Week 32 - March 28, 2016

Hello there, everyone! 

First off, pray for the missionaries that were
hurt in the Brussels bombing a few days ago.  Can't believe that
happened.  They need all the support they can get. 

I'm on to the last
week of this transfer.  We have transfer calls this Saturday!   I'm
nervous but at the same time excited.  I'm hoping there are some big
changes to our area (boundaries), and I've requested a Spanish
missionary to come here so we could teach Hispanics as well.  The
Sister Missionaries definitely have "The Promise Land" when it comes
to areas.  We drew the short end of the stick, doesn't surprise me.
It's okay though!

 (Elder Wilde:  "So that tie was so bad, long story."

(Elder Wilde:  "We had a little mini-missionary for the week.   He is 16.

We taught him a little dating strategies lol.)

Well, today obviously was such a special week, Easter Sunday.  I had
the wonderful opportunity to teach two classes in church this week
(and hopefully for the rest of my time here).  Our first class, Gospel
Principles, the person teaching wasn't there, so I volunteered to
teach.  That class (new members, investigators meet) was filled, every
seat was taken!  It was so amazing.  Anyways, I opened up with the "He
is Risen" video.

He is Risen 

(Click on the link above to watch this short video about the Resurrection that Elder Wilde 
showed in his Gospel Principles class.)
 

We had a great discussion.  I basically asked them questions the whole

time to get them talking and it was great!  Really fun lesson and we
all learned together.  I taught in Elders Quorum as well.  That was
great.  I'm going to copy and paste bits and pieces of my lesson:

- How does the Atonement demonstrate the love of Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ for us?

As a young missionary, Elder Orson F. Whitney who later served in the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had a dream so powerful that it changed
his life forever. He later wrote:

     “All at once the circumstance seemed to change. … Instead of
before, it was after the Crucifixion, and the Savior, with those three
Apostles, now stood together in a group at my left.  They were about to
depart and ascend into heaven.  I could endure it no longer.  I ran from
behind the tree, fell at His feet, clasped Him around the knees, and
begged Him to take me with Him.

      “I shall never forget the kind and gentle manner in which He
stooped and raised me up and embraced me.  It was so vivid, so real
that I felt the very warmth of His bosom against which I rested.  Then
He said:  ‘No, my son; these have finished their work, and they may go
with me; but you must stay and finish yours.’  Still I clung to Him.
Gazing up into His face--for He was taller than I--I besought Him most
earnestly:  ‘Well, promise me that I will come to You at the last.’  He
smiled sweetly and tenderly and replied:  ‘That will depend entirely
upon yourself.’  I awoke with a sob in my throat, and it was morning.”

- How might we better appreciate the significance of the atonement/Resurrection?

Without the Resurrection, the Gospel of Jesus Christ becomes a litany
of wise sayings and seemingly unexplainable miracles--but sayings and
miracles with no ultimate triumph.  No, the ultimate triumph is in the
ultimate miracle:  for the first time in the history of mankind, one
who was dead raised himself into living immortality. He was the Son of
God, the Son of our Immortal Father in Heaven, and his triumph over
physical and spiritual death is the good news every Christian tongue
should speak.

Surely the resurrection is the center of every Christian’s faith; it
is the greatest of all of the miracles performed by the Savior of the
world.  Without it, we are indeed left hopeless.  Let me borrow the
words of Paul:  “If there be no resurrection of the dead, … then is our
preaching vain, … and we are found false witnesses of God; because we
have testified of God that he raised up Christ. … If Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins” - Howard W.
Hunter - He is Risen

- How is the Resurrection a source of hope and consolation for you?

I'll share one miracle this week - probably one of the biggest of my
mission so far.

