Sheesh, months are zooming by! It was another wonderful week here in Philadelphia. I came down with something about mid-week and felt like crap ever since, but it was still an awesome week. First thing first is I'm SOOOOOO excited to talk to my family via Skype on the 25th. My older brother, Bracken (Elder Wilde Sr.), gets home from his mission in Australia in 16 days.... It will be the first time I will talk to him and see his face live in two and a half years.............. So yes, I'm very excited! Secondly S/O to my younger brother Tyson for making the soccer team, and S/O to my beloved Warriors for continuing to just dominate. I have been blessed with some - what we call, tender mercies out here on the mission which consist of me having dreams of The Finals; however, I'm not quite sure if I should call it a nightmare or tender mercy because I have to wake up from it and I'm like noooooo!
Scripture quote is from The Bible
Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;
A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day:
And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.
- Deuteronomy 11:26-28
Have you ever noticed in your life when you do the right thing that 99% of the time something good comes out of it and when you do the wrong thing, 99% of the time something bad comes out of it??? Same principle here - you'll receive blessings when you follow Him and well - won't have blessings if you don't. Pretty self explanatory. If you want to be happy, just do as he asks.
Weekly quote (I chose this one because it made me laugh)
Challenge is like a dragon with a gift in its mouth, tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
Come on, how could you not pick a quote that talks about dragons?
This link that I'm about to attach is one of my favorite videos that I get to show people. Considering Christmas is right around the corner, it's Important to remember the TRUE meaning of Christmas. Yes, getting presents is nice, giving presents is even nicer ... BUT the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of our Savior - Jesus Christ. This video is two and a half minutes. Give it a watch.
(Click on the link above to watch the video Elder Wilde is referring to.)
When early December rolls around each year, we are privileged to hear a short message from leaders in our church - and it was fantastic, you can go to LDS.org to watch it. If you ever have the opportunity and time to watch the short movie about Thomas S. Monson's (prophet of the church) life, it's worth it, it's on LDS.org and it's called: "On the Lord's Errand - the life of Thomas S. Monson".
(Click on the link above to watch the video of the life of President Thomas S. Monson)
Anyways, in the magazine called, "The Ensign," the church puts out, there was a short message he added and I would love to copy and paste it because it applies to EVERY ONE of us...
"Another Christmas season is upon us and with it the dawning of a new year. It seems as though only yesterday we were celebrating the Savior’s birth and making resolutions. Among our resolutions for this year, did we resolve to make time in our lives and room in our hearts for the Savior? No matter how successful we may have been thus far with such a resolution, I am confident we all wish to do better. This Christmas season is the perfect time to examine and renew our efforts. In our busy lives, with ever so many other things competing for our attention, it is essential that we make a conscious, committed effort to bring Christ into our lives and into our homes. And it is vital that we, like the Wise Men from the East, remain fixed upon His star and 'come to worship him.' Down through the generations of time, the message from Jesus has been the same. To Peter and Andrew by the shores of Galilee, He said, 'Follow me.' To Philip came the call, 'Follow me.' To the Levite who sat at receipt of customs came the instruction, 'Follow me.' And to you and to me, if we but listen, will come that same beckoning invitation: 'Follow me.' As we follow in His footsteps today and as we emulate His example, we will have opportunities to bless the lives of others. Jesus invites us to give of ourselves: 'Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind.' Is there someone for whom you should provide service this Christmas? Is there one who awaits your visit?"
Short and simple huh? So is there anyone you could reach out to, anyone who could use some lovin'? I challenge each one of you to reach out to someone in need, emotionally, spiritually, mentally or physically.
I'll add a few experiences of the week!
