Hey Familia!! (as Chris, Big Papa J, would say)
This week was super great!! Everything in Baton Rouge is going well. Breaking news was on Friday there were 2 inches of Snow here! It hadn't snowed since 2009 to quote a man on the side of the road. We may or may not have had our morning workout rolling in the snow making snow angels and throwing snow balls haha. It was a tender mercy for sure. Almost felt like I was back in the Rockies except I didn't have 2 pairs of gloves on the entire time ;) Also, I guess cars down here acclimate to the weather, because our truck died twice that day. However, luckily there were some good Samaritans out and about! Only a few though haha. Everyone down here literally caves them self in and doesn't dare go anywhere. Businesses shut down, and people just bundled up for a few days. It made the roads nice and clear for us, but not a soul to talk to on the street haha. We talked to so many kids making snowmen though and most of them hadn't even seen snow before! It was bitter cold, but boy was that a treat.
All of our investigators are still doing well, and we have been meeting with them to prepare for the 23rd. It was a little harder to meet with all of them due to people's nervousness about the weather and the holiday season with friends in town, but so many blessings from the Lord this week. All of these things just meant more time for us to find even more people prepared for the gospel message this Christmas! Tis the season :) I thought tracting and finding in the rain brought miracles, but then we tried tracting in the snow :) It was seriously so great! People thought we were freezing our buckets off, but little did they know we are from the Rockies and love the snow haha. Hey if it gets you in the door to share a Christmas message, we'll take it! We met so many amazing families that love the Lord and are so excited to follow up with them this week. There was this lady named Tiffani that had 2 little kids that let us in and we shared the full restoration message. She was loving it! Just eating it all up. Most of our progressing work is up in Northern BR in the lower income areas, but we decided to take a swing at a couple mansions down south haha. One of which was actually pretty awesome. We talked to this guy for quite a bit just hitting bible scriptures left and right, and then of course several from the B.O.M. After it didn't seem like too much progress we gave him a pamphlet, bore our testimonies of the B.o.M, shared how God calls a prophet in every time period, and then kindly left. He then called us back for a card with our phone number on it :D That was pretty awesome, and always good to stay on our toes with the scriptures.
We met with Bria Campbell this week, and she is doing so great! She read Alma 26 and loved the parallels of missionaries. She is so nice and always seems so grateful for us bringing her this message. We followed up on her praying about baptism and she told us that she was worried about being baptized twice since Ephesians 4:5 says, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." We reminded her of the spirit that she has been feeling reading the Book of Mormon and when we teach her. We then shared Acts 19 along with a few other scriptures to lead into 2nd Nephi 31. We related to her how she was like one of the people Paul talked to when he visited and invited them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ even though they had already been baptized unto John's baptism. They (like Bria) hadn't received the Holy Ghost or had the baptism of fire. The spirit was so strong, it was way cool. She loved the answer given in the B.o.M as well and how it confirmed that. Bria told us that the spirit confirmed that it was true right then and there, and she felt a peace about it. She has set the goal to be baptized and is now planning to make it to church as the semester is done now, and she has gotten off work on Sundays :)
Well, that is it for this week. I love y'all so much and am so thankful for your thoughts and prayers. I just keep wondering if it gets any better than this. I love sharing the gospel, I love Christmas time, and I really love them both together!
Love,
Elder Wilson
