Hey!

Sounds like you guys had a good time at the reunion. Everyone is looking good from those pictures you sent me. Looks like everyone is growing up. Well this email will probably be pretty short because I don't have much to talk about. I can't really remember too well anything that happened this past week. Just another normal week of missionary work. Maybe I should just stop emailing you guys until I get home? How would you like that? 4 weeks without hearing from me. Haha. Anyways...so it seems like the weather here intensified this past week. Its been so hot lately. That's one of the things I wont miss about this place. When we go outside I start sweating before we get in the car. This past week we did some service for an older couple. We shoveled some dirt for them. Within probably 15 minutes my whole shirt was soaking wet. I'm pretty excited to get back to Arizona and not sweat so much. Has it been hot in Heber? Well this past week the Sister missionaries had 2 girls  like 11 and 10 get baptized. So I got to meet with them for a little bit a couple days before their baptism. They are neighbors of some members. They were going to have their neighbor baptize them but he was at girls camp with all the young women and they didn't know if he was going to be back in time. So the 2 girls wanted me to baptize them if he wasn't going to be back in time. I felt good that they were excited to find out I could baptize them. But the member ended up getting home from camp on time so he was able to baptize both of them. I didn't mind though. I would rather have their neighbor baptize them anyways because he is their fellowshipper. They were sweet girls though. I don't know if you remember my patriarchal blessing but it talks alot about stuff on my mission. Like being able to baptize someone. I think about that alot. It doesn't bother me too much but it is something I think about. I have talked to alot of people about it and I have even talked to President Wall about it in our interviews. I have received some pretty good insight about it though. Its no biggy though. When I get home I have so much stuff I want to talk to you guys about. Just like about missions or the church or just like life in general. Coming on a mission just makes you look at life in a whole different way. You just view things different. It's pretty cool. Anyways for the past few weeks we have been running alot. The member that takes us frisbee golfing every morning is training for a half marathon. He pretty much does everything for us. He likes us alot. But he takes us running with him and another member. We run 4 miles Monday and Wednesday. Then on Saturday is our big runs. We started out at 5 miles a few weeks but we go up a mile every Saturday so this past Saturday we ran 7 miles. This morning we ran 4 miles and this Saturday we will run 8 miles. We wake up at about 4 and go run. He usually takes us to a golf course that we run at. The other missionaries don't want to go alot of the times because its too early. But we go anyways. Haha. Hopefully this will get me in pretty good shape when I go home. Tell Jaden he better do some more running because I'll go running with him when I get home and we will see who is in better shape. The thing that's nice here is that its really really low elevation so breathing is really easy. In Heber my first time running I'll probably be running out of breath. Oh so I was wondering if you guys could put some money on my card. I think I'm going to start sending some stuff home in the next couple weeks. And I might want to buy a couple more souvenirs before I leave. So if you guys could do that sometime soon that would be great. And if any of you guys want anything else from here before i leave just let me know. Oh one more thing is mom i saw some papaya at walmart the other day and it made me really want a papaya drink!   Love ya

Elder Willis :)

              Tyler's Zone

May 19th
Hey! 

I hope you all had a good week. I bet you all are excited to be done with school. I know i would be. Its crazy how fast the year goes. It seems like just barely you guys were telling me that you were about to start school. So you guys are starting to get warmer weather? Your probably excited for that. Here its already super hot. Its killing me. I wish they would let us wear cargo shorts and sandals to proselyte in. That would be so nice. My white shirts get so sweaty. I have to wash them constantly. Well this is the last week of the transfer and then i will be in my last transfer. Its pretty exciting. So next Monday we will get transfer calls but im pretty sure im just going to finish my mission out here in St. Amant. I wouldnt mind it. I like this place. I will probably stay with Elder Gosch too. But you never know though. So ill email you guys on Tuesday. Dad i got your email about the Chiropractor. I wasnt able to go to him this past week but im planning on scheduling a couple appointments this week or something. So next week ill let you know how its going. My knee is feeling a little better. I have been using the TENS twice a day and those pills the doc gave me are working pretty good. They make me feel super drowsy though. So im always tired. It works though so i keep taking them. My knee will hurt a little every once in a while but not too often. I have been trying to start working back into it. I have been doing a little jogging every morning. That is helping my knee feel a little better because im getting the strength in my knee again. I guess its just going to take a little time. So Travis is coming home Wednesday? That is crazy. I though he left the first week of June. He must be coming home a couple weeks early. It feels like he just barely left and then not too long after him i left. Haha. It will be interesting to see how much he has changed. So Jaden and Makenzie are trying to start working out for sports next year? When i get home ill go work out with them. Ill be like their personal trainer for football and volleyball. Then they can help be my personal trainer for basketball. Well this week was a pretty good week. I went on exchanges with Elder Mapa up in Baton Rouge. It was cool to hang out with him for a few days. Just like old times. We were able to teach a couple families that he has been working with. One of the families was from Page, Arizona. They were Native American. They were supposed to get baptized this week. Then one day we went to the temple. It was good..  the work here in my area has been going pretty good. We have 1 investigator from the Gladys Knight fireside that is progressing. His name is Mike. Hes about 60. Hes actually the step dad of a couple members in the ward. So his family is all Mormon. He decided he wanted to join them all after the fireside. So he wants to get baptized like the first or second week of June. He has already quite smoking. Hes come to church a couple times already. His wife is a member too but she hasnt been in years and she is starting to come with him too. She also has quite smoking too. Its pretty cool. Thats about the most that has been going on with us here.  

