Hey Y'all!!

Hopefully you had a good week. Mine was a pretty crazy week I wont lie. It was super tiring. But first off to answer some of your questions...my companion is a little different than the other companions I've had. I guess other missionaries have struggled with him before but I think I'll be fine. He's from Las Vegas. Umm...we get like 2 dinner appointments a week. So I'll be making  a lot of my own meals for a while. Most of the people in Covington...well in the ward at least work for like the FBI or Law. Stuff like that. There are a lot of Southern restaurants and a lot of sea food places too. And the normal fast food restaurants. So yeah there was some big rule changes with the Dress and Grooming things with missionaries. We can no longer wear backpacks. That rule crushed me. I loved wearing my backpack around. Now I have nothing to carry all my stuff. Plus I'm on a bike so it's hard to carry things. I ended up just stuffing a Book of Mormon in my pockets while we ride around. I guess we can wear shoulder bags though. I'll try to look around for a cheap shoulder bag or something. Yeah we can wear khakiis now. That's sweet. I think today we are going to go shopping for some khakiis. Speaking of clothes and stuff.... I need some new dress shoes. My black ones have huge holes in the bottoms and it's killing my feet. So if you ever run across some black dress shoes that would be sweet. Anyways about my week.... Well nothing happened this week. We did our numbers last night for the week and they were pretty much all zeros. It was pretty depressing. I think that was the first time on my mission where we got like all zeros. It's super hard right now in this area. There is nothing going on. We can't even work with less actives because they all live too far away. I really hope the work picks up soon. I think like Tuesday or Wednesday we had to go help a less active-part member family move into the area. We ended up riding about 14 miles to their house. Then we had to unload a huge uhaul full of furniture. Plus it was really hot. I think that was the most I have ever sweated in my life. Hardly ever when I exercise or something like that my shirt gets completely soaked but my shirt looked like I just took a shower with it. It was nasty. Good thing is that they ended giving us a ride back to our apartment because they didn't want us to pass out while we were riding back home. The 14 miles we rode that day wasn't even that bad. The next day or the day after I think it was we ended up riding 35 miles!! And we didn't even get a chance to see anyone or talk with anyone either. So I did a lot of sweating this week. And the worst part of the year is in the first part of August so it's still going to get hotter for another month or so then it will start to slowly cool off. Hopefully I can survive all this. On Saturday we had nothing to do so I decided we should go down to the ghetto and play some basketball. We got to play a little basketball with some Junior High kids. They said they could beat us but they were all talk. We smashed them. It felt good to just play around for a little while though. That was pretty much my week. A lot of biking and sweating. At first I was pretty excited to be in a bike area for once but now i know why all the missionaries hate going to bike areas. So does Jaden do the passing leagues? Or did they stop doing all that stuff? Is he lifting weights at all. He's probably bigger than me. I am so skinny right now. With all this biking. And I drink so much water I don't have an appetite so I don't eat that much either. That is probably not that healthy huh? Well hopefully everything continues to go well with the house and everything. I hope this email was a little better since I had something to talk about. I can't think of anything else so I guess it's time to wrap this up. Love you!!

Elder Tyler Willis

Hey!! Sounds like the 4th of July celebrations were sweet. I still can't believe it's been a year. Holy Cow!! Everyone says the last year goes by super fast. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. I think  Elder Wittig and I are going to go get some milk shakes to celebrate my year mark or something. I might burn a shirt too. Haha.  Sometimes it feels like it has gone by pretty slow but other times it feels like it's gone by super fast. It's a pretty good feeling to get to the year mark. Anyways my week was a pretty good week. It was really hot and I was super tired a lot because of all the biking and the sun just drains you. Oh I was wondering in the next package you send if you could find some protein drink mix or like energy drink mix. And some energy bars. Just stuff like that so I can have some more energy. My week went pretty good though. For 4th of July we just got invited to a member's house to have a BBQ and then when it got dark they started lighting off fireworks. It was pretty fun. That's about all we did for the 4th of July. The work in this area is super slow. We have nothing to do. We have no investigators or anything. Pretty much all we do all day is ride around and see if there is anyone on the streets we could talk to. And there is hardly anybody we can find to talk to. It's really hard. We're not really supposed to do tracting anymore so we don't do that at all. The best thing we can do is just talk to people on the streets. We are trying to find different things to do to be effective but not too much is happening. It's kinda depressing. When we get in at night I'm kinda depressed because I feel like we haven't really accomplished much. I just hope the work in this area can start to pick up. This area has a ton of potential. But anyways this past week we also had a Zone Training Meeting. That was alright. I got to see Elder White again so that was sweet. We got to go out to lunch with him after the meeting also. It was fun to get to talk with him for a while and have lunch. Yeah we did have our baptism for Jimmy this past Saturday. It went really good. Elder Wittig got to baptize him since he has been here teaching him the whole time. I spoke on the Holy Ghost. The baptism was really spiritual. Jimmy is really sincere. He has a good heart. He actually quit smoking the week of his baptism because he wanted to get baptized so bad. It was awesome. So that was pretty much my week. Nothing real crazy has happened. Oh about the talk for 2nd ward...uhh I'll try to to mail it to you guys in the mail either today or tomorrow. So I wont email it. I will just write it out and send it. Oh I did bring my camera so I'll see if I can send you guys a few pictures. Well that's about all for this week. Sorry if this was a short email. It's hard for me to remember things throughout the week. I'm trying my best though. :) I've never really been a big e-mailer anyways.   Haha.  Love you guys!!!

