My FAMILY!


Well this week I pretty much felt the Spirit unlike any other time in my life. I'll take some parts from my journal entry for you.

Elder Oaks from the quorum of the 12 Apostles came and visited us. We all got to shake his hand. He looked into my eyes and smiled, he loves the missionaries. He asked me where I was from after looking at my name tag. I replied. He smiled and said, "Oh, I have heard of the place." He had a twinkle in his eye as he is in our home town all the time.

Elder Cardon from the 70 and is the West Africa Area President spoke first. He read Alma 4:20.

20 And thus in the commencement of the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, Alma delivered up the judgment-seat to Nephihah, and confined himself wholly to the bhigh priesthood of the holy order of God, to the ctestimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy.

He then told us to remember in our minds and take note forever this day, as we were about to hear from such a man. A man who delivered up his judgement seat and confined himself wholly to preaching the gospel. Elder Oaks used to be a Utah supreme court judge but gave it up when called to the Apostleship.

Elder Oaks wife spoke next, she sounds just like a THS high school girl, even though she is in her mid 60's. It reminded me of high school. She must have had a lot of young women callings or is from our home-town or something haha. She was fun. She is probably a very funny person, but was well reserved for her talk.

Elder Oaks then got up. Man he is a very wise man. He reminds me of Ray Smith a little bit. He got up and talked about how blessed we are to have President and Sister Smith with us, and indeed we are. He then asked us "Who are you?" He explained that on a mission, it does not matter what school you went to, what football team you associate yourself with, the country you are from etc. All are servants of the Lord. Leave the rest of those things for awhile. He then told the senior couple missionaries that it doestn' matter how many grand kids you have etc. We need not to worry about such things on our missions. So I think we are to all be one because "if {we} are not one, {we} are not {His}."
He then talked about 2 things we can do to preach the gospel by the Spirit.

1. Keep the commandments

- Especially watch your thoughts and control them

2. Partake of the sacrament

- with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This means to take the sacrament after recognizing your shortcomings, praying to God asking for forgiveness and trying all you can to repent with a hope and desire to do better next week.

If we have the Spirit then we, even though young and not very eloquent in speech and learning, will be able to put people on the pathway back to Heavenly Father.

He then talked about members. Befriend your members. We should not counsel our leaders or threaten them with the scriptures. He told us the way is to pray for them. he hten explained that was the Lords way. We should not be too directive to the local leaders. I think I have been doing a good job at not threatening the local leaders with scriptures, however I think I might have once or twice...Just concerning boarding schools haha. I do not really recall specifically praying for our local leaders too much if they were falling short. I will do that from now on rather than get frustrated in my mind.

Time is an important thing. He talked about how he learned to manage his time as a 10 year old boy, by working at a radio repair shop. Many young people do not work today even before going on a mission, so most missionaries have not learned how to manage their time yet. He mentioned he had to wake up early, work and use the time well. He mentioned he used to clean the radio tubes. He chuckled because none of us knew what a radio tube was.

He went to college and said he was not the smartest, but he knew how to manage his time, that way he excelled in schooling beyond his peers. He said he got twice as much done as the rest because he could manage his time.

Then Elder Oaks taught me one of my most treasured lessons of my life. He talked about getting help from God. He said that the Apostles meet together and discuss issues concerning the work. He said that he learned a great lesson from James E. Faust concerning help from God. They were all discussing an issue concerning the missionaries in a certain European country not being able to enter into that country anymore due to a hostile government leader. They discussed everything and finally James E. Faust said, "Let's get some spiritual power on this." This is when they asked and pleaded with the Lord for help. This is when the seas can part, this is when the most powerful Being puts in the mighty change.

Elder Oaks said we need to do all that we can and then turn it over to the Lord. He then talked about our mission and how he wanted to get some "spiritual power to work on some issues". He then invited all of us to bow our heads and he would offer a prayer. He then gave one of the most powerful prayers I have ever felt in my life. The Spirit was incredibly strong. I have felt something like that very rarely in my life. His prayer was full of love for the missionaries and brought most everyone to tears. It was also very powerful. I knew that I was in the presence of an Apostle of God.

It was very powerful, my heart was touched and the Spirit overcame everyone. I knew that, "surely this man must be a man of God." It was amazing. Moses must have been like Elder Oaks.

After the prayer he bore his testimony. I don't remember much of what he said but I do know that the church is true. I do know that God is there and that Jesus died for all mankind. I have a greater desire to share this message with everyone. I have a desire to repent and do better each day.

An Apostle's job is to witness of Jesus Christ. He did a good job I can say haha.

President Smith was in tears as mission issues have been weighing heavily on him. He gave Elder Oaks a great big hug after. It was a great day.

Elder Oaks closed and said that he thinks the end is not yet. The gospel will be preached to every nation and then the end will come. All of course in God's own due time.

