Happy New Year!

 Charity's zone at the Wa-Tac Mission Christmas Party

It's almost 2015! Crazy! 

This past week was so so fun. Monday we got together as a zone and played sports and practiced our skit for the Christmas party. some of the Samoan  branch was there so we played volleyball with them and it was way fun. We also couldn't all agree on a skit and we're running out of time so one of our elders from Australia taught us the haka, and that was our skit :) It was pretty awesome. The whole mission got together Tuesday and we had a big party that went from 9 til after 530 (it was supposed to end at 4 but some skits were rather extensive). It was so fun, we sang carols that got ridiculously intense and played white elephant and had food and then a little fireside that was super great. Getting together with the misson is a blast. Christmas eve the Kay's had us over for dinner with their family and grandkids and they even got us little gifts to open! They are so great.

Christmas was so great. We got to sleep in til 7:30, opened presents(which was so great-THANK YOU) and went to skype around 10:30. It was SO fun, I love my family!!! I can't believe it's almost been 6 months.. For the rest of the day we spent time with the Garner family, who had us over for dinner and we shared a message with their granddaughter who needed some help, it was cool. And the McCrackens (our WML) and the Greens, all of whom I love so much. The Greens got us some Mace for Christmas! Woo! We're good knocking the backwoods now ;) they take really good care of us.

Because of the holidays, people weren't the most excited to meet with us so it was a pretty slow week.. but we got to see Becca twice! She is preparing to get baptized February 7th  :) she just moved back in with her boyfriend though, and she knows she needs to be married before she's baptized, so hopefully things will work out! We pray for her alot. I feel like we're  kinda back to square 1  in our finding efforts since we lost almost our entire teaching pool the past couple weeks, but I know there are people God is preparing and we can find them. :) 

I don't have too much time, but I hope you know I love and appreciate you guys so much! Thank you for your love and support, it means the world!!

Have a super great new year!

Sister Wilson  

PS- it's supposed to snow today, but right now there is exactly one little puff of a cloud in the sky.. it's also supposed to snow Friday !  Everything's gonna freeze this week, so again, THANK YOU for the coat :)

The Jackson's  computer broke so I'm writing on a tablet  and can't send pics til next week probably :( 

[Another PS that Charity sent after I expressed how much it meant to hear her recite from memory The Living Christ to us (that was her gift to us this year)]

Thanks, mama :') I'm so glad you enjoyed it, I've been working on it! Our family is the best ever! Did you show Kathie and Paul the video? I got their Christmas card :D   and yeah people said everything's gonna freeze this week, snowing today and friday.. but there's blue sky right now haha. Knowing Washington though I wouldn't be surprised if it snowed by the end of today. I haven't waterproofed it yet but I'm working on it :) oh! I went on family search once and my g-g-g-g grandpa is Joel Johnson who wrote high on a mountain top! Pretty cool! I wish we could go on more, I love looking at that stuff. Way cool about Edmund Durfee!! And Emily is leaving in a transfer ! D: ah! I hope she's getting ready!! Skyping helped alot:)  I felt great the rest of that day and haven't felt bad since then I think your prayers are helping:) thank you, mama for being so awesome. You are amazing and last night at the Bowers, we challenged them to start reading the book of Mormon as a family and told them how awesome my mom was in waking up every single morning and pulling the kids out of bed to come read. I wish I had been better at reading with you, at all haha. You are a huge influence for good, and I have you to thank for helping me choose the right :) thank you for your example and I hope I can be a mom like you. I LOVE YOU SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH

Merry Christmas! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I am oh so excited to see you this week!!! I have been working on something to show you! It's gonna be awesome!

So, this past week was kinda rough. Most of our investigators dropped us :( Everyone seemed to fall off the grid, which is way sad. But there's a reason for everything and we're not going to give up on them.

