Feb 26

Where did the month go?! Can you believe February is basically gone?! I can't; time just continues to fly by! It's been a crazy week here in Missouri; lots of stuff that isn't routine! Wednesday we had a great appointment with Mark. He was found and taught by missionaries about a year ago but we are teaching him again. He's really interested in the religion and believes the things we teach but his wife is a devout Catholic and is not at all supportive of Mark investigating. She isn't open to learning and/or hearing about the church, either. So, he's not getting baptized any time soon (told us that himself) but he really loves what we teach and is grateful for our willingness to meet with him. During the presentation I happened to mention to Mark that, as missionaries, we are away from our families for 18 months with the only communication being weekly emails and Skyping twice a year. I thought he might cry! He couldn't imagine not having his son with him; couldn't imagine not seeing him. I told him it was definitely a sacrifice; that it was hard to leave our families and not be in constant contact like we had been before. Mark just looked at me and said "until you hold your own child in your arms you will never understand what a sacrifice is for your parents." Man, that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I've thought about Mark's statement a lot this last week and realized how selfish I have been in my thought process. Yeah, this is hard for me being out here away from you all. Yeah, I miss you all like crazy and can't wait to see you all again. BUT I've never thought about how this is affecting you; the sacrifice you are making by supporting me as I am out here doing the Lord's work. I cannot begin to thank you enough for the prayers and love I feel every day coming from each of you. For the strength you send my way when I need it most. For your emails and pictures and letters and EVERYTHING! I know I am serving the Lord and doing what I am suppose to do; I've just never thought about how much my actions rippled out to affect everyone! I love you all and am grateful for the sacrifices you are making in my behalf. A Sister couldn't ask for a better support system than the one I've got. I'm so grateful for the blessing of being with each of you for eternity.

Wednesday evening we had an appointment with Marcella; she is also a former investigator. We ended up not being able to talk with her but did meet with her 12 year old daughter, McKayla. McKayla is so sweet! She's living in a somewhat deprived situation (physically and spiritually) but she has so much to offer. She came to church with us on Sunday and said she would like to go back. McKayla is so great; just needs a lot of tender loving care. When we were leaving our appointment I told her I didn't know if she was a huggy person... That's as much as I got out before she gave me a huge hug--so sweet!

So, evidently, you are sending some of your snow this way, huh? Yeah, we got it good... Wednesday night we got a call from President Keyes saying that the cars were to remain parked until further notice; they wanted to see what the storm would do. Thursday morning when I woke up there was... NOTHING! Good thing we were grounded, though. The snow started between 7 and 8 am and went on all day. We were grounded for a day and a half.. Our apartment was super clean. Everything was organized... By 2pm on Friday we were so ready to get out. S. Stobbe and I are blessed to live across the hall from S. Wilson and S. Gines. So, we got together for our meals. It was a good time.

I am amazed that none of you questioned or wrote about the new missions that will be opening! There are 58 new missions that will be opening in July--it's so great to see the hastening of the work! There are so many missionaries coming out! The week of February 8 President Keyes informed us that there had been 1,700 applications for missionaries; over half of them were sisters. (History in the making!) Generally, they have 2 apostles that come in and assign calls, there were 6 that day. Yes, the work is definitely moving forward. With all these missionaries going out they needed somewhere to put them so new missions were created. One of them was the Kansas Wichita Mission... Come July of this year the Missouri Independence Mission will be split. Will that affect me? Yes, I'm sure it will. Some of the wonderful Elders and Sisters I have had the opportunity of serving with will (without a doubt) be transferred to this new mission. I may be transferred to Kansas. One thing I am learning to accept is the Lord's timing and His will. I would love to finish out my mission with President and Sister Keyes as a V.C. Sister but I will go and do whatever the Lord requires of me (1 Nephi 3:7). There is a purpose for me being here; the Lord knows what that is and will put me where He needs me.

