It's Cold!

Hi family!

It is really cold here in Texas right now! I am actually wearing my winter coat. Wasn't expecting that. So there is really not much to report this week. My companions are GOOFS. Seriously. Good missionaries, but goofs. For example, every time we drive to our investigator Kalilah's house, we pass a big pack of dogs, and Elder Kalilimoku cannot resist rolling down his window and barking at them like a maniac till they surround our car and chase us down the road. As another example, one of Elder Hendershot's favorite activities is to start telling a story about his childhood--except that it isn't really from his childhood, but rather the plotline of some famous movie like Transformers or Super 8. The story usually starts out somewhat believable until he drops a line like, "and then a giant came and busted down the door and told me I was a wizard."

Oh! I forgot to mention that last P-day, after I emailed, Elder Hendershot sprained his ankle. So this week has been a pretty slow week. We spent a full day inside, and since then he has been limping around Liberty. We also had zone conference, which was really good.

I am going to miss you all so much on Thanksgiving! I don't really know what our plans are.... no one has really signed up to feed us yet, but something will probably come up. We have only a half p-day today so that we can have a full p-day on thursday. If no one wants to feed us, we will probably just kick it with the other missionaries.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sincerely,

Luke

No Baptism

Hi family,

Well the baptism didn't happen this week. That's okay though! Kalilah is still very ready to be baptized soon. He just had some family drama happen the last few days before that made him feel like it wasn't the right time.

Oh by the way, sorry my email didn't come yesterday. Apparently libraries close on Veteran's Day, so we didn't have computer access. I just back from transfer meeting. Still here in Liberty! Elder Henrie has departed from us (sad day-- I will forever miss the sight of Elder Henrie gnawing on a whole and wholly unadorned cucumber every morning for breakfast) but Elder Kalilimoku and I are still here along with our new companion. I'll make sure to take pictures of us and send them. I'm sorry mom! I know I said I'd have pictures this week from the baptism--I'll just take random pictures this week and send them to you.

So, the reason the baptism didn't happen is that Kalilah got into a fight with his Grandma and said some things he regretted. Then the next night he was out late with his friend which worried his Mom, who had been out working all day as a security guard at a prison. So we went to go find Kalilah and found him almost immediately. When we got him home, his mom wanted to give him a whoopin', which terrified Kalilah. We told Kalilah we would try to convince his mother not to give him a whoopin'. This turned into a long emotional scene. I won't try to write out everything that happened. But it wasn't a great night. Anyway, Kalilah's still working towards baptism. The great thing is seeing Kalilah so ready to apply the Atonement of Jesus Christ in his life, to be able to repair the mistakes he has made and move on from them.

Other than that, we had a couple of fun days. We do service at the library fairly regularly, and this week we helped them make scarecrows to put out in front of the building. We also had a really good dinner with a family in our ward--which doesn't happen as often as you would think.

Our old investigator, Anna, the very first person I ever taught in the field, has started progressing again (for a while she was not). She has been praying and reading the Book of Mormon and her faith has been increasing, and she seems to be seeing a lot of blessings in her life--with her work situation , etc.

My friend from my MTC district, Elder Zendejas, got his visa and left for Brazil yesterday. It was kinda sad not seeing him at transfer meeting today, but that's okay.

Thank you everyone! I hope you are all doing well!

love,

Luke

Transfer Two!

Hi Everyone!

I cannot believe it is transfer two already. The time is flying by. Our new companion, Elder Hendershot is an awesome guy. He's kinda goofy. As an example: this week we were walking through a parking lot, and Elder Hendershot pointed up at a building and said, "Hey let's go to Taco Barn!" We looked up at the building to find it was called, "Tobacco Barn."

So things are going well here in Liberty. We are having a little bit of a struggle getting Kalilah back on track after his setback last week. However, we started teaching his older brother Steven (who goes by a number of aliases, including but not limited to: phatcat, slowmotion, feecee, lil stevie.) Steven is a great guy; he wants to be baptized on the first of December, so hopefully he and Kalilah will both be ready by that date.

Other than that, our investigator, Anna, has been progressing a lot. We've had some great lessons with her this week; she is actually keeping commitments and has been seeing blessings in her life.

Hope everything is going well back home. I'm gonna miss y'all a lot come thanksgiving time!

Love,

Luke

Keep Calm and Gospel On

Dear Family,

So I definitely enjoyed the time change as much as you did Mom. I realized when I woke up yesterday morning that fall daylight savings days are the ONLY two days during the entire mission where you are authorized to sleep for longer than 8 hours. So its pretty special.

This has been a somewhat harder week. Still good, but a lot of our investigators have been struggling and as missionaries we have been struggling to remain focused and purpose-driven. I guess this is a common thing right at the end of transfers (can't believe we are now on the last week of my first transfer!). Anyway, our investigators Brandon and Tyrin are practically not investigators anymore. Tyrin suddenly lost interest; Brandon's mother had a stroke, and so he's dealing with that. Another of our young investigators, Brittany (who is 13 years old) was caught smoking the other day. She lives with her Grandpa, and he yelled at her all day until she was so angry that she could barely talk to us when we came over. It was, however, really wonderful to see how a prayer and a brief lesson on the Gospel could help Brittany calm down a little bit. Later that day, our young friend Kennedy, who is not our investigator because her mother says she can't get baptized, but who often participates in our lessons and is probably the wisest ten-year-old I have ever met, asked if she could doodle on the back of my planner. I handed over the planner, and when I got it back it said, "Keep Calm and Gospel On." I thought that was pretty adorable.

On a bright note, Kalilah is getting baptized this Sunday! He's really nervous about it because he doesn't like being in front of lots of people, but other than that he is very ready for baptism. I'm really sorry I haven't sent any pictures Mom (no I haven't lost my camera), but I will be sure to take lots of pictures at the Baptism and then send you a bunch next Monday.

Have a great week everybody!

Love,

Elder Wilder