Will Elder Huckvale Become Elder Wise's Companion? - January 28, 2013

I had a crazy week this week. In our zone we have had a lot of emergency transfers. One of which was an Elder that was supposed to go home on valentines day, but because of health reasons he went home a little early, and guess who took his spot? Elder Huckvale! So here is something interesting. Elder Huckvale is in Dunn Ave and his companion is Elder Baczuk. Elder Baczuk just got released from being a Zone Leader last transfer and is now the District Leader. When Zone Leaders get released, they always train. So here is the rumor, President Barry was planning on sticking Elder Huckvale with me in Arlington. He planned on having Elder Baczuk train. So he is just sticking Elder Huckvale in Dunn Ave until transfers. Then he will come with me. That is the rumor.

The Assistants work with President Barry to figure out transfers. They went on a trade off with us this week. On the trade offs, Elder Tomlinson (the Assistant) asked Elder Bushman how Elder Huckvale and I would be in a companionship. So it is actually sounding like Elder Huckvale might come back to Arlington with me. That would be absolutely crazy haha! (Elder Huckvale is from our ward and got called to the Florida, Jacksonville mission about 6 mo after Elder Wise!! CRAZY! It was cool to be called to the same mission from the same ward, but not the possibility of being companions and zone leaders??? WOW! - stay tuned) 
Teagen told me the BYU game was just like the one we went to. They started chanting B Y U Cougars around THEIR stadium... haha. It is so great!

Well, this week was really crazy.. We had three trade offs in a row. I was absolutely exhausted after those. haha. This week is going to be crazier.

Tomorrow, we will be going to a District Meeting. Wednesday, we have Zone Leader Council. Thursday, we have a meeting I will tell you more about in a second. We have weekly planning on Friday. And on Saturday, we have a short exchange. Then on Sunday we have Church. So basically, we will only be proselyting in our area from about 4 to 9 each day.. It is going to be a hectic week.

Have you heard of Gladys Knight and her choir "Saints United Voices"? Well, basically they come to big cities and she does a performance in one of the Stake Centers. She is a convert and she is from the south. They did it in Savannah a couple years back and over a hundred people were converted because of it. People in Savannah still talk about it. It should be pretty exciting. They ask missionaries to play a pretty big role in it. The meeting on Thursday is basically telling us what they expect us to do. It should be really great!

I got a letter from Brother Huckvale this week. He basically told me to not get trunky. That was neat.

Well, I was just talking to Elder Huckvale, and apparently President Barry told him that he would be coming with me. Crazy huh?

Anyway, I don't have too much to talk about this week. Well, actually, we have a former investigator that came to church awhile back and didn't like it. We went by and saw her again and she said she would like to try it out again. She said she feels more spiritually prepared. We retaught her the restoration and she said everything makes sense. We invited her to be baptized on February 17th. She accepted. It is actually her birthday. :) Things are going really well!
Anyways, I love you all a ton. Hope you have a great week. Mom, hope you get feeling better :)

Love,
Elder Wise

Pride is the Source of All Bad Things - January 21, 2013

Hello :)

We had a great week! Jonah did get baptized yesterday and it was a great experience filled with the spirit. He is pretty scared of water, it was really neat to see his courage and faith in Christ to suck up his fear. :) Pretty incredible. He is 15. After the baptism he went up to the Young Men's President and asked if he could go to the temple now! That made my day. It was so great!

Well, this is Elder Bushman's last transfer and transfers are February 13th. So he will be flying home on the 14th which is Valentines day! He was just on facebook and he saw that his Mom created an event for his homecoming talk and that killed him.. POOR guy haha. He is staying strong though. He has been a good example to me on how not to get trunky :) He also got grilled at church yesterday. All the members were talking to him about going home.. He hated it.

Well, there is a man named Demond we have been teaching for awhile. He has always been pretty closed off to us. We couldn't figure out what to do. He is a part member by the way. His wife is a member. So one time we went over there, we ended up talking about sports for probably 20 to 30 minutes and afterwards, he really opened up and started asking really good questions. It just showed me that sometimes us missionaries have to be human :) haha. No, we always need to be ourselves, or else people can't trust us. That has been hard for me to try to find the balance between being myself and not wasting time talking about things that don't really matter in the long run. But, I do need to be human.

