Halloween 2011

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

hello all!  The mission is alive and well!!!

WE HAD A DEAF BAPTISM YESTERDAY!!!!  YAY!!!  Javier was baptized and he's so full of faith!!   Its wonderful!  I know that he will be so strong for the rest of his life.  Gonzalo and Darlene are still being taught....its really hard (I think I mentioned this before) to get them...or any deaf people...to church because most the time they can't afford the gas.  Thats a big hurdle we must overcome in Deaf work!  But we are expecting miracles here and the Lord blesses us for our service.  I know that He loves all of His children and if those children are willing to obey Him, they will see miracles in their lives.    

For Halloween we arent allowed to go out at night (obviously, that would be a bad time to knock doors...) so our zone is having a movie night to see 17 Miracles.   Which I never had a chance to see before the mission, so I'm quite excited!  The weather has still been soooo amazing.  Mid 70's.  I guess its rare to be so warm for so long.  Its usually raining here by now.  Guess Im just lucky!  I may have to invest in some Walmart Rain boots....

Sister Williams hacked off her hair today.  I mean hacked.  She cut off 7 inches and now has a pixie cut!  Its ADORABLE on her.  Speaking of adorable, Downtown Sacramento is the most charming place I have ever been in my entire life.  I want to live there.  The houses are all these beautiful bright colors and all of them have so much character!  Big bay windows and ginormous trees everywhere.  Its my favorite place to go here on the mission.  

 I think I mentioned this before, but for the month of December the Sacramento mission has a goal of having 101 baptisms!  Its called White Christmas!  So, Sister Williams and I gave the 5th Sunday lesson about member missionary work and how we need to find at least one person to baptize THIS DECEMBER!  Its our gift to the savior.  Souls.  (White Christmas because when you're baptized, you wear white.)  We have such wonderful members down here and our member lessons have increased.  I know there are so many people who are waiting to meet us, but havent had a chance yet!  We will find them, dont you worry!  

 We had zone conference with Elder Yamashita (of the 70) and it was.....AMAZING!  (of course!)  They asked me a whole 4 days in advance to do a special musical number for it and I said yes!  I love every chance I have to sing and invite the spirit!  So I sang "For Me Alone" and we all had a wonderful time.  I am sooo thankful that Heavenly Father gave me the talent of music.  It blesses my life so greatly!!  

I love all of you!  I can feel your prayers working down here, so dont stop them!  :)

Love, Sister Wink

hello!

Sister Wilson is you writing from the best mission EVER!

 

This week was great. of course. I'm doing the work of the Lord! First things first: squirrel tastes like chicken. The most difficult thing about eating squirrel is that you just cant ever get rid of every single itty bitty hair. I mean, it was skinned and everything, but.....you just give up and eat the hair too. But I did it! :) And no regrets.

For some unknown reason, the Jehovahs Witnesses beat us to EVERY Deaf investigator! It must be satan. They somehow know where all of the Deaf people of Sacramento live and they are sure to visit them far before those Deaf can ever meet us! Lucky for me, the Jehovahs Witnesses dont believe in celebrating ANY kind of holiday, birthdays included, so most of the Deaf people think they're crazy and tell them to go away. We get mistaken for JW's all the time. Its quite frustrating because they kind of have a bad name here. Ive met a lot of different people that are happy to find out that we're Mormon, though, because they "love the Mormons!"

So, we got this miracle referral this week from Mormon.org! If someone gets on Mormon.org and wants to know more about the church, they can send in their information for missionaries to come by (of course)!! So we get a referral that says "I'm Deaf, I would like to know more about Mormons." YAY! So we showed up at his house. His name was Chou Her. (Pronounced Chow.) His language levels were VERY low, so we struggled to really understand him but through a lot of charades and blue box, we found out he had been baptized in "Jesus Christ." Come to find out, he was a member. Baptized in 2005 and then lost. We got him some home teachers and let him go, but it was great for one day to think that we had a new investigator! Hahaha. We laughed about it for a long time.

