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 

Cinnamon Rolls and Eternal Salvation

Dear Family,

So yesterday was a lot of fun. Lately our district has been trouble getting members to come to church--which is a problem because coming to church is a big deal because it's a place where they can feel the spirit. So we decided to unload our secret weapon on a family of investigators: Cinnamon Rolls. This is a tactic developed by master tactician Sister Crawford, our mission president's wife. It goes something like this:

First we made a big gooey pan of cinnamon rolls (just the pull-apart kind you get in a can at Wal-Mart). Then we brought them to the door of our investigators and knocked. Eventually some bleary-eyed soul stumbled to the door.

"Good morning!" we said. Then we went about the house, wafting the delicious smell of cinnamon rolls all over the place. A couple of our investigator friends, Tyrin, Brandon, and Brian, were having a sleepover so we actually went into the room they were all sleeping in and held the pan under their noses. Within no-time, everybody was up. The hard part was getting all these guys to actually ready. "No cinnamon rolls until you are ready to go," we said. Is this teaching by the spirit? Nope. Its bribery, pure and simple. But hey, sometimes you just gotta do what works. Sometimes you have to think like a sleepy twelve-year-old boy. Sometimes cinnamon rolls are the gateway to eternal salvation.

Just kidding.

But it did work. We got five people to church that day! And it happened to be the Sunday of the Primary Program, which was adorable.

Then later that day, The Liberty Ward split to create a new Liberty Spanish Branch. This is kinda sad--I will miss all the bilingual lessons and sacrament prayers--but also exciting.

Then that evening, we were able to attend the baptism of Pablo, an investigator of the Hermanas in our district. This was really cool. Pablo said he felt "como una pluma"--like a feather--after the ordinance was performed. Its cool to see these simple principles and ordinance changing people's hearts and lives.

Well. I would tell y'all about what happened the whole week leading up to Sunday but who can even remember that far back? Not me.

So there is a sister in our ward who said she knows Reid Arne! Apparently she went to BYU Hawaii; so that's cool. The Arnes must just be really popular, because one of the sisters in my district in the MTC said she was really good friends with Louis.

I hope everyone is having a great week! Thanks so much to Vivi for writing me! Glad to hear you and Justin are doing well. Also, as always, thanks to Brother Minor, my rock and my foundation when it comes to mail.

Love,

Elder Wilder

Halfway through my first transfer what?

Dear family,

First of all: Happy birthday to Mom and Rachel! I feel terribly that I didn't remember to say that last Monday but know that when the seventeenth rolled around I was thinking about you. I hope it was great. Ray, I'm sorry you got so sick. For a late birthday present I'll tell you a little about all the stray dogs that live here in Liberty. They are everywhere. Our investigator has a big dog named Pookie that has to be kept chained not because he is mean but because his favorite hobby is to sniff the front fenders of cars while they are trying to drive. As people try to drive out of the little dirt road, he dodges in front of their cars again and again--I don't know how he is still alive--causing the driver to yell, "Pookie! POOKie STOP it! POOKIE!" in a Southern Black person accent. Its really funny. So now that is one of our favorite things to yell at stray dogs we see as we walk from place to place. "Pookie! Pookie stop it!" There is also another dog that got run over a while back and so neither of his back legs work. But that doesn't stop him--he hops around on two legs, all around the neighborhood. He's pretty fast too. I'll try to take a picture of him for you.

I loved your letter Mom! No, Liberty is not the inner city. Its very country. Its just kind of a poor area. A lot of the areas we work in look like the kind of swampy foresty trailer park-y places you would expect to see in the backwoods of Louisiana or something. Of course, it basically is the backwoods of Louisiana...so yeah.

We have an awesome couple of new investigators: Tyrin and Brandon. Tyrin is the 16-year-old brother of Kalilah, our investigator who will hopefully be getting baptized in a couple of weeks. And Brandon is Tyrin's best friend. Brandon is probably about 5 feet tall and only has one arm, and is probably the sweetest and bravest kid I've ever met in my life. We had invited Tyrin over and over again to listen in on our lessons with Kalilah, but he showed absolutely NO interest. Then one night were outside talking to Kalilah (and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and Tyrin just randomly came out and joined us. It took us all a few minutes to realize how weird this was. And then one of us asked, in so many words, "Tyrin what on earth are you doing out here?" He said he had been playing a video game and then a "deep thought" came over him, and he paused the game and came outside. He was incredibly receptive to what we had to say and we committed him to baptism that evening. He said he has had a feeling for a while now that he needs to get baptized.