Something else I was reminded of this week is to be humble. I am prideful haha. We all are prideful in our own ways. Me, I am prideful when it comes to earthly possessions. I want to posses nice things :P I am also prideful in sports. STILL! I know.. it is pathetic. I am working on it though. In sports I am not so much prideful in the way that I think I am AMAZING... Because I am really not very good. It is more so I talk trash sooo much.. haha. Mainly joking around.. but still. I am working on it. I am obviously prideful in a lot of other things. But, those are my two biggest. A member of the Bishopric gave an excellent talk on Pride and Humility. Pride is really the source of all bad things. The member who gave the talk is one of the most humble men I know too.

Anyways, things are going pretty normal right now. Just plugging and chugging along with the work..

So here are the points of my Mission Statement.. the goals behind it.

1) Humility - I am a humble disciple of Jesus Christ.
2) Focus on the Gospel of Christ - I eat, drink, and breath His gospel.
3) Obedient and Diligent - I forsake my will for His.
4) Strengthen my Testimony - And I nourish my testimony daily!

That is basically what I am really working on right now.

I am sort of scared to go play Stock man in basketball when I get back! It sounds like he is the man!

FOR STOCKTON: Stockton, GET YOUR BUTT OFF THE PLAYSTATION AND HIT THOSE WEIGHTS! PLAYING VIDEO GAMES WONT DO ANYTHING FOR YOU!!!!!! Bishop Wight said it himself, all your missing is strength! Build that strength and EVERYONE will be SCARED TO PLAY YOU!!! I wish I would have worked out harder. I am already scared... haha. AND READ THE SCRIPTURES OF COURSE :D I LOVE YOU BRO!!!

Well, I love you ALL!! And have an AMAZING WEEK! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Love
Elder Wise

Short and Sweet - January 7, 2013

Hello Family :)

New Year's day was incredible! The Gator Bowl was a lot of fun. A lot of missionaries went. We had nose bleeder seats, but it was really fun. Northwestern crushed them, and yes, it was really sloppy play. I was able to get a t-shirt at the game. (we watched the game because we knew Levi was there. We kept watching for a group of white shirts, but the seats were empty! I guess the camera never showed the nose bleed seats :) ... it was a blowout, but a cool game to attend. They had a blast and yes, it was all approved by the mission president! The Gator Bowl just happened to fall on their P-day.) 

Well, I am going to try to keep it short today because of the essays.

Janice's baptism was incredible. Elder Bushman and I sang a "special" musical number. We sang "Joseph Smiths First Prayer" to the tune of "In Humility, Our Savior". It was fun. The spirit was definitely there. Our zone was struggling finding the last few weeks. So, we decided to have a "Master Finding Friday". Our goal was to find 18 new investigators on that one day as a zone. We ended up finding 14 :) In Arlington, we found 5 new investigators. We had an incredible week of finding.

We met this man who said he played football in HS and had scholarships to Clemson and Florida. But, he decided not to go because of work. ALSO, his wife ran track and she said she ran a 10.3 100m??? (yeah, sprinters are like fishermen - they always run about 1-2 seconds faster than reality. Somehow, every time they tell the story, they get faster? How does that happen? :)  Is that even possible? She does look extremely athletic.

Anyway, we are really excited for all of these new investigators Heavenly Father has blessed us with :)

Yes, I did get a package from G and G Wise. I have been meaning to write them a letter but everything is so busy. They got me some Adidas socks that are super comfy. They also sent those Walnuts they make. I think they are walnuts? My companion and I ate them up in a day. They were good haha.

Anyways, sorry for the short email. Gotta Run

Love

Elder Wise

GATOR BOWL!!! and Happy Black Out Year - January 1, 2013

Hello :)

I have to be quick today. We have to get running to the Gator bowl!

Well, Janice didn't get baptized this last week, but she is today :) We are so excited. We got the Gator Bowl and a baptism today. Can New Years Day get any better?

Gator Bowl! 

Isn't Cameron Marshall coming home this week? I can't believe time is flying by like this. Elder Bushman rolled out of bed this morning and said "Elder, it is 2013. The year of our mission is over :(" I told him to not say such things haha. But, us missionaries call the one year we are gone the entire year "The year of the Mission". Our blackout year. haha. 

Oh... transfer news... Elder Bushman and I are both staying in Arlington. No changes.

And... I have some news. So I originally told you the day i fly home is June 20th. Well, the new age change altered that . With all the new missionaries coming out they are shortening the MTC time .. So they are messing with one of our transfer cycles. Our transfer in March is only going to be 5 weeks. So we all lose a week on our mission. So I will be flying home on June 13th now..jsyk.

Anyways, I love you all. It was great talking to you this last week. I have to run so we can make it to the gator bowl on time.

LOVE you

Elder WISE