- Developing Christlike attributes should be our most prominent goal in life. To be with Him, we need to be like Him.

3-9-14 Mission President Order's Elder Williams to Get a Manicure, in Order to Reach Out to Investigator.

Family!!!!!

Oh goodness y'all are wonderful. Just a few housekeeping items. Mom, the walgreens is on Montfort and Beltline, it is the closest one to me now. I went in on Monday to get a few prescriptions filled and apparently they still hadn't gotten the updated ones from Dr. Wong so they contacted Dr. Wong and I suppose they are in now so that is great! 

To answer some of the questions y'all threw at me, I will be emailing Saturday mornings so if you want to make an email on Fridays that is great, just as long as I get one I don't really care! Yes, my companion is Elder Larsen, we have served around each other a lot and he was trained by Elder Merrill two transfers before me. He is a super hard worker and very fiery and passionate, he is an amazing missionary. He is very headstrong but that's okay. I like him, we will get along fine. Both of us are great at talking about the gospel with others but not the best at the day to day small talk so it's been a little quiet but it'll get better with time, I'm excited to serve with him!! 

As for Elder Porter, he stayed in Rowlett. I miss him, he was a great companion and friend, we worked hard and had a lot of fun. He is actually going to Dixie State University to play golf but we have plans to hang out after the mission. He hates BYU haha but no worries, it isn't a thorn in the side of our friendship. 

 And on my year mark I didn't blow up anything, I just ate a big dinner at Raising Canes, the best chicken fingers you will ever get and I have found out that there is one in Tempe by ASU or something so you all should try it! You won't be disappointed!

So on to this past week. We are so busy, I love it. I have never been so tired my whole mission. We have to fit all of our proselyting into about half the time of a normal missionary and the Lord is helping us out big time. We are constantly blessed with referrals and we have a few solid investigators right now so we actually teach a lot. Being so busy has made me cherish the time that I get to knock a few doors and teach lessons. 

Monday we were able to play a little basketball and helped the extra companionship move out of our apartment. We had a missionary go home in a neighboring area so we took the extra set of missionaries out of our ward and made a trio in the other ward.  We spent the night finding and it was great. 

On Wednesday we taught some lessons. We taught David, a YSA investigator who is really solid, he has been reading the Book of Mormon, wants to come to church, and has a baptismal date. We took a member with us that ended out being worrisome because he would interjected some . . . uhh . . . interesting ideas. The member on the car ride to and from was asking us what the Bible says about the judgement passed on dishonest people and told us too many odd stories. He is a great guy, just different. 

Then we had a quick lesson with Steve Punches, a very big and tall man who works at a big and tall store, imagine that. He is lonely and needs friends and as we talked he was very concerned that other churches were putting out false information about ours and wants to come to church when his health allows, good stuff!

And we taught an Indian man named Robin who was very impressed with our church and wants to read the Book of Mormon. He is an amazing man, his wife is mentally handicapped due to a stroke a few years ago and he takes care of her and loves her anyways, excellent man. 

The most interesting part of the week would have to be when I got a manicure... Yes a manicure. Don't worry, it was on President Durrant's orders. He took his daughter to get a manicure for her birthday a few days ago ( and he got a pedicure) and talked to a young Vietnamese woman named Beka who wanted a Book of Mormon. So he sent us to give her the Book of Mormon. We had to go to the mall where she works and while walking in the mall President called us and said that instead of just giving her the book one of us needed to get a manicure to have more time to talk with her. So I got a manicure and talked with her for about 20 minutes and she accepted the book and we got her information so we'll see how it goes!! 

We also had to drive out to east Texas for a meeting yesterday, my first time out there and it is very different from the city! Much greener and things move slower. It was about a 2 hour drive one way. So that was fun, the meeting went well and I ate some of the best BBQ ever at Stanley's BBQ pit, it was amazing! 

We are also teaching some recent converts who antied themselves so went by and helped them understand what our beliefs are and cleared up misconcepetions and misunderstandings and will keep meeting with them and hopefully get them back to church. Lastly we met with Reuben, the husband of a member. He is awesome and so sincere. He is from New York and has a great accent and we always have great discussions, the last one being about faith being a principle of action and the difference between the light of Christ and the gift of the Holy Ghost, it was a great lesson. 

There are wonderful things happening here. I love being a missionary and working with the Lord to save His children. It is mentally, spiritually, and physically exhausting but I know I am where the Lord wants me to be. I know that Jesus is the Christ and can't describe His sacrifice for us but it is precious to me. I am grateful for all of my experiences thus far and am especially grateful knowing that we have found the truth and that our family can be together eternally. I love y'all, have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Williams

3-2-14 Richardson 2nd Ward is Amazing!

Family!!

The cultural celebration sounded like it was amazing, what a wonderful opportunity for our family to be a part of it! I wish I could have been there but the Lord has other things for me to do here. 

Since I last wrote things have been so busy! Monday I went to the airport and picked up all the new missionaries arriving in the mission, it was weird to be at the airport, first time since I arrived myself. We talked and trained them and had a bunch of meetings. 

Tuesday was transfer day so and transfers were delayed due to some icy weather so that was crazy, President Durrant made 4 or 5 transfer changes the morning of transfers, that was fun. So we had more meetings and got the new missionaries all squared away with their trainers and then spent the day running things around to people and the night with the departing missionaries,  it was crazy to see some of the missionaries go home. 

The rest of the week slowed down and we actually did some knocking and teaching these last few days so things are a little back to normal, we just get a lot of phone calls from missionaries with weird and dumb questions like if they can watch movies and stuff like that. 

The Richardson 2nd ward is a amazing, the ward mission leader created a program in excel that is basically a computerized area book and the Bishop is so missionary minded, we are going to love this ward. There are two other missionaries living in our apartment with us, Elder Transier and my old companion Elder Johnson. Most of the work in the ward comes to Elder Larsen and I and they do more of the less active work. 

It has been a great week so far though, just so busy that I hardly have time to think about much else. I don't have much time today but I will try and write more next week! I love y'all!

Elder Williams

Oh and my new address is just the mission office address if you send me mail.

Texas Dallas Mission

13747 Montfort Dr. #120

Dallas TX 75240

3-1-14 President Durrant Called Me to Be an Assistant

Family!!

Well it's been quite the week. I've been transferred, I will now be serving in Richardson 2 and YSA and will be working with President Durrant more often because he called me to be an Assistant. 

He is double transferring the previous assistants out and called two new ones, me and Elder Larsen. 

That's why I am emailing on Saturday instead of Monday. All I know is that the Lord is about to stretch me in a thousand different ways, I'm excited but nervous. It will be a great opportunity. I'm sad to leave Elder Porter and Rowlett though, odd how things grow on you, especially when you put so much of yourself into them. 

 Yesterday Elder Porter and I got up at 5:30 a.m and were out contacting people at 6 a.m. We started in the Walmart parking lot but a lady stared us down and looked like she was going to raise heck so we left and went to the dart station, a light rail that goes through the metro-plex and tried contacting there. It would have been really successful if the Jehovah's Witnesses weren't there already. . . We contacted as many as we could and then talked to the JWs for a bit and took some of their info which we proceeded to throw away upon leaving the parking lot. It was a long day, we didn't go home until 9 that night, it was awesome! Other than that it was an average week besides the big change. 

There is a lot to do and the ward I am coming into is on fire right now, they have baptized 7 people so far this year and have more to come so we will be busy busy busy, life couldn't be better. Well I love y'all, you're always in my prayers!

Elder Williams

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