Hey!

Those pictures of Grandma's casita look nice. It looks pretty much like grandma Goodmans. You guys did a pretty good job building that thing up...well I guess dad did a pretty good job. He probably did most of it. About the pants... I'll send them home and you can just get new ones. I guess with Stafford I wear a 34-32. And I already have a blue pair. Tha'ts the one I wear all the time so I can use a black and a dark grey. So i'ts spring break for you guys? That's fun...I don't get spring break. The schools here are all on spring break this week too. And one of the schools had their prom this past weekend too. I thought that was pretty early to have prom. There is a couple schools in my area. One school is pretty much where all the black kids go and the other is pretty much where all the white kids go. Things down here are still pretty segregated. They have black gas stations and white gas stations. It's weird. So next week is transfer week. I'll be emailing on Tuesday again and tell you what's happening. I'm pretty sure my companion will be getting transferred but that's what I thought the past 3 transfers. So you just don't know until you know. My mission president doesn't usually leave companions together for very long. So 4 transfers together is pretty unusual. He does like to leave missionaries in areas longer though. I don't mind staying in this area. This is probably the best area in the mission. Probably because most of the people here are semi-normal. Most of the people that live here in Gonzales are from different states working at all the plants here. There are a ton of plants along the Mississippi River and that's where alot of people work. Anyways my week went by pretty fast. So you liked talking to Sis Guy? They are a sweet family. She was like has your mom sent you an easter package yet? I was like noo....then she was like what? I'm texting your mom right now!! So I was like alright...tell her I like hand written letters too. Then on Sunday she came up to me again and asked me if I got my easter package yet. So I told her no and she was like what? I already sent my son 2 packages. I just told her I guess my mom doesn't love me that much :) We didn't get to have a lesson with the Dubois this week. Their daughter has softball practice on Wednesday nights and Bro Dubois helps coach so they are trying to find another night we can start coming over again. I think things with the Dubois are dying down. I don't want that to happen but that's what I think is going on. I'm not sure if we are even going to have a lesson with them this week. I guess we wait and see. Sunday we got to go down to Morgan City and speak in their branch. The same member that took us down to New Orleans had to go speak down there and wanted us to go and speak with him. They have a tiny branch. It reminded me of the tiny branch I was in in Opelousas. I like being in the bigger wards way better. Tiny branches are not very fun to serve in. Anyways I'm pretty sure that some of the swamp people live in Morgan City. I think that's what I heard. Troy Landry...the guy that says choot em!! It looked like it would be a perfect place for some swamp people to live. I think I probably told you guys this already but the Guist brothers on swamp people live in my area. We tried to knock on their door this one time but someone came out and told us they were atheist. Haha they live in some dumpy trailers. The members in my area don't like them either because they would come to school all smelly and would have like frogs in their overalls.. I don't know. Anyways the tri-companionship is still going pretty good. We are staying really busy because we have alot of people we could see so the days go by pretty fast. We went and saw our 85 year old lady but I don't think she really remembers us. We didn't really get to talk to her because her son was there and he talked our ear off. I guess he was a spy during the cold war and I'm pretty sure he was telling us some stuff about the war that he shouldn't be telling us. So I know some top shelf secrets now. He wants us to come over again but I think that's probably because he wants to tell us some more of his spy stories. Well anyways that was my week. Talk to you later alligator. Love ya.

Elder Willis

Hey!!

Sounds like everyone is doing great. My week was a good one. It went by pretty fast. So..... I was wondering if you could send me some more ties. I'm getting sick of all the ties I have. I need some new ones to freshen up my tie collection!  Anyways about my week....this past week I was pretty sick for a couple days. I had a bad headache and cold. I didn't want to stay in either. So I just sucked it up and went proselyting anyways. I think I probably took more advil than I should have. But now I'm fine. So the other day I was reading some talks on lds.org and I came across J. Golden Kimball and I remember  someone  would talk about how he would swear in his talks. So I read some of his talks and sure enough he just swears away. Haha it's funny. Could you ask if anyone has any talks from J Golden Kimball because he has really cool talks. So the weather has been really humid the past couple days. I don't know if I'm ready for a Louisiana summer again. Those are rough. Our tri-companionship is going pretty good. It's easier to do work because we have more people to go see now. We usually cover 1 area in the early afternoon and then the other area in the late afternoon. It's fun to go around and visit other people you don't know already. Yesterday we spent 9 hours at church.....we had to be there at 7:30 for meetings for the first ward then we went to their church then at 1 we went to second ward till 4 30. I guess that's what the missionaries back home had to do. So our lesson with the Dubois went really good. We played like a guess who are the characters in the Book of Mormon. So we described a character and they had to guess who it was. Then we had a nerf gun and they got to shoot at a target for points. The girls really liked the game. They don't like when we come with just a lesson because it's boring for them. So we try to play more games now. We have no idea what we are going to teach this week. If you know of any games that you think are fun let me know because we could use them. Other than that we really didn't get to see anybody else. We didn't get to go see our 85 year old lady. I think we will this week though. That's pretty much all that is going on in my area right now. That's sweet the missionaries back home are trying to push you guys to find someone to teach. We can't do that down here. If we did that the members probably wouldn't like us anymore. They don't like being pushed or pressured into anything. So we just wait until the members will come up to us and tell us they have a person for us to teach. That doesn't happen very often though. We do our own finding. Which is not very effective because almost everyone down here is already deeply rooted in another religion. Well I can't think of anything else. My week wasn't too crazy. Just another normal week. Remember you are in my prayers. I love you.

