This just in - all sorts of things are being transferred: the fever, food, credit card funds and Missionaries?

Met Elder Wilding again, he will he back on track soon

Hello from the Post Falls 1st and 5th ward, this week was a week of miracles and blessings.

Last Zone Conference we decided to have a goal of 300 new people to teach 33 new baptisms and and 130 new people at church.  We had specific times in the day we would all pray together as a zone for these goals to be met. We would always pray for strict obedience and to be successful in all our endeavors and ya know what? WE WENT PAST OUR GOAL!

We had 370 new people being taught, 146 new people at church, and 40 baptisms.  We met our goals of the month!

A few days ago I went on an exchange with our zone leaders, Elder Judd stayed in Post Falls with Elder Feller, and I went to Cour de Lane (CDL) with Elder Homer. When Elder Homer and I got to work we talked to everybody we saw. I mean that literally we talked to EVERYBODY. We would sprint down the street if we somebody walking at the next block.  We met a few new people to teach who were just amazing, and we did tons of knocking on doors and visiting people we were teaching.  Apparently Elder Judd had a very similar experience.

An old photo I wanted to send. It's my district

It was Elder Vazquez's birthday on Saturday. His family sent him hatch chili peppers and he made green chili spaghetti for the apartment, it was a little slimy but it was good, and of course we got him a cake as well for the occasion.

It's Transfer week and it looks like I'm staying in Post Falls 1st and 5th with Elder Judd, and even Elder Vazquez is staying, though his companion Elder Fullmer is leaving to be a zone leader in Clark'svill.

I'm glad we are staying, we have so much work that still has to be done, and we have a baptism every week in April, this next transfer is going to be awesome!

We have one lady we are teaching that works at the hospital. We are constantly scheduling lessons with her and she says she wants to come to church, but because there are so many Californians who don't know how to dress for the cold she keeps getting called into work.  Apparently there is some sort if new flu going around. I'm safe though, I have an awesome coat.

They love my driving skills

Spiritual thought time!

This time it is about Obedience 

In D&C 82:10 it says :

" I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise."

I like to think that the Lord is not bound with strong cords, but that He is bound for us, as in He is coming.  Coming to bless us for our obedience to His commandments.  I know you receive blessings in different ways when you follow Gods commandments, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said "some blessing are received instantly, some come later and some don't come till heaven but they do come."

Hey I'm driven here

Thank you all for your support, I enjoy reading letters and receiving emails from you guys at home. 

And Then There Were None

I bet you thought this was going to be a story about 10 little Indians, right?  You will be sorely disappointed.

They All Joined Me Whilst I Was Pondering Life

Hello to all, I have lots to talk about today.

The District on Melted Ice

In this past week Elder Judd and I have gotten tons of work done.  We have gotten 4 more people on date for baptism, that's 6 people in total for baptism!!  Elder Judd and I have created lessons specific for the people we are teaching and boy did we nail it.  We now have 4 confirmed people coming to church along with others on the way, we are still working hard to do the best we can, but with how cold it has been in the past few week everybody has been getting sick and called into work to cover the people getting sick. We have this one person we have been trying to have a lesson with for weeks now, but each and every time we scheduled a lesson with her she was called into the her work (She works at the hospital, and she is in charge of assigning where patients go.  Right now the hospital is so full of patients that they have nowhere to put them. Some of them, I've heard, are being put in the emergency room lobby, that's crazy).

More of the District

In the past week we have been so busy, because we now don't have a car. We have to bike everywhere, and of course now that everything is melting there is mud everywhere and now my dry cleaning bill is gone up a little bit this month. It's not as bad as I am making it out to be most of my pairs of pants are washable.  We have almost biked back and fourth from first and fifth ward, and at the end of each day our legs are dead, not to mention my shoulder bag is 10 pounds, it holds but is not limited to:  two bottles of water one for me and my companion, 5 copies of the book of

 Mormon, about ten thousand pamphlets, five pens, a study journal, my  copy of the Come Follow Me, glasses case and finally a phone charger.  Needless to say, I'm prepared.  

The Damm is Melting

In this past week we street contacted 3 separate people. The first of which was an almost drunk guy trying to turn off his parking lights.  His car was a Subaru. That was the first problem we found. The second was that this model was weird and had a special parking light hiding behind the wheel of the car.  After trying to find the problem for about five minutes, we told him that we might find the problem in the user manual. So we all went inside his home with the manual because it was cold outside.  While inside we found that he had gone through a phase where he (literally) tried every religion out there. After we listened to his story we found the solution to fix his problem. In the user manual switch was just a small and simple push of a button. He then told us that he thought himself spiritual, but not wanting to join organized religion.  After the fact, we testified that he will be able to get that spiritual connection if he were to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. 

