Monday, April 25, 2016

Week 36 - April 25, 2016

Hello there!
 
Good week here in Bayview.  Pretty busy week relatively speaking.  Rosa
is being baptized on Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday.  Amy
accepted a baptismal date for June 5th.  We had a ton of investigators
at church this Sunday, seven!  Most on my mission so far, we were very
blessed...
 
Highlight:  We were teaching the Word of Wisdom to Rosa (Church health
code) and when we talked about coffee she got up out of her seat, went
and grabbed all her coffee and threw it in the trash and then threw
her trash outside.  It was funny, when we talked about not be able to
use drugs, her anti-Mormon husband stashed a ton of Pot in the
freezer, so she put on cleaning gloves grabbed it and wanted to throw
it in the trash, but we told her she probably shouldn't do that.  The
husband isn't too kind to her.  She is so awesome... She is a miracle.
She is definitely the most amazing thing that has happened on my
mission so far.
 
I really don't have too much to discuss this week.
We had some really great lessons with some really great people.  I basically
told Andreas and his whole household to repent... Like: "Every one of
you need to repent and change your ways or else you will not live with
God because right now you are OF the world not IN the world." ...
Never done that before, my companion looked at me like I was crazy but
he agreed... the Spirit was definitely there and they were all pretty
humbled, including myself.
 
Hmmm, Timothy came to church... He was doing his Islamic rituals
during church... That was interesting.  He basically said, "No matter
what path I take, one thing is for sure, I will always love Mormons."  He
was like, "I cannot believe anyone talking bad about your church or to
you brothers (Elders)."  I was like, "We can't either!  But people don't
like to hear the truth because then they have to change, so they just
persecute us instead!"  It's ok, whenever we get rejected I know we are
getting wife points :-) 

I read a conference talk this week that was entitled "I am a Child of
God" and there were a few things that stuck out to me --
 

In real life, we face actual, not imagined, hardships.  There is
pain--physical, emotional, and spiritual.  There are heartbreaks when
circumstances are very different from what we had anticipated.  There
is injustice when we do not seem to deserve our situation.  There are
disappointments when someone we trusted failed us.  There are health
and financial setbacks that can be disorienting.  There may be times of
question when a matter of doctrine or history is beyond our current
understanding.
 
When difficult things occur in our lives, what is our immediate
response?  Is it confusion or doubt or spiritual withdrawal?  Is it a
blow to our faith?  Do we blame God or others for our circumstances?  Or
is our first response to remember who we are--that we are children of
a loving God?  Is that coupled with an absolute trust that He allows
some earthly suffering because He knows it will bless us, like a
refiner’s fire, to become like Him and to gain our eternal
inheritance?
 
In teaching the principle that mortal life can be agonizing but our
hardships have eternal purpose--even if we do not understand it at the
time--Elder Holland said, “You can have what you want, or you can have
something better.”
 
We live in a world that can cause us to forget who we really are. The
more distractions that surround us, the easier it is to treat
casually, then ignore, and then forget our connection with God. The
Saints in Liberia have little materially, and yet they seem to have
everything spiritually.

I love this talk.  This is the first principle we teach everybody we
meet.  It's the most important because it's who we all are, we know
that because we are a child of God we have divinity/royalty inside of
us and we have a father in heaven watching over us, who cares and
loves us, weeps when we weep and rejoices when we rejoice.  He is there
every step of the way.  He takes us as we are and can mold us into who
we ought to become.  Life gets in the way of remembering that simple
teaching and once we forget that teaching, that is when we stray away
and do things we shouldn't be doing.  I have felt God's love and know
that everyone can because he loves all of us regardless of our
imperfections and mistakes we make.
 
Going golfing right now, talk to y'all later!
 
Elder Wilde  

Week 35 - April 18, 2016


GO WARRIORS! 

Oh man, I can't believe it... Incredible.  Sad I couldn't
see it happen.  Congratulations to them though.  I'm only missing the
greatest season in NBA history.... Maybe that's why they are being so
blessed. Ha!
 
