FLEMING ISLAND - November 26, 2012

Hello :)

Well, are you ready to here where I am? I got transferred to the Fleming Island and my companion is Elder Moser. Elder Moser was actually Elder Huckvale's companion in the MTC. And one of my Zone Leaders is Elder Gebhard. I don't know if you remember me talking about him before I left? But he is someone Adam met at BYU and he got his call here and we started talking on facebook. So it is neat to be serving around him.

New Address:
2285 Marsh Hawk Ln. #3-305
Fleming Island, FL. 32003

So Fleming Island is just south of Jacksonville. It is also technically Orange Park, but not at the same time. I don't know, I really don't understand. But if you put Orange Park or Fleming Island in the address it will work. I put Fleming Island because that is the name of the ward. My District is massive! Typically there are 2-4 companionships in a District. Well, there is 7 companionships in my district. I am lucky, because the Zone Leaders are in my District, and 2 companionships are Sisters, and 1 is a senior couple. So there are only 2 companionships I get to go on trade offs with.

Things are great here in Fleming Island. The members are super loving and great! We had a Thanksgiving breakfest, lunch and dinner. I was stuffed by the end of the day haha. It was great! It sounds like you all had quite the feast at home. It sounded like a ton of fun.

Well, some more about the area. I am in a 4 man apartment still. It is funny though, because the other companionship in the apartment who is Elders Clark and Ales are in a completely different Zone. Elder Clark is the District Leader in his District. So Sunday night are sort of crazy in our apartment. We have a car share. So we bike one day and have a car the next day. That is pretty much what I have had my whole mission except for 6 months when I was all bike. Then I had all car my first transfer.

I am not sure if the Whittakers got baptized or not yet. They should have gotten baptized., but I couldn't tell you for sure.

Well, I am trying to figure out something really exciting that happened this week, but I can't think of any yet. OH, the thanksgiving Dinner we had was with the Bishop in this ward. They had a non-oil deep frier? Don't ask me how it works, but they cooked the chicken in that. No offense to anyone who has made turkey for me. That was the best turkey I have ever had by far. Most turkey is really dry and I don't like that. This one was moist and it was soooooo GOOD! haha.

Anyways, Elder Moser is from Los Angelas, California and he is a Lakers fan. So we started out rough haha. No, I am kidding. He is great and we are getting along wonderfully.

Well, that is about it for this week. I will have more next week. I am still trying to get used to the area. I have only been here for 4 days I think.

Oh. And ya, I sent the shoes last Tuesday and they said it should have gotten there by Friday?

Love you!
Elder Wise

Leaving the Ocala Ward - sad.

Elder Wise and Elder Weave - Ocala 2nd Ward (With the President and his wife)


 



BEST YEAR and a HALF!! - November 20, 2012

HELLO!!!!

Sounds like Camas is dominating! GOOOO CAMAS! That is awesome! Dad had me nervous. I read his first and he said Mom would tell me about it. And it sounded like they lost. But nope! they WON!! WOOOHOO!

Well, here is the christmas list. OH and I need to explain something first. I REALLY DONT LIKE THE DUCKS!!! And the DUCKS get FREE nike STUFF. SO NOW I HAVE SWORN AGAINST NIKE haha. I am an ADIDAS man. So remember that haha.

1. Basketball shorts.

2. Basketball socks.

3. Ankle Weights.

4. and if I am lucky.. Basketball shoes haha ( and if you get those. can you get black and white ones so any shorts will match them?)

Well, this week was great. The Whittakers were interviewed on Sunday and they will be getting baptized on Saturday :) YAY!!!!! So that was great!

We started working with a less active member this week. The first time visiting him we were just talking. He was talking about the struggles he is going through. As he was talking a thought popped into my head to ask him if he believed that Joseph Smith was a Prophet. It was completely off subject, but I did. He replied saying "I dont know." We had another appointment to get to so we set up another appointment and told him we could help him find out if it is true. He agreed. We went back yesterday and had one of the most unified, clear, and powerful lessons I have been in with Elder Weaver. And he committed to read and pray. It was great! Follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, that is everything in missionary work because we as missionaries are just there. The spirit is the one teaching.

This area has really been amazing. I am really excited to see where I am going too. But I am going to be sad to leave this area too. :(.

This morning I was looking back at my mission so far. I am so glad I came! So much good has happened. In me and in others. I have been able to meet some amazing people who have changed my life forever. I am learning how to budget (still struggling with it. But I will get it). I have learned what the Gospel of Christ really is! I have learned how to become Christlike. I have learned how to share the gospel. I have learned how to connect with random people who have no similar interests as me. It really has been the best year and a half ever so far. And I guarantee the next 7 months will be the same.

Well, I love you all! I hope you have an amazing thanksgiving! Keep being amazing!

Love you

Elder Wise

Elder Wise's GIFT! - November 12, 2012

Hello :)

We had a wonderful week this week. Well, transfer meeting is on November 21st, the day before thanksgiving? ya! So this last weekend was trainer calls. Guess who got called to train? Elder Weaver! Oh ya! This is our last week of the training program and he gets called to train right at the get go! He is a fantastic Elder and he will do a great job! So yes, that means I will be getting transferred on November 21st. You should be fine mailing the package btw! It will get to me by then.