June 2nd
Hey! 

I hope everything is going good for you all. I bet you guys are already having an awesome summer. I bet the weather is feeling nice as well. Anyways not too much is going on with me. I got a new companion. Elder Abbott from Highland, Utah. He has been out like 9 months. He seems pretty cool so far

 This week on Wednesday and Thursday it rained a ton. It rained so much that like the whole town was flooded. People say it flooded worse than a hurricane. So we had to help a couple families this past week with their flooded driveway. Our phone ended up getting wet while we were helping this older lady and its broken now. We have been without a phone for the past few days. Thats about my week. I cant wait to see you guys in 5 weeks. Im excited! Hopefully you guys are just as excited. Its crazy how close its coming. Its hard to stay focused when you know you only have a month or so. Its like in the gospel when you have to endure to the end. Thats what its like for me right now. Its weird to think im going to be at home in no time. I have just been in this type of lifestyle for so long its weird to think i am going to have to change my lifestyle again soon. Anyways.. I love you guys. 

Hey!! Hope you all had a good week and enjoyed watching conference. I thought it was pretty good. We ended up just watching it at the church pretty much by ourselves with the other missionaries. But on Sunday afternoon we were able to watch it with a member so that was nice. I had a few favorite talks. I liked Pres. Uchtdorf in the Priesthood session and then Gary Stevenson's talk about the Olympic athletes. That was interesting. So it was a good weekend. Other than that my week was an alright week. We have a few investigators we are working with right now. But none of them were able to watch conference. I'm not sure if they are really investigators or if they just like us coming over to talk to them. We haven't been able to teach too many lessons this past week. We did quite a bit of service though. That was about it though. My week wasn't too exciting. This morning we were able to go play some frisbee golf. The member still takes us out to go play every other Monday. So its pretty fun. This past week it has rained a lot too. It has been really wet. Then last Monday another missionary and I went fishing at a member's pond. It was pretty fun. I only caught 1 fish. It was a little catfish. So the member fillet it for us and we went back to our apartment and deep fried it. It was some pretty good deep fried catfish. Maybe I'll open a business of southern food when I get back. Well sorry this email is a short one but I can't really think of anything to talk about. I'll have some more stuff to say next week hopefully. Oh and next week is transfers and I don't know what's going on. Me and my companion will probably stay the same. I don't know. Well love you all :) 

Elder Willis :)

Catching dinner!

Hey!!

Sounds like you guys all had a fun spring break. I'm jealous of you guys. Those pictures turned out nice. Everyone is looking good. Everyone looks like they are growing and changing....well mostly Jaden and Makenzie. I did get the package you sent. Thank you. Those lucky charms are tasting pretty good :) Well not too much has happened this past week. I woke up on Monday morning last week with a sore throat and that lasted for a couple days and then I started getting a little headache and then for the past few days I have had a cough. I think it might be because of the spring weather here. Maybe I have picked up allergies since I have been down here.  It's not been that bad though. My comp tried to get me to contact the mission nurse but I kept telling him no because I didn't want her to tell me to stay inside for the day. So I wouldn't call her but he kept bugging me about it and finally I gave in. She just told me to take some medicine and something with lemon juice.  So I have been a little under the weather for the past week.  This week  our work has been pretty good. We got 2 new investigators from the other elders. They were teaching them but they were in our area so they gave them to us. One is 16 year old named Fernando. He is pretty cool. He is the only one taking the lessons from his whole family. So hopefully once we start teaching him for a while we can get the family involved. Then the other is a less active member named Omar and his fiancee Sarah. They live together so they need to get married before she gets baptized but she seems like she wants to get baptized. We had a lesson with them at our ward mission leaders house. The Cutshaws. The Cutshaws are like one of my new favorite families here. They just moved from Florida. I connect with that family really well. But they don't like Louisiana at all so they are moving back in the summer. Haha. Don't blame them. But those are the 2 people we are teaching right now. They both said they would be at church on Sunday and they didn't show up,. So I was pretty upset after church on Sunday. Oh and we also had another guy said he would show up to. He's not really an investigator but we visit him. He didn't show up either. So that was my week. Oh and something cool that is happening here at the end of April is that Gladys Knight is coming to Baton Rouge to do a fireside. I didn't know who she was before this but now  I know who she is. Maybe you guys know her. Everyone down here loves her. So on Saturday we had a meeting to help us get ready for it. Members can only go if they bring nonmember friends. It should be a really cool missionary opportunity for the people here. And the missionaries get to go so it will be cool to go to that. Anyways that's about it for this week. Oh and I don't know what I need for my b-day but I will be thinking and let you know. Love you all!!