Happy 22nd birthday to my older brother, Bracken!  Man, can't believe
it's been almost three years without seeing him.. Crazy.  Love you,
stud.

Anywho, another week come and gone.  It was a great week here.  Bayview
is growing on me.  We have some good things coming up in the near
future which we are excited for!
 
We were able to have our last interviews with our Mission President.
It was great, really like that man.  I can't believe he's leaving, his
3 years are up in June!  Nervous to get a new President, it won't be
the same.  Anyways, always nice to get feedback from him.  He shined our
shoes at the end.  Reminded me of the Savior cleaning the Apostles'
feet.  I wonder if he did that on purpose... Hmmm.
 
 (Elder Parker said he and his companion were able to ride in a member's army truck.)
 

 
 (Crab pots)
 (From one bay to another.)




 (Elder Wilde and his companion with a member.)


I will talk about a few people we are teaching in this email.
 
Amy - she is awesome, absorbs everything like a sponge.  We taught her
the Plan of Salvation this week (God's plan for us), and she was ALL
over it, loved it.  She even told us in class they were studying the
"Mormon migration" and someone said something wrong related to the
church and she got up and was basically like, "Um no, that is
incorrect.  I am meeting with the missionaries from that church and my
boyfriend is a member of that church and it's the true church!" ...
Pretty solid investigator to me haha!  We have a baptismal date for her
middle of May!
 
Rosa - she is even more amazing... she's gone through it all.  Poor
lady, she's going straight to the top that's for sure.  Everyone in the
church loves her.  She will be getting baptized in two weeks (we don't
have her records so we aren't sure if she was ever baptized).  We are
really excited for that.  Pray for her, she has a difficult home life.
If you want a definition of someone who perseveres through trials by
relying on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, she is the prime example.
She is teaching me!
 
Timothy - Muslim/Christian guy, super awesome.  Extremely knowledgeable
about the gospel.  We had a neat experience with him this week.  A close
friend of his died this week and he was basically like, "I want to go
inside your temple and be baptized for him," and we were basically like,
"Well, you need to get baptized and be a worthy member."  He
basically told us, "I will be at your church next week.  I swear nothing
will stop me.  I have to come and I want to get baptized."  Pretty neat
experience.  Our church is so blessed to have the knowledge of temples
and being able to do things for our families, friends etc. who have
passed away.
 
Andreas - he's a teenager... lol, enough said.  He loves when we come
over and feels the Spirit, but it's what he does when we aren't over.
We basically told him he needs to repent because he's on a dangerous
little path.  He agreed.  We shall see.
 
Martinez family - part member, two unbaptized children.  The husband WAS
addicted to coffee, my last companion and I met with him about 5 weeks
ago and helped him get on this plan to stop drinking so much - we met
with them the other day and he's been coffee free for two weeks and
asked for Sundays off work.  Hopefully we will be able to help him
baptize his children in a few weeks.
 
George - inactive member, left a football scholarship to serve
a mission and then got ran over by a car in a gang related attack on
his mission, has felt some sort of resentment for many years.  We have
been going over there and making crab pots getting to know him...
Tough life.  Anyways, pray for him.
 
As for the other people, we hope and pray that we will be able to work
with a few new part member families.  Pray for us!
 
In a talk titled, "Do I Believe" this last conference (one of my
favorites), something really stuck out to me - the speaker listed off
all these bold claims that we as a church make and how we are the true
church of Jesus Christ and much more, and afterwards she said
something that really stuck out to me...: "If these things are true,
then we have the greatest message of hope and help that the world has
ever known.  Believing them is a matter of eternal significance for us
and for those we love."
 

(Click on the link above to read or listen to the message Elder Wilde is referring to.)
 
That stuck out to me, we - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints has the best, most amazing, most beautiful message this whole
world has to offer, and I know it's true, and if I didn't I would have
been at the Warriors game the other day!  That has to say something.
 
