Week 36 - Nashville Providence B - TRANSFERS (Still in same area)

Hola mi familia!

So we got transfer calls Friday morning! I'm staying here in Nashville! And my companion is elder Lachance. He's the super tall guy from last transfer. He served in providence a, got transferred to columbia, and now is coming with me in providence b. It's his last transfer so that's going to be fun. I'm actually super excited because we got along really well when he was here. 

This week was awesome! We worked really hard this week and it payed off. We worked a bunch with angel and he's starting to really progress. We set a baptismal date with him for June 2nd! Which turns out to be his birthday! We set it pretty far away because he definitely needs his time, but now that he has this goal in mind he's taking it a lot more seriously. The only problem is being able to meet with them frequently enough. 

We also met with Fabian and his family. He's the drunk member we found that I talked about last week. But his desires to change and come back were real. He expressed it in the closing prayer of the lesson. And his wife and kid were really into the lesson too. We were supposed to meet with them again last night but we got stuck at the church cleaning up after the sisters baptism. But they are definitely one of our main focuses at the moment. 

We also found another really cool Honduran family on Saturday. We were looking for a girl we came in contact with a while back, and we knocked her door and she wasn't home. But her family still invited us in and we taught them the first lesson. It's really crazy how easily we come in contact with prepared families. The lord has his hand in his work. I know that for a fact. 

Anyways that's pretty much it for this week. I'm loving it out here and time just seems to be flying by! Mother's Day is in 3 sundays. It feels like just yesterday that it was Christmas

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

PS.  He is still in the same apartment for now.  His companion headed for Bowling Green

Hang 10

Weird tradition, when a missionary goes home you do a "funeral" at the last district meeting

This is one of my buddy elder quiring in it who is back in cedar hille.  We've been in choir together since 9th grade

View from our back porch

Week 35 - Nashville Providence B - What is with Honduras and Missionaries from the WIlliams Family :-)

Hola mi familia!

Another great week in providence! Elder Bradshaw and I are still getting along really well and helping each other better ourselves every day. I love it.

I've also gotten really focused into my studies this week. One thing I have really learned is that the lord has revealed and prophesied these things, so that we may know that he really is God. Because when they begin to come to pass, we will know that he already told us they would come to pass 100's of years ago. I think the main thing that has changed in me this week is that my testimony has grown of god's love for his children and how he really is an active being in all of our lives. 

One thing I have learned through missionary work is that the lord really does lead us to certain places at certain times to find people who need his message. This week we found many people who's family was all Mormon and they were either inactive members or non-members. But they all were very insistent on having us come back over. We didn't even have to ask for a time to come back, they set it all up for us. It was awesome!

One of them we found while we were tracting in a place called Cathy jo circle. It's just this super Hispanic neighborhood that's been hidden this whole time we've been here. So we are just living over there now during the day. But the other day as we were knocking, we heard a guy yell "elders!" A couple houses down. So after the door we walked over. It was a bunch of really drunk guys, and the one that called us over has been a member since he was 9. He told us that he's from Honduras and was going to go on a mission, but he made poor decisions and is now living here with his Catholic wife. Although he was super wasted, we could see through it and see his cry out for help. He just kept insisting that we need to come back and teach him. He repeated it like 30 times before he let us leave. So we are going to see if he's legit about changing and the time help him get back on the path. 

We also decided to go to this random street that didn't have that many houses on it because our whitepages told us there would be a Hispanic on the street. And on our bike ride we passed family outside partying for Easter. And they were bumping some loud Latino music so after the house we tried we rolled back and started talking to them. We shared the Easter video and after we asked if they would like us to come by sometime to share more. Then they just started rolling out their addresses. Apparently none of them lived in that house, but it was their mom's house. And all of the addresses were areas that we had tried really hard before and found no one. It's weird and awesome how the lords timing works. But guess what country they were from? Honduras again. It's like I'm serving in Honduras right now, and I love it! One of he woman's family is all members as well, she just never joined. This keeps happening! But they all wanted us to come over later. So we set some returns with them. 

This week our less active that we have been working hard with for 3 transfers told us he wanted to come to church. And he showed up 20 minutes early too! It was awesome, and the lord was so happy to see him back. 

That's the gist of the week! The work is moving. Transfer calls are this Saturday and from what president has told me, anything could happen. So we will see!

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Another Golden Hubcap.  2 more and he have enough for a Car

Zone Conference Goofy

Zone Conference Serious

Week 34 - Nasvhille Providence B

Hola mi familia!