 

We've been working really hard with Becca. She had called us a while ago and said she'd read the Book of Mormon 5 times and wanted to be baptized but she was living in a really tough situation and needed to change some things. She's going through a lot right now, and there was a whole lot of drama this week, but it's been kind of cool going through all of this because I've been able to use my testimony to help her and some of the things she is enduring are things I've been through and I can kind of relate. One of the coolest things I think in this work is being able to see how you can help someone special with things that you have learned. I've been able to see parts of my patriarchal blessing coming forward and it's super cool. 

 

I just love being with other missionaries and this week we get to have a huge mission Christmas party on Tuesday! So we're roadtrippin to Tacoma with the other sisters and spending the day with the mission doing fun Christmas things! I'm excited. All the zones are doing skits and we are doing a missionary spoof of "A Christmas Story" - it's gonna be good. Last Monday night for tracting we got to go caroling as a zone, and we get to do it again tonight! :) It's way fun. And Christmas eve we get to go caroling as a district for tracting! yay! This week is going to be fun.

 

I got a blessing this week and had a nice big fat smack of reality. There's a lot I am working on and I can be better. I have a huge testimony of the Priesthood. It is real. The Spirit is real. God is real. He answers prayers. I don't have too much time but I just want you all to know I love you so much! I will see you later this week! :) I hope you all remember what Christmas is really about and that our Savior Jesus Christ truly was a gift from God. He knows you and loves you! I love you all and will see you this week! :) MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

Sister Wilson

Decemebere

So this week... oh goodness I don't even know where to start.

Actually I'll start with Tuesday when we got to go on exchanges! I LOVE exchanges - this time I got to go to Lacey with Sis Dunster! She was one of the 3 Cambodian speaking missionaries in our mission and she went English to be STL, and she is so awesome. I just love her and we had so much fun, and while we were teaching one of their investigators they've been working with, we were able to set a date for them to be baptized! The lady cried when she said the closing prayer and it was just way cool. Meanwhile back in Deschutes, Sis Harbaugh and Sis Smith had a lesson with a new lady we started teaching, Dana! She is good friends with the Jacksons and her son has been coming to scouts, and we knocked into her a week or 2 ago. They taught the Resto at the Jacksons and Sis Harbaugh said it went so well and was way powerful, and they are praying about baptism! :) We are so excited for them. This month is way busy, so we will be meeting with them again in a couple weeks. The lesson with Randy went good too! He can't read or write, so we're trying to get him a BoM on CD or something.

 

Jordan, who is way solid and progressing just found out he's getting deployed :( He doesn't know when or how long but he's the only really solid one in his family so we are really bummed. Hopefully things work out though and we'll still do all we can to help him before he leaves, but it's usually pretty short notice. 

 

The Goodchild family is awesome, and Tristan and Rainy want to get baptized so bad, but their dad is just struggling. As soon as he is ready they will get baptized, and I just adore them. They are the sweetest kids ever. They give us notes and presents every time we go over there, and everybody is just too busy to meet with us around this time of year, so that's a bummer. 

 

I have been thinking this week what a blessing and privilege it is to be a missionary. God doesn't need us to do this work - He is all powerful. It is His spirit that converts, but He still allows us the chance to work with these people and share our testimonies and learn and grow. Thinking about everything I have already learned in the past 5 months blows me away. I can't tell you how happy I am to be here (waiting a little while was more than worth it). Being a missionary is the most amazing thing in the world. God doesn't need us here, but He lets us because we grow and learn because He LOVES us. God loves us so much! He loves us SO MUCH. I've been able to feel a little bit of that love for these people and I don't ever want to leave them - I have come to see how absolutely amazing people are. Everyone is so different, and everyone is so special. I love people. Everyone has their stories and they are so cool. It's been kind of hard to not be super awkward around people haha, but I really feel like I've grown a lot. When I'm doing my best and trusting in God I feel I can do anything, and we can do anything when we're on His side. We can because Christ did everything, and in Him we find real strength. And we can read proof of it in the Book of Mormon - I mean how many times did the little armies of the Nephites run down the massive powers of the Lamanites? Over and over! Because they were "in the strength of the Lord." In Him we can do all things. Trust in Him and He will lead you. Everything will be ok :) I love you all so so much and can't wait to see you next week for Christmas! Remember that Christ is the gift and everybody watch that video because it gives me chills every time and I love it. :) Have the best week ever!

