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🇲🇽

Week 32 - Nashville Providence B

Hey there mi familia!

This week was so cool. There were a lot of very obvious "hand of the lord" moments and even more that were less obvious.


The biggest one happened this last Thursday. We were out tracting around a less active member's house. And we knocked the door right next to his first and yesenia answered and talked with us for a minute. She ended up saying that she was happy where she was at and that her family already had a religion. So we asked her if she knew anyone in need of a message and kept going. 5 houses down we got a text from the other elders asking if we could pick them up on the way to dinner. So we started heading back to the car, which was past yesenia's house. If we hadn't gotten the text we would have probably kept knocking more doors. But on the way back there was this ice cream truck driving right in front of us and as we passed yesenia's house, she was out on the front steps, just standing there. So Elder Bradshaw just asked her if she was waiting for ice cream. She said no and waived us over. So we go over and she tells us that before we knocked her door she was about to take her shoes off and lay down, and after we left she went back to do the same thing. But she said that she couldn't the second time. She said there was something holding her back from doing it and it told her to go back out and listen to what we had to say. And so she headed back outside and that was right when we were passing by. So after she told us all this, we taught the restoration and focused on the Holy Ghost from the last part of the pamphlet and how what she felt was definitely this. We then got her number and a return appointment. We are going back this Wednesday and I am so excited for it! And if everything in this hadn't happened exactly as it did, we wouldn't have seen her standing outside. But god has a plan and he knows exactly what needs to happen to have spiritual experiences for his children. I know that I grew personally from it. It strengthened my testimony that we need to be in the right place at the right time and be able to listen to the spirit to tell us where to go.


And then the next big one. During our daily planning, we were trying to figure out where we needed to knock doors. I felt like we should go knock these apartments in the top part of our area. So we put it in our plans and didn't think much of it. But as we were knocking, the first door to answer us was this super happy woman. As we introduced ourselves, she cut us off after awhile and said that she was a member! But she had just moved her a couple of months ago from New York and a few months before that from Honduras. So we got her the direction to the church and asked if we could come back over tomorrow with some members. She happily said yes and we kept on working. But I thought this experience was so cool, because I know that Heavenly Father guided us to that door so that his child could return to the path. He really does search and care for his lost sheep. And I love that I was able to help him in that search.


And then the temple was it's own special spiritual experience. I always feel so spiritually rejuvenated after. I'm glad we get to go every once in a while.


Anyways other little random things from this week. Saturday was elder Bradshaw's birthday and so we ate lunch at McDonald's as a district and then threw a cake in his face after. It was pretty great.


And yesterday we ate at a member's house and we all of us ate some chili de árbol. My tongue was numb. It was awesome. Haha


Love you all!


🇺🇸Elder Williams🇲🇽




How many elders can you fit in the back seat