Week 22

Hola mi familia!
Monday night we went out with our 81 year old member to see if we could find anyone home and teach them. We were able to get in and teach the first lesson ish with this cute young couple. They are both in their 20's with a 1 year old boy. The family Espinosa. We didn't teach much that time, because our member likes to talk for an hour. But he seemed to get them really interested with what he said. Then we went back Friday without a member and they were there again, that's a first. But we did a lot of chapter 10 how to begin teaching on them and then taught a little bit about atonement, repentance, and baptism. They really seem super interested and they said they were looking for some way to alleviate something that's weighing on their souls. They also said they want help studying the scriptures because the Catholic Church never teaches you that. They want you to depend only on the pastor, which is why they said they are "Catholic" but don't practice. But I have a really good feeling about them. We did a soft invite to baptism and they said yes. So now we just have to make sure we have the spirit when we teach and we should be golden. :)

Tuesday not much happened but we did play volleyball with Manuel and a lot of people from the branch. He is so fellowshiped it's not even funny. We just have to get him the lessons and get him to want to read and he'll for sure get baptized. He knows he needs to do it he just wants to be sure first. We taught him yesterday after church and got a really good gospel of Jesús Christ lesson in. So we are one step closer!

Wednesday night we had a lesson with the aldays. It was good, but when we did the baptism invite, it wasn't a no but it wasn't a yes. He said that from our (lds) perspective baptism needs to be done with the proper authority and from his (Catholic) perspective the father has that authority. So we are going to really nail in the apostasy next time and hopefully that will help then understand. Another family that's really good prospects.

Thursday we had dinner/lesson with our dry member (basically member that's just not baptized yet) and tracted the rest of the day.

Friday good old weekly planning and the lesson with the young couple (Espinosa)
Saturday we went to the rich areas to see if we could hunt down any Hispanics using our phonebook method. And every single one was a Hispanic. We didn't get any new investigators from it but we did find a lot of potentials. Then we had a lesson with a white guy who's in the air force. It was a good lesson and we are going to do a pass off lesson with the English elders this Wednesday.
Yesterday was church, lesson with Manuel, lunch with the family alduenda, studies, dinner with our dry member again, and then a little tracting. Busy, but long day. :) for dinner we had tacos de buche. I.e. pigs stomach tacos. And they were actually really good. I just drowned it in salsa, but it was way better than cow stomach.

That's about it for my week!

Oh we are starting a 40 day fast today, which is where every day a member fasts for a specific investigator and a less active. We are hoping it is the push of spirit that we need to get all 15 of our really good prospects to be baptized! But we will see what the Lord has to say about it
��Elder Williams��

Week 21

This week was kinda slow, but it's because it was so cold! I would put on 4 layers and still freeze. But it was still a good week.

Monday and Tuesday were exchanges, which was a lot of fun. But I definitely wasn't called to English work for a reason haha Wednesday we had zone meeting, which was a ton of fun and I learned a lot from it. One thing we did is we thought of someone who influenced us a lot, then imagine if they didn't have the gospel. We then pretended that they were our next investigator. My attitude towards tracting completely changed. I just thought of a few people during knocking and I was a ton more enthusiastic. Especially if I thought of one person, the person that has definitely influenced me the most ;)after we got back we some studies and went straight to dinner. Then we had an appointment with the family Diaz. If went well, and he asked our stance on if there is a hell and on tithing. Both of our answers he really liked. He really hates church leaders who get super rich off of tithes. Then while we were getting driven home by our branch president, he asked us to give talks for Sunday. Me on humility and Webster on pride. He wanted us to mind of rebuke the branch priesthood because nobody was wanting to progress in the priesthood. And he said they each have to be 15 minutes long because we would be the only speakers. I freaked out for a minute, because I knew there would only be at max 3 hours to prepare, and that's if I used all of my personal study time. Which I also needed to study for investigators.