Elder Tryon and I are basically about to drop our whole teaching pool
- so for the whole  week we told each other that we wouldn't teach, we
would just find, and we prayed and prayed and prayed that we would
find ONE elect person, just ONE who was prepared.  Thursday night we
planned for our day and I felt and knew it was the Spirit that told me
to go tract a specific area.  I put it in, but I KNEW I knew gosh
dangit that that area had been tracted 10948 times.  It looked like a
waste of time on paper, but we went.  We got there and it was door
slammed in our faces over and over.  Anyways, we had a few more minutes of
 tracting and we came to the
end of the block and could either go left or right.  On the right was a
few torn down houses and worn down with a few for sale.  On the left
was the humble abodes that if anything, looked like they had the most
potential.  I felt that we should go right and knock on a house with a
broken manhandled car in the front, got onto the deck (pretty sure the
wood was going to break), and I knocked on the house.  This Hispanic lady
came out, and we asked if we could share the video.  She, not
understanding what we were saying, was reluctant and so Elder Tryon
started to walk away, and in my broken Spanish I was like, " Yo soy
un missionario para la inglesis de jesu christo, yo tengo un video, to
quires ver, Es muy Bonita, creo que te gusta!"  

She agreed to watch it
and after, she told me that she was born a member of the church in
Mexico, moved to Italy and that she had no idea where the church was
there.  Then she moved here and nobody knew she was here, we didn't
have her records.. She has no phone, car anything.  Anyways we told her
we would be back.  We came back and talked to her more - and Sunday
came around and she came to church.  The cool thing about this story is
that she told us she had been praying for two nights (two days before
we came over) for someone to help her - I'm sure we were the answer to
her prayers, and that's why we felt we needed to go to that area.  It
was an amazing experience.  I'll attach a picture.

Love you all.  I hope you remember the Savior, Jesus Christ in your day
to day life.  I love Him.  I'm grateful to be a part of his church.  I
would do anything for it.  I'm grateful for the atonement, I feel so
blessed to be able to teach people about it and utilize it everyday.

God bless.

Elder Wilde

Week 31 - March 21, 2016

Hello, everyone!  Hope you're all doing swell.
 

Wasn't the greatest week here in Bayview unfortunately.  I miss Philly.
It's hard being out in the middle of nowhere with not that many people
to talk to.  It seems like from 10-4 we are just wasting time with
knocking on doors... Nobody is ever home and the people that are home
just work from home and have no interest.  It's frustrating.  I'm lucky
I have a companion I can talk to or else I think I would go crazy.  He
always tells me, "Get use to this, Elder Wilde!  It builds character!"

                                               (Our new investigator loves hunting.)

                               (We talked to him about 45 minutes long after our
                    lesson ended--all about hunting.  We had a hard time getting out of the house.)

                                                           (Our lovely area!)
This week we got cussed out by two Methodist women, it was funny.  We
knocked on her door and Elder Tryon gave his door approach and then I
gave mine and she just slammed the door super hard in our faces, so we
chuckled as we walked away.  Then we started going to the next house
and she started screaming at us, "Don't you dare go to that house, no
one is home, get out of here!"  So we went to a house two houses down,
and then the lady from the house she told us not to go to came out and
started screaming at us with the other lady, "These two idiots must not
speak any English!  We told them to get out of here (nice version)!  We
are going to call the cops on you if you ever step foot on our
property ever again."  It was so funny.  They were commenting on how
stupid we were and it was embarrassment that we were holding a Bible
(I was holding my iPad), when all we were doing was asking to share an Easter
message.  I love "Christians."

Then we thought someone was burning
something in their backyard so we went to go see, and there was a
grill just burning coals.  Then in the garage there were these two
guys, so we start talking to them and they were like, "We are very busy
with a business deal," so we start walking away and this huge cloud of
smoke from weed hits us, we both were just like...... People are
so.... yknow.
 
Anyways, this week two of our investigators came to dinner with us at
a member's home which was awesome, Andreas(18) and Macho(17).  They love
the church; however, we have just found out a few... "obstacles" that
are going to be needed to be brought up next lesson... Should be
interesting - I know many teenagers that age have the same ones so we
will see how it goes.  It's hard because our ward doesn't really have
any solid youth to fellowship them.  We'll see what happens this week.
Pray for them.
 
Tim, our Muslim investigator has basically read the Book of Mormon and
is in love with it - Life is throwing him a curve ball right now,
testing his faith.  He isn't winning which drives me insane, but pray
for him.
 
