Week 41 - Nashville Providence B Take me out to the Ballgame

Hola mi familia!

This week was another great week. We didn't have the opportunity to meet with the Rivera family very much this week, but they went on vacation to Kentucky, so they haven't been home. But it's definitely going to take a lot more work for them to be ready for their baptism. Miguel is ready, he just needs to come to church a couple more times. But Carmen and Fabian need to get married still and Fabian is the one holding us back on that. So we are just focusing on getting the spirit back into his life so he can remember how he felt when he was first a member. This week we just read in the book of Mormon with them and sang hymns. We also had them write down their goals for the future and we talked with them about how they can really accomplish them. 

This week during my free time, like lunches, dinner and after 9, I have been working on my family history. And it's so much fun. In just 3 days, I have found over 240 ordinances to be done and 80+ names. It's also been an awesome way for me to have the spirit always. Because I can feel the spirit of Elijah working in me and I want to go out and help others to find this same joy. And I really didn't know how to do family history before three days ago. But I found a way on the app that just makes it easy. It's also really cool because it's fulfilling parts of my patriarchal blessing that I didn't know how they were going to happen. But they are. It's just super cool to see. 

We had to help with two moves this week. One was helping our first counselor in the obispado's uncle move into a huge house. But it was super easy because he was super organized. Like when we moved from the cove colony house but a retired colonel did it. So that was an adventure. Then Saturday the English elders called us to come help one of their investigators move, because their whole ward couldn't. We moved the biggest uhaul ever up three fights of stairs. The apartment was smaller than the uhaul, so after we finished there wasn't any room to walk into the apartment. Hopefully they get that figured out. But the worst part was we were in proselyting clothes still so after the move we were just drenched in sweat. It's really gotten humid here. It looks and feels like we are in a sauna. But it's ok, it's part of the fun:)

It was fun to see Caleb Braithwaite again. He said he's been back from his mission in New Zealand for a couple months and he's out here doing summer sales. It took him a second to recognize me but then it clicked and he was just like "Chaz?!?" Haha, he lives in the same building as the zone leaders so I'm sure I'll keep seeing him. 

Love y'all!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Week 40 - Nashville Providence B

Hola mi familia!

Another great week here in music city! We have been continuing to work hard with the Rivera family. This week we brought our ward mission leader with us to a lesson and it was great. Him and Fabian just clicked and he was asking them perfect questions. One of the questions he asked was what was their goals for tomorrow(future). Diana didn't really understand the question and she said to eat cheetos. Then Miguel said that he wanted to be a missionary. Carmen said that she wanted to have a married family already. And Fabian said that he wants a united, happy family. Now that we know their goals for sure, we are able to really help them to accomplish them. The rest of the week we have just been reading and praying with them. And we also brought Maria linares and her family with us yesterday and we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. It went well, one of her sons recently got baptized and he shared how he felt like he was literally in heaven when he was baptized. They weren't able to come to church yesterday because Fabian had a soccer game, so there is still some work that must be done before their baptism, but it's just going to take time and the spirit.

This week we also came in contact with a former investigator who is a lot more prepared now. We found him while we were knocking some doors on the way to try a different former who used to have a baptism date.

Right as we got to the other formers house, Jose, pulled up in his car. It turns out he recently moved and was now living with the family that we also used to teach! But he invited to share our message with him and told us to come back the next day. We came back and he was actually there! We did a quick restoration review with him and then introduced the Book of Mormon to him. He told us he would start reading it this weekend so hopefully in the next couple days we can see him and see how his reading is going.

This week we want to meet with one of our youth in the ward each day to teach them the restoration and to think of a friend that they could invite over the next time. We are hoping this will help them be more willing to share the gospel and also help us to find the people who are prepared.

Love y'all!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Week 39 - Nashville Providence B

Hola mi familia!

This week was just awesome! We've made some really good progress with the Rivera family. Tuesday we made a baptismal calendar with them and they loved it. They have been marking off every day that they read and pray with cute little check marks. Then Thursday while we were on exchanges, elder Lachance and elder black went and taught them. Carmen gave a summary of the second chapter of the Book of Mormon, and as elder Lachance put it "she summarized better than Joseph smith himself" Then they taught them the law of chastity and after they read the pamphlet Fabian said that it's really clear what they have to do.

So hopefully that means they are getting married soon. If so we are really on track for the 3rd! We haven't seen them since, but hopefully we will find them at home tonight.

While on exchanges this week, I was put on the finding crew. It was a ton of fun. Because we just were talking with everyone and having really good success with it. By the end of the day we had found 10 new solid investigators for their area. Elder Bayles said they were the best investigators they had found all transfer. It was honestly just a lot of fun. We had a few full lessons just standing outside where we found the people. Our president challenged us to talk to 8 more people a day in a non-door knocking way. He guessed we were at about 2 a day, and if we did 8 more a day then we would be talking to 36,000 more people a month as a mission. And in those terms there's bound to be more baptisms. It's definitely working so far.