Thursday we had weekly planning because we thought we were going on an exchange with the roaming Spanish ap, but that got cancelled Friday because of a pretty bad snow storm.
Which is a really good thing it got cancelled because elder Webster woke up super sick on Friday and we ended up staying in until six. So I took that as an opportunity to work on and finish my talk, and then after that just read the scriptures. I also watched the hectic road outside our apartment that had probably 30+ cars slide off of the road throughout the day. Tennessee drivers and snow= really really bad drivers. Then at 6 we went out to try and get some work done, which wasn't a very good idea. Elder Webster didn't need to be out in the 10 degree weather, and so after we walked forever and knocked a few houses, we stopped at a McDonald's to catch some heat waves and then we waited for the English sisters to stop by because they brought a bunch of Medicine for elder Webster. Then we went back and called it a night.

Saturday we left our apartment after studies and were out tracting all day. That was the coldest ive ever been. But we found a couple new investigators and knocked into a pretty interested person who the hermanas before us had for some reason deleted. So we are going back and hopefully she'll be progressing pretty soon.

Sunday was a fun day. Because elder Webster had gotten sick, he didn't really prepare much for his talk. So he asked me to go as long as I could, so that he wouldn't have to make up things on the spot. So I somehow did and it went pretty good. I definitely learned a lot more about humility just from studying up on it, so hopefully I helped someone in the branch. My opening line was this "today I'm going to talk on something I'm pretty amazing at, in fact I'm almost perfect at it. I'm going to talk about humility" that got a good laugh. But I went 20 ish minutes, and then elder Webster did too somehow. And so we went about 30 minutes long on sacrament. And then we also got asked last minute to teach the gospel principles class, so that was fun too.

But the we made it through it haha.

At about 7 we got a call from some missionaries in the Atlanta mission and they gave us some info of a less active/ recent convert and his part member family that recently moved to our area. So we went over and visited with them and got them the address of the church.
That's about it for my week! I only got to work in my area for about 10 hours total but it's okay still a great week haha

Con amor,
Elder Williams

Week 20

So this week was absolutely amazing! It was such a productive week and also a pretty fun one too! It all started during my studies on Tuesday morning. I was just reading in the bom, not even in a verse that significant. I don't remember what verse it even was, but in the middle of it I could just feel all of my worries disappear. I instantly felt the spirit right after, so I knew it was an answer to my prayers to help me be a more sanctified missionary. So I said a quick prayer of gratitude and got back to work. And after that moment, I was in the best mood I've probably ever been in. I just wanted to get out there and spread this amazing word. And the best thing is, is that night we went tracting on this street that looked pretty promising, so we planned on knocking the whole thing. We could only get through 8 doors. Because 7 of them were hispanic and 6 of them let us in to talk and set up a return appointment with. It was so awesome.

And I'm pretty sure I was talking more than elder Webster, which I could tell was a surprise to him. Because he kept looking over at me and smiling because he's used to me having no idea what to say sometimes. That promise in d and c is real. You just have to love the people and really listen and then just open your mouth. So that was a super awesome day.

The next day we had dinner/ lesson with victor, Shirley, grace, and victor jr. Or the family Diaz. So for dinner we had some Bolivian food, because Shirley is from Cochabamba, Bolivia. It was so good!
It's basically carne asada, but better. She said the next time we come, she will make another different plate. But this family I really think they all will be baptized. We haven't gotten a full lesson in with them, but they are reading the bom and asking really good questions about. So we are going over Wednesday with our branch president to really nail in the restoration and probably do a baptismal invite.

Friday we taught a English lesson, probably the first one we've done in 3 months. But we taught the restoration and they said they would read and they want us to come back this Friday. So we are going to do a pass off lesson with the English elders. Basically all 4 of us go, so they can meet the other elders, we all teach and then just let the other guys take over. So we can get back to the Spanish work!:) Saturday we was the last day of the month, and we had 300 miles left for the car. So we traveled across our whole area, trying formers that we couldn't go to any other time. We ended up just finding a bunch of white people who wanted to Bible bash. We stayed long enough at each one to find out that's what they wanted, then we just left. But it was still fun:) Sunday we had church, studies, and then we just tracted the rest of the night. No luck, but that ok. It happens sometimes.
I'm going on exchanges tonight so I get to do some English work, and if we happen to run into any Hispanics I'm on my own. Well not really, I've got God. And that's all I need.

I love you all and I'm praying for you! Hope you all have a great start of the year.

Con amor,
Elder Williams

Bolivian Food