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

Week 19

Hola mi familia!
This week was a ton of tracting. With very little success. Everyone we ran into said they were to busy getting ready for Christmas to let us talk to them for 5 minutes. It was hard because we were just trying to share the 2 minute Christmas video with them, and nobody would let us.

That's basically all we did Saturday and we ended up sharing the video 3 times. It was fine though because it was something to distract me from thinking about the Skype the next day. Because I knew it was going to be a late call, so the longer I put off thinking about it the better haha.

We met a couple new families that could be really good potentials, but we haven't taught them yet so we are for sure. But they appeared to be really interested. So hopefully it goes well with them.
We met with Mario cardiel again and we went away from talking about the bom and focused more on what else he has to do to get baptized.

And we told him that after he does all that, then he will get his answer to the bom being true. He seemed like he liked the idea, and he's starting by coming to all three hours of church. Then we will work on harder things for him like coffee. But that's gonna come with time.

We had another visit with victor and his family. They are probably going to be our most promising family. But we ended up just talking to them, I don't know how we got off topic. But he said he had read all the testimonies of the three and eight and the introduction. He said by next time they would have more questions.

Other than that, we really just tracted. So it was a very quick week, which was nice. We are starting to really make sure we work with the members more, so that's the focus of this week.

I can't believe it's going to be 2017 already. Next thing I know this will all be over, so I've got to make the most of it while I can. I loved being able to talk to you all again, just another short 5 months till I can again.

 Love you all,
Con amor, Elder Williams