Elder Willis :)

Hey!!

Hope everyone is doing good. Sounds like the week was pretty boring. Is the weather pretty good over there though? The weather here has been pretty warm. All the trees and stuff are starting to blossom. It's looking pretty cool. It's starting to get pretty humid here too. I'm not looking forward to that. So things with me are going pretty good. I did get a little change up this past week. I got a new companion. My old one Elder Thomas went to another area. He didn't really tell me too much about it but he told me that I reminded him a lot of his older brother and he was having a hard time with that. I don't know what happened with his brother but it was hard enough for him to want him to leave. I was only with him for a week too. So my new companion here is Elder Murray. He's from Layton, Utah. He goes home a transfer after me. So yeah this week was a little different. We don't live with the other elders. They moved into an apartment like 100 yards from us but we spend a lot of time over there. Sometimes we will go over there and spend the night with them. We might just end up moving over there for this transfer. We still get our groceries paid for so that's nice. We don't really get that many dinner appointments anymore. It doesn't feel like this area is the same that it used to be when I was here before. When I was here the first time it was thriving pretty good. It kind of has gone down hill a little bit. It's still a really good area though. But the work here now is definitely different. There are a few people that I was visited that moved away or no one knows what happened to them. It seems like the ward has gotten a lot smaller too. But then there has been a couple families that have moved in too. Our ward mission leader is pretty much less active too. Haha he hasn't been to church since I've been here and I've only met him once since I got here. I guess we need to reactivate him first. So my talk went pretty good. There was a youth speaker and me and another adult speaker. At first the adult speaker didn't show up. And I thought I was going to have to talk for like 30 minutes.   The adult speaker showed up just as the youth speaker started so that was a relief. I ended up speaking on member missionary work. I just shared the story of Alma and Amulek.  It's  Alma 8-10. I talked about how Alma had like a dinner appointment with Amulek and then they went on a split to the people of Ammonihah. Then I talked about how those people were Amulek's friends and family members. So I told the members how we want them to be able to trust taking us to their family members and friends. Then how the people of Ammonihah were astonished and started to believe because there was someone their backing up Alma's words. So that's how members and missionaries should teach.... with each other. It's been a struggle working with members my whole mission. I haven't really gotten member support....support with teaching and stuff like that. Of course the members support us and care for us. Just not with missionary work. I don't blame them though. People here aren't that receptive anyways. That's southern pride i guess. So that is pretty much my week. I hope you all have a more exciting week. I love you all!!

Elder Willis :) :)))) :) <3

Hey!! 

So sounds like a pretty good and busy week you guys had. It's crazy to think that it's already baseball season. Haha it just barely feels like I was playing baseball. Time goes by fast. Yeah I got that video of Makenzie's concert. Looks like she is going to be pretty good at the violin. Does she know who Lindsey Stirling is? The one with the mormon.org video? Maybe Makenzie will be like her. Anyways sounds like you guys already found out about my new area. Well it's not really new to me. Haha yeah I got transferred back to St. Amant. Which is Gonzales. So I got sent back to my old area. I'm pretty excited to be back here. It's been pretty weird though. It feels like I never even left. I think it's been like 9 months since I left this area. So it's still pretty familiar for me how to get around. It's starting to come back to me. Ever since I got back I have just had a ton of memories from when I was here the first time. My companion is Elder Thomas. He's from Delta, Utah. He seems pretty cool. He has been out like 13 months I think. So yeah I have been pretty happy these past few days. I just want to go out and see everybody again so we have been really busy these past few days. The work here now is different from when I was here. We are working with people I didn't know when I was here and then we're still working with some of the same people from when I was here. This is definitely my favorite area. The members in this ward are awesome. They are super friendly and loving. So I have already been able to go see a couple of my favorite families and people. I have been kind of nervous going to see people because I didn't know if they would really remember me or not. Luckily they remembered me. It's kind of cool to see their reactions to when they see me. One of the families I am really close with is the Artise family. We went over there and they were super excited I was back. Sis Artise was like oh my gosh my favorite missionary is back!! She is awesome. Then she told me she called her granddaughter and told her I was back and she said she started freaking out! It's just really cool to know that I meant something to these people. There's quite a few people that I am really close with. We went over to Ben and Wendy's house. They are non members that I am close with. Ben looked through the window and started laughing and was like you will never guess who showed up! So it's been really cool to see how everyone is doing. It's also been pretty sad to find out a couple other families that I really liked have moved or are moving soon. Then I found out my recent convert Candace....I don't know if you remember her..but anyways she doesn't come to church anymore. She has been to church like 1 since she got baptized. So that's pretty sad...my only convert haha...oh well things happen.. maybe I can help her come back to church since I'm back here. Sunday was a pretty good day too. I got to see a majority of the people on Sunday. A couple things are different. There's a new bishop now. Do you remember me telling you guys about the Bonham's from Snowflake? Well Bro. Bonham is the new bishop. There have been a few people that I wouldn't have thought would recognize me but they remembered me and my name. In fact even the librarian here at the library remembers me...haha. Oh and Bishop already wants me to speak in church this Sunday. Fun... :) Well that's about all for this week. I love you all!