 

Sister Wilson

 

 

 Our sisters in our zone! I LOVE <3

 and this is the little town of Rainier that is about a mile in diameter on a pretty cloudy day:)

 OH! I forgot to say that there was a CRAZY storm this week - basically our entire zone (probably a lot more but we're clueless as to everyone else) lost power for a couple days so we slapped some extra blankets on our beds and kept warm, but everything was pitch black everywhere. Good times. Some people didn't have power 3 days.. (and we live on wells, unlike AZ we have no heat or water or electricity when the power goes out #pioneering)

 So this is us being stupid trying to plan in the dark. :)

 

 

also, MERRY CHRISTMAS from Sister Wilson and Sister Harbaugh

 

 

 

 

December say what

Ok, so this week was just awesome. SO many miracles!

To start off, we got a call from a lady, Rebecca, who used to meet with missionaries but dropped them one day with a text basically saying never come back. So that was that. BUT she called us and we went over there and she told us she's in a really rough situation, she's read the BoM 5 times and knows it's true, and she wants to be baptized! :) Woo! We are so excited, and she is really sincere. It's gonna be good:)

 

Our mission had a goal of having 310 new investigators this past week - and last night on conference call (every Sunday night the mission has a giant phone call together where President talks to us and we share miracles and tender mercies) President said we had 468!!! WhatWhat! We even met our goal this week and found 3 new!! We found 2 earlier this week and have been praying and praying we could find 1 more before Sunday was over - and Sunday knocking is always hard cause dinners run late and then we had the Christmas devotional. So we had limited knocking time last night, but lo and behold, the very first door we knocked on was an old fellow Randy who said he'd love to have us come back and tell him more! It was a little miracle just for us! God answers prayers! Even the little things :) 

 

I thought of Matt during the Christmas devo when Sis Oscarson I think it was talked about how much the little things matter :) They really do - such a small act of kindness can be remembered for generations! I've really been trying to focus on charity lately, and praying for that unconditional love for people. It is a gift, and something we need to appreciate just like any other gift. I just want to be more like Christ. I'm reading in 3 Nephi right now when Christ comes and He is literally the perfect example. I want to emulate that in everything I do and it starts with the little things. When I think of Christlike people I think of those who know how to love.

 

Another cool story from this week - when we were knocking one night we talked to this way nice southern guy, Michael, and he said come back tomorrow night when his wife is home and he'd love to talk to us! So we did and had this lesson planned and when he opened the door and said his wife went to a party. So he stepped outside and rubbed his hands together and said "let's debate..." and we were like, .. wait, what?.. and we were like hey now, we're not here to debate but we'd love to answer questions and talk to you about it! He (a southern baptist) said "oh, you won't be converting me tonight ladies" And so we talked about the Book of Mormon and whatnot and suddenly his questions got really deep and were really hard questions to answer.. he is afraid about where he's going after this life because of things he's done in war. So we answered what we could and told him we can't judge that it's up to God and about repentance and he can find peace and happiness again and you could see him soften up. He changed a little bit, and by the end he said, "hey, where you located at? I might check it out sometime" :) The Spirit is SO important! We can argue and point out who's right and whatever, but it was when Sis Harbaugh just bore her testimony that's when it started to shift. You can't argue with testimony! It was really cool to see. 

 

I don't have too much time to write, but I hope all of you know how much I love you! I love this work - it is God's work! I love learning more about the Gospel and strengthening my relationship with Him - all y'all should do it every day. God loves us so much, He wants to hear from us and help us. One thing that really sunk in this week was that we have trials to learn to lean on Christ. He lets us struggle so we know where to go for help. He's always there, but we sometimes forget that when things are happy and wonderful. Trials are just an opportunity for us to remember that He is there and we need to lean on Him. We are happiest when He is with us and we need to let Him in. I love learning that, even though it's one of the hardest things for me to learn :) I LOVE YOU! Have a super fantastic week!