Elder Willis <33

Here are a few pictures...These were all in Gonzales.  The baptism with Candace....me & my favorite member in Gonzales....and when me and Elder Mapa got some sweet bikes from members to ride around for a day  Enjoy!!!

July 1, 2013

Hey!! So I probably should have answered your questions before I sent this email because I'll probably answer a lot of the questions over again. Oh well..so I got transferred to Covington. It's a real nice and pretty area. It reminds me of Santa Barbara.  Pretty wealthy area too. It's on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain so it's kind of like a beach town. This is one of the areas all the missionaries want to serve in. A lot of missionaries were pretty jealous of me because I went from one really good area to another really good area. There are 2 areas in this ward. Covington and Mandeville. My companion is Elder Wittig. He's been out 3 months. He was actually Elder White's MTC companion. Elder White is still in Denham Springs and his companion is my  MTC companion. So I think that's pretty funny that we're both serving with each others MTC companion. I got to talk to Elder White for a little bit at transfer meeting. He is doing good. I'm pretty excited were in the same zone because we will see each other more often. The only bad thing about this area is that it's a bike area. I finally get to use my bike more often. It's like the worst time to be in a bike area too. Right in the middle of the summer. It's been pretty rough the past few days. It's been getting up close to 100 degrees. Once we get to an appointment or something we are just soaking with sweat. I guess I'll be getting back in shape though. We have to buy our own groceries too. So looks like I'll be living off of cereal again. So far this area is pretty sweet. The members here really like the missionaries. We get fed dinners pretty good here. It was pretty easy to adjust to this area. I still miss Gonzales though. I think that's probably going to be my favorite area of my mission. I hope I really like this area too. I got to this area and we have a baptism for this Saturday. I just walked into a baptism :) It's for a guy named Jimmy. He's like 40. I've got to teach him a couple times already and he seems pretty cool. He asked me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost for his baptism. The work in this area is pretty slow. This area has a lot of potential. This past week has been rough for me and Elder Wittig because he is brand new and hardly knows what he's doing and I just got here so I have no clue about the area either. I've been trying to help him out the best I can but I only know so much about the area. Hopefully we can get the work to pick up. Most of the time we just ride our bikes around trying to find people to talk to. Being on a bike is really good when you want to contact someone because you just ride right up to them and start talking to them. Yeah the 4th of July is this week. I think a couple of the members invited us over to have a bbq or something. Then they said they were going to shoot off some fireworks. I guess you guys are probably doing the normal for 4th of July? I remember last year. It was like my last week in Heber for 2 years. I cant believe its already been that long. Well I hope i answered some of your questions. I forgot my camera again so I'll try to remember it for next week hopefully. That's about it for this week. I can't really think of anything that I need. I think I'm good for right now. Oh we are in hurricane season right now. If there is a hurricane it usually will come like August or September. I wouldn't mind going through another hurricane as long as we don't have to do another huge clean-up haha. Well I love you guys!
Elder Willis
Here's my address..
518 S. Jefferson Ave. #103
Covington, LA 70433

