Hello there! Happy Thanksgiving!
Wow, cannot believe November is basically over. It's ridiculous, feels like just yesterday I was walking the streets in South Phila as a young buck missionary.
Just finished stuffing myself with all sorts of pie, now I'm lacing up to play some ball and then going to spend time and have dinner with some members!
(Elder Wilde showing the posted sign: "A House is Not a Home Without a Shitzu!" Elder Wilde's family has two of them!)
This last week was sooo amazing. We had a baptism for one of our investigators who I have been teaching since I have been here in this area. Her name is Beena! She is from Pakistan. She is probably the most angelic person I have ever met. The most darling person out there and seriously always makes me smile. I have been so blessed to work with some incredible people.
Our Mission President came teaching with us on Wednesday and then he actually performed the baptism, she requested him to do it. We had an incredible turnout at the baptism, the room was jam packed. Needless to say, she is being cheered on by everyone! She asked me to speak on the Holy Ghost and in the morning I was trying to find a story online about someone who obeyed a prompting and acted on it, and I felt my own prompting telling me to share the story of when I was living overseas in China and our house caught on fire. I was on my way home from a sporting event and I wanted to go hang out with friends, but for some reason I felt prompted to go home and so I did and the second I got home and opened the doors my dogs came running out of the house and so did a black pillar of smoke (looked like the one from Lost). I talked about how many of our materialistic things were taken from us, but the only untouched item was a picture of our family hanging on the wall. I told her that if she obeys the gospel and follows the promptings of the Spirit, that her family as well could be together forever. It was a tear jerker!
One of the new families we have started working with is from Berma, and I still have no idea how to say either of their names. Seriously the most humble gracious family I have met. They are refugees and have had a crazy life. They speak broken up English so it has been difficult to teach them, but the Spirit is always there. I was having somewhat of a hard day, not that I was down or anything but just some... disappointment/stress just to some prior events that occurred and that to me was just a humbling experience for me. They are so excited to start coming to church and bringing their kids. Darling, I'll get a picture next week.
We had such an amazing miracle - on Friday we missed two appointments and we were just like what the heck! But the day before we had made contact with a potential investigator - well his mother actually. The family is from GuangZhou, China. At the door, when we knocked, the mother was just not interested even though we were there to see the son, Ben. She was about to close the door and I just had a prompting that I needed to speak Chinese. It has been like 5 years - but I remembered enough to be able to ask her how she was doing where she was from -etc. I haven't seen a bigger smile in a long time! I guess seeing a white boy talk Chinese is amusing to them! Anywho, the mother told her son that there is a white kid talking Chinese wanting to talk about God, so he texted us wanting to meet. Anyways, long story short, he is soooo golden and he came to the baptism the next day and then came church the day after that. He doesn't have any real understanding about God etc. but we have had a blast teaching him! He will get baptized in December! He also has a tiny dog named "Happy"... so Asian I love it ha!
Alanna pushed her baptismal date back to the first week of January so her boyfriend from Utah could fly out and baptize her... idk how I feel about that 😐
This upcoming week we will be taking two of our recent converts to the temple to do baptisms for the ancestors who have passed away (baptism by proxy). We are so far beyond excited. Elder Lake is really good when it comes to family history work so he has helped Jack find like 9 names. Amazing! I'm not quite sure what day we will be going yet, but Monday probably won't be our pday.
Well, a bunch of other stuff happened this week but I swear every week just gets better and better as you KEEPtheFAITH and EXPECTMIRACLES (cc Gordon b. Hinckley) - I guess I just want to close by saying thank you to all of you for all of your support, prayers, encouragement - I know that I could not do this without you. I am thankful for my family, my calling as a missionary, the gospel that I am able to be living, all of my trials. Being thankful is a choice regardless of the circumstances you are in - remember that! Having said that I would still prefer the good old California weather than to this chilly windy land. 😅
Love you all,
Happy Thanksgiving
Elder Wilde
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