Elder Willis

Hey!!

Sounds like you guys are doing pretty good. That's great. I'm doing good. The weeks are starting to go by really quick now. It seems like it's Monday  every other day almost.  Anyways...my week was pretty good. Today the elder that was waiting on his visa to go to Brazil left. So the other elder is companion-less. So starting now until the end of the transfer which is in like 3 weeks we will be in a tri-companionship. We will be working both of our areas together. We are going to have lots to do. All 3 of us have been together for like 6 months now so we get along pretty easy so it should be fun. We are going to have to start going to all day church too. Yay...so let's see what happened this week. Umm....we got a call from this lady that wanted us to come over and teach her about the church. So we got pretty excited. We go over there and start talking to her a little bit. She was kind of a weird lady. Then she was like I want to learn more because I have been blessed with a special gift. She was like I can speak in tongues...so I'm just trying to keep a straight face while this lady is talking to us. So we just keep going. Then she was like I want to learn more about John Smith...I'm like oh Joseph Smith? She's like yeah...John Smith. Haha. She was crazy. There are alot of people down here that claim they are prophets and have seen Jesus and all that crazy stuff. So our lesson with the Dubois was pretty good. We just taught about the Holy Ghost. Things are still the same with her. Coming to church every Sunday and not really making any more progress than that. So we just keep chugging along until hopefully one day she will make a decision. A couple days ago the Dubois were all riding in their car somewhere and they drove past this little house with this old lady sitting out front. So Bro. Dubois got an impression that he needed to stop and talk to her about the church. But all the other family members wouldn't let him. So Bro Dubois lets us know about this older lady and tells us to go visit her. So we go up to her and I ask her if we can share a message with her blah blah blah....and she invites us right in without any hesitation. She was super glad that we stopped by to see her. She was telling us all about her little 1 bedroom house thats 90 years old. Her name is Mary and she is 85 years old. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and where it came from. She wanted to buy the book from us but we told her it was  free. She told us she was going to read a few chapters before she went to bed and she wanted us to come back and teach her more. She was probably one of the nicest older ladies I've ever met. So we're going to have to go back and see where we can go with her. We probably need to hurry because I don't know how much longer she has to live. So that was pretty much my week. Love you all lots.

Elder Willis

Hey!!

I hope y'all are doing fine. I'm doing pretty good. This past week wasn't anything too crazy. I don't know how good my email is going to be because nothing really happened this past week. So it's already March. That's crazy. School is going to be winding down here pretty soon for you guys. The weather here has been pretty good. It's starting to get pretty warm. Every once in a while there will be a couple days where it will be pretty chilly but then the next day it will be pretty warm. I'm pretty sure it's going to start getting pretty hot and humid here soon. I just hope I don't get transfered to a bike area in the middle of the summer. Alot of areas are turning into bike areas now because of all the sisters that come in and they have to have a car. Dang sisters..:). So I'm guessing probably by the end of this year most of the Elders will be on bikes. Anyways this past lesson we had with the Dubois went super good. We just played pictionary. The girls loved it. I think the whole family had a ton of fun. We just did simple church things like scriptures or sacrament. Just stuff like that. So it was kinda just for the little girls but Bro and Sis Dubois still participated. Sis Dubois actually knows alot. I just don't know what her deal is. It's not like this is going to be a life style change for her because she comes to church every Sunday and reads scriptures as a family. All she needs to do is just be baptized and then everything is back to normal again with her lfe. I don't know what we are going to do this week with them. Hopefully we can come up with something good. Right now the ball is in her court. She needs to decide what she needs to do. I think eventually she will be baptized. If not right now later on down the road she will. So other than that we didn't really do much this week. We tried to see a few people but couldn't get a hold of them. Saturday was a rough day for us. We struck out like 8 times trying to see people. It was a long day because we couldn't find anybody to go see. I just think the missionaries back home probably have it nice because they can work with so many members and they have so many members they can go see. For us it's a sruggle to find just someone that wants to talk to us for a little while. So after we went to those baseball games last week me and my companion got in the baseball mood. So we went to the store and bought some 4 dollar gloves and a ball. Now during our lunch and dinner breaks we go outside and play catch. It's fun even though I haven't thrown a ball in over a year. I don't think I got it anymore. I don't know how long this is going to last because our gloves are starting to rip because they were so cheap. Ummm....for morning excercise I usually just do like 250 pushups or like 100 sit ups. Sometimes I go outside and jump rope. It depends on what I feel like doing. We sometimes wake up early and go to the church and play basketball as a district. It's not very fun because there are a couple elders in my district that can't even catch a ball. But anyways that's pretty much it. Can't wait to hear from you guys again. Love you.

