Hey Fam!!
This week was incredible!! From LSU free speech alley, to sheet-rocking a flooded out house, to miracle teaching lessons, to transfers, I would say it was a great week. The good news is that I am staying another transfer here in Baton Rouge with Elder Hoopes and am super excited about it! There are so many things going on, and we have so many people just on the brink of taking a soak, so it is going to be great.
On Saturday we were really working hard and trying our best, but were encountering much rejection. Finally, as miracles tend to be wrought by prayer and faith we kept going with a prayer in our hearts. We decided to visit our less active friend Arthur Brazel that we have been working with for many months now going over there every few weeks. Our last visit we were able to role-play with him and he gave us many pointers of door approaches and such. WE went there and at fi rst he was very closed off and just wasn't interested in even reading the B.O.M. We just started talking to him about getting his life back and finding true joy again since he was in that terrible car accident. We weren't getting too far once he started talking about his disability check, etc. He kinda mentioned serving in the church in the future, but just couldn't get himself to come back yet I guess. We started sharing B.O.M scriptures about serving and then we asked if he had ever received a priesthood blessing since his accident and he hadn't. Elder Hoopes gave an amazing blessing of healing if he turns his life over to the Lord. After the blessing he ran into the other room and told his Dad he was going to come to church!!! We then remembered his missionary name tag that we were able to order since he lost everything from his mission in the flood (and we got sweet hook ups like pedro with the mission secretary :D) His eyes lit up and he gave us a big hug. That was seriously one of the biggest miracles in my mission and it came on a day full of rejection and hardship. He came to church the next day and it had been the first time in over 15 years. Church starts at 11:30 and he called us at 8:30 in the morning saying he would be there at 9. We were so excited and he was just talking with everyone at church too. He is totally going to be our new ward mission leader :) Both of the talks in sacrament meeting were about missionary work and the ward totally got dunked haha. Also, one of Sheryl's neighbors Chentha made it to church as well and signed up to bring cookies to the ward Christmas party :) That whole apartment complex is getting dunked with Sheryl out "evangelizing and praising the lord."
I will share one more miracle. On Sunday night we brought the sacrament over to the Porter family and then prepared to teach the Restoration lesson to Bria (the 20 year old girl). This whole story started with a miracle finding out this older couple needed the sacrament brought to them because they got flooded out last year and basically got lost in translation. Bria's mom, Robin, is less active, but very very baptist and is the lady we went with to her church. However, she stayed for the entire lesson as well! We just started sharing how much we love baptists and other churches and how they truly love the Lord, but then totally slam dunked. Bria was asking all the right questions and loved how much she related to Joseph Smith. At the end of the lesson Bria turned to her grandparents and asked if they would tell her how they know the Book of Mormon is true. (they are both converts, but the sweetest older couple) Sister Porter is so blunt about everything it is hilarious. "Mr. Porter baptized me, and he even baptized Robin." HAHA They bore powerful testimonies and we left with an invitation to read and pray. Bria to her grandparents was like, "I can't believe I have never heard this before or even asked y'all why you were Mormon." It was such a powerful lesson and Robin seemed a little softened by the end too.
Exchange: I was able to go on exchange over at LSU with Elder Dildine. It was such a blast hitting Free speech alley again and the memories just flooded right back. One of the miracles there was seeing this one girl named Jenna that I had previously taught last spring semester, and I was able to introduce her to the sister missionaries there now. It was way cool. We started getting our booth set up and everything when this guy named Kevin came up to us. Well, to make a long story short he was one of the Consuming Fire fellowship guys that is from Mississippi and brings his little group in this big van dressed like pilgrims. They come to LSU and just start screaming hellfire and damnation about once every semester. So, lucky for me I hit the right day to go to Free speech alley yet again hahaha. This time we didn't have President Hansen to confound them, but it was quite the experience nonetheless. Bless their hearts though seriously, because they all just look so angry and not happy at all. We got into a few confrontations with them, but just laughed about it :) It is just sad to see them stand up on the walls and start yelling at everyone telling them they are going to hell while they have big signs and satanic pamphlets that little kids hand out. Just an interesting approach. It was funny too, because they kept pointing fingers at us and saying horrible things about Mormons but everyone would just stick up for us even though none of them were even Mormon haha. I honestly think they do more help for us, because everyone just comes up and thanks us for being so kind.
Well, things are going great and I am loving it here. Hope y'all have a blessed week!
Love,
Elder Wilson