Elder Willis :)

 Show message history

Hey!!!

So sounds like a pretty slow week for you guys. It will probably start picking up here soon with baseball and that stuff. Well this week is transfer week and I got a call last night that I am getting transferred. It was a relief. I really struggled with this area. It was a pretty long 6 weeks but I'm glad I'll be moving on. So tomorrow morning we will be going to Baton Rouge for transfer meeting. I have a pretty good idea of where I'll be going. President kind of told me where I was going. So tomorrow I'll see if it's where I think it is. If it's where President told me I'm going to be very happy. It will probably be my last area too President said. So next week I'll let you guys know what all happened. That's way cool that the Gilbert Temple got dedicated. I remember when we had to go to the church for the dedication of the Gila Valley Temple. It was pretty cool. It's cool you guys finally got some snow over there. This past week it was really nice. It was like in the 70's-80's. It felt really good. Then yesterday and today it's like in the 30's. It's super cold and windy. People say this is the worst winter they have had down here in a long time. This should be the last cold storm. Well this past week we got to do some pretty cool stuff.   Just this past weekend we finally got to do stuff. On Friday we had a ward temple baptism trip. So we decided to go down early with the Sisters and do a session before the baptisms started. We got to watch the new new temple video.  You can learn something different from each video. Then our youth from the ward showed up for baptisms. It was neat because there is this black family that just barely got baptized like 2-3 months ago and it was their first time going. The 2 sons are our only young men in our ward. One is like 16 and the other is like 13. One of them has dreads and I always ask him if he can put my hair in dreads too. Those two are probably my favorite people from this area. So it was cool to be with them for their first time. They really enjoyed it. On Sunday I was talking to them about going on a mission and now they want to go on mission overseas and speak another language. Just like I wanted too. :) Then on Saturday we had a zone meeting in Alexandria. We all spent the night Friday night so we could play basketball early in the morning. So it was cool to play ball with the missionaries from this zone. Then that day for our meeting we just did service outside the church. We had to clear out a bunch of trees and stuff with axes. Kinda like the stuff we always had to do during the summer. It was fun being around the other missionaries though like Elder White and there are a few other ones that I'm really close with. So that was pretty much my week. Yeah Matthew told me about them having a girl. That is pretty cool. I know he wanted a boy though. Now he is going to have to be playing dolls and stuff with his little girl :) Well ill talk to you all next week. I love you all!!!

Elder Willis :)

Hey!!

Its crazy that you guys didn't really have a winter this year. That's so weird. Haha this week for me the weather was super nice. It's been pretty humid so it feels really hot. It's starting to feel like summer is just right around the corner. I can't wait for the summer weather. It's super hot but it feels so good at night time. Nothing can beat a southern summer night. The only bad thing about this warmer weather is all the mosquitoes are starting to come out.  People always joke that the state bird in the south is the mosquito. It's weird to think that baseball already has started. Baseball season was always way fun. I always thought baseball season was the funnest even though I liked playing basketball the most. Well my week was alright.  I went on exchanges for a day this week. One of the missionaries in Alexandria came to Natchez with me. It was Elder Rennie. We were in the mtc together. I haven't really seen him since we came out because he has been in this same zone his whole mission. So it was super cool to be able to hang out with him for a little bit. It was fun. We went and taught the  lady that we go see sometimes. We had a pretty good lesson with her. She asked us what she can do to become a better person. So I was flipping through my scriptures just thinking of something I could tell her then it landed on a talk I have glued in my scriptures.  It's "what manner of men ought ye to be" by President Hunter. So I just ripped it out of my scriptures and told her to read it. Hopefully that talked helped her out a little bit. But yeah next week is transfers so I'll email on Tuesday and let you know everything that's going on. I am really hoping that something will change :) The rest of my week was pretty good. So next Yuesday is Mardi Gras!!! :) People celebrate it all week long. They have parades and stuff all week long. It started this past weekend. We went to a parade with Bishop's family. It was a lot of fun. I'll send some pictures. People are just throwing beads and stuffed animals and all kinds of stuff. It was pretty crazy. I got hit in the face a couple of times with some beads. I ended up getting like 20 beads. So that was a lot of fun. Then on Saturday we helped out Bishop all day fixing up his house. We helped him out bu moving like 300 pieces of lumber to his back yard. We didn't get done until like 8 30. It was a long day. So that was pretty much my week. Well hope you all have a good week. I love you all!!

