Love Like Rain (April 8)

First off, thank you all SO MUCH for your birthday wishes! It was a good day yesterday! Although, with my companion's brithday RIGHT after mine it more feels like we've both had THREE birthdays instead of just one! So yeah. Obviously it's been good!

So yes. Conference was AMAZING! And watching it as a missionary really changes things! You see things differently, you think about your investigators, and about how this can help them. Did anyone else notice how each of the speakers spoke as though they were speaking to people who were not yet members? Anyway, I thought it was like that, which I loved!

Also, WE WERE ON TV YESTERDAY! We only watched a small portion on KSL. We had to R.U.N.N.O.F.T to make it to the next session so we didn't see the whole thing. But yeah. Nearly EVERYONE in the stake (which is most everyone we passed on the street) was saying things like "I saw you on TV!" and "You're famous!" We had a LOT of cars just pull over (against traffic) just to tell us that they saw us! It was fun!

Sending ALL my love in the raindrops! (or, in case it's not raining there, I'll send it in the sunshine!)

Sister Willis

Dear Everyone! (April 1)

Okay, so I DON'T have a whole lot of time! Easter was good! We went to three different sacrament meetings and sang in two diff

erent on-the-spot chiors. Crazy good stuff! So, we haven't had any new investigators and we had to hand James and Jun off to the Chinese Elders since they're now going to a Chinese ward. They didn't get baptized on their date, but I have every ounce of confidence that that WILL get baptized! And soon at that!

As far as how the work is going we've been working a TON with less active members! And I LOVE it! I feel like my purpose for being here in Salt Lake is to totally strengthen these center stakes of Zion! And, for some reason or other, I always feel WAY more comfortable teaching less active people than I do with investigators. Maybe it has something to do with having their salvation in my hands and all that. But yeah. It's good!

...I'm trying to think of what else I can say. Hmm. Transfers are coming up on April 10th so there's always that possibility of being transfered. I am WAY OOBER excited for Conference! We're going to go to a family in the ward's house and watching it on their HUGE flat screen. (I'll have to send you pictures of the couple! They're like one of our favorites!). Also, did I mention that my companion's birthday is on the 8th and mine's on the 7th? So yeah. WAY fun! We're going to do all sorts of fun things next weekend! But I am WAY excited for conference!

So we've had a lot of crazy things happen to us -crazy good and crazy bad. Like yesterday, I talked to this woman and she walked up to me, put her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eye and said: "I HATE Mormons." So yeah, that was weird! But we just brushed it off and kept on going. Later on that day, we ran into several people who were OOBER happy and nice and although few of them wanted to listen to the message, they were very curtious about it. We're currently teaching about six less active members and it's in the works to start teaching more of them. So yeah. Gotta love that!

Other than that, I'm not exactly sure what updates I can give. The weeks are SO full, but when Pday comes around I can never remember all of them... Anyway. I love you all SO MUCH!!! I hope you have a GREAT rest of your week and I hope you think of me as you share the gospel with all your friends and coworkers, etc.

I love you ALL dearly!

All My Love,

Sister Willis

P.S. Happy Early Brithday Jacob!!!

So Amazing! (March 25th)

This week has been SO AMAZING!!! I am SO EXCITED!! The jist of all my excitement comes from what happened last night! Here's what I told my mission president:

 

"Last night was a BIG testimony building experience. My companion and I (along with a member) were able to teach our investigators [Jun and James -that chinese couple] and put them on date. The lesson revolved around our Heavenly Father's Plan for His children and how that plan was the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We talked about baptism and how that was opens that gate on the path back to our Father in Heaven. They understood it's importance and desired to be on that path and to have that enabaling power of the Holy Ghost to keep them on that path. The spirit in that lesson was incredible! My companion and I were SO excited and the member (a young woman who will be leaving on her mission at the beginning of May) felt that same excitement for her own mission! "This is real!" she kept saying. "This is what it feels like to be a missionary!" I loved it!" We have a lesson with them again on Wednesay and we'll have it at the church building by the baptismal font. Aaaand, they don't know it yet, but we're going to drop by tomorrow night and teach them another lesson. I am WAY excited! They are SUCH amazing people!

