My New District

Me and Sister Huber...9 month mark

I guess it's time to meet companion number 8!

So I am not training, but instead, I have the privilege of serving with Sister Tau! She is so great. We actually came out together so that's pretty cool. Sister Tau is from Tonga, but her family moved to New Zealand a few years ago and that's where she's been living. She has the cutest little accent and the sweetest spirit. There was no awkward getting to know you period, we were insta-friends from the start and we get along so well. It's pretty cool…since she's been in the area we have had some amazing success. We set a baptismal date with Jontae that I'm pretty sure he will make it to, we officially started re-teaching this family that Sister Bonner and I found two transfers ago and committed them to read the Book of Mormon, we've found some new awesome investigators and the work just seems to be booming. It is a great feeling and time just seems to be going by so darn fast. This Saturday will be my 9 month/ half way mark. I cannot believe it's been that long seeing as I'm pretty sure I just left the MTC yesterday. But it is what it is I guess. I know we've been working hard this past week, because every night we have literally had to drag our tired bodies into our apartment and a few nights ago I'm pretty sure we were in danger of getting in a car accident because I was so tired while driving. All is well though we got home safely. We definitely have angels watching over us haha.

So this week we started teaching a new investigator named Anita who seems like she could be golden. We taught her the Restoration and when we got to Joseph Smith's first vision she started crying. The spirit was so strong and she said that she felt such peace. That was def the spirit confirming the truthfulness of it unto her. After we asked her if she believed things to be true she said yes and so we then invited her to prepare to be baptized and she proceeded to tell us that she was baptized Catholic and her parents were Catholic and she planned to stay that way... fortunately, we hear variations of this statement all of the time, so it didn't phase us, haha. We just re-explained about the importance of proper priesthood authority and then asked if we could continue teaching her and she said yes. So we are going back on Tuesday and she committed to start reading from the Book of Mormon. I know that if she does that and prays she will come to know that baptism is what she needs to do and she will get a confirmation from the spirit of that truth. That's why the Book of Mormon is the Keystone of our religion. If the book isn't true, then everything goes with it, but on the flip side, if the book is true than every other claim stands. That's why we emphasize reading the Book of Mormon so much. It holds everything together. Basically what I tell people is that, if they read and pray about the Book of Mormon and they find out it isn't true, then they have lost absolutely nothing. Maybe some time. But, if they read and pray and come to know of its truthfulness, like millions of others already have, they have gained everything. Eternal life, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and eternal family, joy in this life and the next, a knowledge of our purpose in this life, answers to the questions of the soul pertaining to where we came from, why we're here, where we're going and so much more. To me, that is worth some time spent reading, pondering, and praying about a book that is meant to bless your life and strengthen your relationship with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Anyways, it's been a great week and i know this one will be awesome as well. I love you all! See ya!

-Sister Williams

Me and Sister Tau

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

I forgot to send this a while ago, during Christmas, but let's just say that it scared the heck out of me and we ended up driving back because I thought there was a poor man who needed saving. Dumb decorations... 

Goodbye Elder Wilstead! My old zone leader turned AP turned RM :(

Welcome to the Houston Heights! 

I mustache you a question. 

Zone service project at the Houston Food Bank.

One of our last district pictures :(

Hermana Villanueva and I on a trip downtown. She goes home in 2 days!!!!

Comp unity

Everything is bigger in Texas!

Happy Valentine's Day week! 

So transfer calls have been made and the verdict is... Sister Bonner is leaving :( It is such a sad day in Melbourne. She has been here her entire mission, which is 71/2 months, so I guess it's time, but it will be a bummer for sure. That means I will be either getting a new comp tomorrow, or training and getting a new missionary on Thursday. I guess we'll see what happens. Luckily, as time goes on, transfers become less and less traumatic and you just deal with whatever happens. I mean it wasn't that bad before, but having to get to know a new person by suddenly living with them is always a little awkward. Like I said though, all is well. 

So this past week was good as usual. It flew by, just like everything else seems to be flying by. I have no idea where this transfer went. I blinked and we were getting calls again. We were able to meet with Jontae again, and this time, after a couple months of meeting with him, we were finally able to teach him inside of his house. It was so cool, because his mom was there as well and she sat in the lesson and participated and loved it. She totally opened up about her life and about how she needs to have God and Jesus Christ in her life and she agreed to continue meeting with us and Jontae, so that was pretty cool. We also extended a baptismal invite to Jontae, and he agreed to pray about it, hopefully as we continue to meet with them they both will have a desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority. Jackie, on the other hand, has fallen off the face of the earth. We had exchanges this weekend with the Hermanas, and because Hermana Villanueva was the one who initially found her, we figured we'd stop by and see if Jackie would let us in because she was there. She did and we chatted for a little bit, and she promised she would come to church the next day, but she didn't and she hasn't been answering our calls. So hopefully that will resolve itself soon. 