We tracked out this lady two weeks ago (didn't get inside the house,
just talked outside).  She's about 35, I'd say, Melissa.  She's Baptist.
Anyways, we gave her a "Restoration" pamphlet to read and then we came
back and talked to her on the porch.  She had tons of questions that we
answered.  Turns out she buys clothes from a Mormon fashion designer,
who she loves.  Anyways, we started talking to her about the temple,
the Book of Mormon, prophets, priesthood, it was awesome.  She loved
it.  She was kind of like, "So do you have a testimony of your church?"
At that moment, I was like (a) I don't think she has a testimony of her
own church and (b) I've never had anyone ask me to bear my testimony.
I've always just done it.  Anyways, I told her I did, not thinking.  I
didn't even bear my testimony.  I got in the car after and man I felt
the Spirit just like, "You were just given a chance and you didn't do
it!"  Man, I was so upset with myself... Anyways, we will see her this
week.
 
I went on exchanges this week with one of my zone leaders who started
his mission in South Philly, too.  We were up all hours talking about
it, it was fun.  He's a really awesome guy.  Anyways, he serves in the
young single adult ward and we were able to go teach a lot of people -
Man, does the Lord prepare people... Lemme tell ya, he and his
companion are being blessed!  He teaches a lot of Asian people, so I
started talking Chinese to them and they all were caught off guard.  It
was fun and kind of an instant way to bond.  Yes, even after all these
years I still remember bits and pieces of Chinese, and yes my Spanish
and Chinese often intertwine when I speak and people get confused.  I
do get my point across in the end though!
 
I've been reading a lot of different things (Old Testament, New
Testament, Book of Mormon) and the scripture that has stuck out to me
the most this week is a pretty common/popular one but it is:
 

1 Nephi 3:7: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father:  I
will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know
that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he
shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which
he commandeth them."

We will all ALL, no matter who we are, face adversity, temptation,
hardship - whatever.  However the Lord always ALWAYS prepares a way for
us to get through it, just depends how hard we are willing to work to
find the path but more importantly stay on it.
 
Love you all.
 
Elder Parker Wilde

Week 30 - March 14, 2016

Well, hello everyone.  Hope you're all doing well. 
  This week flew, we were pretty busy.  It's good to be busy though, that's for sure.  We had a Zone conference this week, I saw lots of missionaries that I knew from my my last area, including my last companion.   Anyways, it was great to see them all.  

 (Elder Tuttle with Elder Wilde, who hopes they serve together on their missions.)

 (Elder Wilde's Zone Leader in his last area, along with Elder Wilde's last companion.)

(Elder Wilde's favorite Hispanic!)

I miss Philly and all those wonderful people I worked with.  I miss my leaders in that area too, but I know the Lord has me here for a reason!  My companion gave his "dying" testimony at zone conference, he's a stud missionary.  It was funny.  We were getting a training on our area books and there was probably 90 of us in the room and they were telling us how to NOT put in information, so they put in a few Chinese characters.  They were really basic and they were like, "Don't put any stuff like this in because I guarantee no one can read this.  It's worthless."  Then they asked all of us in the room if anyone can read it (trying to make a point) and my hand just flung up and I translated it and everyone started laughing.  It was really funny.  My Spanish is getting decent haha.  I have to use it a bit to talk to Hispanics!

Seems like this week wasn't overly thrilling in terms of crazy things happening.  We are teaching a lot, which is great, but the adversary is working extra hard on ALL of our investigators.  It's tough to watch.  Things just start happening to them, family or friends that prevent them for reaching their full potential.  I've literally seen it with everyone I've worked with - they start off great and then something bad happens in their lives which really tests their faith.  It reminds me of the story of Job.  He was a great "perfect" man, but the Lord allows the adversary to tempt him so that his faith would be tried. 

 (This is an awesome Hispanic family that Elder Wilde stated:  "I think they tried to kill me with their favorite hot sauce.  Hah!)

(Excited to have worn short sleeves!)

(The Amish are everywhere!)

(Elder Wilde stated:  "Good ole Dennis Dorris!  We did some service for him, then he brought
out and showed us his "weapon of choice!")

