Monday, March 29, 2010

Alright, the library is still having issues so I probably won't have the full hour to email.

This paragraph is dedicated to questions. When we went to the temple they took us to an LDS bookstore my debit card is almost out. Could you please check into it? These next questions are probably Dad questions. Could you please send me copies of the conference DVDs that we got from Uncle Jim? Would you please also send me a CD of Elder Hollands Talks? I'm pretty sure conference talks mp3s are available for download from LDS.org. Also, Is it possible that you could get your hands on a copy of the new Joseph Smith movie, and send it out? If not I will try to get it from one of the missionaries down here. Also, Whatever GPS you decide to get, I have heard that some models have 3rd party voices that you can download from the internet to the GPS. (such as George Bush) Would you please Look into that?

Ok, we have had a rough week. Instead of getting lessons we got a lot of return appointments. So, we will see how this week plays out. Also to pump some life back into the Mission Miracle. President has instituted the "week of sacrifice" this week. We are focusing on the Saviors finial week in mortality, since it was this week almost 2000 years ago. Each zone is also fasting one day of the week. Today is our day to fast. Also, this is where the sacrifice comes in, we are tracting for 5 hours a day. Mon., Tues., Thurs.,& Fri. 3.5 hours Sat. & Sun. and I think 4 hours on Weds. So P-Day Ends by 2:00 P.M.

Almost out of time. Sorry it is so short, got to go write you on Weds.

Bye
The picture is from a members house in Woodville. We were there for district meeting

March 17, 2010

Hi Everyone,
Well, we were right. Elder Gardner was transferred to be a Zone Leader in Kingwood.

Saying good bye



Our District

My new companion is Elder Clark, from Nephi, Ut. He was transferred from Lake Charles, Louisiana where he trained a missionary that came out from the MTC with me. I am not sure if I will stay another 1, or 2 transfers.

I am making a resolution to include more in my emails starting this transfer. I don't remember if I told you, President is letting us go to the temple in a week to reward us for working hard and being obedient. So, I may email Tues., Weds. or Thurs. I think Within the next 4 weeks or so I would like a GPS. I don't care if it is the one we got from Donna or if it is new. I realized it would be a good way to remember where members live if I ever came back, as well as being able to have one where ever I am transferred. Right now we are using one the branch owns so it will stay with the area. I would get one myself but I bet you can get a better price on the Web.

Alright now about the work. We have a baptism schedules for May 1st but we are going to try to get her to move it up a week or two. The investigator is ------ she is a 17 year old girl whose dad is inactive and mom is not a member. Their family has a pregnant pit bull that would like to kill us if she could get off her chain. She was almost baptized a year ago, but she and her member friend got in a fight. Now they are friends again but somewhere along the line the missionaries stopped teaching her. Probably in one of the transfers.

Our other soon to be baptism is ---------. She is the 14 year old girl I was talking about with the stake conference and relying on Elder Gardner for her testimony .She hasn't set a date yet but we know she will. The problem is that her member friend, the reason we met her in the first place, and her are not getting a long very well right now.

Don't get the Idea we are only teaching teenage girls. Those two are just the closest to baptism right now. Dang it, I will ask Elder Gardner for Baptism pics of the 2 baptisms we had in Jan. & Feb.

Alright, going to send pics now, love all bye!


Here's my new hair cut. I think I went a little to short on top, Ha Ha.

March 10, 2010

The Beaumont Zone  had a Zone P-day  today. They all drove and
gathered together, emailed together at about 9:30 this morning at
the Senior Citizens Center. Then they were going to play basketball
and games together.

Hey,

I have misplaced the BYU watch. Would you please get the LL Bean one? I still have not mailed the brakes. I have been to busy to mail them yet but I got the box yesterday. I just need to get them to the post office. I will do it tomorrow. This computer is slower than molasses so I am not going to try to send any pictures today. I will also mail the SD card tomorrow with the brakes.

We are 100% sure that Elder Gardner is getting transferred and I am staying because of something that President let slip, and because of some issues Elder Gardner is having with an investigator relying on him for their testimony. Like how children rely on their parents testimonies when they are young.

Tell Dad happy Birthday Day and sorry but his card will be late.

Sunday night Elder Gardner hit a possum. He thought it would move out of the way, but nope. We turned around to look for it, but couldn't find it in the dark. Monday night we parked off of the main highway and walked to a members house a few tenths of a mile away because it was nice out. When we got back the car had almost a quarter of a tank less gas than when we left. Yep, we got siphoned.

We have a lot of potential investigators at the moment. Not sure how they will all turn out. Most of them are return appointments we got from tracting. We do not have any baptisms scheduled at the moment.

I am not sure if you have heard but Elder Perry is going to speak to the stake on Sunday! The story is that he had a meeting in Houston Saturday night and it was going to be to late for him to fly back to SLC so he chose a stake to speak to and we got lucky.

I bought some hair clippers today, if that turns into a big disaster I will send you some pics. I hope you will send me some pics of the trailer. My hour is up now.

love you all, bye!

March 3, 2010

You asked about how much time I'm spending on my bike. I'm actually hardly doing any biking at all because our area is so spread out it is impossible to visit more than a few people on bikes. I don't think I have put much weight on maybe 5 lbs. or so. I don't really know because we don't have a scale in our apt.