Love you all - God bless.

Elder Wilde

Monday, April 11, 2016

Week 34 - April 11, 2016


Hello there!  Howsssss it going, everyone?!
 
Well, this week I said bye to Elder Tryon.  He's back in Arizona now.
 Elder Tyron packing up to go home.  Elder Wilde is sad to see him go!
 
 Elder Tyron and Elder Wilde
 Eating their last supper-dinner!!!  Wow!

I got my new companion.  His name is Elder Foster.  He is from
Washington State and will be going to Washington State University when
he gets home.  He's been out for about 20 months.
 
Elder Foster, the new companion, and Elder Wilde
Elder Foster is from Washington State
A member who helps the missionaries out by getting them places they need to go.
Elder Wilde:  "I got to see my trainer :)  I was so happy to see him.  (Elder Andrus)  He's a goon." 
Elder Andrus, his trainer, and Elder Wilde

This week was busy.  We called and took members out or they took us out
to visit all the inactive and less actives.  Our home teaching
percentage is now at 70%, pretty high.  I'm sure some of the members
despise me for calling them and making them go do their home teaching
and find these other people.  Hah! They will work, too :)
 
On Saturday, we did service for like six hours at a member's home.  I
should call it an estate.  He has an insane amount of property and is
always building something.  He has basically built everything from the
ground up, pretty impressive.  We helped put up his ceiling, we put
together a massive couch, helped cut wood, lots of different stuff.  He
does a lot for us.  He knows everyone, I feel like.  We were able to meet
a less active and a non-member who we taught at the end of the service
which was great.  We are going to go do service for his neighbor today,
I'll try and take a picture on top of his army truck lol.



One of their service projects for a member was to clean up cow "muck" for about an hour.  Then, as Elder Wilde stated, "We chased cows for another thirty minutes . . . Good times!"

Rosa is the best member in the world, I swear... We asked her if
she could get some of her genealogy done so we can take her to the
temple in May so she could do baptisms for those who have passed away.
The next time we came back she had filled out sheets of paper...
Incredible.  She's going to have so many names!  She baked cookies and
brownies for all of Primary and Relief Society... she brings all her
standard works (Bible, Book of Mormon, etc.) to church and a big
notebook to take notes... She's in paradise whenever we come over or
whenever she can go to church.  It was so funny.  We were reading the
Restoration pamphlet with her (she loves to read English so she can
learn) and at the end there is a line that says, "How you can know this
is true?"  She stopped and was just like, "Of course true! What people
not understand!"  We all started laughing.

We had a very neat experience this week.  We were driving to a member's
home who was taking us out and as we were driving on the side of this
somewhat steep road, we saw this older lady pushing her disabled son in
a wheelchair up the hill.  I saw it and immediately felt the Spirit
tell me to turn around and help, but I somewhat ignored it and then we
got to the person's house (mile down the road) and I felt the Spirit
super strong GO BACK AND HELP HER, so I told Elder Foster, we need to
turn around and go help that lady.  So we drove back, parked the car on
the side of the road, and I persistently asked to push the chair for
her, finally she let me... We walked and talked for about a mile - she
was going to push him a mile, a grown disabled man a mile with some
horrible wheel chair!  We both felt great after.  They actually knew
some members of the church and we are actually going back over to
their house later this week.  Neat experience.

I want to share part of a conference talk

If I were to ask you, “Who is the greatest leader who ever
lived?”--what would you say?  The answer, of course, is Jesus Christ.
He sets the perfect example of every imaginable leadership quality.
But what if I were to ask you, “Who is the greatest follower who ever
lived?”--wouldn’t the answer again be Jesus Christ?  He is the greatest
leader because He is the greatest follower--He follows His Father
perfectly, in all things.  The world teaches that leaders must be
mighty; the Lord teaches that they must be meek.  Worldly leaders gain
power and influence through their talent, skill, and wealth.
Christlike leaders gain power and influence “by persuasion, by
long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.” In
God’s eyes, the greatest leaders have always been the greatest
followers.