Hey!! So yeah this week is transfer week. I got a call last night that I'll be getting transferred.  I'm not sure if I'm ready to leave this area but I guess it was time for me to leave. I was here for 8 months. Haha I guess I got pretty comfortable here. I'm ready to try new things out and meet new people and everything though. So tomorrow is our transfer meeting. I'm hoping that I'll be getting transferred to Denham Springs. That's where Trevor is at. haha His comp. is going home. We'll see..    So yeah C's baptism was this past Saturday. It was very good. The spirit there was really strong. She asked me to give a talk on the Holy Ghost. She asked one of the missionaries in the 1st ward to baptize her. It was a little surprising because those weren't even her missionaries but it was her decision. Even the ward mission leader and the Bishop were a little surprised about that. I forgot to bring my camera to the library so I can't send you pictures this week but I will try to send some next week. Then on Sunday she got confirmed. Bishop did the confirmation. Then she had another member bless her baby. It was a good Sacrament Meeting. It was a good last Sunday in that ward because we had almost all the people I have been working with this whole time I've been here at Sacrament meeting. We had like 3 investigators at church and like 5 of the less active members we've been working with there. It was really neat to see. This would be an area I would like to come back and visit. The rest of my week went pretty good. We did a lot of service. We helped a member put in a wood floor. Bringing back memories. :) Done lots of those before. Yesterday the 1st ward elders and us decided to do a day of service. We cut 7 lawns. A lot of widows and less fortunate families. By the end of the day we were all drained. It was so hot. Had a couple lessons this past week. One of them was with J. Our investigator that has a baptismal date. He came to church on Sunday too. We taught him the plan of salvation. It went good. Then we brought up the Word of Wisdom because we kinda already knew he had a problem with that. We went over that and I could tell he got a little discouraged because he knew he had problems with it. He really wants to get baptized and is super excited for it but he has to overcome this and he says it going to to be hard for him. He will be able to overcome it. I won't be teaching him anymore but I really hope he ends up getting baptized. He was a sweet guy. That's pretty much all that happened during my week. Yeah I got an email from Ashlee. She sounded like she is doing really good. But I know what it feels like to be brand spankin new. It is super tough but it gets better.  Mitchell and I still write letters to each other all the time. He is doing really good. So Jaden is doing a paper route for a week? I've always wanted to be a paper boy. That would be sweet. Sounds like Matt and Helen are still doing good. Everyone seems to be doing great. Yeah I thought that broadcast was awesome. I really enjoyed it. These next few years are going to be a great time to be a missionary. I'm glad i get to be apart of this. Yeah my blog is all changed up. Tell Makenzie she did a great job. Well I'll email you guys next week about my new area. I love you all!

Elder Willis <333

Hey happy late Father's Day Dad!!! Too bad I can't call for fathers day but just know that you're awesome and thanks for everything!  Well my week was a pretty good one. Today was a sweet day. We are emailing late because we went down to New Orleans this morning. A member took us down there again and we got to see more things this time because the member lived there for a while and knew the area pretty good. There are a lot of tourists down there this time of the year. It was super hot though. I was sweating pretty bad walking around downtown New Orleans. I'll try and send you some pictures. So grandmas place got flooded pretty bad? That's no fun! Every single time it rains here it floods. All the bayous will overflow and there will be water everywhere. Anyways I'm glad that you got the picture of me. We had a sweet time over at their house for dinner. They are a super cool family. Yeah my eye did get scratched somehow and it was irritated real bad. You know how I was really sick last week? Well right when I was starting to get over it my eye got infected and I ended up getting pink eye. I had to call Sis Wall for it and get eye drops for it. That lasted for a few days. As of right now everything is fine with me. I'm not sick in any way!   We had another lesson with C. this past week which went super good. I asked her why she decided to start coming to church again after going in Utah for a while. Some missionaries a while ago left a pass along card on her door but she didn't think anything of it. After a few months or so she came across it and thought about it and decided that it would be best for her to start going to church again. Now she's getting baptized. So everything is set for our baptism with C. this Saturday. She is super excited for it. We still have to help her get her program together. I'll try to take some pictures and send them to you next week. I'm real excited for her. There was another sweet little miracle that happened this week. We got a call from this guy here that wanted to know if our church is doing baptisms for Father's day? He told us that a few years ago some missionaries gave him a Book of Mormon with their numbers in it. He didn't want anything to do with it. After a couple years he came across the book  while cleaning and decided to read it. He gained a testimony of it and wanted to meet with us. We went and had a lesson with him. He accepted a date to get baptized later on in July. He also came to church this past Sunday. He is real sincere and solid. So those 2 experiences with C. and this other guy J. really strengthened my testimony of pass along cards or leaving a Book of Mormon. You never know when they are going to come across it and decide to check it out. It may be a few years. That's probably something dad can do at his office. Just get some B of M's with the missionaries number in it and just leave it on the desk. You never know who will come across it and maybe in a couple years they will want to find out if it is true. So we got some pretty good things in our area right now. It's harvesting time. Yeah I don't know what's going on with the missionary broadcast. I know it's going to be good. President Monson and Packer will be speaking i think. Haha opening China? That would be pretty intense. Maybe Jaden could be one of the first missionaries in China? So Bishop Franco emailed me and wanted me to write a letter to you guys about some experiences I've had and some counsel to the youth to read in sac. meeting? I'll see what I can do. I'll try and do that. Even though that's not the ward I left from.   Well that's pretty much my week. All y'all have a great week. :) I love you.