Elder Willis :) :)

Hey!!

Hope everyone is doing good. I'm doing pretty good. My week went by pretty fast probably because we were super busy with meetings and stuff. So I watched the video of Ashlee and that's so cool. Make sure to tell her that I told her congrats and she will tear it up out there. I'm really excited for her. I was hoping she would read Louisiana Baton Rouge mission but that didn't happen. Oh well...she got called there for a reason. It's crazy that there will be 3 of us out on missions at the same time. We just need Justin out here now. So I did get those pants and they are  a little too big. I was pretty upset. I just have had the hardest time finding pants that fit me. I guess I might try to go to Penny's and  exchange them for different ones or if not I might just have to end up sending them back home. So this past week our lesson with Sis Dubois was pretty sweet. We had a lesson where we read in the scriptures of the prophets testifying of Christ..and when they were personally visited by Christ. Then we watched  the Lamb of God. I thought it went super good. Probably one of the better lessons we had. I think she is starting to open up more and participate in the lessons. Before she would not participate. She would just sit back and listen. So I think we are making a little progress. Yeah all Bro. Dubois wants is to get sealed as a family. He grew up in the church but fell away. Then a few years ago the bishop extended a calling to him even though he was never coming to church. He accepted the calling and started coming back to church. He ended up baptizing his daughter and he went through the temple. He's super solid now. Now they are just waiting for Sis Dubois to join so they can get sealed. I do believe in late bloomers. Even as members of the church.... we just have to be patient and see what happens. This past weekend I got to do some fun stuff. So I didn't end up going to the fireside BYU was having. I got to do something even better. I got to go to the game. Actually I went to 2 games. I went to the BYU-LSU games on Thurs night and Sat night. The first game a member took us and BYU was winning most of the game then in the bottom of the 9th LSU came back and won it. It was intense. Then on Sat night we went as like a zone activity. BYU crushed LSU like 9-4 or something like that. BYU has some studs on their team. I think LSU was even ranked like 3rd in the nation or something like that. But it was way sweet. It made me miss baseball a little bit. We had to wear our suits to the game though so we were getting all kinds of people looking at us funny. On our way out of the Sat night game we had all kinds of people yelling at us and swearing at us because BYU beat them. LSU sports are so crazy. People here are way into their sports. It was so hard not to yell back at them. They did yell at us and tell us we had nice suits. I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic but I'll take it as a compliment. Anyways that was pretty much my week. We are still trying to work with a couple people that have potential but it's a slow process. I love y'all. :)

Elder Willis <3

 

Hello!!

