Monday, September 26, 2016

Week 6 - Nashville


Hey y'all
I'm in Nashville! I love the mission president. We have been up since 11:30 your time and got here at 1:40. One of the ap's is a Spanish speaker and we bombarded him with questions. And everything he said was good. There are so many Spanish people here. Enough to have 8 missionaries in one ward. And we get to use Apple Music on our iPad so that's going to be awesome. There's a chance I'll be in Kentucky tomorrow but we won't know till the morning. My p day will be Monday.

I think that is everything about today
Love you all,


Elder Williams

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Week 5 - MTC

This week was really fast and had some really fun aspects to it. the mexico independance day celebration was crazy. it had a ton of dancers who displayed all the cultures of mexico back to the aztecs. and they had a live mariachi type band playing and singing behind them. hopefully my videos send that i took from it. but for a couple days after mexico constantly sounded like a warzone. their fireworks are basically just small bombs that make huge noises.

during my study this week i was reading about the two-thousand stripling warriors. and i learned a cool lesson from it. the way helaman described how they fought really stood out to me. "and they fought as if with the strength of god." and i applied it to our lives. if we have enough faith that we go throughout life with the strength of God, we will have the power to overcome the adversary without failing.

another super spiritual lesson this week happened after one of the elders in my district lost his grandpa on saturday. we were sitting and talking about the influence him in his life. and it made me think a lot about grandpa williams. without him and the choices he made i wouldnt be out here today. it made me so grateful for him. and i know he is with me now every step of the way.

i got my flight itinerary this week. i have to leave the ccm at 2:30 am. but because my companion got assigned trip leader we have to be at the reception at 1:30. so im not sleeping that day until i get to the airport. and then my flight leaves 7:17 am and i have a layover in atlanta. i might get a chance to call home from the mission home when i get there. but if not im pretty sure ill be able to email then.

im so excited to get to the field. its starting to hit me how close i am to not being in what feels like a prison. and we had to have all our stuff weighed today so im already packed for monday.

love you all,
Elder Williams












Sunday, September 18, 2016

Week 4 - MTC

 Holla Ustedes (hey yáll)
This week flew by again! It´s so hard to keep track of time here. it goes sunday, to tuesday, to pday. all the rest just blends together. starting off apparently i sleep talk a lot here, and sometimes its spanish so thats cool. just in case any of you send letters here, my district is 5b, putting it might make it go faster. otherwise it takes 3+ days. my favorite phrase i learned this week is "¿usted tiene un presupuesto?´´por supuesto.´" i just thought it was funny because those two words are so similar but mean so different things. i had a super spiritual experience last saturday. for some reason i was feeling super homesick because i had a cold and couldnt focus. but then we were sitting in our room and one of the elders felt prompted to read D and C 135. its the section talking about the martyrdom of joseph smith. i felt the spirit so much, and i knew i left everything i loved behind so that i could preach something he so willingly died for. i gave my first talk here on sunday. it was 7 min 30 seconds. but it was funny because the branch president just said that elder williams would speak, but there are two of us in the zone now. and so we did a quick rock paper scissors war really quick. i lost. mexico independance day is tommorrow, so im looking forward to no sleep for the next 72 hours. they basically set off bombs and also fireworks non-stop. so hopefully i can sleep. sundays devo was Elder Ballard. it was really cool, and he didnt prepare a single thing. he just got up and gave a 50 minute talk. he taught about how we can really believe we are representatives of the lord. he also told us if we have a lazy companion, just say "you can ruin your mission, but you sure aren't going to ruin mine." he said a couple other things about that, but he made sure we knew to do it with a smile haha. last night we had another devo and it was Elder Cook this time. he talked about 4 loves that we must have. love your companion, love the people, love your president, and then love the lord. my favorite thing he said about all of them is that most of the reason we were called to our specific mission, was because we somehow needed to learn something from our specific mission president. i really cant wait to meet mine, and its only 12 days away. anyways nothing else has changed, just trying to study super hard still.
love you all
Elder Williams

P.S.  it was a live broadcast from Provo. the apostles weren't here sadly















Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Week 3 - MTC


Hey yall

Cuando iré al campo, tendré mas tiempo escribir en Español. voy a tener como toda dia. have fun translating that:) sorry for the short emails now. the ccm is super strict about email time, but i will get the most important stuff in. i got a haircut finally last week after emailing. it was long over due. the food finally, somewhat, agrees with me. im not looking forward to the couple weeks of reajustment it will take back in the states haha. the days are starting to fly by. the other day i looked at the clock expecting 9:30, but it was already 12:30. and im bored most of the time, because we are stuck in a class all day. Elder pappin and i had our best lesson yet this week. we were teaching with perfect unity. ive never beared my testimony that many times in 40 minutes. and we were feeling the spirit so much. we didnt notice until the end but the teacher/investigator was bawling. she could barely say the prayer at the end. it made my week so much better just to experience that. ive developed a love for my fake ivestigators, and i absolutely love teaching now. pappin and i almost always feel the spirit in our lessons now. yesterday we had a devotional last night, and it was a live broadcast for the provo mtc. Elder D todd Christopherson spoke about how we only should teach repentance. my favorite quote from it is "being trusted is way better than being loved. god loves everyone unconditionally, but he does not trust everyone." this gave me such a push to be the most trustworthy person and missionary i can. also if you guys could help me out, send your emails both here and through the free letter thing from last week. that way i can write a response to it before i sit down. that way i can respond to everyone. i will definately have more to email about once i hit the field. its pretty much the same thing everyday. the only thing that changes is our lessons. i went to the temple again today and i did the veil all in spanish. it was a ton of fun and it was super spiritual.

love you all
























Elder Williams