Elder Willis :) :)

Pictures from the Mardi Gras Parade

One of the Antebellum homes in town

Hey!! Hope you all are doing well. Sounds like its been a pretty dry winter for you guys over there. That's crazy. I've had more of a winter over here in the south. Haha... well since today was President's day the library was closed so we're over at our Bishop's office. He is an attorney.  He is like super smart.  In the room I'm in right now is where he has his sword collection. He has like 50 different swords. It's pretty weird.  My companion and I have nothing in common. He likes singing and show choirs and dance. Stuff like that. It's been a struggle but it's getting better. That's just a mission. Learning to deal with things that your not comfortable with. There is only like 2 weeks until transfers though and President kinda already hinted to me what was going to happen. So I'll let you know in a couple weeks what happens. I'll make it though. Yeah I got the package that Aunt Laura sent me. Haha those fart bombs were pretty cool. During our personal study the other day I let one off and it stunk up the whole house. My companion got pretty mad at me but I thought it was funny. I had to get a good laugh somehow. Anyways my week was pretty good. It has been pretty warm here lately. Yeah I think this week its supposed to be in the 70's. I'm so ready for the warmer weather. This past week we just did a lot of service. We had this older lady we go over and see. She's not a member.   We taught her about the Plan of Salvation this past week. It went really good. I asked her to read 3 Nephi 11. I asked her if she could read it tonight and she was like no but I will read it within the next few days. Then she wanted us to come over the next morning and rake her leaves. So we go over there and we were talking with her and she told me she already read 3 Nephi 11. It was pretty cool. She is progressing along slowly. Then for a couple nights this week we did service for Bishop's family. He bought an old antebellum house and they are trying to remodel it. So we're helping them out a couple nights a week. Then we also had to help another older couple move a huge refrigerator into their bakery. It's pretty cool because they let the missionaries get cupcakes whenever they want. That was about all that happened this week. After church yesterday we had a linger longer. It's just where everyone stays after and we all eat a big lunch. It can really only work for small congregations. I remember we used to do that when I was in Opelousas. Well I hope you all have another good week. I love y'all and pray for you.

Elder Willis :) :)

Hey!!

So you sound pretty anxious to hear about my new area. I think you will like hearing about this area. It might be a little surprising because it surprised me when I found out. So I'm no longer in Louisiana....haha I got transferred to Natchez, Mississippi. Yeah it's pretty crazy. If you look on a map it's like way out in the middle of nowhere. I feel super isolated out here. My companion is Elder Virgin. He's from West Jordan, Utah. He goes home a transfer after me. There are 2 other sisters out here and that is our district. Natchez is quite an interesting place. It's one of the most historic places in America. I have found out a lot about Natchez since I have been here. Let's see...it's the oldest settlement on the Mississippi river. At one time there were more millionaires living in this city than any other place in America. All the millionaires lived in huge Antebellum houses. So pretty much the whole town is huge, old, Antebellum houses. There are more Antebellum houses here than any other city in America. It's actually super cool. All these houses really make this place feel like a real southern town. Also the people here tell me that Natchez is one of the most haunted places in America. I guess all these old abandoned antebellum houses are haunted. Haha. So yeah this place is quite interesting. There definitely is a different feel about this place. It kinda reminds me of home a little bit because Natchez has a ton of hills. On the 3 or so hour drive up here we drove up and down a bunch of hills. It was kind of like the drive from Show Low to Heber.   Ohh and also I'm in a bike area again. I wasn't too happy about that. This is my 3rd bike area in a row. All these hills are a killer trying to ride up. Maybe it will build up my leg muscles :) So yeah that's Natchez, Mississippi for you. If you look up the town on the Internet it will probably have a lot of stuff about it. Now I can say I served my mission in Louisiana and Mississippi. I'm also now in the Alexandria zone. Now I have served in every zone. The people here are super nice. It's a little ward here. It shouldn't be a ward. It should be a branch because there are like 40-50 members here. I think the people here are the nicest people I have met so far. They are so down to earth. Now that I'm in Mississippi I get some real southern hospitality. I think I will probably like it here. It will just take a few weeks to get settled down and comfortable here. We don't live in an apartment either. We live in a regular neighborhood in a little house. The house is kinda crappy. Inside it's like a cabin. All wood floors and wood walls. We also have 1 little heater so it's pretty cold. The weather here has been super cold lately. There was a big cold storm that came through. And guess what happened? It snowed....yeah just like half an inch. It was pretty sweet. They said it was like the first time in 4 years or something. I'll send you some pictures of it. So the work here is pretty slow too. We have a couple people we are working with but nothing too promising right now. We do a lot of service....shocking. The other day we went and painted this guys house for him. We only got like 2 rooms done. When the weather warms up a bit we are going to go over and finish painting his house. Then I think the Bishop wants us to help him paint his house too. So we will probably be pretty busy with service these next couple weeks. So that's about it for this week for me. Just serving up in Natchez Mississippi. I probably won't see other missionaries for a while.. I don't know if President is punishing me by sending me way out here.. Oh and we are pretty much in charge of the Young Men's too. So you can say we are the Young Men's Presidents. We have young men's with them every Wednesday. It should be fun coming up with stuff to do with them. We have like 3 young men in this ward. I guess there is not enough priesthood for a young men's president. Well that's my week. I hope you guys have a good week. Remember y'all are in my prayers. :)

Elder Willis :) :)

Hey!