 

Sister Wilson

as one of my companions used to say, "There's no growth in the comfort zone, and there's no comfort in the growth zone"

 

once upon a time Sister Wilson got sick. But thankfully it was on P-day so we got to take a nap and not interfere with work :D

 also, Sister Wilson made some pretty rad garlic chicken and rice for lunch. #mamabeproud

 this was a sketchy bridge over the deschutes river we had to drive over to get to some little boonies house we were trying to find (and ended up being plastered in "no trespassing/beware" signs and a motorized gate..#poutface)

 both of these looked hecka more awesome in person - but we turned a corner and out of the blue came this massive rainbow!

 and then Rainier was just looking extra majestic yesterday :)

 and here's some of our fancy shmancy Christmas decor in our apt :D

 this is when it snowed a couple weeks ago!

 

It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS

My friends, 

It SNOWED last week! Ha! It was pretty much the best day ever. It snowed all the morning on Saturday and it's still lingering in some places :) It's been dang cold, though. It's always an adventure. We got an unexpected massive package of handwarmers and hot chocolate though! It is still making our day(s)! We've been using those on the nightly and are sooo thankful for them, so THANK YOU, mystery person for sending those :)

Thanksgiving was way fun. We had 4 of them. Why yes, FOUR. And I can honestly say my family still has the best Thanksgivings. We started out with the Douglas family (gma gpa and their son and his wife and 2 lil kids) and then went to the Edwards family who we are teaching! They had a lot of their friends there and it was a little awk at first, (very different) but we started talking to BreeAnna's friend Chastity and her mom. It was fun. :) Then to the Harris family! He is in the bishopric and they are a way fun family. I love them. We had coconut milk made pumpkin pie, which is actually pretty tasty! Then to the McCracken's, he is our ward mission leader and their family is so fun. I love them. Dinner was especially fun there. Sis McCracken's dad has Alzheimers. He is such a sweet old man, and he is hilarious. Oh goodness, we were all just dying laughing the whole time. He asked us where we were from about 35 times, and every time it'd be something like "Arizona" "..Ontario? Oh, that's a civilized place. I can tell."  or Harbaugh would say "Utah" "oh, yes, I can tell" and once he looked right at me and said "Was it you who told me the other day there was icing coming out of my ear?.." I can't even begin to explain how funny that night was. 

I love my new companion, Sister Harbaugh!! She's from South Jordan and we were in the MTC together! I didn't know her then, we only briefly met once. But we're kind of on the same experience plane and have a fire to work, which is way nice! We have a "theme" for this transfer, if you will, of "unwearied diligence". Look up both those words in the dictionary. We have it taped up on our wall, and pray for it every day :)

This past week was a little slow for the work cause everyone was busy or out of town but we have some really awesome lessons this week! 3-4 of them are with new investigators that we're super excited to start working with! 

I can't believe it's already December. It's going by so fast!

I am kind of scatter brained today cause I've been sick :( But I think things are on the up-side, and nothing a little dayquil can't help.

Transfer meeting on Tuesday was the best one I've been to yet. The Spirit was so strong. SO strong, probably one of the strongest I've ever felt it. It might've been different because I really knew the people going home and their testimonies were amazing. (2 of them were my companions after all) and I LOVE those missionaries. All the departing sisters (there was like 13 of them!) sang "Savior Redeemer of my soul" which is my favorite song. I LOVE being with other missionaries. It's indescribable the power you feel and the Spirit is so amazing. I love being a missionary! I love this work and I love my Savior :) Every little (and big) thing is worth it, because it's true. I know this work is true. I've been learning a lot about love. Someone said, "The people who changed me the most were those that loved me the most" and I totally agree with that. I've seen it. It's something I want to work on, and having that pure love is a gift so prayer is needed :) One of my favorite lines in that song I was talking about is "my strengths wrapped in weakness He can't see." God sees the best in us, so don't ever let anyone else put you down. You're worth more than that. We are all worth so much more than we realize. :)
I love you all so so much and hope you have the best week! 