We DO, however, have 3 Deaf investigators right now. The hardest thing with the Deaf work is that they cant get to church! None of them have gas money to drive all the way to the branch so they cant ever be baptized. But we still expect miracles here! Some of them are able to catch the bus. We taught a Deaf couple last week: Gonzalo and Darlene. They lovingly let us in and told us they would love to talk about Jesus Christ. We taught for about 45 minutes about Jesus and the Bible and then we introduced the Book of Mormon. A look of horror comes onto Darlene's face. "I hate Mormons," she says. uhhh.....oh dear. "If a Mormon ever comes to my door, I will slam it in their face." We asked her more and she was nice to us, but expressed that we had some beliefs that she highly disagreed with, such as how the husbands get a new wife every year and cast off the old one. Oh where do people come up with these crazy things?!

 We explained that that wasnt true and we strongly believed in family and husbands being true to their wives far after death. She calmed down and said that her ex-boyfriend was a less active Mormon and he abused her. great example. We offered to teach her more and she accepted. So, there you have it. A miracle. She didnt know we were Mormon so she let us in and she gave us a chance after she found out that we were! YAAY! The church is true. That was my favorite part of the week.

The work is progressing and I love it with all my heart. I cant believe 3 months of my mission are almost gone already! Sister Williams has a lot of patience with me and she is teaching me lots of good things! I love her so much!!

Be representatives of Jesus Christ! Share this greatest of all gifts with your friends who dont have it. The work goes forward when members are involved! The Lord promises us that if we open our mouths, He will fill it with things to say to these people we love.

I love you all! Be safe!

Sister Wink

another week down....

First off, here is a list of what Terminex DOESNT tell you:

1) Getting rid of and killing german cockroaches are two very different things.

2) Dying bugs can move for days. as they proceed to die.

3) Terminex will happily poison your home and then leave all the dead cockroaches on your kitchen floor.

4) Cockroaches who dont want to die in the kitchen will crawl to the living room and die there

5) It smells funny

6) In an apartment of 5 sisters, Sister Larson is the only one willing to kill the cockroaches who WERENT influenced by poison

7) Survivors retreat to the ceiling so you can't squish them

8) Cockroaches have wings

9) I should have talked more to Kendall about bugs before I came on my mission

 Okay. So the roaches are mostly gone. mostly being the key word. Come to find out, we will probably need another treatment in a few weeks, but its better than it was. Meh. Ive been to Ghana. Other than a lot of german cockroaches, there are also a lot of SQUIRRELS in Sacramento! All. Over. everywhere. They're so cute. We are eating one tonight for dinner. One of the sisters in my apartment, Sister Foster, had an investigator who skins and eats squirrels and he gave us one to eat. I will let you know next week what it tastes like. :) Also, everybody has dogs. Lovely. Since I cant hold children, I pet dogs often. Love it.

 The Deaf work is so great here. I love it. We drive EVERYWHERE. We can teach in English in our zone only, but we can do Deaf work in the surrounding 9 zones. We drive up to an hour sometimes just to meet a Deaf potential investigator. Sooo...a lot of time in the car. We memorize scriptures and have great fun in that car we live in.

 The mission has a goal this December that's called "White Christmas." Its basically 101 baptisms for the mission during the month of December. (get it? white? baptismal suit?) So we are working hard and finding people to work with so they will be ready to be baptized! Also!!! We have one deaf investigator named Javier. He's scheduled to get baptized October 30th!! This Deaf branch hasnt had a baptism in a whole YEAR! YAY! AND! the other day, we got a text from a Deafie who wants us to come teach her! She found Mormon.org and says she wants to learn more so we are teaching her this Wednesday. The work is going forward! We also have another investigator named Ann. She's in her 50's and she teaches school. She's been surrounded by mormons and going to church for weeks now, but finally accepted missionary lessons because they were from Sisters missionaries! She's sooo ready to be baptized. Its just a matter of time. :)

 I'm really really sorry for all who have been getting my hacked emails! And facebooks! I cant log on to those in the mission field so just put me as spam!

 We have been in the 80's this week. So happy I'm not in Utah. (Baaa-hahahah) Its great. I love the work! Pray for me! I love you all!

 Sister Wilson

I'm here!!!