Sounds like a pretty good week you all had. I'm glad to hear things are going good back home. Well we got transfer calls last night and I am getting transferred. So tomorrow I will be finding out where my new area is and new companion. There are alot of people getting transferred this transfer. I guess President is making alot of changes in the zones and switching alot of things up. Transfers aren't that nerve racking for me anymore because I know so many missionaries now that there's a good chance I might know my companion. I want to go to the Alexandria zone. That's the only zone I haven't served in yet. This will probably be my last area. I'm sad to leave Elder Smith though. We got along really well. Next week I will let you know on what happened. So I will have to look out for that Sister missionary that you guys are talking about and say hi to her. That would be cool. That's funny that Jaden is getting tightly guarded most of the game. That happened alot to me. Suber would always yell at me and tell me to go get the ball. I would end up running around the whole court trying to get the ball. Just tell Jaden to try to get the ball as much as he can. That might help a little. You asked about the meetings I go to on Sunday and in this branch we don't go to any meetings. We just show up for church at 9 and leave when it's over. I think most of the missionaries don't go to very many meetings. They just try to make everything go through the ward mission leader. So my Sundays aren't filled with meetings and stuff. I told you guys about Elder Perkins coming to our mission. The conference we had with him was pretty sweet. He had alot of good stuff to say. I enjoyed listening to him. I could listen to him for days. I don't know if he has spoke in General Conference but if he has he would probably have pretty good talks. Then on Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference and he spoke again. So all that was pretty neat. On Sunday afternoon they got a few of us missionaries to go sing at this Martin Luther King Jr. celebration service. I don't know why they got us to sing because we were the only white people there because it was a bunch of black church people getting together to celebrate MLK day. They had like some baptist preacher there and during his sermon everyone was getting into it. It was so cool to experience something like that. Everyone was like yelling Hallelujah and Amen and all that stuff. We sang a couple church hymns for them. But the real show was the preaching. The black people down here really get into that kind of stuff. Then yesterday we just continued working on the house we are painting. It is taking us a while. We have been doing it for like a week now. We just got done priming half of the house. I won't be here to finish painting it though. So this whole past week was spent doing prep work for the house getting it ready to paint. We did alot of service this week again. That's what my mission is :) So Mitchell already knows his release date? haha.. Umm.. I'm pretty positive I will be flying home July 10th. I think that's a Thursday. I will probably know more here in a few months. It's crazy how fast time goes. Well I will keep you all in my prayers. I love you all.

Elder Willis :)

The Elders taking a break after working on priming a house so that they can paint it.  This is one of the Spanish Elders.

 r

This is a send off for a young man going on his mission.  This was after his farewell at his house.  

Hey!! 

I hope everyone is doing good. Sounds like quite an eventful week you guys had. Yeah I got the video you sent of Jaden's game. It looks like you can't even have a foot in between the 3 point line and the out of bounds line. Haha. That's weird. So this past week the big cold weather storm or whatever it was got us pretty good. On Tuesday and Wednesday it was super cold. I had to wear like 3 sweatshirts and gloves to bike to our dinner appointment. I think it got below freezing. It was chilly. Then the next few days it warmed up again where I could wear my short sleeve shirt again. There wasn't any snow for us :( haha. I'm surprised it didn't snow in Heber. It has rained here the past couple days though. Right now there's a big lightning storm. It's kind of hard to do anything when it rains. We can't really bike in the rain. So usually when it rains we just try to wait it out. So transfers are next week. I have no clue what is going to happen. I wouldn't mind getting transferred to another area for my last few transfers. Elder Smith and I could probably stay together another transfer. But you never know. I will just let you know what happens next week. So this past week I hit my 18 month mark!! It's pretty crazy that I only have 6 months left. I guess I have officially served a mission longer than Dad. It's weird to think that I've been out as long as Dad served. Yeah I read about the new mission presidents. I haven't heard anything about him but it shouldn't matter because I'll go home the first week he is here. This past week we did a lot of service again. Every Thursday we help these 2 widows out with their lawn or whatever they need help with. And one of them is pretty old and she feeds us every time we go over there. She looks forward to feeding us every week. Well she needed her porch re-painted so we started working on that but we will probably finish it this week. And her neighbor needs her house painted so we are going to paint that too. I guess I will be doing a lot of painting this week if the weather is good. Oh so this week we have a general authority coming to visit the mission. It's Elder Perkins of the Seventy. I have never heard of him but I think he is in the First Quorum of the Seventy. This Friday we are going to have a zone conference with him. So it should be pretty cool to hear what he has to say. Well that was about it for my week. Still not a whole lot going on in this area. Mostly just service. It seems that's how its been for a majority of my mission. Well I love all y'all :) 

Elder Willis :) :)

Hey!!!