Wow, I really have loved Ocala! The Bishop here is incredible, and everyone else is just as amazing! We went out with our Bishop last night, and our Bishop is just super encouraging and uplifting. He really made me feel good about my time here in Ocala. Bishop always tells the missionary leaving what there gift is. haha. He told Elder Bennion his gift was music. He told me that my gift, was when I walk in the room, there is a special powerful spirit, and just by walking in the room I draw attention. So I thought that was pretty neat. It definitely made me feel good. He said it helps that I am tall : ) Elder Weaver and I really do have a good relationship with the Bishop, we joke around with him a lot.

Yesterday in church, they had two youth speakers speak who gave extremely short talks. Bishop was the only other speaker and he had about 30 minutes to speak. Right before he got up to speak, I had to leave (I got really sick this last weekend and my throat was killing me in Sacrament so I had to duck out just for a little bit.). After I left, Bishop announced that he would have me bear my testimony after his talk. I came back into the chapel and he stopped talking right in the middle of his talk and let me know, as I was walking to my seat, that I would be talking after him. He thought it would be funny to scare me a little bit. So he said I will take about another 5 minutes and I will have you come up. Well, there was still 25 minutes left in sacrament meeting. So I thought, oh boy, I better prepare a talk quick. So I started thinking of a bunch of things I could talk about, scriptures I could share. Well, he was just messing with me. He gave me 5 minutes to bear my testimony.

I first started off by sharing Ether 12:27. I let them know that I have weaknesses and that I am only 20 years old. I told them I do my best to do the Lord's will. I then went to Doctrine and Covenants 84:88 where Christ promises that He will go before us and prepare the hearts of the children of men to receive the gospel. He promises that He will be on our right hands and on our left and that He will go before our face and lift us up. Bishop has been putting a huge emphasis on getting the young men out on missions. He had asked us to help him do that by setting an example and encouraging the young men. I basically testified to all the young men and young women that none of us are qualified to do the Lord's work. That He qualifies us, and strengthens our weaknesses so that we can do His work. I testified that Heavenly Father would prepare everything for them. I shared an experience where Elder Weaver and I were tracting at night. It gets really dark here at 6 and no one will listen to us after it gets dark. They will yell at us and tell us to go home and sleep :) So, we were discouraged (which we shouldn't be). Heavenly Father provided a tender mercy. We knocked on a certain door and the lady let us right in and we taught the Restoration to her and her husband. They are currently searching and they told us that and we have a return appointment wednesday. We invited them to church but they already had a commitment. Heavenly Father prepares the hearts, missionaries only harvest the work that is already done.

I got really sick this weekend. I started to feel a sore throat coming on Thursday. Then sure enough on Friday morning I had a really sore throat. Stupid me decided that he still wanted to play basketball as a morning workout with the missionaries. That made it worse. Then we had weekly planning in the morning. We tried to go out and work, but I couldn't do it and we had to go back. I felt bad. Later that night I ended up with a 102 degree tempature :P. Bluh! But I woke up okay the next morning and I still have a little bit of a sore throat.

Everything is going great as normal! Bowling was lots of fun :) I did horrible haha. As normal!

Well I better get running. I love you all! Hope you have a wonderful week. Next week pday will be on Tuesday because it is transfer week!

Bye!

Love

Elder Wise

REMEMBER and FORGET - November 5, 2012

Hello :)

Boy oh boy.. it was chili this week! We got some intense winds from sandy.. but that is it. No rain or anything. But it sure was fun biking in that wind. haha

Sounds like Camas is tearing it up in 4A. It's awesome. The missionaries here make fun of me for still keeping up with my high school. They all say once I graduated high school.. I graduated from everything a part of that high school. I think that's lame. I am proud to be a papermaker. Elder Huckvale does the same. We are the only two missionaries that are proud of our high schools I guess haha. Just shows how amazing Camas is!

I am glad you weren't in New York for that marathon ahaha.

Well, MISSIONARY WORK! Everything is still trucking along really well. We have someone on for baptism for the 17th this month, and then two on for the 24th. I am pretty excited! However, the baptism from last week didn't show up to church for their confirmation this week :( That was really sad. The first baptism I was apart of in Ocala. That man is second guessing. We are going to see him tonight and I pray the spirit will be with us to bring his testimony back.

Anyways, the biggest thing I learned this week is the power of scripture study. WOW! I have been studying the scriptures a lot more this week. It has made a huge difference in my testimony. I have really realized how true the primary answers are. You see great missionaries go home and go less active. It isn't because they lost their testimony. Their testimony is still there. They just don't remember their testimony. That is the trick, to always remember Jesus Christ and our testimony of His restored gospel. The best way to do that is through daily prayer and scripture study. It truly is powerful. Those missionaries who go home and go less-active, go less active because they forget to do the simple things. We get so caught up in more complicated things of the gospel because it is fun to think and explore ideas. But the problem with that is we forget the plain, simple, and PURE things of the gospel.

But that has been my week. I love being a missionary. It is definitely what I need to be doing right now. An Apostle said "It would take a man 40 years to learn what he could learn on a mission." I can't remember which Apostle it was : (. But that is super true. I cannot believe how much I have learned while being on my mission. It is a night and day difference between the person I was, and the person I am now. Hopefully a better difference :) haha. Im kidding, I know it is a better difference. Because I am now living the gospel.

I am sorry it is a short email but we have to be done shopping within an hour and head up to GVILLE!

I LOVE YOU

Elder Wise