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
I think I have mentioned before that there is a recent convert to our church - Brother King. We made him that little journal book. Anyways a few years ago, he had some friends that were living on the street and he told them they could move in until they found a place. These two people that moved in are hoarders - let me describe the house to you: Trash that is piled on top of each other that add up to a bit taller than me at some parts of the house. I'd say on average, the garbage is piled up to about 5 feet. The two hoarders smoke and smoke and smoke--that's all they do. We spend 5 minutes in that house (or less) and we are just FUMING of smoke. Anyways, the church has been working really hard over the course of a few years to try and get inside that home to clean it. Finally after three years, it came to a point where everyone was about to be kicked out of the house unless it wasn't cleaned up, so yes... The missionaries were summoned. Two hours in, 15 massive garbage bags later, dozens of mice encounters, losing perhaps 5 years of my life due to second-hand smoking (that may be an exaggeration), we made but a small dent in the home. After thanking them for the honor and pleasure it was to finally help clean the home, the hoarders bid us farewell with colorful vocabulary - yes, I heard every swear word in the book on my way out. The hoarders weren't too happy about us cleaning the home. Anyways, thank heavens we went to Goodwill to buy clothes before because good glory those things are filthy, don't judge my outfit 
(Elder Andrus and Elder Wilde in the clothing they wore to clean the house.)
(Elder Wilde's Mexican Elder who sings lullabies to him at night.)
(It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!)
(Elder Wilde spotted the Deloitte office and had to snap a picture. Elder Wilde's father is a partner in Deloitte, which has office throughout the entire world.)
(Elder Wilde with his Zone Leader.)
ATTACK OF THE BED BUGS
Well, I have mentioned many times a man whose name is Wayne. He's my Black friend. Anyways, we go over to his home every week for a lesson and we knew that they had a few bed bugs in the home, so we always were on the lookout - however, little did we know these buggers multiplied quickly and the house was infested. Mid-lesson, Elder Andrus starts squeezing my leg and I look over to see a mass amount of bed bugs all over his arm, crawling everywhere on him. So then I checked his back and wow, they were everywhere! So I casually was like, "Elder Andrus and I had a really hard workout this morning (we didn't). I'm just gonna give him one of the massages I learned in China," so I started to smack his back for like 5 minutes, killed a whole army of bed bugs - Anyways, long story short we got home and threw our clothes in the dryer, burnt those things alive - woke up the next morning with bites... EVERYWHERE all over us both. It sucked. I hate bed bugs. But it was funny. After being with my boy for this long, I may or may not have used excessive force hitting him to get the bed bugs off, lol.
This week, we really had just lots of lessons and my brain is mush trying to think of what happened, but this comes to mind as a great lesson.
There is a less active lady in our church, she is mid 40's, she's single and anyways, she went through a bit of a hard time, started drinking alcohol, then it led to addiction, anyways that led to severe depression. She is very closed off and will only let a handful - not even - amount of people talk to her because of what's been going on. Anyways, Mike our recent convert who is just the biggest boss out there (he's the blind guy with the German shepherd) he's good friends with her because, well he use to drink too and with her sometimes, but he stopped when he got baptized and anyways he's good friends with her, and Elder Andrus has spoken to her once, so after a lot of begging and pleading, we got into her home to watch the Christmas devotional our church puts on - it was wonderful, she hasn't drank in 3 weeks which is very impressive for an alcoholic to do.... Anyways she has told us how it's affected her and she basically told us, "Doing what God and Jesus Christ want me to do, I've seen far more positives than any alcohol ever did me," and she told us how through the Atonement and through prayer, she doesn't have those cravings anymore. We have heard miracle stories from her because of her following the Lord's commandments - anyways. Just really an awesome lady.
I think that's about all for this week. We just got back from taking our Christmas pictures and wow...... Good luck every other missionary in the world beating ours! I hope to have them done and out to all you wonderful people as soon as possible! I can't show the picture now or tell where we took it because it's a secret 
Also, Elder Andrus thought it would be funny to play me today and basically faked a phone call from the President of our mission saying we were having an emergency transfer. He just told me he was kidding like right now... I'm so ticked, I'm gonna have to beat him in ping pong or basketball now.
LOVE YOU ALL!
Elder Wilde
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