Hey y'all,
This week was filled with miracles, it was incredible!
We haven't heard much about Hurricane Harvey, but it has been raining like crazy the last few days over here so hopefully all will be well. It is a bit of a doooozie as Ned Ryerson would say. Definitely keep everyone in the Houston area/surrounding areas in your prayers though.
After we got everything all figured out from transfers and got back to our area, we went to work!
On Saturday we decided to go find a few more part member families to work with and knocked on this one door. The guy comes out smoking a cig and has a beer in the other hand and was just totally uninterested talking about how we can't trust anyone in this world haha. Anyways, so we wonder why we were sent to that person and so just decided to start tracting. The first door we hit, the lady opens and was like, "Elders!" We were like what? what are the odds? She then continues to tell us how busy she is and that she is having a huge party with family right now and everything. Well, knowing that she opened up the door yelling ,"elders" I wasn't stopping there haha. So I spotted something on the counter and was like, "Is that peach cobbler??" and as soon as she turned around I just started walking in!! haha it was the best! I am almost positive she was just planning to bring us a plate outside or something, but we just went right in! Long story short, we go into the living room and there are several families in there and we ended up passing out like 15 pass along cards and started talking about the book of Mormon and everything. It was so cool! I felt like we were on a big wall preaching or something :D And it turns out that the lady that answered the door is being taught by missionaries in California right now. She had to leave at 1 a.m Sunday, but we have a follow up lesson with a few of them next week. FEAR NO MAN! and the peach cobbler was pretty great too haha.
Miracle: On Sunday afternoon we were out contacting and decided to find another part member family. Well, our GPS led us to this wrong address and we ended up at this apartment complex. Well, we decided to see why and found an awesome new investigator that goes to school at Southeastern University, but then continued on to the PM fam. That was a miracle in and of itself, but it get's better! So we find the right house and knock on the door. This lady named Robin answered and said, "oh, y'all must be here to see my parents." WE were like, "We are here to see everyone." (having no idea really why we felt impressed to go to this house) Well, come to find out Robin is a member, but actively attends a baptist church right now. Her parents, Bro and Sister Porter live there with her ever since the flood last year, and they have been members for 30 years and are now in their 80's. Apparently bro. Porter was a high priest group leader for 17 years in the wynborn chapel that got flooded out. The miracle of the story is that they haven't had the sacrament for 7 months and Robin the daughter wrote a letter 3 DAYS AGO to the bishop probably complaining that they haven't come to see the Porters/give them the sacrament. 3 DAYS AGO!! The quote from the RM was totally going through my head, "you didn't get the letter? (dear john letter) What letter?" We definitely hadn't heard of any letter and it probably never even made it to the church yet haha. We had no idea, but Heavenly Father definitely knew. We ended up calling the bishop and administering the sacrament right then and there. We had a lesson all together too and Robin's daughter came home from work just in the right time. We are going to go over next week too and start teaching as well!
We have been working with our investigator Liz, who has been dating a RM guy down here for Summer sales named Bret. He served his mission in Hungary, and Elizabeth grew up Catholic her whole life but just didn't ever feel like it was her decision nor did she feel a part of it I guess. Anyways, she has come to church like 4 times already and when Bret was out of town for the weekend she came with us to church AND to Sheryl and Shane's baptism on Saturday. When we taught the first lesson with her and shared the short Restoration video with her she was in tears and wondered why she hadn't ever heard this before. It was soo cool! And she made some delicious lasagna too so that was definitely a plus :) They can sure cook down here in the south haha. So we had an incredible Book of Mormon lesson with her right next to the baptism font last week, and then met again at the Mission President's house for dinner and a lesson this week. She is so golden it is awesome. Bret helped so much and shared his testimony about how when he went on his mission h e felt like he didn't know anything, but knew it was the right thing to do and then the truth was all confirmed to him. It was a perfect segway into 2nd Nephi 31 and although it was one of the most nerve wracking baptismal invitations with her, her boyfriend, mission pres (president Varner), and Sister Varner all there just waiting for it, I went for it!! She has just been waiting for it haha. September 16th is the date and we are all so excited.
A bit longer email this week, but it is seriously so amazing to have the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord's hands and just be directed to where he needs me to be. I love y'all and thank you so much for supporting me. I am so grateful to be here.
Love,
Elder Wilson