A few nights later we invited him to mutual and his friend Brandon came. At the end of mutual we took them on a little church tour and had a lesson in the chapel. I recited the first vision (Yay me! in our mission the first vision goes from verse 10 to "This is my beloved son; hear him" so its pretty long.) When we asked Brandon how he felt, he said it was a good feeling and then, in his own words, "I've never felt this way before."

A few nights ago we got them and a few other friends to come to the Ward Halloween party. They dressed as vampires--by which I mean, they wore black and red capes. It was fantastic.

Thanks so much to Brother Minor and to Vivi for your letters! And a big thanks to Sarah Jones for the Halloween package! Y'all are the best.

Sincerely,

Elder Wilder

Cockroaches were invented by the Devil

Dear Family,

I cannot believe it is already P-day again. Its been a good week! We taught like twenty something lessons--which both my companions say is a lot. No Mom, we haven't really had a lot of dinner appointments but we kinda got that figured out this Sunday so I think we will be getting more from now on. And yes we have a car, but we like to walk when possible. We also like to ride bikes, but unfortunately because I was supposed to be in Brazil, I don't have a bike...Elders Henrie and Kalilimoku both do, so it has been a companionship goal to find me one. Sometimes we like to ask random drunk guys on the street if we can have their bike--so far no luck.

Here is an excerpt from a journal entry to give y'all an idea of what missionary life is like:

"Today was a crazy and fun day. We went to visit a lady and the appointment fell through so we went contacting instead. Ran into this old black couple sitting in their front yard--the husband was completely drunk and acting like an absolute scoundrel. It was really funny. Among other things he made fun of Elder Henrie's nose, cursed like a sailor, said some terribly inappropriate things, and taught us a little about the history of the CRIPS (he showed us a tattoo on his chest that apparently means he IS a CRIP, and then said that CRIP is an acronym for California Revolution In Progress. haha) The wife was super great though and we got her contact info to come back and visit with her when the husband was sober.

We then met a really old and slightly crazy and barely intelligible man who called us into his house when we knocked. It was kind of a cool experience; here he was sitting alone on the couch next his portable toilet thing and a plate of uneaten food sitting on the table next to him. He seemed rather desperate and told us that he didn't want to be a burden on his daughter and wanted to be put in a home. He said he believed we were sent by God to help him.  We said we believed the same thing. We took his daughter's number off the kitchen counter and promised to contact her for him. We tried to tell him he wasn't a burden and that his family loved him and God loved him. We prayed with him and left.

Then we locked ourselves out of our apartment. Oops. So we said a prayer. Still locked out. So we walked to our next appointment, which was with Kalilah, a twelve year old who's kinda from the hood and who is preparing for baptism. His uncle sat in on and tried to help teach the lesson while drinking a bottle of malt and smoking. (incidentally we weren't teaching Word of Wisdom). Then we tried to get rides for Kalilah and his friend to go to Mutual, but we couldn't get any, so we walked there and showed up about an hour late. It was all good though. We played basketball for a few minutes with our two investigators and the Young Men of Liberty.

We all got a ride home with Elder Devereaux, who turns out to be a profession window guy (having been in the business for 15 years), and was able to pop one of our locked windows open for us from the outside. Thank you Heavenly Father!"

So that's a little of what mission life is like, except we try not to lock ourselves out to often. We've had some really awesome experiences and some let-downs.

Mom, I wish I would be home to help with all the cooking at thanksgiving! Its crazy that by the end of this transfer we will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and then in the next transfer we will be celebrating Christmas, and by then I will be an old hand at this whole missionary game.

Love you all!

Elder Wilder

OHHH I almost forgot. Elder Kalilimoku believes that cockroaches were created by Satan himself... It didn't help that one fell from our ceiling onto him last night while we were doing daily planning.