We recently got a new ward mission leader and he is so excited for the work. He has set a goal with us to have 50 baptisms by the end of the year as a war. And we've been making a plan to accomplish this goal.

Our last two correlations have been the most spiritual correlations I've been in. It's super cool! He keeps saying we are going to need more missionaries soon here. This last one we all talked and figured out who would be the best fellowshipers for each of our investigators.

He's definitely the best ward mission leader I've had so far.

Wednesday after zone conference, president invited us and the zone leaders over to have dinner with his family and it was so cool!! His house was amazing. It felt like we were in the temple. His family is just the perfect example family. I also got to use my dicing skills to chop up a ton of tomatoes. And sister stone is a 5 star chef. But yeah that was just one of the coolest experiences of the mission.

Other than that the week was just the same, finding constantly! I'm loving it out here, have a great week y'all

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Week 38 - Nashville Providence B

Hola mi familia!

This week was just awesome! There were a ton of really cool spiritual experiences and a lot of progress was made with our investigators.

Monday night we went and met with the riveras and they made us dinner.

It was baleadas and posole. Apparently with the posole(corn and sketchy meat soup) Fabian told elder lachance to take caution. I didn't hear that. But then Tuesday elder lachance woke up with food poisoning, so that was a day I just cleaned and studied. But he's better now!

The rest of the week we continued working hard with the Rivera family.

Wednesday during our lesson with them about the plan of salvation, we invited Carmen and Miguel to be baptized on the 3rd of June. We put it a little farther out because Carmen and Fabian have to get married first, and we also wanted to work with Fabian and the bishop so that he can be worthy to baptize them. After the invitation, we brought up the whole marriage thing and told them to talk about it. Yesterday they came to church and Fabian brought his cousin who also was baptized at 8 but was inactive as well. His cousins non member wife came also. It was a super cool gospel principles class They all introduced themselves and Carmen introduced herself like this "I'm not a member, but that's why I'm meeting with the missionaries" we met with them last night to finish the plan of salvation, and Carmen's other daughter who didn't want to listen before came and sat in on the lesson. She's 11 and was making super good questions for us. So hopefully tonight we can invite her to be baptized on the same day as everyone else. They also bought us both a tie, it was super nice of them! We are going to wear them next week when they come to church again. Also Carmen was able to finally say a prayer with all of us listening and it was a super good prayer! She thanked Heavenly Father for putting us in her path and asked that he would bless us so we could keep coming over and helping her.

I think that covers the most important parts of this week. One thing I started in my studies is I'm reading through the Book of Mormon as if I'm an investigator and marking scriptures and making questions that investigators might ask about or if they are scriptures that would really help them. It's been a fun, cool week of studies.

Love you all!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽

Sometime studies just drain you

Cool mug in our Apartment

This is the Tie the Revera Family got Me

Week 37 - Nashville Providence B - New Apartment and Met Elder Neil L. Anderson

Hola mi familia!

This week has been so awesome! There were so many spiritual things packed into this week that it just flew by. I am so grateful I have the opportunity to serve with elder lachance for his last transfer.

We are working hard, but having a blast with it at the same time.

So first off we moved, so I live at

109 players court Nashville, TN

The biggest miracle this week was really starting to work with the Rivera family. That's Fabian and his girlfriend/wife Carmen and their son Miguel. We were able to meet with them three times this week, and they are reading in the Book of Mormon. They came to our ex- missionary activity, which was supposed to be just an activity to get ex-missionaries excited to do missionary work again. and it turned out to be awesome, because the members all just testified to them the whole time. They weren't able to make it to church this week, but we are going to work super hard this week to get them there next week. We are also planning on setting a baptismal date with them for the 3rd of June. We want to set it a little farther out so that Fabian, the dad, can be worthy to baptize them. Also they need to get married first. We are going to talk to them about all this tonight. We have such high hopes for them, and I already love them so much.

Then Saturday we all piled into the mission van to travel up to Paducah, Kentucky(2 hours and 20 minutes) we were going up there because Elder Neil L. Anderson was visiting for their stake conference! And he invited half of the mission to come meet with him.

We all got to shake his hand and you could see the pure love he has in his eyes. The thing that really stood out to me was how comfortable it was to be around him. And he even told us that he never really talks so casually, but he could feel how focused we were on the work so he felt comfortable talking like that. I thought that was a super cool experience. I'm really grateful that I had the opportunity to go.

We also had another baptism on Saturday. The zone leaders were the ones that taught her. So we had two confirmations at church yesterday.

I love you all!

🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