So tomorrow is transfers and everything is still staying the same. Haha that will make me and my companion together for 4 transfers...a quarter of our mission together. The first 2 transfers with him were pretty rough. But now I'm just like it's whatever. I have been with him for so long I can deal with him. This will make about a year for him in St. Amant. I think he is ready to get out of this area. I don't mind this area at all. This is probably one of the best areas in the mission. Plus I was in Opelousas for a while which is probably one of the least desirable areas so I'm happy to be here. This kind of worked out good for me too because this means that I'll probably be at the transfer meeting that Trevor will be at when he gets here. So I'll probably be able to see him. I did get the valentine package you sent me. I don't want to hurt your feelings mom but I just gave all the cookies you made to the other elders. They say thank you Sister Willis :) I just don't like eating junk food anymore. (This is a comment from mom.....YEA!!) I'm trying to get back in shape. I guess you could say I kind of hibernated from working out during the winter. I'm trying to get back in my excersice routine. That's so cool that Ashlee should be getting her call this week. I'm excited to see where she goes. Yeah... if you want to try to send me a little video that will be fine. I'm not sure if it will work but you can try. She will probably go somewhere in the states. They are trying to send more missionaries in the states so they won't have to spend time teaching them the language. I guess they just want the missionaries in and out of the MTC and get them going. All the bishops from around here had a meeting with L. Tom Perry and our bishop was telling us during the meeting Elder Perry said the church projects about 70-80,000 missionaries in the field by the end of the year and by the end of like 2015 they should have about 100,000 missionaries out. That's just nuts to think about. In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord says that he will hasten the work in its time. That prophecy is being fulfilled for sure. It's getting down to crunch time. I'ts awesome to be a part of this. Anyways my week was a pretty good one. Nothing really happened. We had a pretty good lesson with the Dubois. We just played a review game with all the things we have taught so far. The kids really enjoyed it. Sis Dubois still is not getting anywhere it seems like. We are really struggling on what to teach her. I think this week we are just going to have a lesson on Jesus Christ and read scriptures that talk about him. Then show a little video on Jesus Christ. We are running out of things to teach her. This is the transfer that she will either get baptized or we are going to have to stop coming over and teaching her. I don't want to stop teaching her but we are getting to that point where we have taught her everything that we can teach her. She is really the only person we are working with right now. Everyone else that kind of showed some interest we havent been able to talk to. We will just have to wait and see what all happens. Nothing else has really been going on. This week should be pretty cool though because I think on Friday we are going to have a fireside with the BYU baseball team. I guess this week they have some series against LSU and South Eastern so they want to hold a fireside for all the missionaries. I think that should be pretty cool. I'll have to tell you about it next week. Anyways that's really all I got this week. Talk to you guys next week. Love you.

Elder Willis

 

 

This is a picture taken down in New Orleans.  A member took them down to visit.  Tyler says he doesn't like this picture because it makes him look fat......He says....".I'm not as big as it looks." :)We are just excited to get a picture and thinks he looks pretty good!

 

Feb. 11. 2013

Hey!

Hope everyone is doing good. It's crazy to hear about everyone going on missions now. I guess we just grow up so fast :)  It sounds like it's been pretty cold over there. It's been pretty nice here but the past few days it's been raining pretty bad. It's pretty crazy when it rains here because all the bayous will over flow and everything will start flooding. So this past week was a pretty good one. Just a normal missionary week I guess. Our lesson with Sis Dubois was so-so. We had a lesson on faith and I think we probably over did it a little too much. Just a whole lesson on faith can make someone really bored. So I don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what she needs. We are running out of lessons to teach her too. I think this week were going to try and get the kids involved and have like a review jeopardy game of all the things we have taught so far. We thought our lesson on faith would be a really good one for her. But during the lesson I was just thinking to myself...this is not what she needs. After the lesson I was just super frustrated because I know there is something we need to teach her that she needs but we can't figure it out yet. So I guess I need to do some more praying and studying and try to find out what she needs. We will just have to wait and see what happens with them.  I still think she is slowly progressing forward even though it might not seem like it. So the hispanic family that moved into our area from Texas is super sweet. We had dinner with them on Saturday night. They made some good soft chicken tacos. I haven't had some good authentic mexican food since I've been here. I'll admit that I miss mom's mexican food even though I didnt really care for it back home. Haha. We don't eat mexican food here besides Taco Bell. Anyways we are probably going to start teaching the father soon. The family loves us. They want us over like every other night for dinner now. So do you guys remember those Mangos on a stick with the red sauce and the chili powder that we would get on the beach down in Rocky Point that were super good?? I asked this family about them and they know how to make them so next time we go over there they are going to make those for us. So there is this Sister missionary that came home from her mission. She's from here in Gonzales. She came up to us at church and started talking to us and said she got back from the Arizona Tucson mission. I was like where all did you serve and she was like Tucson, Benson, Morenci, and her last area was Pima/Central. I was like no way I have family in Central. I was like do you know Renee and Joey Layton? She was like yeah. In fact she just had dinner over at there house. So that was pretty crazy. She knew Justin and Jacob and alot of other people that I knew from Central. Small world huh? Her name is Sis. Goldsmith. During her talk she was talking about the areas she served in and she was like  "my last area was the Gila Valley which is pretty much the Celestial Kingdom." So that was pretty cool. The other day I was washing some clothes and when I came down to change them there was like an inch of water all over the floor. I guess our washing machine got clogged up. So we had to scoop a ton of water out of our apartment. That wasn't very fun. Anyways I don't have anything else to talk about. Can't wait to hear from you again. Remember your always in my prayers.

Elder Willis <3