YAY! I MADE IT TO SACRAMENTO!!!! Or rather...a city near sacramento named Carmichael. Its so wonderful. I'm serving in the very LARGE Deaf branch here (that was a lie. its tiny.)

 I came to my TWO trainers mid-transfer so Ive literally been thrown into the work for 2 weeks before I have my "in field training!" Yay for ASL! So, next week, I when all the NEW elders get here (the group I was supposed to arrive with) I will have a big welcome and training and meet my trainers. We get a big banquet dinner and it should be great. But for now, I'm tracting in the rain. Love it. Really, I do. That wasnt sarcastic. :)

 As mentioned before I have two trainers! Sister Larson and Sister Williams! I knew Sister Williams from UVU because she's from Spanish Fork and studied at UVU with me! Shes sooo amazing! and wonderful! And Sister Larson is a far distant cousin of mine! Both of them are so patient with me and my learning (and boy, is there a lot to learn!) and I love them both sooo much! The three of us go out and do half hearing work and half Deaf work.

The hearing ward is so wonderful and very involved in our investigators progress! Members come to lessons and support our efforts! The Deaf branch is...itty bitty. In Relief Society yesterday we had a grand total of 6 sisters and my companionship. Its crazy small, but we will soon reactivate so many that more women will be coming! YES!

 We met a man named James this week. He doesnt know it, but he is so desperately searching for the gospel! He's about 6'1", maybe about 350 pounds. He talked about his life and cried. I am so excited for him to continue to meet with us. We are gonna change his life!! We added FOUR new investigators this week!! James is one of many to come!

Sacramento is really diverse. I was told that Sacramento is probably one of the most diverse missions in the world. We have people from ALL OVER here. We have missionaries serving in Russian, Spanish, ASL, English, Hmong, Cambodian, Tongan, Marshaleese, and Laotian. I had my first baptism last Saturday! okay...so it wasnt technically mine because it was already set up when I got here, but I still went! And my companions taught her!

 I'm learning pretty quickly how to be bold and...well...that wasnt ever really something I lacked at home so its been pretty easy for me! Calling people to repentance. Telling them that through the atonement they can change their lives! So amazing!!! The first night I got here, President Lewis looked at me and said "sister Wilson, this is a baptizing mission." Okay President!! We invite at least 3 people per missionary each day to be baptized. :)

The other day during personal study, I had eaten a bananna and the peel was sitting on my desk as I read the good word of the Lord. Then this little cockroach came along (oh yeah. our apartment is infested with medium-sized cockroaches. but we are getting sprayed tomorrow.) so anyway. This cockroach was crawling on my desk and he went inside the bananna peel and started eating it. I didnt really care because it was garbage to me and I figured I'd let him enjoy his life before I crunched him. I watched him go around and around. He ate some bananna, then he ran around like a maniac and down the side of the desk. Onto the floor. Back up the desk, inside the desk. It was like he had forgotten where the bananna was! I looked at this poor little guy and thought that maybe he was like a lot of the investigators that I have. Searching for the feast. Searching for happiness and fulfillment and they just cant see it even though its staring at them in the face. But one day they will. One day all my investigators will be bananna-eating, gospel-reading, baptized latter-day saints!!!! I just got to lead them! yes.

 Yesterday during the Deaf branch, they announced the speaker and she just signed back that she had forgotten to prepare a talk. So they then announced that they would pleased to hear from Sister Wilson. uhhh....okay. So I stood up and signed a little bit about myself and why I came on a mission. then I shared my testimony and sat down. haha. The Deaf branch's Sacrament meeting is more like Sunday School. People ask questions and answer back in the middle of their talks. Its kind of funny, but its such a small, intimate group that formal speaking just doesnt really match. The Deaf branch is after the hearing ward. 6 hours of straight church. except its funny because we go to Sacrament, Sunday school, RS, RS again, Sunday school, then Sacrament. Like a palendrome! Someone's cell phone went off during the meeting, but only 4 of us noticed because the rest were Deaf. How convenient.

 I love all of you. SEND MORE LETTERS TO ME!!!!!

I think my brain is finally out of junk to say. :)

Love, Sister Wilson
*wink*