In the strength of the Lord

Hello!

This has been a great week! We've been working on building the trust of our bishop (there's been some missionary issues in the past) and this week he gave us some really good referrals to go see, so we're way excited about that. It's going good in the ward.

LARRY came to church!!! :) He got a priesthood blessing this past week to help him live the word of wisdom, and he's coming along "slowly but surely" in his words. But he's starting to get the "glow" in his countenance, which is way awesome. In church yesterday we talked about missionary work - (backstory: Our ward mission leader used to be a baptist preacher, and is a car salesman, and teaches our gospel essentials class. So, as you can imagine, it's pretty entertaining. In talking about his conversion..) While he and his wife (a member) were dating he asked about baptisms for the dead and she completely straight faced said "you dig em, we dunk em" and he was like "alriiight! where's a shovel!?" and we were all laughing way hard, and then I turned to Larry and said, don't worry, that's not actually a thing, and he was like "I was ready to start diggin too!" and it was waay funny. Prayers for him will be much appreciated!

 

Laticia is doing good too, she should be going to girls camp! Yay!

We went knocking for 6 hours on Saturday, it was intense. We did get a referral from a member for an elderly couple who said we can come back in a few weeks, and found a guy Sam who said he would love to learn about our church and took a Book of Mormon! We're excited to go see him. 

I was reading this week about Alma and Amulek (take a moment to recognize how awesome they are) and something stuck out to me. It talks about Amulek's sacrifices, "Amulek having forsaken all his gold, and silver, and his precious things.. for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred" and when nobody would listen, Alma took him aside for a while and "did administer unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord." I love that last part, that he "strengthened him in the Lord." It wasn't in himself, he didn't say, "Amulek, you're awesome. You can do it. You've got it." because true strength doesn't rely within us. True strength lies within our Savior. Alma strengthened him in the Lord, because when He is on our side, we cannot fail. (see Alma 2:35 and Alma 17:37) We find true success, true happiness, true peace, true strength when we put our faith and trust in Him, and put our life in His hands. That is not an easy thing to do, let me tell you, haha, but I know that I have felt more of those things than I have before when I learn to place my trust and my life in my Savior's hands, and rely on His strength. I am convinced that when we do anything in the strength of the Lord, we can do all things and overcome every thing. I love my Savior. I am forever grateful for the privilege of being a missionary - it is the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. I love every day. 

I love each of you so much and wish you the best of weeks!

Sister Wilson

Spider count: 

Wilson - 28 (plus the additionals we found in the shed - video is being sent home) ;)

Thurber - 7.5 (half being because she deserved some credit for sticking it out in the shed with me while I explored)

 

 You can pick blackberries on the side of the road while we walk/knock. It's Thurber's new favorite thing :)

 The sign entering Shelton: Christmas town (several houses have teeny subtle Christmas decor still up year round and there's lil "Christmas villages"

 We got imported to Lakewood for the fireside last night cause they had nobody to do music, and got stuck in traffic for 2 and a half hours... But it was some pretty amazing views! (you can see the Narrows Bridge in the distance)

 I got to see LOY <3 at the fireside last night!! best day ever. It was way fun. 

(I played piano for everything and got to sing in a special number - woo!)

 So we have this shed on our property that we've never gone in and this morning I wanted to explore (we heard there was a beehive in it?) but instead, we found nests on nests on nests on nests of spiders. You could have a lil zoo in there

  I'll include our favorite find: Monstro (who went missing after about 5 minutes, and that is when we left)

 Also - zone conference pictures from the blog