Hope you guys had a good week. Sounds like new years was pretty good for you guys. My new years was pretty good. We didn't really do anything. Just some missionaries came over and we played monopoly. That's about it. There were fireworks going off like crazy the whole day. People started lighting fireworks in the early afternoon and it lasted all the way until the next night. I guess they take parties like these seriously down here. Ohhh and you will have to tell Jaden happy late birthday for me!! I can't believe he is 18!! It seems like I was just barely 18. I got those videos that you sent of his game! He is looking pretty good. The one where he went coast to coast was pretty sweet. Sounds like he had a great tournament. I can't believe he didn't get all tournament team. That's ridiculous. I always thought that white mountain sports were kind of a joke...but whatever he probably is better than most of those kids anyways. Yeah there was a bowl game that was down here in the superdome. It was the sugar bowl. I think it was alabama and oklahoma. There was alot of people down here that went to the game. It seems like there is always big things going on down here. The NBA all-star weekend is going to be in New Orleans this year. I want to try and go to the slam dunk contest and all that but I probably won't be able to find a way to go. Maybe I'll just stay outside the arena and see if I can see any of the players haha. So not much happened this past week with New Years...we did go over to a members on new years to have a little party. We had a little fire and made smores and stuff so it was pretty fun. Then I went on exchanges with another missionary down here. So that was pretty much my week. The weather has been really cold lately. Today its like in the 30's we're kind of hoping it is going to snow but it won't. The last time it snowed down here I think was right before katrina. It's been a while. Oh and about hurricane katrina there are still houses down here that were wiped out by katrina. They still have plywood on the windows and there is like a paper thing on the door that says it has been searched during katrina or something. So some areas down here haven't even recovered from katrina. Yeah so on Saturday we had to help this guy take out his storage unit and it took us the whole day. We had to take everything out and then sort it out and put it back in. He is a recent convert and his parent aren't members so we helped him out and then his parents fed us some pizza. I think he wants the missionaries to teach his parents. It's not our area so it will be the other missionaries that teach them. Yesterday for church we had the branch split into an english branch and a spanish branch. It's good to see this branch growing. I guess before hurricane katrina there was like 3-4 wards down here and they were about to make it into their own stake but the hurricane made everyone move out. Now the people are starting to move back in. So it's growing. This week we did alot of service. I think we did like 31 hours of service or something like that. Since there's not very many people to teach we just do alot of service. That's about the best thing we can do down here. Its good though I like doing service for people. I think that could be the best thing you can do for someone is to serve them. Well I don't know what else to say. I think that's about it for this week. I love you all and pray for you.

Elder Willis :) :))

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.

   

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 :) 

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 :)

Hey!! 

I'm bummed to hear about the football game. I was waiting all weekend to find out what happened. Yeah I looked at the website to watch it but you need an account. So I'll use your guys account and maybe watch a little bit of the game. Well at least Jaden still has another year. I'll be home for his senior year. When I get home tell him I'll take him out and go train with him to get him ready for the football season. Anyways this week was a pretty good week. The weather was nice again. It was really humid this past week so it was a little warmer. The weather is so weird here. I have no clue when it's going to be warm or cold now. I'm sure it will start getting cold now though. So here's something crazy that happened....someone was telling us how a Grandpa and his little granddaughter were out walking one night and they got shot and killed. And it was right over by where I live. Pretty scary...it's so messed up down here. I think that's why Hurricane Katrina happened..to wipe out all the wicked. But there probably needs to be another hurricane like that. But I guess that's what I'm down here for so there doesn't need to be another hurricane! The work here is still pretty slow...we aren't really teaching anybody right now. Last week I was telling you about the guy we helped move into his apartment..well we still haven't heard from him. He probably went online and read alot of anti-stuff. Everyone down here always reads the bad stuff about mormons. I think we will just go over to his apartment and knock on his door or something. This past week we got some names some people in the ward wanted us to go see what their situation is. So this one guy we go to served a mission and everything so we decided he might be a good one to go see. He answers the door and we talk to him for a little bit and we tell him where the church is and he says you probably won't be seeing me there. I was like how come? He was like well...I'm gay...we kinda just stood there for a while because we didn't know what to say. Finally I was just like well.....there is a website the church put out for gays you should check it out. It was probably one of the more awkward times on my mission. But that's about it for this week. Yeah I heard about the typhoon in the Philippines..that's really sad. I guess it was the biggest typhoon ever? I don't know. I'm pretty excited for Thanksgiving to come up. We have a couple appointments so far. I think only 2 will be fine enough for me. Haha Um...I'm pretty sure I'll be able to skype for Christmas. It's a month away. I guess Mom is just so excited to talk to me :) I'm sure there is someone here that will let me skype on their computer. Well yeah not too much has happened this week. The work is really slow on a bike. You dont get as much accomplished. Anyways love you guys.

Elder Willis :)

Hey!!!