Saturday I was able to witness the baptism of Malcolm (aka: Milk) Westin. I've met Milk here at the VC; he is a great person that comes from a rough background. I absolutely love seeing the change the Atonement plays in people. Milk was so ready to be baptized. He was jumping up and down in the font afterward and yelling "I feel like a million bucks!" as he was changing in the bathroom. I love the enthusiasm of older converts. They are making huge changes in their lives and learning so much about the plan our Father has for everyone. As an added blessing at the baptism I ran into some of my Liberty 1st Ward friends. It really was a tender mercy of the Lord. I was able to Bishop Tervort and Vivian (Ernestine's granddaughter). It was so great! I am super blessed to be placed right where I need to at just the right time.

Sunday's are always crazy days. Covering a ward and a branch is a ton of work. I feel like we are always missing someone or leaving someone out. I really love both units I get to serve in but I am thoroughly enjoying being in the branch. The YSA's are so great! I needed to be in a branch to get over my jaded views of YSA's, I think. The Lord surely knows me...

Monday we did a lot of contacting. Everywhere we went people warned us about the storm that was coming. It did come sometime during the middle of the night... and dropped a ton of snow. We are, once again, grounded but the visitor center director and his wife (the Brenchley's) picked us up so we could email. I'm super grateful to them. Other than that we did laundry, took a nap, and ate lunch with our neighbors across the hall. Great day!

Thank you all, so much, for your prayers. Thank you for the emails and pictures. I love and miss you all! May God continue to be with and bless each of you!
Love, hugs, and kisses!
Sister Wilson

Feb. 12

Happy Valentines Day! I hope you are all having a super fantastic week and that things are going well for everyone. I pray that everyone is getting healthier or staying healthy during your cold, snowy season... Would it be awful to tell you that we had some days in the 50's this week? Okay, I won't tell you then. Life here in Missouri is going great! Sister Stobbe and I are working on building up the teaching pool in the Independence 1st Ward and the YSA branch. They had a lot of baptisms in the last couple months so their teaching pool slowly drained out. The are we are covering seems to be HUGE. Not only compared to a Utah ward but compared to my Liberty ward, too. And, for the YSA branch we cover the entire stake--lots of work to do!

I met my favorite family in the Independence 1st Ward Friday. It is a man by the name of Sayko (yes, psycho!) and his four boys; Walter, Rocky, Rico, and Justice. When S. Stobbe set up the appointment with Sayko he said he didn't know if he could make it because he was allergic to white girls. When I met them I told Sayko I was grateful they had come; I was afraid he wouldn't show up because of his allergies! (Yeah, you can be proud of me! A little white girl smarting off to a large Samoan!) I think it broke the ice nicely, though, we had a great lesson about the Restoration after that. Sayko's boys are so great! Walter (10) and Rocky (9) were just recently baptized; Sayko isn't a member. Rico (7) has such a sweet spirit and is eager to learn and Justice (6) is in the stage where he loses interest easily. They were fun to get to know; answering/asking questions and having really good insights. We sat by them in church on Sunday; such respectful boys!

Church is quite the experience. I think I may have mentioned the large population of Polynesian families here. Yeah, it's huge. And I'm not able to remember most of their names. I don't have anything to associate them with! It's an interesting experience. I can recognize their faces and know they have pronounced their names for me a few times but I can't recall them from week to week. And, their first names aren't any easier so it doesn't do any good to ask those!

I ran into the hardest to eat food last Tuesday evening. We went to Bro. Banuelos' house for dinner. His mother is a non-member and he wanted us to have a FHE type lesson with her. He cooked doctored store-bought pizza that was more than slightly burnt... Yum! For dessert he gave us what I thought was a traditional Spanish dessert but ended up being something he had just thrown together. It was a milk, cream, and fine cottage cheese mixture over a layer of sweet potatos with strawberries and blueberries in it. Oh, goodness. Both S. Stobbe and I couldn't handle it. We were gracious, though, and at least tried it. Then we left quickly.

I don't have a lot of investigator experiences this week. We're just doing a lot of finding; building that pool back up. I'm enjoying working at the visitor center. It should be getting busier here soon. Independence is an interesting and diverse place. I look forward to getting to know it better. Oh! We had interviews with President Keyes this week; I survived!

Remember, I love you all and am grateful for your continued love, prayers, and support! Have a fantastic day!

