Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Hey!!! Everything with me is going pretty good. My week was a pretty good week. That's crazy that you guys are out of school already. Time is just flying by. So what are you guys going to be doing for the summer? Hopefully it will be pretty fun. I still haven't received the contacts in the mail. Maybe it will come in the next couple days. This past week for me went by pretty fast. We did a lot of service. I think things in this area are starting to get going. We have a couple sweet things that have happened lately. So there was this part member family that moved in from Ohio. They are only like 21 or 22 I think. He grew up here then moved to Ohio and got married and then they moved back down here. So his wife is not a member. They are a really nice couple. We got to help them move into their house. So hopefully we will be able to teach her a little bit and see how interested she will be. They came to church last Sunday and she participated in class and everything. Then this past Sunday our Bishop started talking to us and said he had received a text from a bishop in another ward and said there was this girl from Utah that came to church and she lives in our area and she wants to get baptized. So she came to our ward on Sunday. We don't really know the whole story yet but she lived in Utah and graduated high school there and then she moved out here for a job I think. She's only like 20 or 21. She is pretty sweet. She wants to take the lessons from us and some of the members said they were talking with her and she told them that she wants to get baptized. This is pretty sweet that an investigator like this just falls into our arms. So we will be having a lesson with her this weekend. I think a family in our ward invited her to take the lessons at their house so we will probably be having the lesson at a member's house. That's all that's new with our investigators. The other 2 investigators we have are still moving along real slow. 1 of them said he was going to come to church but he didn't....life of a missionary. :)  The other 1 we helped him and his wife move into another house. So I think he really appreciated that. Hopefully that softened up his heart a little bit more to us. The work here has been slow for like the whole time I've been here but every once in a while we will have a little time of success. Right now we're starting that little time of success. Hopefully we can catch on to this while it lasts. So here's a cool story for you guys....we were riding our bikes down the sidewalk. Then there was this gap in the sidewalk so I had to jump over it. It wasn't anything too difficult because I jump over stuff with my bike all the time. I got to have fun somehow when I ride my bike. Anyways I jumped over this gap and when I land my front tube explodes out of the tire. I don't have any grip on my front tire so it just slides out to the side. Because I was going pretty fast the back end of the bike flips over. So I end up doing a couple sommersaults and rolls with the bike. I tried to hurry and get up and start riding again like nothing happened but I saw that the tube had exploded so we had to wait there for a while so we could fix my tire. There was an ambulance that came but nothing was wrong with me. I barely even got a scratch. I don't know if someone saw me and called an ambulance or what but I thought it was pretty funny that an ambulance had to come. I promise I'm fine. I've had many falls and breaks throughout my life so this is nothing. Just a cool story. Anyways that was pretty much my week. Really hot, humid, and sweaty!! Well talk to you guys later. Love y'all!
Elder Willis

Monday, May 20, 2013

Hey!!

Hope you all are doing good. Everything with me is going pretty good. Sounds like Ashlees farewell went pretty good. She is going to be a great missionary. I'm excited for her. So I bet you all are ready for school to be out? I can't believe school is already out. It seems like it just started for you guys. So any sweet plans for the summer? Probably just being lazy huh? Well my week was a pretty good week. The new missionary that got transferred in was actually here in Gonzales when I first got transferred here. So we lived together for like a transfer and he left but now he got transferred back so that's pretty cool. It's sweet to have a missionary you already know and like get transferred in an area with you. I'm just hoping for one transfer that me and Trevor get to be companions. :) That would be sweet. So yeah Aunt Laurie did send me Byron's announcement. It was nice. I was wondering if you ever sent those contacts off? Because I thought you said you were going to send them off but I never got them. So I don't know if your still waiting to send them off or what? Anyways about my week. We had a couple lessons with one of our investigators. They went pretty good. He really wants to get baptized but he just has a smoking problem holding him back. He was really the only person we were able to teach this week. Everyone else was to busy or we couldn't get ahold of them. The weather here has been warming up real fast. It's probably getting close to the 90's now and its super humid. I think this is going to be a long summer...We decided to ride our bikes a few days this week. We probably rode about 15-20 miles this week. I think I'm going to have to throw away a couple of my white shirts now because they are all gross from the sweat. Haha they aren't really white anymore. But this week we did some more yard work for some families. There was one day we just showed up at like 11 o'clock and knocked on the door and told them we were cutting their lawn for them. They felt so grateful for us. It's always nice to give selfless service to people. That's one of the things I enjoy most is just serving people. So I got to do some fun things this week. I really got to experience the Louisiana culture because I actually got to go to my first real crawfish boil. Down here when someone graduates from high school they will have a little party where it's all crawfish and jambalaya and all kinds of food. So we got invited to 2 crawfish boils this week. It was super crazy. So here's how a crawfish boil goes down just so you know. They have about 3-4 tables just lined up against each other. Then when the crawfish is done they pour it all on the table and you just start grabbing crawfish and eating it. There's no plates or anything. Just like 2 feet of stacked crawfish on the tables. I'm not very good at peeling crawfish. I felt kinda wimpy because there were girls that had like 5 crawfish peeled and eaten by the time I got done with 1. But after a while I started getting the hang of it. The best part is once you peel off the tail and get the meat out you take the head and suck out all the stuff in the head. At first I was a little hesitant to suck out the head but then I did it and it was like the best part. And they will throw some potatoes and corn in with the crawfish. It's super hot too so the whole time your trying to eat crawfish you are just sweating all over the place. There was a couple of times when I tried peeling the tail and it popped all over my white shirt. It was nasty. So crawfish boils are pretty crazy. You guys just need to experience it for yourselves.... Well that was pretty much my week. I can't wait to hear from you guys again. I love you all!

Elder Willis :))