 

ALSO! Riiiight after that we had a few minutes left of the night and we were driving and the member looks out the window and says "I feel like that house is poking out at me! I feel like we should stop!" So, of course, we did! We pulled over, literally jumped out of the car, and literally ran to the house and up the porch steps. We knocked on the door and a woman answered. She said that she was just getting ready for bed and we told her that we shared a message about Jesus and about how families can be together forever. By the looks of it, the woman was not a member. She said that'd be good and said that would could stop by tomorrow night (now tonight!) and it was WAY good!

 

Also, I can't rememeber if I told you about Yoko. Yoko is the less active woman with the desk. Anyway, we taught her on Thursday and it was amazing! She's been praying and reading her scriptures and she's been taking notes!! She has this binder that she writes notes in and all the things that are happening. I love her so much!! I comitted her to continue reading the Book of Mormon, only this time, she's going to share the stories with her son! She was excited about that and said she'd do it! We'll get to teach her again Thursday and I am SO excited!

 

We've been working a LOT with less active memebers! Yesterday we had a lesson with a young girl who has never been active and it was WAY good too! She was SO sincere and SO desiring to know more and to have that strong relationship with her Father in Heaven! Tonight we have a lesson with a less active family and we had another one Friday! I told my companion the other day that if I never got a single baptism but reactived a lot of people I would be totally and completely happy!

 

I love missionary work! I love my mission!

 

Oh! That reminds me! I haven't heard from Jessica yet and it's driving me bonkers! How is she doing?? Did she write you?? Did she email?? What's going on!?

 

Anyway, I hope you are ALL sharing your testimonies and reading the Book of Mormon every day! I just finished it last week and I've started again and I'm hoping to finish before the next transfer which is just a couple days before my birthday! So yeah, I figure if I read at least twenty pages a day I'll finish. Haha. Yikes! Wish me luck!

 

Hmm.. I feel like I have SO much to say and yet I can't think of anything else! I guess I'll just send this one out there and then send some pictures right after. If I think of anything else to say I'll shoot out another email.

 

So yeah. Rules are I can email anyone I want so long as their not in my mission boundaries. So... you should email me back! I miss ALL of you tremendously!!! Like. It's ridiculous!!

 

I'm sending all of my love in the sunshine!

Love, Sister Willis

Dear Everyone! (March 18th)

 Clips from Sister Willis's e-mail:

ALSO! We attended SIX wards yesterday for fast Sunday and we had time to bare our testimony in five of them! (Talk about having the spirit burst within you!) Anyway, I was standing at the door, greeting people and this woman stood next to me handing out flyers for a ward activity. When she asked me what my reaction was to serving in this mission I told her about how my dad served in the same mission AND SHE STARTED CRYING!! I was like Whoa! Seriously? But she was thoroughly touched! So, that's what I bore my testimony on in that ward. About how my dad had gone before me and served in the same mission and about how he would tell me things like I'd like, things that would be hard, and just about how great it was. I talked about how our Father has gone before us and about how He told us the things that we'd like and that would be hard, and about how great earth life was going to be. I loved it! I love it here!

 

Oh, funny story. The other day my companion and I knocked on this door and we heard someone yelling behind the door, across the house, in broken English  Soon the door was thrown back and this tall Asian woman with orange hair glared at us. "What you want!" So Sister Fulbright started in on why we were there and the woman yelled. "No! I don't want! Go away!" and slammed the door in our faces. ..It was the fast I've seen a door close! I guess I should have been someone hurt by it (I usually am), but it was just funny. Anyway.

MTC

I found this picture as I was going through my picture files today. It was taken like four years ago, but I'm excited to be going back soon! 

Two Weeks!

I leave in just two weeks and I quit my job in a little over a week. I am so thrilled! Today, in preparation for going, I dressed up and went over to my parents house with my grandma and we taught my family the first discussion! It was WAY fun! And they received the lesson very well! ;)

I checked up on my plane ticket today and bought my bus ticket from the airport to the MTC. It's been unusually warm here in Missouri for the beginning of December, but I'm expecting it to be very cold up in the great Salt Lake. So, yeah. Pretty excited. I am also STOKED to be spending Christmas AND New Year's in the MTC. Although, it was a bit of a bummer when I discovered that I wouldn't be able to call home for Christmas while in the MTC. But then.. I'll only have been gone for a few days. Not a big deal. Anyhow, I ought to be heading off to bed. Goodnight!