We've begun to work with the members and now we are going to start working with two less active part member families... which is a goldmine in essence.  It was cool to set up dinners with members and the other families and watch the members do missionary work, which means way more than us doing it, that's for sure. 

I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting yesterday.  I was asked to speak on, "The Miracles that Faith and Obedience Bring."  It was great.  It was the first talk where I really didn't even look down, which I feel is a huge stepping stone for me.  Of course the greatest act of obedience ever displayed was Jesus Christ suffering for our sins in the garden and dying for us on the cross.  I was reading, "Our Search for Happiness," and it discussed why we don't wear the cross in terms of jewelry and in our house, etc. and I LOVE what it said - basically because we know that Christ lives today and that's what we need to celebrate, not his death.  Truly the miracle of the Atonement is the greatest thing we can all ask for.  Of course, it's for the sinner, but it's also for the man looking for strength beyond his own.  However, when I read the Book of Mormon, one of my favorite FAVORITE lines is where it says, "His bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people."  He is literally there for us at ALL times to support us at ALL times.  We can run to him at ALL times. 

I think we have all figured out that faith+obedience=blessings/miracles 

King Benjamin -- Mosiah 2:24  "He doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you."

Section 130 of Doctrine and Covenants vs. 20-21 

"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated--

And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

"For if there be no faith among the children of men, God can do no miracle among them;"

Anyways, my companion and I were talking last night after we got out of a lesson and we were both like, "There is NOTHING better then being in a lesson where you feel the Spirit," and it's so true.  I could be having the worst week but then THAT lesson comes and you feel the Spirit and you walk out and you just feel on top of the world - it's a beautiful thing, really. It's the best part of the mission, you get to feel the Spirit so much. 

The new Easter initiative came out on Sunday.  It's called, "Hallelujah" ... It's nothing short of incredible.  If you don't feel the spirit on full volume you aren't human.  I would invite each and every one of you to watch it and share it via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.  Everyone needs to see it!  I got up in Priesthood and showed the video and had everyone post it online at that very moment.  Now thousands of people are able to view it!  (I'm not sure all of the men were all too pleased with me after that, but that's ok. They will work too!) 

Watch this and share this via Facebook Twitter or Instagram.

Hallelujah! 

(Click on the link above for the Easter message to share with everyone you know!)

Love you all,

Elder Wilde

Week 29 - March 7, 2016

Hello, everyone! 

Hope all is well and things
are going great for you!  I don't have too much to write home about
this week.  My companion and I both got sick for like 4 days, a member
bought us Pizza Hut and the next morning we were both dead... But the
work continued.  We didn't want to sit Inside!  The worst part about it
is that we had trainings and meetings 30 minutes away two days in a
row that were three hours each.  We both felt like crap haha.  It was
bad.  

We are good now though :-)  The work is picking up, we are so
blessed.  We have a few people with a baptismal date between now and
middle of April:  Timothy (51), Amy (19), Andreas (18), Josue (10),
Jose(15) and Macho(18), so we are really excited.

This week was a lot of meetings and us trying to find new people and
we had lots of lessons.  I don't really have too much to write home
about though.

I guess I'll share an experience with one of our investigators - Timothy.
Timothy grew up a Brennanite - became Pentecostal - joined the Muslim
faith - left the Muslim faith - looking for the truth.  His dad and
uncles were some of the worst criminals in all of PA (look up the
Matherly theft).  Anyways, he has gone through a TON his whole life.
It's been incredible to see him change and fight through his
conversion from being Muslim to Christian.  We watched "The Restoration"
video.  He was in tears, he felt the spirit so much - we left him to
watch the hour long "Prophet of the Restoration," texted us an essay
basically bearing his testimony, he read the testimony - TEARS!  It's
incredible to see the Spirit work within someone as they come to know
the truth.  Anyways, he's awesome, pray for him - the adversary is
working double time on him!

Sorry, not too much of an e-mail this week, just lots of meetings and what not.

I love the Book of Mormon, I love this church, Joseph Smith is a
prophet of God - why do people not understand, I have no idea.  Love you
all.

Elder Wilde