January 7, 2013

Hey there fam!!!!

WHAT WHAT KAREN YOU LOOK SO PRETTY!!!! I am so excited for you! have
a ton of fun up there in the burg:) Thank you all for you emails;:) I
love hearing about your families!

So This past week was pretty good with the new years and all. It made
it very hard to visit a few people though.. On new years day Itself
There wasn't a single soul out walking on the road. Everyone was a
little out if it to say the least. We actually weren't able to visit
anybody on that day.

So we have this investigator named Marciano, we have been siting with
him for probably close to a month now. He is a really cool guy and has
been going to church every week since he found us. He, although, has a
few problems that we have been worried about such as drinking and not
being married to his wife who is a hard core catholic.  Last week we
talked to him about the word of wisdom. A little drunk he responded he
would live according to that commandment. After that we decided it
would be best to just continue on teaching the plan of salvation. At
first he just wasn't retaining anything that we were saying. Elder
eckman and I would literally reteach one principle 3 or more time
before it would stick in his head. It was painstakingly slow... Slowly
with time he has been able to understand more and more each lesson.
durning my last visit with him he was able to understand every
principle faster with less repeditivity. Puzzled with how much he was
able to retain I asked him if he had any questions. He looked at me
and pretty much explained the whole plan of salvation in simple terms
and then after he said he could see a difference in him self as he
lived the word of wisdom. Elder Eckman and I had kind of neglected to
follow up with him on it but he has dropped drinking entirely since the
visit we had talked about the w of w. It is just so marvelous how the
lord will bless somebody for living the commandment even in a such a
small ways as helping him learn faster. His wife has also seen the
extreme changes to his habits and has really warmed up to us and has
invited over this week to eat with them and talk a little with her
about the gospel!! It is so cool!!!! Hopefully They will be able to get
married soon.

This week we also had a zone conference. The conference was a very
spiritually and uplifting beef to me. It is really cool to see how the
Lord leads us through his leaders. We talked about how we as
missionaries can be more converted to the Lord and to strengthen our
testimonies of this wonderful gospel. Our zone leaders showed us a
clip of a general conference talk by Elder Holland. It was the one
where Holland was talking about how we need to love the lord. He had
given an example of Peter going back to fishing and christ asking him
a question three times. "Do you love me Peter?" After Peter had
responded three times, Jesus said, "Then why are we standing on the same
shore having the same conversation" Oh goodness when Holland said
that It made chills run up and down my spine. I like to ask myself the
same question as Jesus asked Peter. "do I love the Lord? Will I drop
everything to follow him?" It was a great conference I am so thankful
for my wonderful leaders here.

Anyways there really isn't a whole lot more. I love you all and I wish
you a great week:)

Elder Wilhelm