Best Birthday Ever!!

24 March 2014

Letter to All:

They got baptized!  Wooooh!  My best birthday yet! haha!  

The baptism was great, the spirit was very strong in the baptism.  Everything turned out all right!  We gave Gustavo and Wilmer time to give their testimonies after the baptism.  Wilmer´s testimony was powerful, he is such a great example for me.  Friday a bunch of Catholics came to visit him and a ton of friends were sending him messages telling him he was crazy, he grandma didn`t want him to leave the house.  He has had some great trials of faith.  But he was willing to take his cross and follow Christ.  The trials will continue but I know he´ll be strong.

Wilmer and Gustavo also got the priesthood on Sunday.  And this coming Sunday Wilmer will be blessing the sacrament and Gustavo will be preparing it!  Almost all of the young men that are active here are converts, It´s pretty cool to see the faith of these kids.

I had a good birthday, we ate cheese cake, we took funny pictures, they tried to break an egg on my head but I caught them haha!  On my companion’s birthday we broke and egg on his head, Elder Mann turned 21 on the 18th.  And now on the 4th of April, Elder Agustin will turn 19!  We all have are birthdays together.

Karla is progressing, she´s reading the Book of Mormon more.  We read Alma 32 with her and we explained how she can grow her faith, but also if she didn’t read or go to church she was going to neglect the growth of her faith.

Pedro hasn´t smoked for a couple days and he´s been to church 4 times now!

Marta is excited once again to get baptized and she´s coming back to church, we just have to teach her more and she´ll get baptized too.  

So, we should have at least 3 baptisms in April!  Maybe 4...we want to start teaching Cristian again to see if she´s ready to get baptized.

Things are going well, we have a lot of work left ahead!

Take care everyone!

Elder Willden

 One Awesome Party!!

Missed a past email - so here it is!

10 March 2014

Letter to All:

Wow...another week passed by!  It flew by so fast that I don´t even know what to write.  Let’s see what comes to mind....

Well first off, I gave a talk in Church on Sunday, probably the last one as a full time missionary.  I talked about The Atonement and Missionary Work, based off a quote from Heber J. Grant I believe, I´m not sure though...

I studied the examples of the book of Mormon prophets such as, Lehi, Alma, Alma the younger, Zeezrom, Enos, and others.  I learned that many were sinners before they were prophets (or missionaries), but they received the remission of their sins.  And that immediately after being forgiven they began to pray for their brethren and for the Lamanites, and then they went out to preach the gospel unto them.  So I asked a question, ¨If we have repented of our sins and we don´t help another person to repent as well, have we really repented?¨  I truly believe that a part of repentance and our personal conversion is Missionary Work.  Alma would have never have become the great man he was if he had never preached the gospel, baptizing thousands of people.  I enjoyed giving the talk.  

Later, on Sunday we met with the Bishoprics of the stake (something we do every month), we talked to them about how the missionary work is going in the zone.  Then later we made some great plans for the missionary work in the stake.  We committed all of the Bishoprics to baptize a friend on May 10th and to get the future missionaries to do the same.  It was good, they also gave us the fifth Sunday in March to talk about Missionary Work.

Wilmer and Gustavo came to church.  They are doing great!  We are going to baptize them on the 22nd!!  Woooh!  My birthday!  2 future missionaries baptized on my birthday!  That´ll be the perfect gift!

Wilmer is amazing!  He will be a grand missionary!

Take care!

Elder Willden

17 March 2014

Letter to All:

Wow, another week.  Well it´s begun...my last change in the mission.  I don´t like the thought that´s it´s the last change, but It´ll be the best one I´m sure of it!  Wilmer and Gustavo are doing great, they are going to be baptized.  Marta, Cristian, Karla, and Pedro came to church as well!  So we should have some baptisms lined up for April as well.  My goal this week is to find a great family to baptize April 26^th.  I want to see a big family get baptized!  So, I´ll be working on that!  I´m super happy that Wilmer and Gustavo are getting baptized and even better on my birthday!  YES!

Saturday and Sunday we had an Area Conference. Saturday it was just with the stake.  Some people who were going to speak didn´t show up and so the stake president had me give my testimony.  When I stood up everyone started giggling because I´m so big compared to everyone.  I got up to the pulpit and the mic didn´t reach up high enough to my mouth haha!  Everyone laughed so I decided to make a joke out of it.  So I said, ¨the mission has made me a very ´big´ person, everyone had a good laugh!  But I got to see a lot of people from Nandaime there!  So I gave my testimony and I testified about the joy it is to preach the gospel.

Our zone brought 50 people to church this weekend, that was great!  It was a huge success, everyone was happy!  I´m glad that together we are all having success, we want every companionship to baptize.  

Love you all!

Elder Willden

3 March 2014 - Life is Good!

3 March 2014

Letter to all:

Well this week was another great one!  5 people came to church wooooh!  Karla, Wilmer, Gustavo, Jorge, and Pedro.  I`ll tell you about each one.

- Karla: Her husband is a less-active but he`s a great guy.  The Elders were visiting them before, but they didn´t want to get married.  But on the 14th of February they got married, so we decided to start teaching them again.  Monday we had a great Family home evening with them with the Bishop and his wife.  They came to church!  So hopefully Karla continues to progress.

- Wilmer: Wilmer is awesome!  He has had 3 experiences testifying to him that he needs to get baptized!  He`s been to church 2 times, maybe we`ll baptize him on my birthday!  1st experience he had a dream that we brought him something with a white cloth on it and we said this is a gift from God (Book of Mormon). 2nd another dream, of him being baptized by Elder Mann in the font. 3rd he prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true and yesterday in Sunday school he said he prayed and received an answer that this is another gospel of Jesus Christ.

- Gustavo: He`s a 15 year old boy that I contacted, turns out his dad is a member.  He wants to get baptized.  We taught him about the restoration and we left him with the pamphlet and told him he needed to pray about it.  He told us in the next appointment that he did it and he felt something beautiful when he asked God!

- Jorge: It`s a 9 year old whose parents are less actives, he`s been to church several times now, he has a lot of friends in church too.

- Pedro: ....haha...Pedro... He`s a drunk we invited to church and it turns out he came, yesterday was his second time...  So I guess we should actually teach him!

Things are going great, we are going to have an activity on the 8th of March to teach all of the members how they can be missionaries.  On the 9th I`ll be giving a talk.  It`ll probably be my last one as a missionary...that was what the bishop told me haha.

I`m very happy and content with the work!  I`m loving it!

Elder Willden