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 :)

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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.

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