Elder Willis

Hey!! So I don't think this email will be a very good one because I got stuck on a computer without a chair so I have been standing up the whole time and I've been like deathly ill the past few days. So I might pass out. haha. Yeah it's been bad. I've had to stay in most of the day but then I'll think I'm feeling good and we will try to go out but it wouldn't last very long until we would have to come back in. I don't know what it is but it's rough. (Now his mom is worried!)  I'll be fine though. I'll try to toughen it up. So Jaden got to go to an Imagine Dragons concert? I didn't know about them until like a month ago. I think a youth in our ward was telling us about them. I think they are mormon too? I don't know I've never heard of them before. So my week was pretty good. We had a couple lessons with C. She is so excited for her baptism. I'm really excited too it's going to be awesome. Another cool thing about that is the same day she gets confirmed in Sacrament mtg. Her little baby is going to get blessed too. It's a sweet story. So I got an email from Ashlee! Sounds like she is doing really good. I'm really excited for her. She is going to be an awesome missionary. I read on her blog and she was like talking about how she saw all these people at the MTC.  I didn't get to see anybody I knew. I was a loner. I really enjoyed the MTC though it was a lot of fun. Matthew sent me some pictures of the house and it looks great. I'm excited to see the finished version. So  Trevor and I are trying to do everything in our power to able to serve around each other. We are writing President in our letters to him that we want to serve around each other so we will see how it turns out. We still have a while before we go home too so I shouldn't be too worried right now.Well I better go sit down or something I'm getting light headed. Taking care of myself is hard instead of having mom taking care of me all the time.  (now I wish I could fly over to Louisiana and take care of him for a few days. )  I have no clue how to take care of myself :) I'll write you guys a way better email next week when I can think straight. You are in my prayers and I love you all!!

Elder Willis

Hey!! Sounds like everything's going pretty good now that school is out! So Ashlee is gone now? Crazy...I'm going to have to write her while she is out on her mission. Yeah you can give me her blog. I'll get on it and read all about her crazy adventures. I get on my blog a lot even though it's just the letters I write to you! So if you ever want to put like a hidden note on that blog for me I'll probably see it...or other cool stuff. Remember how I told you guys that we get an hour a day to go to the library and get on the church websites. Like lds.org or mormon.org, we can also get on blogs. I know lds.org from like the inside out. My mission Pres. is real laid back when it comes to what missionaries can do. He lets us act as agents for ourselves and not as objects. It's pretty nice. So I got the package you sent me. Thanks. The snacks were good too. So lately I've been eating super healthy and trying to watch what I eat. I'm almost down to 170. I've been eating a lot of grapefruit and its been helping a lot. I'm glad I'm skinny again. :) (and all through high school he wanted to put on weight...from mom:)  So my week was a pretty good week. We had a lesson with Candace. That's the girl that's 20 years old and moved from Utah I was telling you about last week. She is super solid. So at our lesson we found out a little bit more about her. I guess in Utah she would always go to church with her friends. She did that for about 5 years I think. She even got her Young Women's medallion thingy...so she knows everything. She has already read the whole Book of Mormon. She just didn't feel it was the right time for her to get baptized. So we had our lesson over at our Bishop's house. It was the best lesson I've ever been in. The spirit was so strong. It was the first time I got emotional during a lesson. It was so sweet. So she accepted to get baptized on the 22nd of this month. We have another lesson with her tomorrow night. She is awesome. Tonight we have a lesson with another one of our investigators. He is progressing slowly so it's kind of a struggle with him. He really wants to get baptized but he has a really bad smoking problem. He enjoys us coming over because he really wants us to help him out. So we will see how it goes with him. That's really the only stuff we have going for us in this area. We finally got sisters in this area. They are working both areas. I'm pretty sure both wards love them both more than they love the Elders. All the members in our ward were flocking to their dinner calendar to sign up for them and they would just walk right past ours. So the sisters are stealing all our dinner appointments. And all the members are telling them to go see the people we are already seeing. haha  So we're going to be left with nothing to do here pretty soon. :)  So I forgot to tell you guys about this last week but I guess I'll tell you now  that it's a week old. So Elder Mapa has the hook ups with football players. He has a lot of cousins and buddies in the NFL and College. He actually has a friend from back home that's playing at LSU right now. He's huge. 6'6" 300+.  .So he got a hold of him and he got him to come down to Gonzo to hang out with us. So we went and played ball with him and went out to eat. His name is Hoko Fanaika so if you ever see LSU playing this year remember that name.   He's probably going to go to the NFL. So it was pretty cool that we got to hang out with him for a while. He said he is going to get some of the other LSU players to come down and play ball with us. It's pretty sweet. Well anyways that's about all for this week. I love you and miss you all.

Elder Willis