Speaking of transfers, because I was with Hna Villanueva, I got to go with her to the Spanish area for the first time. It was so fun. I got to use some of my new found Spanish to help teach the restoration, and I invited a woman to church in Espanol and ya, I'm definitely not awesome at it, but I can get by, which is encouraging. Anyways, other than that, the only other semi- interesting thing that happened was on P-day when we all went downtown and went to the very top floor of Chase Tower and took pictures. Haha that was fun. We probably didn't look as mature and dignified as we could have, but that's ok. It happens sometimes. 

So a thought I had this week was on forgiveness. I have been reading the book "The Miracle of Forgiveness" by Spencer W. Kimball, and I love it. A lot of people don't like that book because they think it is too harsh and blunt, but I like it for just that reason. When you are clear on the rules and the expectations, there is no room for error because of ignorance. Anyways, there is a section in the book that concerns the repentance process and part of that process is, in order to receive forgiveness for yourself, you need to forgive others. This idea never really stood out to me before. There is a section in the Book of Mormon in Mosiah chapter 4 that talks about this concept. Basically it says, if someone is asking for our forgiveness and we fail to forgive them (sincerely) then we stand condemned. The reason being, that we are all beggars. We have all asked, or are currently asking, the Lord to forgive us for  our transgressions, and if we cannot give that same relief to another person then we are hypocrites. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said a quote that I have probably mentioned before, but here it is again. "We don't want God to remember our sins, so there is something fundamentally wrong in our relentlessly trying to remember those of others." I don't think this really hits home until you are really trying to repent for something, and you realize that that is impossible if you have not completely forgiven those around you of any trespasses against you. I like it though. If we could all rid ourselves of any malice or anger or resentment towards others due to wrongs done in the past and that are sometimes imagined, the world really would be a better place. Obviously that is easier said than done, but I can promise that if you diligently seek to find forgiveness in your heart through prayer and fasting, that peace will come and your life will be blessed because of it. Anyways, that was my thought or the day. 

I love you all and hope you all get to smooch that special someone on V-day. Or not, eating a box of chocolate is just as good :) have a good week! 

Love Sister Williams

The City

This is really our last District picture with Sister Bonner

Elder Grasse ruined the jumping  one..haha. Brat

Didn't quite make it.

That's better.

We love Houston.

The progression of yet another jumping picture. What can we say, we like to jump.

Didn't even jump.

Not quite.

So close.

nailed it... I swear, we actually do missionary work. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello fam bam,

So things didn't turn out the way we had expected this past week. Jackie has been avoiding us and I believe that this is because after we taught her the Word of Wisdom and she committed to live it, she gave into temptation and broke it. This just means that Sister Bonner and I did not do our job at explaining the Atonement as well as we should have. Hopefully we can see her again soon and help her understand that we all make mistakes and that that is the reason we have the atonement. If none of us ever needed to use to use the Atonement then it would be a thoughtful but pointless gift. Also when we use it, we have the privilege of getting to know our Savior better. That is a blessing in and of itself. Our other investigator also came to church again for all 3 hours which is a miracle because getting up before 1:00 is a huge trial for him, but he keeps coming. We are going to try and extend a baptismal invite to him this week

