Friday, December 27, 2013

Got to talk to our missionary in person this week :)  We all thought he looked very good.....we love that smile....We felt bad because the mail was pretty slow and he didn't have any christmas presents from his family to open up..:(    Boy, I felt so bad..... He is doing great but says the work is slow....That can get discouraging at  times.....We are proud of his positive attitude and willingness to serve.  He sent us a couple of papers with his Christmas presents and I wanted to have it written down somewhere....He and Elder White wrote this when they served together in Covington....We had a few laughs as we read this.  He also sent one of his favorite poems about being a missionary.....cuz it tells it like it is I guess..:)   Hope you enjoy reading both of them.   We love our missionary and can't wait until Mother's Day to skype again.

 
     Ghetto Ball for Dummies (Mormon Missionaries):

    General Guidelines for Ghetto Ball
   *Get a tat to fit in
    *Forget everything you've ever learned about BBall
    *Keep track of the score in your head because they will try to change it
    *Don't get discouraged if you're the last pick because of the color of your skin...(exceptions: most of the         time the people you have come with is your team)
    *Shirts are optional
    *When in doubt, pull it
    *Assists don't matter
    *In Ghetto Ball there is an "I" in team
    *No blood, no foul
    *Shoot it every chance you get
    *Be as fancy as you can
    *Don't bring money to a Ghetto Ball game, they will hustle you out of it
    *Don't underestimate anyone by their age or size
    *It doesn't matter how high you can jump because they can jump higher
    *You make it, you take it
    *If you have not received the following you didn't play a real game of ghetto ball:  untucked shirt, bruises,       black eye, fat lip, blisters on feet, cuts, strained muscles, chipped tooth, throbbing pain somewhere on
    your body
 
IMPORTANT:  show no signs of weakness because they already think you are a sissy

WAYS TO KNOW YOU ARE NOT PLAYING REAL GHETTO BBALL:  less than 30 swear words said in 1 game......more white people than black people.......if at least 1 person does not have a tear drop tattoo.......full court game or 5 on 5.....play a game to more than 15

ALSO IMPORTANT:  
   *If you lose more than 3 times in a row, never go back
   *Don't schedule pick-up games because they won't show up
   *If they say yes to a pick-up game by text don't get too excited.....chances are they will flake out on you


He sent us a copy of a poem that he really likes:
 
Highs-n-Lows  By Jack L Brinkerhoff

A mission is a strange experience.
It's a trial and a test.
A mission throws at you the worst,
yet teaches you the best.

They told me this would be the best period of my life.
But I guess they didn't explain it all too clear.
I came out looking for a bed of roses.
I just wasn't expecting all the thorns I've found out here.

Since I've been out I've never been so happy.
I've never been so depressed.
I've never felt so forsaken.
I've never felt so blessed.

I've never been so confused.
My mind has never been so clear.
I've never felt my Heavenly Father so distant.
I've never felt him so near.

I've never been so discouraged.
I've never been so full of hope.
I feel like I can go forever.
I think I've come to the end of my rope.

I've never had is so easy.
I've never had it so tough.
Things have never gone so smoothly.
Things have never been so rough.

I've never traveled through more valleys.
I've never ascended so many peaks.
I've never met so many neat people.
I've never met so many freaks.

I've never had so many ups.
I've never had so may downs.
I've never worn so many smiles.
I've never worn so many frowns

I've never been so lonely.
I've never had so many friends.
Man, I hope this is all over with soon.
Gosh, I hope it never ends.

   

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Hey!! So I was about to email you (Mom) yesterday to tell you Happy Birthday but I decided to just wait until today to tell you Happy Birthday!! So Happy late birthday!! I love you! So yeah today is pday because i'ts transfer week. Me and Elder Smith are staying the same. I'm pretty happy because Elder Smith and I get along really good. We have a lot of fun together. The other 2 in our apartment are staying the same. They were happy too because they wanted to spend Christmas with us. So nothing happening this transfer. Elder White told me that he had to get Emergency Transferred up to Deridder. Which is way up north. I guess a companionship wasn't getting along up there so President put Elder White up there to help the Elder out I guess. So Elder White is really far away now so I probably won't see him that much anymore. But tha'ts sweet to hear about the RV tournament. I guess Jaden is showing me up. Tha'ts awesome he got all-tournament team. I bet he was happy about that. That's better than I ever did. I'll still have to show him whose boss when I get home. :) So the weather is getting pretty cold over there? Haha well this week we had a zone meeting and when we got out of the meeting at like 2 we got in the car and it said it was 90 degrees. Haha it was so hot. It's weird to hear christmas music but yet it's so hot outside. But then towards the end of the week it got really cold. Like in the 40s-50s something like that. So hopefully from now on it will be cooler weather. This past week we ended doing a lot of service for this family. They were putting in a tile floor so we helped them out with that for a couple days. Now I can pretty much say I've done it all on my mission. I've put in tile floors. I've put in wood floors. I've torn down hundreds of houses at the first of my mission. Put in drywall. Just all kinds of stuff. It's cool to learn how to do all things. We did get to watch the Christmas devotional. Just all the missionaries watched it at the church by ourselves. It was pretty good. It's always good to hear general authorities speak. I thought it was pretty cool how Elder Nelson was doing his with the video clips and different voices. It was kind of throwing me off sometimes though but it was good. So I'm pretty sure we will be able to find a place to skype. Nothing set yet but this week we will try to find somewhere to skype and I'll let you know. Well I can't wait to talk to you guys on christmas. I'm excited!! Well i love you guys and pray for you!!
Love Elder Willis :) 

