Monday, January 28, 2013

Hey!!

Hope everyone is doing okay. I'm doing pretty good. I don't know how good my email will be because we are kind of in a rush. This morning one of the members took us crawfish fishing or crawfishing. Whatever you want to say it as. It was pretty fun. We went out by one of the bayous. We just had to bait the nets and put them in the bayou. Then after like 20 minutes we went back and pulled them up. We ended up catching quite a few crawfish. So right now the member that took us is boiling them up at his house so right after we are done emailing we are going to go over there and having a crawfish boil. It made me feel like I was an actual southern boy. Kind of like Huckleberry Finn...haha. Anyways it's been super hot here this past week. It's been in the 80's I think. I guess it's only cold for December and January. It already feels like summer time. So last night one of the families in the ward invited us over for dinner because it was their dog's birthday. This family is super sweet so they pretty much find every excuse to invite us over. It's like their work and glory to take us down to New Orleans one of these days. So probably pretty soon I will be going down to Nawlins again. We have alot of sweet members in our ward. There are some people I want to go visit like everyday. And then there are other members in the ward that I don't really like at all. They don't give me the time of day. It's hard to love everyone but I guess that's something I need to work on. Lets see....so we are still teaching Sis. Dubois. We had a super sweet lesson last Wednesday about Joseph Smith. It's kinda weird because we don't leave any commitments or invite her to do anything. We kinda don't even really teach her. We just teach the whole family. So we will probably be teaching the Plan of Salvation on Wednesday. This should be huge lesson because I think the only reason she doesn't get baptized is because when she was a teenager her mom died and her mom was a catholic. So I think she feels like if she got baptized she would be letting her mom down or something. That's crazy that basketball is already over for Jaden..it feels like baskeball just ended for me and that was a year ago...wow. Speaking of basketball I think I'm actually going to go play some basketball today with my zone. That's always fun. Anyways I can't reallly think of anything else. I'll probably have some more stuff to say next week. Hopefully. haha...love you!

Elder Tyler Willis

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Hello!!

Sounds like everything is going good. I'm doing good. That's so cool you went to Elder Petersons talk. I mean Blake haha. Yeah he told me he was going to make a shout out for me in his talk but I guess he didn't. I didn't know his companion he was talking about but he told me all kinds of funny stories from that companion. He did say he was going to come to my homecoming talk but that's a while away so we will just have to see about that. There are a few missionaries from Arizona mainly from the Valley. My Zone leader is from Az. So my week went by pretty fast. It was a pretty crazy week. The family we were teaching dropped us....we went over there to visit them and they were just like we decided we are going to go back to our old church. That was shocking for us...they had a baptismal date for Feb. 2nd. I don't understand how someone can know of the truth and feel the Spirit testify the truth to them then decide to go against it. I guess that's why it's super important to continue to keep commitments and read the Book of Mormon daily. Hopefully someday they will come back around. So the Dubois family (The way your saying it is probably way different than what it actually is) we started teaching the mom. It went super good. We teach the whole family while we are there even though it's mainly just for her. Bro. Dubois told us we can't let anyone know about teaching his wife. We can't even put it on our missionary reports. It kinda feels like we are on some top secret mission to get her baptized. He doesn't want the ward to know and go up to her and put her on the spot about it and then scare her off. The past couple weeks I have been studying harder than before just so I can teach her as best as I can. I feel like I can't let Bro. Dubois down...so your prayers will help :) He told us on Sunday that his wife said that after we taught her that things are starting to make sense to her now. So that's a good sign. This past week we got a call from this guy that said he had been a member his whole life and he just moved into the area and wanted to meet us. We met him at the church and sat down and started talking to him. Then he was like I have a few questions I wanted to ask you guys. He's like so Moroni told Joseph Smith where the gold plates were and he then translated them through the power of God? We're like yeah...he's like tha'ts not true.....I just thought to myself "Oh boy...here we go" Haha. He has all these papers that are Anti-Mormon articles. He has been studying this anti stuff for like 3 years. Some of the stuff he had was actually pretty good anti stuff that I never heard before. I'm trying to show him all these scriptures to prove him wrong but he won't really listen to us. The only thing I can really do is just bear my testimony and tell him none of that's true. He asked me what if this stuff is actually true and the church has been hiding these things from us all these years. I told him if this church isn't true I would be glad to go live in Hell. So eventually after like almost 2 hours of this we get out of there. Haha. I think my companion was a little shaken up after that experience. It didn't shake me up at all. I actually feel like it strengthened my testimony even more. So other than that that was pretty much my week. Can't wait to hear back from you guys. I love you all.

Elder Tyler Willis

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Hey!!