Anywho it was a great day. 22 February 2011!

Well anywho on the proselyting side of things we are teaching some great people right now.

1st we have a husband and wife we are working with named W. and  J. W was going to be baptized and his wife was still thinking about it, then we came and talked to his wife and now she wants to be baptized. We taught her about the Holy Ghost and how He testifies of the truth, usually through feelings and a whisper. She then had an "ah hah!" moment and then said that she knows it is true. We will baptize them this Saturday. They have 3 little kids. The little boy was all running around crazy when we were there with his little sister. They have a baby that was napping on the moms back. The little boy took a permanent maker and drew all over himself and his little sister as they ran around all hyper, good luck getting the marker off haha. Primary will be good for them haha. They like us a lot and get excited when we come over. I just have to keep them from playing on our bikes and pulling them down on themselves. They were all markered up and climbing on the bikes with dirt all over themselves. They are awesome.

2nd we have a father D and his 10 year old daughter E. D has had a lot of family problems in his life but is doing great now. His daughter is very smart, she can read and does excellent in school. We are working on her with praying, I gave her dad an assignment to pray with her every morning and night for the next 3 days then the little girl is going to report to me how many times they prayed. It should be 6. So I can't wait to go see E and see how many fingers she holds up for how many times they prayed together. They also will be baptized on Saturday.

3rd is an around 25-year-old woman. She lives with a member woman. She has come to church for the past 4 months and has not been baptized. She is around 25 and has been reluctant when taught by past missionaries. We got there planning to teach the member woman's husband. We taught him small and tried to teach her too however she was closed. I then tried to get to know her more by asking her which films she likes, as there were lots of dvd's around. Still she was closed. Upon the next visit I started talking with her as she was playing with her phone and not really listening. Somehow she just asked the question, "how can I know if Joseph Smith had the authority to baptize." It was a miracle. We gave her the Book of Mormon and I texted her a place to read, as it seemed that would be more appropriate for her instead of writing a place for her to read. I called her 2 days later and SHE READ!!! We met with her and she was well read in the chapter and was smiling really big while explaining why Christ was baptized. I asked her why she was so happy. She said she didn't know. "Maybe I'm just happy." We then taught her about the fruits of the Spirit, one of them being joy. We gave her another place to read so she can confirm her joyfulness and confirmation through the Holy Ghost. It was great to see her smiling so big. She accepted to be baptized on the 19th of March. YAHOO! I love that family up there. I want to do all I can to bring them happiness, I pray for them and God is listening and answering.

4th is ES. Her father is an inactive member. She understands the message however is concerned saying, "so what you are saying is all the other churches are false." I then tried to politician my way out of it by saying, "this church has the fullness of the gospel and Jesus built one church" but she saw through it haha. We then walked her through the scriptures and then we asked, "am I saying all the other churches or wrong or did Christ say it first? I don't speak of myself, but I speak the words of Christ." She agreed to be baptized, if, and only if, the Holy Ghost tells her it is true. She committed to come this Sunday to see it. We met the non-active father and he committed to come on Sunday as well with his younger boy. Hopefully they will all come and he could baptize his children. That's what I hope for.

We also have lots of other sweet people. I'll update you more as time goes on.

Our problem this week is that not a lot of people came to church. We think it is because the Spirit wasn't with us as much as it should have been. My companion and I don't always see eye to eye on the best way to teach, but we are working on it. For instance I don't ever ask people which church they currently go to as this builds up a wall right from the beginning, also I don't invite people to church just on the street rather I invite them if we could share this message with them where we could extend a church invitation in a setting where the Holy Ghost is there more fully and where we can write down the commitment and follow up on it later as to not establish a non-commitment keeping relationship right from the beginning. As you can tell President taught us this haha. Whenever we learn a new a way to do missionary work, and are taught the reasons why, i'll usually just change and follow it with ease. A lot of times i'll just follow it without really knowing why. "sir yes sir, will study with my shoes on from now on, i'm not sure why but yes sir!" Anywho we resolved everything and should have the Spirit with us more fully this week.

I hope that everything goes well this week with church attendance. Oh Collins and Sis Joyce sister Vanessa are officially baptized. High 5!

Well we have a zone leaders counsel this week. Man I think it'll be a ceo-esque meeting. Also this is the time when we all let loose and use our normal vocabulary. I'll let you know how it goes haha.

Well I gotta run. The work is sweet and all is well.

Glad to hear about the BYU basketball player guy shooting 3 pointers, whoot!

ALSO WHAT THE HECK! WE TRADED WILLIAMS! Man WHY WHY WHY WHY! Well I don't care about the Jazz anymore. Sloan and Williams are gone. Well poop.

Anywho I love you all. I'll talk to president Smith about my BYU form thingie this week, just got it in the mail.

p.s. I inhaled all of the gronola bars and chocolate. Cheescake soon to come. I love you all.

Elder Bills