Monday, December 2, 2013

Hey!!
Sounds like you all had a very good Thanksgiving. Lots of food and upset stomachs I bet.. haha mine was a pretty good Thanksgiving. We just had a big lunch at the church with a few members. That was pretty good. Just the normal turkey and potatoes and that stuff. We did have a ton of pies. We did have another family tell us if we wanted we could come over around 3 and eat some more but we decided to skip out on that meal. We were too full. Then for dinner this hispanic family invited all the missionaries over and we ate beans and rice. Not exactly what I was expecting to eat for my thanksgiving dinner. But my thanksgiving was a good one.  It was pretty cold this past week but once December hit it was warm again. Yesterday was like 80 degrees. Last year was like that too. December hit and I was confused because it was super warm. So did you guys go to black friday? Thursday night before we had to go in for the night we decided to stop by Walmart and JCPenney to see what kind of deals they had so for the next day we could come back and get stuff. I don't think I have ever seen so many people in my life. There was people running around everywhere in the store. It was so chaotic. Friday we went to JCPenney so I could buy some pants and sweaters. They had some pretty good deals on clothes so I got me a couple sweaters and pants. There was still a ton of people on Friday afternoon. I guess people take black friday down here seriously. I saw a couple people wearing shirts that said something like "On black friday i will kick, punch, and trample to get what i want" haha..Anyways this past week we didn't get to see very many people because of Thanksgiving and everyone was with family. So yesterday at church something cool happened...there was this black member that brought one of his black friends to church with him and he was wearing big chain necklaces and big diamond rings and it was fast sunday so everyone was bearing their testimonies and right when we were about to end the testimonies the guy gets up and starts walking up to the pulpit and I am sitting in the back and I'm like "oh yeah this is going to be good" so he starts talking to the congregation while he is walking down the isle to the stand and he probably bore one of the best testimonies I've heard. He gets up there and he was like "When I hear the word testimony, I think of the word Test. A testimony is a test of what you have been through." Then he was just like thank you for having me and walks away. I was like dang that was powerful. So that was a pretty cool experience. I hope he comes back to church. He is in the other missionaries area so I wont teach him. Hopefully they will jump on that. Well I hope you guys have a great week. I love you all.
Elder Willis :)



aT
Thanksgiving at the Ward Thanksgiving Feast!

Nov. 25, 2013

Hey!! 
So another week down.. i hope everyone is doing good. I'm doing pretty good. This week went by pretty fast. So that's pretty cool that it was snowing up in Heber. I'm glad i don't have to deal with any snow over here. Even though this past week was probably cold enough for it to snow. It was only like 60 degrees and i thought it was so cold. I guess im not used to the cold weather so when it gets a little cold i think its freezing. I haven't had a chance to go buy me any sweaters or pants yet but I'm going to try to this week hopefully. So thanksgiving should be pretty good this week. We have like a little branch thanksgiving lunch thing at the church on Thursday and then we have a dinner with this nonmember that we did a service for a week or 2 ago. She told us to come over on thanksgiving because they have like 30 dishes....haha I'm probably going to have to do alot of working out this week to burn off all that food. It should be fun. Then on Saturday another member wants to feed all the missionaries here a big feast. So this week I'll probably be getting fed really good. For like traditions down here...its not really any different from back home. I guess people down here always season the food real good. Some people have shrimp...it all depends. Alot of people deep fry everything. It's really fattening. I'll tell you next week what we had for thanksgiving. But this week was like every other week. Just pretty slow. Not really teaching very many people. So you know how I was talking about the guy named Julius we helped move in and he was interested. Well this past week I was standing outside the apartment and he walked out to go to his car so I started talking to him. For some reason we started talking about football and he told me he plays on the semi-pro league here in New Orleans. We talked about that for a while ..  he seemed like he was not interested in the church anymore. Oh well...he still says hi to us every time we see him. I guess it will just take time. Another cool thing this past week is that we visit this less active guy named Travis Lewis. So this last time we were visiting with him we started talking about rapping...oh by the way this guy is black and he has a gold grill and big diamond necklaces and all that stuff. So we were talking about how he raps and he told us he works with Eminem and 50 Cent. So he showed us some albums that he is on or helped with. It was pretty cool. He told us he is trying to get Eminem and all those guys he works with to come to church with him. Haha...I don't think that will ever happen though. The gospel is for everyone though. I asked him what his stage name is and he said "Cheese" It's for real too because he showed us the albums. So if you ever hear any songs from "Cheese" know that I visit him alot. Well that's about all for this week. Yeah I get on Ashlee's blog alot. It does sound like her mission is alot like mine. Very hard to find anyone to teach. Well I can't think of anything else that's going on. Can't wait to talk to you guys on Christmas. I'm looking forward to it. Love you guys!!
Elder Willis :)