 On the other hand, we met with the Bishops again, the family we had previously dropped, and we ended up re-dropping them because they were horrible in the lesson that we had on Thursday. Bonner and I spent the whole week prepping ourselves mentally and spiritually to meet with them again and we planned out this amazing lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ and we did it prayerfully and we just felt really good about it, and then we get to their home and they proceed to attempt to tear us apart. I have never been so offended in my life. At one point they pulled out little packets for each of us to look at with the differences between Mormon's beliefs and other Christian beliefs and they wanted to go through each one so they could prove that we weren't Christian. They didn't. It turned out that basically everything on that paper was taken out of context and full of error and they ended up looking, and I'm sure feeling, very foolish. Interestingly enough, when we first got there, after the formalities of asking each other about the other's week and what not, after that, when they proceeded to lose their minds, I felt super calm and I know that it was the spirit comforting me. It is pretty amazing that Heavenly Father keeps his promise to protect his children when we strive to fulfill our calling and share the gospel with everyone, even those that scare us. Even when we are rejected and attacked, we can receive the calm assurance of the Holy Ghost that what we teach is true. Something about me though, when I get mad, as hard as I try not to, I cry. For some reason I can't help it and it drives me nuts. So while I'm sitting there still trying to be polite and courteous on the outside, I am positively livid inside, and so when it's my turn to talk, my eyes are all full of tears and my voice is all wobbly and I feel like such an idiot. It doesn't help my anger, and my tears, when Ryan then says, "I know this is all probably hard for you to hear, but I have to say it anyways." I wanted to punch him in the throat. I was not crying because my testimony of The Book of Mormon was compromised in any way. I was not crying because he was asking "hard" (more like ridiculous) questions. I was not crying because they told us that we weren't saved. I was crying because, for some reason, that is how my body reacts to wanting to strangle someone... Anyways, I'm going to stop now. By the end, after we closed with a prayer, they told us that just because we believe different things doesn't mean that we can't still be friends and then they awkwardly made us hug them.................................................. I hated that part. But, I have repented (I'll probably have to do that again) and I have prayed fervently for charity and love for them and I was doing great up until now when I remembered all of my negative feelings about that experience. Anyways, that's enough about that.  

So because this is all still so fresh in my mind, the thought I want to share today is on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Basically the gospel of Jesus Christ laid out is: having faith in Jesus Christ that leads us to repent (or change), following the example of Jesus Christ and being baptized by someone holding priesthood authority, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands and enduring faithfully to the end (2 Nephi 31:20, or 2 Nephi 31 in general). To a lot of other Christian faiths this Gospel makes it seem like we are trying to "work our way to heaven". One of the problems the Bishops had was that it appeared, that by doing all of these things, including keeping the commandments and attending church and doing good works, we were taking away from the glory of the sacrifice of the atonement. They believed that there is absolutely nothing we can do to obtain salvation and that as long as we believe in Christ then we are saved and nothing can take that away from us. The reason why this bothers me so much, is because the reason we do all of these things is to glorify and honor our Savior and his sacrifice. I like to think of it as a cake recipe. Let's say that your mom gave you the recipe for the most delicious cake in the world. Contained in the recipe are the ingredients you will need to make this delicious cake and the tools that you will need to use as well. But instead of making the cake and eating it, you just frame the recipe and put it on your wall so you can look at it and remember it and thank your mom profusely for being so kind in giving you this amazing gift... Tell me, was the reason your mom gave you the recipe just so you could look at it and admire it, but never use it? Are your really showing gratitude to mom for that gift by just believing that the recipe makes a good cake? Are you receiving the most happiness you could from that gift by never making the cake and is your mom receiving the most joy she could by never seeing you use her gift? The answer to all of these questions is no. Your mom gave you the recipe so that you could put all of the ingredients together with the help of the tools and make the cake and receive a fullness of joy in making AND eating the cake. Does making and eating the cake take away from mom's glory? No, it's still her recipe, it's still her gift, but now you both can rejoice together from the deliciousness of this cake. The same goes for the Atonement.  The Savior didn't just die for us, but he also taught us how to live. He lead a life that was meant to exemplify what we need to do in order to return to live with him and our Father in Heaven again. Jesus Christ gave us an incredible gift, but he also gave us the exact tools, or the recipe, we would need in order to use the Atonement fully and receive all of the blessings from it. By just looking at it and being grateful for it, we are only receiving partial joy. We can show greater appreciation and receive greater happiness by actually using the Atonement through faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. I have a firm testimony of this. I know that Father in Heaven and our Savior ask more of us in this life because they know that that is the only way we can return to live with them again and also because they know we are capable of doing hard things. Yes, sometimes living the gospel and keeping the commandments is hard and you make mistakes. You make a mess in the kitchen so to speak. Luckily, we have more tools than just cooking tools to help us out with, That. Please, if you do not know that much about the Atonement I urge to learn more. If you are not using the gospel to the fullest extent possible I urge you to do so. These things will bless your life and bring Heavenly Father joy, because you are doing what it takes to return to live with him again. I know this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ and I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is Christ's church established once again on the earth. I have such a strong testimony of these things, and I say them in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

-Sister Williams 

p.s.

If you ever are interested in hearing a great talk about grace, check out Brad Wilcox's talk titled "His Grace is Sufficient". It is super good. Love you all!  

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1966