Happy New Year!
Hope y'all had a fantastic holiday season this year (last year :D)! This week has been pretty superb and crazy as usual! Yesterday we were unable to email since the libraries were closed, but we were able to talk and see tons of tourists here for the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome. The fans were getting pretty heated over there at the French Market, and needless to say we only had to break up a couple fights :) so no worries there. We met up with the other missionaries in the district and I got to officially welcome my trainie to Louisiana with the hottest hot sauce challenge in the domestic U.S. so that was neat! He was losing his sushi a little bit after that though bless his heart. My tongue is still burning from that haha, good gravy. We then went to the aquarium and saw some massive sharks and electric eels. That was sweet!
Well, the last couple weeks of sharing the gospel during the holiday season has been wonderful! So many more people have been receptive to hearing the messages that we share than I have ever experienced. Such a blessing. I wanted to just share a couple miracles that we had this week.
More often than not I have found that we have been taking the same routes from appointment to appointment for months now. It dawned on me that we may have been missing out on finding those truly prepared for the gospel. Therefore, we decided to make it a goal to change up all of our usual routes and be more led by the spirit. Sure enough, the spirit led us to so many people that seemed so prepared for the messages of the gospel. We had tons of success!!
While biking a street that we had never been on before we saw three people sitting out on their porch enjoying the holidays. As we felt prompted to go and talk with them we found out that one of them had just previously ordered a Book of Mormon online a few days before and it was being mailed to her! She told us and her friends that were there that she had been taught by missionaries in the past when she lived in Houston, but lost track of the Church. She told us that she recently became interested again and was super excited to see us. We were able to have a fantastic restoration lesson with her and her two friends there. We gave each of them their own copy of the B.O.M and they loved it. We look forward to continuing to teach them.
I also wanted to give a quick update on Sonny D (the recent convert that was shot 9 times in Nov.). We were able to visit him a couple times during the holidays and read scriptures with him. He is doing extremely well! We showed up at his Mother's home intending on trying to start teaching her and found that he was upstairs. Now, let me attempt to describe the stair case. This house has one metal spiral stair case from the bottom floor to the top floor. Now this isn't just a regular spiral stair case either. It is probably the smallest and most confined stair case (let alone spiral stair case) that I have ever seen, and Sonny D was upstairs. I have no idea how he got up there haha. After much strenuous effort even for us, we were able to make it upstairs to see Sonny. He looked so good. He can walk around now with his small cane. The physical therapists told him 6 months, and it has been less than 2. He is a walking miracle. The power of the priesthood is amazing, and we were able to share with him scriptures from the Book of Mormon about faith, and how through faith ANYTHING is possible. We expect to see more good things from Sonny D, and hopefully his experience will bring his family closer to Christ.
Also, on Sunday I was given the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting. I thought it went really well, and it was pretty funny because probably 75% of the congregation was visitors. Since it was New Years day I spoke on setting goals and striving to be better examples of Jesus Christ this year. I shared the story of Lot and his family found in the old testament and specifically how Lot's wife looked back at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned into a pillar of salt. It wasn't just that she looked back, but that she longed to be back and enjoy the life she had previously lived. I encouraged everyone to look toward the future with faith in Christ and a desire to be better tomorrow than we were today, and this year than we were last year. I made sure to implement a star wars quote as well, so I think that put it over the top :D. I shared the story of Alma the younger and when he was rebuked by and angel of the Lord for persecuting the Church. He experienced an "awakening." I then asked the congregation "if they felt it?" Haha it was classic.
Well, that is all for this week folks. Thank you so much for the love, support, and prayers in my behalf this holiday season. It is a blessing to have such wonderful family and friends. I love y'all so much!
Love,
Elder Wilson