Well sounds like things are going good. Well transfers are tomorrow and everything is staying the same. I'm with the same companion again and the other elders I live with are staying too. One of them is leaving in the middle of this transfer so in a few weeks we will have a change in our apartment. It should be good to change things around for a little bit. After a while people start to get pretty annoying. I thought for sure my comp. would be getting transfered because he has been here for 9 months now. So I'm trying to send off a package to you guys today or tomorrow. It has my pants in it and some other stuff I got down in New Orleans. You can get me new pants or get me whatever you want. New Orleans was fun. We went to the french market and the river walk. We aren't aloud to go into the french quarter or bourbon st. It's too wicked down there. And really gross. It was still super fun though. So I couldn't get you guys pictures this week. I'll try to send some next week. Right now we are at the LSU library. This morning we went and played bball with some missionaries in Baton Rouge. And were hanging out with the Zone leaders for the day. So nothing too crazy happened this week. We were kinda busy this week so we didn't get to see alot of people. On Wednesday we had a conference with Elder Packer. Not Boyd K. Packer but his son Allen F. Packer. He is in the Seventy. That was pretty neat to listen to him and see what he had to say. It was good and really enjoyed it. Then on Friday we went to the Temple. I finally got to go on my mission. Haven't been to the temple in 6 months. Haha. The Baton Rouge temple is really small. Way smaller than the Snowflake temple. Going to the temple was really good. It reminded me of in the summer when just me and mom would go every week before I left. Those are memories I'll cherish forever. We did get to go see the family we are teaching. They haven't been to church since the first time they came about a month ago. When we go over there we have super sweet visits with them and we commit them to come to church but then on Sunday they never show up. They had a date for Feb. 2 but I don't think that will be able to happen. We will have to push it back a little bit. So we will just have to wait and see what happens with them. So the other day something sweet happened. There's this family in our ward. The dad is a member. He's super solid and he loves the missionaries. He's probably one of the coolest people I've met so far down here. His wife is not a member though. She comes to church every sunday. She's been coming for like the past 2 years. She even has an assignment for achievement day I think. And they have two little daughters. The wife just doesn't get baptized for some reason. So they scheduled us for dinner tomorrow night. So the other day he calls us to confirm our dinner for tomorrow. Then he's like would it be okay if you guys taught the lessons to my wife too. I guess his wife wants to hear the lessons and he thinks she is ready to hear the lessons. She is super cool too. She really likes us alot. So we are pretty excited to start teaching her. So he thinks she ready to hear the lessons from us. We are super excited for this. I'll keep you guys informed with everything. Other than that nothing much is going on. That was pretty much my week. I always keep you all in my prayers. I love you.

Elder Tyler Willis

Monday, January 7, 2013

Hey!!!

Sounds like you guys had another crazy week. Well it doesn't sound like the basketball team is doing too good.  I can't write much because in a little while we are going down to New Orleans. One of our members is taking us down there to go see the French Market and everything. So it should be pretty fun. This past Saturday we did have our baptism. It went pretty good. The cool thing is that during the program and everything the kid's mom that isn't a member started crying. I think it was because one of the bishopric was talking on eternal families so hopefully that hit her pretty hard and she felt the spirit. So now we just hope and pray that that experience will soften her heart and she will get baptized. I mean if that experience won't inspire her to get baptized I don't know what will. And also the other family we are teaching is doing good. We went and taught them the other day and had a super sweet lesson with them. The spirit was so strong in that lesson. The funny thing is that they have this little dog that likes to bite your hand and play with you so this little dog is just all over me trying to bite my hand while I'm trying to challenge them to be baptized. So I'm beating this dog off while I'm trying to teach them so that was pretty crazy. So now they have a date for Feb. 2nd. Hopefully things continue to go good with that family. They are super sweet. Well transfers are next week. So I'll email you on Tuesday. My companion will probably be getting transfered. So I'll let you know what's going down next week. Sorry my letter is so short we are just in a hurry. Oh and next week I'll try and send you some pictures from the baptism and stuff. I love you all and your in my prayers.

Elder Willis

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Hey!!

Sorry this email is pretty late but the libraries have been shut down for the past couple weeks because of the holidays. So it was really good to hear from you guys. Sounds like everyone is doing pretty good. Haha I'm sorry I looked tired but when I was talking with you guys I just woke up from taking a nap. I still enjoyed it though. Right after I got done talking to you my companion told me we were on lockdown because there was a tornado warning. So we were stuck there for another hour. Christmas was good for me though. It didn't really feel like Christmas though. It just felt like another day for me. I guess because we didn't do too much celebrating. Oh and I'll probably have to send those pants home  because they don't fit me. They are too short for me. I guess I'm just growing too much. Everything else is fine though. Thanks. Sounds like the demolition at Grandmas is going pretty good. Sounds like you guys know what your doing. I wish I was there to help you out now that I'm a professional at demolishing houses!  I probably won't ever forget Hurricane Isaac. So many good experiences. Anyways New Years Eve was on P-Day this year so we were on lockdown starting at 6. So we had all day p-day. It was pretty fun but after a while you just start thinking of things to do because you get bored. We did go golfing though so that was fun. Except I accidentaly hit a car in the street teeing off on one of the holes. So I probably shouldn't golf anymore. I'll stick with basketball.

The 9 year old we are teaching should be getting baptized this Saturday if everything goes well. We still have to teach him a couple more lessons. So we will have to squeeze those in sometime before Saturday. This family is also not too good at remembering when we have appointments with them. Hopefully they will  remember we are coming by and not go out of town like they have done  the past couple of times. Next week I'll let you know what happens. We might have to move the baptism back another week. The other little family we are teaching is doing pretty good. They have been really sick lately so they didn't come to church. We have stopped by a couple times to see them and they still really want to come to church but they are too sick. One time only the husband was home so we got a chance to just teach him a little bit and that went really good. The family seems like they really like us and our church. Hopefully things continue to go well there. Those are really the only people we are teaching right now. Anyways I can't really think of anything else other than I'm doing pretty good. Tell Jaden I said Happy B-Day!!! 17 haha it still feels like I'm 17 sometimes. Hopefully he is tearing it up at the blue ridge tourny. Tell him I said to yurpie on them. Well can't wait to hear from you guys again. I love you so much and your always in my prayers.

Elder Tyler Willis