There Used to Be Giant Icesicles

On the way to a member dinner we had lined up, we met a guy who was loading up his car.  After a quick word, we found that he was from Vegas and was in northern Idaho to get to a quiet place with less "sinning" around him.  He turned out to be a nice guy, he gave us a couple cans of root beer and we continued to talk in his driveway. We found most of what he

 knows about religion was learned from the history channel. We taught him a few things about the gospel of Jesus Christ, left him a copy of the Book of Mormon and told him to read a few chapters and pray about them.

After that member dinner my companion and I went to our district Come Follow Me session (they don't really set aside a time for us to do that so we scheduled it into our days).  On the way back from that session we found a nice lady trying to break into her own house (she was struggling with her keys).  We did not have too much time to talk with her but we left her with, you guessed it a Book of Mormon to read and pray about.

Don't think we didn't have them read and pray about the Book of Mormon and not schedule return appointments with them because we did, and we are going to be more busy than before.

Scripture time:

In Alma 56 Helaman is tricking Lamanites into chasing his small army.  He had lead them away from their stronghold and into a trap set for them. Sometime during this chase, the Lamanites realized they themselves were being followed by another army of Nephites, so they began chasing Helaman in hopes to destroy the small army and then turn their full attention to the army following them. There is what both Helaman and the Lamanites realized during the chase

40 Now they durst not turn to the right nor to the left lest they should be surrounded; neither would I turn to the right nor to the left lest they should overtake me, and we could not stand against them, but be slain, and they would make their escape; and thus we did flee all that day into the wilderness, even until it was dark.

In that time they could do nothing but continue forward to keep from being overtaken by the Lamanite army.  We ourselves have times where we need to continue forward  towards Christ with all our might, we need to stay firm and not turn to the left or the right, lest we will be overwhelmed by the adversary. And if you ever find yourself going the wrong way, Repent.  Did you know the old translation for repent was Turn Around, so if you find yourself going in the wrong direction, Turn around.

News Flash - (Music plays in the background)

Welcome to the missionary news flash.  Our top story; there is a giant piece of wood spinning in city hall today.  

And that's our Top story.

They Tell Me I Loom Like a Russian

If you are expecting another long email like the last one you will be sorely disappointed, I'm not actually a novelist and I'm typing all of this on a tiny little Samsung phone.

Well, we had a lot of lessons planned for longer than a couple weeks with some members and less active this last week.  They all canceled at the last second so we quite a few blitzes.  We also did lots of tracting.

During a blitz a few days ago, we were called by the Elders we dropped off. They told us that they had forgotten their gloves in the car.  So we had to tell them where the car was, and we had to meet them there, because I like to lock our vehicle in shady neighborhoods.  

Having a Musical, I am Walle

When we first saw the other Elders we saw somebody walking away from them, and we thought that they had already talked to her so we almost passed her by, but the elders were waving desperately at us to talk to her, so we did.

As we talked to her we found that she was super into reading the bible and going to church.  She said that she started going to a church in some other town and that she has good friends there.  She also told us that she has a good relationship with Heavenly Father.  She then told us she would be super into reading the Book of Mormon, and with us visiting her sometime in the future!  Unfortunately this was not our area, ,so we are not the ones who would to teach her.

Remember one of those appointments we had scheduled that fell through?  Well... a miracle happened, because of one of these failures.  We were walking 2 miles to this lesson we had planned and in the downtime we have together, my companion and I get to talk, but that's irrelevant.  While we arrived at the apartment complex where the appointment was, we bumped into a guy who was smoking.  

We are Putting Candy into Boxes at the Food Bank

After we got to know him a little bit (his name is Sean). We found that he had just been incredibly humbled by these past few days.  For example, he in the previous day was in a car crash, lost his phone, and his friend in the passenger seat wasn't wearing a seatbelt.  He found that his friend might have lost his memory and has long cancer, all in the same hospital visit.  His boss also put him on leave so he could work through his issues, and that was in the previous day! Don't get me started on the rest of the week. Anyway, he was super open to meeting with us in the future, and even going to church.  He told us that "all religions are wrong, because they are all the same"  What? 

Welp that is the most of what happened, the sisters met a guy who wrote songs with Van Halen, but that's about it.

It was a lot of Candy

Thanks for all you guys do for me, even the small things.

Our Mascot

While playing Mario Cart, We chose to take Rainbow Road

I have to go, we are about to have a barbecue this P-day and I haven't eaten all day.  See ya!

This weeks latest issue, The Post Falls Elders. Staring Elder Willis

Welp, a lot has happened since the last week. 

