Monday, December 17, 2012

Hello Family!!
Well hope everyone is doing pretty good. I'm doing fine. This week was just another week. Nothing too exciting has happened. That's so cool to hear that Trevor got his call here. Yeah me and him were really good friends. We hung out all the time in Thatcher. So I'm pretty pumped now that he's coming here. Now I can't wait for March. Who knows maybe I'll even be his trainer. Haha. So I got your package. It's been so fun to open a little present everyday so far. The other elders also got 12 days of Christmas so we all get around and open our presents each day. Christmas should be fun this year. We have some appointments with some really cool families. So I dont know if I'll be able to email next week because the library will be closed. We might email on Sunday I'm not sure though. So if I don't email next week I'll just call you guys on Christmas and tell you to get online to Skype or what. It will probably be sometime in the early afternoon so just be looking for a phone call from a weird number. I'll probably call mom's cell phone if I can remember the number. If I do get to email I'll probably let you know some more details. But anyways this past weekend we had our ward Christmas party. We had to help the ladies set up and decorate the whole gym the day before. They were like yelling and getting mad at us because things weren't centered or there wasn't enough decorations on things. I'm just thinking to myself ...well did you think the missionaries were good at decorating things? The ward party was pretty good though. The primary kids put on a little Christmas program. I decided little kids from Louisiana are so crazy. Like if you thought the kids back home were crazy you just need to see some little cajun kids. They were just running around and screaming everywhere and while someone would be playing the piano they would just run up to it and start banging on the piano keys. Or go up to the mike and start yelling in it. I had a little headache afterward. So if the world ends on Friday I just want you to know you were a great family. Haha thats what alot of people we see down here ask us. On Sunday we had a little family we are teaching come to church. We have been teaching them the past couple weeks now. This last lesson we had was so good. They are so ready to accept the gospel. I can feel that they are so close. Hopefully things will continue to work out with them and the whole family will join the church. That would be awesome. So I'm sending off the families Christmas package today. You can open when you get it or you can wait till Christmas to open it. It doesn't matter to me whatever you guys want to do. I also sent off a letter to Jaden and Makenzie today. Hopefully they get excited for that. Well I can't think of anything else. I can't wait to talk to you guys next week. Remember you all are in my prayers. I love you.
Elder Tyler Willis

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Dec. 10th, 2012

Hey!!
Well another week down--- 5 months gone....time is going by fast. So mom you're getting up there in the numbers now?  Haha happy late birthday!  You are the best. Thanks for everything.  Well I'm doing pretty good. We had another slow week with lessons--- 1 lesson this week.  It was a sweet lesson though.  We met this family at the flea market. They were way excited about coming to church but then they got sick so they didn, t end up coming. Hopefully we will be able to see them this week and teach them more. So I have been sick the past couple days. I guess there is a cold going around. I've had a super bad sore throat. I still have those emergen-c things you sent me a while ago. I've already drank like 5 of those the past couple days. I should be fine though. So in our ward my companion and I are pretty much getting forced into singing in the choir. I never thought I would sing in a choir. It's alright though.  The past couple days here have been pretty warm. It's crazy. I never thought I would have to turn the a/c on in December. Sometimes I wish it could be snowing just so I can feel the cold weather again. Anyways nothing too exciting happened this week. Just a normal week. Let's see I did fix a homeless guys bike though. This guy was a little slow but anyways his pedal fell off and I fixed it for him. Then he kept asking me for an estimate of how long it would last him. I was like it should last for a while. He asked me that like 5 times. Then he started telling me how good of shape he is in. He was like I can do 37 pushups. I was like oh yeah? Then he was like want to have a contest. I said sure. So he only does 20 pushups. Then I just do 21 pushups real quick. He was trying to tell me how I cheated. I'm just like sure....so I tell him to keep on doing those pushups and I'll come back later and we will have another contest. So that was really the only interesting thing that happened to me this week. Let's see we did go visit this one guy and he was just chilling on the couch with just his underwear on the whole time. So that was super awkward. Christmas is coming up fast. I bet you all are super excited for Christmas time. Being a missionary during Christmas is great because it's a great time to share a message about Jesus Christ and some people will actually want to hear it. . I didn't get your package yet but I should be getting it pretty soon. I'm still working on the family package. Hopefully I should get it done this week. Anyways can't wait to hear back from you again.    Love you!
Elder Willis

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Hey!
Hows everyone? Sounds like things are going pretty good now that things have slowed down. Wow a ton of people are getting married it sounds like. So you finally got Jaden and Makenzie to write me after last week when I said they don't write me anymore and they forgot about me. I got the letter and I laughed because I just pictured mom back home forcing Jaden and Makenzie to write me. I can picture them just sitting on the couch complaining and moaning about writing me.  (MOM'S NOTE:  I told Jaden & Makenzie to write Tyler before we got his e-mail.  It made them glad that they had a letter in the mail before they got this e-mail!) Haha oh well I liked the letter though and they should be getting a letter back from me this week.  . Anyways this week was transfer week and I'm still with my companion. No one in our apartment is changing.  So my first December in Louisiana has been a surprise. It's been in the high 70's the past few days. It doesn't feel like Winter time at all. It still feels like I've been in Summer weather since I have gotten here. It's weird because somedays it will be super cold and then the next day it will be in the 80's. The weather here is very strange. When it gets cold here it's cold. The humidity just makes it a bone chilling cold. So this morning a member took us to play frisbee golf. First time I have ever played that. It was pretty fun even though I couldn't throw a frisbee to save my life. I guess I'll just stick with basketball. So this past week nothing too crazy happened. Still a slow week with lessons. I think we only taught 1 lesson and that was to a recent convert. For the month of November our whole Baton Rouge Zone only baptized 1 person. That just shows how hard the work is down here. So the First Presidency Christmas Devotional was very good. I don't know if you guys watched it or not but I just get pumped up everytime I get to watch the Prophet speak. So this past weekend we helped the spanish elders with a booth at a flea market. It reminded me of the fish markets in Mexico. It was just all spanish people there. We had a little christmas booth with copies of the Book of Mormon and stuff. So were just sitting there and I decided to use the little spanish I knew to contact someone and give them El Libro De Mormon. So I walk up to this little women and I start having a conversation with her in spanish. It was a little scratchy though but I got the message across. She ended up taking the Book of Mormon. So after that I had a pretty big head. So paying attention in Spanish class actually paid off for me. So that's pretty much it for this week. The Blue Ridge jacket will be fine. Or my old billabong one if someone hasn't stolen it already. I'm still trying to get your christmas package ready. Hopefully it will be ready in time. So I have a question. Does Makenzie want an ipod for christmas. We were at a thirft store the other day and there was an ipod for like 30 dollars so I bought it even though I never have touched it since. There are some songs on it from the last owner but you can just erase them all. It's a 3rd generation ipod nano I think. If anyone wants it just let me know and I can send it home too. Well thanks for everything. I love you.
Elder Willis