As I was reading this, there are a stories in both the Bible & Book of Mormon.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when Jesus Christ
washed his apostles' feet.  I love what he said in John 13:  "If I then,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one
another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that ye should do as
I have done to you.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not
greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that
sent him."

King Benjamin addresses his people.

It's beautiful how he serves others out of love and leads by example.
Another example I like is when King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon is
talking to the Nephites and he is telling them how to serve he says in
Mosiah 2:  "I say unto you that as I have been suffered to spend my
days in your service... And even I, myself, have labored with mine own
hands that I might serve you... Behold, I say unto you that because I
said unto you that I had spent my days in your service, I do not
desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.  And
behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may
learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are
only in the service of your God."

Anyways, I've definitely have been trying to apply this with my new
companion.  Instead of getting frustrated I've tried to serve him and
be a better example.  I feel like it's gone well so far!  Of course,
always more that can be done.

Remember who you are!  Love you all

Elder Wilde

Monday, April 4, 2016

Week 33 - April 4, 2016


Hello, everyone! 

Well, the transfer is over and I will be getting my new
companion tomorrow!  I'm nervous and excited.  It was hard to say bye to
Elder Tryon.  He is such a stud.  I'm excited for him and the
experiences he has in the future!
 
This week was great.  Really don't have too much to write about this
week.  Really enjoyed General Conference.  I'd say the three themes they
talked about were:  1.  Humility vs. pride  2.  Knowing who you are and
3. Temples.
I'll be sure to share some of my favorite parts of the talks with you
all next week.

Some things I jotted down that stuck out to me were:

- We live in a world that can cause us to forget who we are.  With all
of the stresses, distractions, and temptations of the world, we forget
that we are children of a loving God.
- God sees us who we can become and not who we are at this very
moment.  "We all know a Saul who has the potential to become a Paul."
(Turn from wickedness to righteousness)
- *Jesus Christ is the greatest leader because he is the greatest
follower.*  True disciples help others come unto Christ; leadership
doesn't come from having an enthusiastic, upbeat personality; it comes
from being righteous.
- Most people are as happy as they make their lives out to be.  "Seek
and ye shall find. " If you're looking for bad in people you'll find it,
if you're looking for good you'll find it.  What are you looking for?
- The secret to happiness = having a love of God in your heart
- Remember who you are and who God expects you to become.
- It's better to take the long way if it's the right way than to take the
short and easy way when that is the wrong way.
 
I'm sure there was lots more, but that's a few things that stuck out to me.
I love hearing the testimonies of the leaders of the church.  They are
so powerful; nobody can deny that they are special witnesses, and if
 someone does deny it - they are wrong.
 
We are teaching this 19 year old girl, Amy.  Her boyfriend is our 
Ward Mission Leader's son.  She is awesome and very prepared.  She doesn't
come from a religious background whatsoever, and she is the first person
I have ever taught that doesn't have any type of relationship; we were
able to teach her the Restoration, and what a powerful spiritual lesson
it was!  I'm excited for her; she will be baptized for sure.
When I teach the Restoration, I get very excited.  I love it.  It's
beautiful.  It's true.  It makes sense, it feels right, it is what the
world has been waiting for.  It's what has been prophesied about for
years and years and years.  While others lack answers to some of the
most important questions of life, I'm so grateful for the knowledge
and peace the restored gospel brings into my life and the lives of
those around me.
 
Rosa, the Hispanic lady we tracted out into that is a member, came
home from church that Sunday and her atheist husband threw a bunch
of anti-Mormon stuff at her face and told her that she could either
leave the church and stay with him or stay with the church and she
would be kicked out - she chose the Church and is now looking for a
home.  That is faith right there.  She watched every session of
conference and reads the Book of Mormon all day.  She's
incredible.
 
God bless.

Elder Wilde