Me After a Fun Bike Ride

For instance we went deep into the fifth ward to teach a family on the point of the local mountain, and I never knew that there were so many houses living on the mountain side, I was shocked by how much bigger the fifth ward actually is.  So the family we went to visit were less actives, but it turns out that they just have been out of town for a long while, they had literally just pulled in as we arrived at their house, but they were still happy to see us.  As it turns out they wanted our help to teach lessons to their kids who have grown out of the church, so they made a dinner appointment with us at a time the whole family would be together (that family is massive).

Breakfast at Stake President's House

On another note our mission car needs to be repaired.  While we were coming back from service (we were helping a rodeo move pigs and sheep)  We were driving out of the parking lot, and a frozen snow drift was sticking out on the right side of the parking lot entrance.  Traffic was bad so when I turned out I turned too sharply and the ice that was sticking out scratched and dented the bottom side of the passenger door.  So now I have to file a driving incident report for the church, and we need take the car in to be repaired.

Just now, as I was writing this I got a call from some sisters in Temple Square Utah, they had a referral for us in the fifth ward, how cool is that?  As it happens this guy is in his 60's and has been wanting to join the church for a while, but he did not know were to go to find the church.  Looks like we have some work to do.

My Fender is Broken and I am Covered in Water and Mud

Being able to call home has so far been awesome. Just one month into my mission and now I can call my family once a week. That is awesome!  The missionaries of today have been so blessed by modern technology.  We have phones, we have modern cars, we have indoor plumbing!  It's all great.

So both wards in my area leave food for us at our apartment every day except Sundays and Saturdays, on those days we have members in each ward host us a dinner, so we are already pretty well fed.  We do a lot of service at a food bank, and once we are finished they let us take 10 pounds of food for each elder in our apartment!  So on top of the members bringing us food and the food bank food, so the only groceries we have to worry about are; milk, eggs, bread and cereal. 

Us at the Post Falls Dam

It looks like I'm walking in my father's footsteps, I'm a light novelist.

I'm sorry I forgot to send last weeks email, to make it up I will put on a BUT WAIT!  THERES MORE!

So the the most recent week we were busy working in our fifth ward boundaries, all of which is across a river and high in the mountains.  It is so COOL! In fifth ward, we literally spend like 5 minutes just walking up the driveways of mansion's, (We walk because the plowed roads have no place to park).

We have had major development in our wards.  For starters our wards have been going allover the works trying to have us fed each and every day.  We also have coordinated a ward ward coalition every week for both of our wards.  (Yeeea! Making progress!)

While we were messing around during dinner one day we found a missionary that lived in a part member family in our ward and we thought "huh. That's cool" who would have guessed that we would stumble right into them THAT NIGHT while tracting. 

We Wrestled with Pigs and Goats

Later that night we found a nice looking house that did not shovel their front walkway (probably because when your in the top of the mountains and deep in the woods you don't expect visitors) and right on the door step they have a chicken cooking in the weirdest crock pot looking gadget I've ever seen.  We knocked on the door and this lady comes to the window and politely said "I work from home don't bother me."  We asked if we could leave a Book of Mormon next to her chicken, (I wanted to stuff it into the chicken, talk about feasting upon the words of Christ) she said yes and we left the copy on the ground with our number.

That Bike Ride was Fun for All of Us

Yesterday, we walked 5 miles looking for potentials.  We planned to walk toward a family's house we were going to have dinner at.  We planned to have the member pick us up beforehand but he had some issues to take care of at home.  We were 20 minutes late and right as we walked up to their street, we see the guy get in to his car to pick us up.  While he was backing up he saw us and we smiled and waved at him, we had a small laugh over that.  The dinner was great and their non member son came and ate with us, man he had a lot to say.  He is a salesman so he told us how we were doing the missionary thing wrong. We heard some of the weirdest anti I've ever heard.  Near the end he

 explained to his parents that he was no longer an Atheist, because of some weird thing that happened to him called the Twin Flame Phenomenon. He now claims that he believes that "something is out there, not what you guys believe, but something."  It was an odd and tiring night.

Me, Giving An Example of Bad Posture

Thank you for bearing with and reading my new novel, I call it the, "I'm sorry I forgot to send last weeks email, so here is the brand new email with 35% more email" I like it, rolls of the tongue really well. There are posters coming separately so stay tuned for that next email.

Thank you for shopping at Elder Willis' Weekly Issue.  Tune in next time for; adventure,  excitement and miracles.

Ah look at the time, I need to start the WEEKLY SCRIPTURE MOMENT... moment...... moment......moment.

   

This is Mosiah 18:8-10

The guy talking (Alma) is preaching about baptism and all the commitments we take and the blessing we receive when we are baptized. 

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life.

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?

Those Kids Don't Know What They are Doing - Farm Work

When we are baptized, we basically have to be Christ like, in all that we do; to love others, to be charitable, to help others when they are down and to be the light that shines in the darkness, an example to those who have not a light of their own.