So nobody said anything about Dad's birthday so I don't know if you guys are trying to test me but I'm pretty sure yesterday was dad's birthday! Happy late Birthday!! Hope you had a good one. Anyways that's great to hear about Jaden's game. I was anxious to find out how they did.  I'm sure Jaden is excited about that. I bet he will be pretty nervous. That's pretty cool we both played in the state championship our Junior year. Just tell him he will probably be really nervous at first but after the first couple minutes it will feel just like a regular game. Tell him to play that game harder than any other game he's played that season. I can't wait to find out what happens on Monday. Anyways my week went pretty good. I'm pretty comfortable in this area now. I'm starting to like it a lot. They people here are so much different than any other people in the state. The whole area is pretty much dominated by african-americans. I hardly ever see any white folk. This past week the weather was pretty bad. It was super windy this week. I hated it. Trying to ride your bike in the wind is so hard. It got pretty cold at night too. I think it was the first time this year I have worn my long sleeve shirt. My short sleeve shorts are getting worn out but the long sleeves are pretty much brand new still. But I will probably wear them a lot this winter since i'm not in a car. Well this past week there was this guy named Julius that was moving some furniture into our apartment complex so we asked if we could help. So we helped him and everything then the next day or the day after I think he came up to us and was like "Hey I've been trying to find you guys because I  want to know more about what you guys do"  So we talk to him a little bit and give him our number and he says he wants to learn more. He is trying to fix his life up and wants to start going to church. So we're excited about that. Hopefully we can teach him. Then we are teaching this other guy named Russell and he wanted to come to church and we told him to be ready at 8:30 so we can come pick him up with a member. He said he would be ready and we go over there on Sunday to pick him up and he didn't answer his door. I was pretty upset. I shouldn't be but it's hard not to at this kind of stuff. So those are really the only people that have potential. Still pretty slow in this area. The members feed us here alright. A little bit better than in Covington. So yeah the branch there is a lot of blacks. No the branch president is white. My comp is from Ogden, Utah. I guess I forgot to tell you that? The other 2 I live with are from Draper, Utah and the other one is from Mesa I think or one of those towns over there. He went to Desert Ridge High School. They are all pretty cool. We all get along really good. So yesterday for pday I got to see Elder White and my other buddies from the Denham Springs zone. They all got permission to come to New Orleans. So we went to the Stake Center and we played a lot of basketball. It was cool to see all those guys again. Well I cant really think of anything else. Nothing crazy has really happened. Well I love you all. 

Elder Willis :)

 His dream car :)

Book of Mormon Musical in New Orleans....People thought they were in the musical when they saw them on the street.

This is the view from his area....it it downtown and across the river

Hey Family!

I hope everyone is doing good. Sounds like the Football team can have a pretty good chance to win it all. Tell Jaden he better work his tail off these next 2 weeks. I hope they can win it all. I never got a chance to win a state championship so I hope Jaden will at least be able to win one. That would be cool. So I'm sure you have been wondering where I got transferred. I got transferred to New Orleans :) Yeah it's pretty sweet. The part of New Orleans I'm in is called Algiers. It's like right in the heart of New Orleans. It's one of the worst parts of New Orleans too. I'ts really sketchy everywhere. My companion is Elder Smith. He's from Ogden, Utah. He has been out like 3 months. He's pretty cool and we get along really good. We live with 2 other Elders. I like living with other Elders. The mission is funner when your around other missionaries. I'm in a bike area again. I don't mind it because it will keep me in shape but sometimes it's nicer to have a car. Plus the weather is starting to get colder and it will not be fun to bike in cold weather. So I'm in the West Bank Branch. It's a pretty good sized branch though. It kinda reminds me of the branch I was in in Opelousas. The branches down here in Louisiana are ran a lot differently than other places. I like this branch though. The people are very friendly here. Most of the branch is African-Americans. Which I kinda like. I love seeing black mormons for some reason. There is not much work in this area either. This area hasn't had a baptism in like 2 years I think. But I think the work here will be a little better than the work was in Covington. So the weather here has been pretty chilly lately. There was another big storm that came through but it ended up just being really windy. There was hardly any rain. So all I know about Elder White is that his companion is Elder Stewart. I don't really know anything about him but he is really short and wears glasses. He will probably email me and tell me how his companion is. So my first night here we went and visited a less active guy and when we left we went outside and there was 5-6 cops busting some kids for something. Welcome to Algiers. Then the next day we go to the library and some lady comes in and was like there was a bike that just got stolen outside. It wasn't our bikes though because we lock them up. But this area is pretty bad. I guess I need to be careful down here. We actually live in a pretty bad area too. We are pretty much surrounded by the projects. It's scary. There are a lot of houses and buildings around here that are still boarded up from Katrina. It's crazy. It honestly feels like I got transferred to a different mission. I'm seeing a whole other side of the mission now. New Orleans is for sure the craziest place I've ever been. I can't wait to bring you guys down here someday and see how you guys feel about this place. I know mom will probably be too scared to get out of the car in a lot of places. Haha. Well that's about it. I can't really think of anything else. Remember you guys are in my prayers. I love you/

Elder Willis :)