We will almost certainly have 1, and probably 2 baptisms this month. (If not this month, then early April.) We our pretty sure Elder Gardner will get transferred in a few weeks and I will stay. The mission president slipped and all but told Elder Gardner he was leaving.

Yesterday was my 3 month mark!

I've been meaning to tell you, there is only one Elder in our zone right now that can play the piano well. (Go figure!) I am glad to hear that Johnny is going on a mission I actually had not heard that before your letter.

I am going to try to get some recipies for you to try the food, which for the most part is delicious. I have had some of the best beef ribs in the world. Monday night I had wild hog that a member shot in Louisiana. It tasted just like pork.

Check this out! A year ago Elders Jarman & Fairborn were friendly to the Dairy Queen employees so now they love missionaries and give us everything for free. They WON'T let us pay, and Elder gardner has like $60 in gift cards to DQ.

Well, I'm Fixin to run out of time I love your letters, Thanks, Love You Bye!

February 24, 2010

Hi,

Are you trying to send me a message? Am I not writing enough about THE work?

Right now we have 2 real investigator and 2-3 potentials. One of our investigators is the nonmember friend I wrote about last week (or 2 weeks ago I don't remember). 1 week after that story, (Sun.21) she asked us if we could come over to her friends house after church ASAP we told her yes and taught for 1.5 hrs. When we had to leave to go dinner and then a few other appointments she asked us if we could come back later that night! So we sped through dinner and our appointment (1 was not home) went back to the house and taught her for another 1.5 hrs. as we concluded she asked if we could meet the next day! Unfortunately that fell through because her parents are strongly opposed to Mormonism. For about a day we were afraid (and praying for the opposite) that they wouldn't let her continue to investigate the church, But yesterday we got a call from her friends dad saying that after a long discussion her parents had agreed to let her continue to learn as long as she could show her maturity at home. We will probably have another lesson tonight.

As of this afternoon no we do not have any baptisms lined up. We had one last Saturday though. Good I guess, one of them is going through kind of a hard time because she can't be sealed to her kids because her husband wants nothing to do with the church, but she is such that she will "get over it"(her words not mine).

{Question was, What do you do with recent converts} - Kind of both, we follow up with R.C.s once a week but the branch is supposed to give them a calling, home/visiting teachers, fellowship, ect.

That BYU watch is working fine for now but if it breaks then I will let you know. I ment/mean to send the brakes back but I havn't yet, been to busy.

Love you all!
Wesley

February 18, 2010

Last Sunday was Stake Conference in Port Arthur (South of Jasper). They had an investigator/recent convert meeting an hour before the conference. Because our branch is so small and some extenuating circumstances we could not get a ride from a member in our branch who was going to that early meeting. Instead we had to drive down to Buna (on the way...sort of) to tag along with the missionaries there.

After conference our ride asked us if we needed a ride back. At first we told him no, we could get a ride with a member. But it worked out that we went back to Buna with the same ride that we went down with. We had lunch there and then found out that someone we had talked with at conference about visiting on our way back had been called in to work. so we decided to visit another member's house on the way back. They were having their cousins from the branch over for dinner and invited us to stay and eat, so we did. It turns out one of the cousins brought her nonmember friend who's brother is in the branch presidency. We found out that she has felt something different about the church and wanted to join for some time but has been to scared to ask her parents about it because they are strong Baptists and did not support her older brother when he joined the church.

She was a nonmember when she came to dinner and a dry-Mormon when she left. If things had not played out exactly as they did we would not have been at that house at that time when she would be there. If we had caught a ride with a member from our own branch to the conference we would have gone right by the house, if we had not had lunch in Buna we would have arrived at the house too early. and the family who's house we ate at has been praying that they would be able to have the missionary lessons in their home.

"The lord works in mysterious ways.....and in many instances the simple doth confound the wise."

I miss you all. Thanks for the packages. Love you

February 10, 2010

Hi,
Last Thursday Elder Gardner and I had to be down in Beaumont for a meeting that started at 7:00 A.M., so we needed to be there about 6:45-50. Beaumont is a little over 1 hr. away, so we needed to leave @ 5:15 and get up @ 4:45 in order to have a "safety cushion" as it were. We carpooled with the missionaries form Buna in order to save miles, as we pass them on the way to Beaumont. We got there 10 minutes early and no one was at the building! We thought we were at the wrong building but everyone was "late" because of the rain. I think everyone showed up between 6:55 and 7:00, so no one was actually late.

I knocked a door this past week where (a daughter I think) made eye contact and waved through the door window- then went back into the house and the house went quiet. We knocked again and got no response. As we were leaving we saw the family driving away. I guess they couldn't think of an excuse not to talk to us so they left the house!

I made a personal amendment to the missionary handbook this week, it says: "Follow your host in the use of eating utensils" ( or lack thereof). Ribs are good!!

We currently have four baptism dates set as a companionship, and 61 dates in February as a mission. We've had 4 baptisms in Feb already. We hope to extend another baptism commitment possibly tonight, and another commitment or two in the coming days. Our investigator/convert is getting married on Sat. & getting baptized a week after that.

It is amazing how down to earth the members are down here. There is almost no beating around the bush or backbiting. There is a whole different kind of Mormon down here.

If you or dad ever see Johnathan or his mom could you please get his address so I can write him occasionally?

Please pass my congrats on to Carrissa!

I found a letter today I wrote a month ago and never mailed I will put it in the mail today or tomorrow. Thanks for everything! I look forward to your letters and everyone's packages.