This week we've been focused on Yesenia and angel. Yesenia has been reading in the Book of Mormon and it is connecting perfectly to her life. Every time she has a question about her life, we would just have to read a few more verses and it would be answered. Using the Book of Mormon has made teaching so much easier and brings the spirit so much more than just flat out teaching ever could. As of right now she feels content with the church she is in, but also is reading and praying to know if it's true. She's progressing slowly but surely.

Angel has really done a 180 on how humble he is. Before he wouldn't even listen, and now he is participating in lessons on his own choice and asking questions. It really helps that his wife is a member that really wants him to get baptized, so she's an amazing influence on him. The work really is so much easier when they already have a connection into the church.

We are still working with our less active Daniel. He is so awesome, and we keep getting referrals from him. He owns his painting business so he has a bunch of employees. So every time we go over there on the weekend him and all his buddies are having a BBQ. The best part is all of them are from Honduras. So I can talk to them a little bit about their country because of Emilie, but not much. And a good icebreaker for them is bringing up the 6-0 loss of Honduras to USA. Then I invite them to our church soccer league and ask them if they are going to let the gringos win again. It's a lot of fun, haha. But a few of them are actually showing interest in the church, so we are going to start teaching them soon.

Other than that I really can't think of anything exciting happening this week, like missionary work happened but it's all just tracting and sharing the Easter initiative with everyone.

I've been working hard this week to continue praying always with real intent and trying to apply all the things that I learned last week from conference. One thing that has really helped with the praying is waiting in the morning until after exercising so I'm awake and then doing it as one of the first things I do when I get home at night.

That has helped a ton, but I'm still far from perfect.

Love you all and happy Easter!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Week 33 - Nashville Providence B

Hola mi familia!
This week was just awesome! My favorite part was definitely general conference. It felt like Christmas because of all the revelation and doctrine that was being shared. The whole time I was listening, there were many times when I thought " oh I can use this part with _____" and I especially loved the talk directed at the investigators. That talk is perfect because he tells about his story as a missionary and how he wished he had taken them more seriously from the onset. I don't know who I'm going to share that talk with, but I know I want to share it with someone.

I also loved elder bednar's talk from the priesthood session about how we are first called to serve, then assigned to an area. So it doesn't matter where you are, as long as you serve. I think that will make transfers even easier now. It doesn't matter what area I'm at, as long as I work.

We also had a lesson with yesenia, who we met last week. She has two kids, and one of them has had a lot of surgeries on his legs because he was born with so,e disease in them. So he has to go around with a wheelchair, except in his house where he crawls around. He's an awesome kid. And yesenia is so humble because of this and other experiences she has had in her life. We started the Book of Mormon with her and committed her to finish the first chapter applying it to herself. She loved that idea, because she was doing it before we even told her to do it. Her husband was going to be there, but he had to stay longer at work because of the good weather we are having. So hopefully we can meet with him the next lesson.

We also had a lesson with an inactive member who we have been working with and he gave us a referral without even realizing it. He had an employee over for dinner when we got there and we ended up teaching them both. His name is Enoch and he's pretty familiar with the church when he was back in Honduras. He had a girlfriend that he wanted to marry, but she said no because she wanted to serve a mission. She is currently serving in Dominican Republic and he said they still talk. It sounds pretty similar to elder costa's experience. But Enoch came to the Sunday morning session yesterday and seemed to like it. We will be teaching him again tomorrow night.

We have also been working with less active member of a part member family and we were just teaching her when suddenly her husband joined us. Usually his wife forces him to sit in on lessons, so it was a surprise when he chose to. And he actually asked us questions this time. He sounded like he had received a lot of anti before, but he was open to hearing our answers to them. He also shared how he didn't like how he felt super pressured into doing things. So we told him we weren't here to pressure him and it was all his choice. We talked about the Book of Mormon and the Bible with him. We told him he already knows the Bible is the word of god and now the question was whether the Book of Mormon was or not. We told him if it wasn't, just throw it away or give it back to us. But if it was that meant the church was true. He loved that we were just inviting him to read it and pray about it. We also talked with his wife to only invite him to do things and don't force him into anything. Or else he won't do it with an open heart. I'm really excited to see how this ends up!

Those are the miracles I have specifically seen this week. I love seeing how willing the lord is to bless his children. And I love being able to serve him every day.

Hope you all have a great week!


🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