Love,

Sister Wilson

P.S. Write back!

Feb 12 Pics

My Favorite View!

February 5 - (Almost my 6 month mark!)

Hello, everyone! I was so grateful to hear from most of you! I have successfully survived another week and actually lived to tell about my first transfer where I was the one moving. First things first, though. A brief overview on how I spent my last little bit in Liberty...

We didn't do a whole lot; just a lot of teaching and preaching, ya know? Our big day was last Wednesday, January 30. Sister Lewis and I had the privilege of going to the temple with Ernestine!!! It was the most wonderful way to end my time in Liberty. Ernestine kept saying how the temple was like a "hotel in heaven" it was really great. S. Lewis and I had gone through a session before then met Ernestine and S. Kesler in the baptistry. Ernestine told the man baptising her that she knew she was in the right church because she was deathly afraid of water going over her head but had absolutely no problem doing baptisms for the dead. It was great! And, Ern was the only one there doing baptisms so it was very personalized. She was thrilled to tell us as she was changing that her husband, Carl, had said he wanted to be baptized, too! Such great news, really. I'm glad I wasn't around to tell him he couldn't be baptized on Ernestine's birthday (February 10)--He's working on Word of Wisdom issues and hasn't been to church; those are prerequisites. Carl is a great person, though, and I know that one day he will enter the waters of baptism.

My last few hours in Liberty were spent at the Liberty Jail. We only had one presentation that day-President Keyes bring in 24 new missionaries. I was really grateful S. Lewis gave me the chance to take the presentation. I felt edified and uplifted; a great way to end my time there.

Thursday morning was transfer day. All my stuff (I've really got to get rid of lots of stuff) was ready to go at 7:00 am. The Stevenson's picked up S. Lewis and I and drove us to Independence. For transfers, all the missionaries in the area being transferred meet at the Independence Stake Center. You either meet your new companion or get on the transfer bus that takes you to your new area that is far away. I was transferred to the Independence 1st Ward (I've beein serving in the Liberty 1st Ward) with Sister Stobbe (stow-be). She is really great. She is from Provo, UT and has been out one transfer less than me. (Weird; I'm a senior companion!) Our ward (Inde 1st) has a LARGE population of Polynesian people. it is so hard trying to remember and pronounce all their names! Thank goodness they are all friendly people and willing to be patient with me... I may or may not have born my testimony telling them they'd have to remind me 2 or 3 or 5 times before I rememberd who they were. I'm really excited to be here, though. I'm excited to work with the Polynesian population; they are a fun, loving, accepting people. I'm a bit nervous about the amount of food that they may want me to eat, though.

S. Stobbe and I are also the missionaries over the singles branch in the area. I'm actually really excited about this, too. There are only about 30 people in the branch (much easier to remember them all) but they seem to be very missionary minded and willing/ready to help out the missionary efforts in the area.

It's different being at the VC. Because there are more sisters there is more order (aka: rules) that have to be followed for the VC to run smoothly. I understand the purpose and will strive to be obedient and diligent but miss the informality of the Liberty Jail. I also REALLY miss the senior couples from the Jail; the Stevenson's and the Simper's. They come down sometimes to serve at the VC but I don't get to see them as much. I didn't realize how much I had grown to care for and love them. I was truly blessed to be able to start my mission by serving near them.

Well, there's not too much more to tell you about the area. I'm still trying to learn it and put faces to all the names I hear. I am so grateful for each of you and the prayers I can feel you sending up in my behalf. I love each of you and know that our Heavenly Father loves you, too. Being a missionary is a hard work but the most rewarding thing I've done. It wouldn't be nearly as easy without you there supporting me the way you do. Again, I love you all!

Hugs and Kisses!

Sister Wilson

1--At the 8 witnesses monument with the Simper's

2--FHE with the Ruis family (S. Lewis, Julio, Veronica, Nonnie, Avel, AB, Me)

3--See! I need to throw SOMETHING away!

4--S. Stobbe and me

 

 

 

 

Zone Conference

This one is from Zone Conference with the general authority-Elder Gavarett... Remember our surprise inspection?