XoOxxOXOxOxoOoXx
Sister Wilson

PS- EVERYONE needs to go watch "He is the Gift" and share it with all of your friends!!! :) It is amazing and go let other people feel that Spirit!

 we took this picture thanksgiving morning :) #Wilbaugh

 & snowwww!

 and yesterday it was clear enough to see Rainier! It was oh so majestic.

Pics don't do squat justice

November Rain

(gunsandrosesanyone)

Ok, so I have very limited time so here is a brief overview of some cool things this week:

On Friday Stevens went to the temple with all the departing missionaries (they all go the Friday before they go home and it's like a thing to go and pray in the celestial room and ask God if He accepts your mission) and they all go to lunch. So I got to go to Lacey for the day with Sis Smith and we had so. much. fun. Stevens and Fowkes were also 3 hours late and had no phone so we just assumed something terrible had happened but that was such a fun day and we saw a lot of cool things!

Yesterday Sierra got baptized! :) It was way cool, her siblings are also still praying about baptism and it was awesome to have her whole family there. She is solid. 

We met with the Goodchilds pretty often this past week and I LOVE them - Tristan and Rainy want to be baptized SO bad - Tristan (9) made up this song and boogie about "baptism holy wataaa!" and it's hilarious. They are the cutest little family and always have gifts and drawings for us when we come over :) 

The rain has toootally warmed it up over here. It's always wet and if the water seeps through your coat then it gets cold.. but I stayed decently warm this week! 

TRANSFER CALLS came Saturday night at like 9:15 after we waited in pain all day, but I get Sis Harbaugh!!!!!! AH! We came out together (we met in the bathroom at the MTC and never saw each other til the plane but she is awesome) and I am so dang excited. It's going to be so fun and I can't wait to spend this transfer with her :) So transfer meeting is tomorrow and Sis Rieland is driving us up to Tacoma to save miles (holy moses we are dang conservative on our miles as of late.. haha we've had like 4 park days) and Stevens is flying home Wednesday! (it's cool - her dad has been deployed/in the army and is coming home too and his flight gets in an hour before hers! awesome, right??) I'm way excited for this next transfer, it's gonna be good!

Oh, so yesterday at church after ward council the exec sec came up to me and said the speaker got sick... and I had my first real experience of "they're not here? ask the missionaries!" So that was terrifying. But, I did it! I talked about gratitude for the atonement and I have had just so many experiences lately where I've needed to rely on the Lord. I feel like He's trying to tell me something ;) Cause later that night at Sierra's baptism I had to give the missionary message by myself where I just had to teach the Restoration, but for some reason I was just way nervous (there were other missionaries there and nonmembers and just kind of a lot of pressure). I have needed to rely on Him a lot, and I'm learning a lot. I don't know what I would've done without that help. I know He is always there and willing and waiting to help! We just need to ask :) I love my God and Savior Jesus Christ. He is so good. 

I love you all and can't thank you enough for all your love and support!! You are amazing and I hope you have the best week ever.

Love,

Sister Wilson 

PS--I forgot to add super quick - Bonnie, the lady me and Fowkes knocked into from our exchange? I think I told you about her when I felt prompted to go back to her house and she cried and we prayed with her? We went back a couple nights ago and she told us to come in and the note we taped to her door she has hanging on her wall and she said "I believed you were angels.." and told us how she really really needed us that night and our prayer was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard and she knows we were sent by God and it was awesome :))) She's not interested, but it was way cool talking to her and I know she needed us at that time!

 here's our zone (president came and was cut off.. woops)

 and the sisters within our zone who i love!

me and Maddie (Jackson). She is my little buddy and pretty much the cutest 

and one from the baptism!

What is Winter?

Okay. This week has been absolutely frigid. I have never been so cold. Holy Moses. Apparently, contrary to popular belief, when the sun comes out is when it gets freezing. Everything freezes (every morning it's been in the 20's when we come out and the highest it's been the past couple days is like 40). I was not built for this weather! My body is used to cooling itself down, not warming up. So whenever the sky would like to kick itself into shape and start raining again, it will warm up. But for now we are all just freezing our little bunsies away. I've been wearing 3 pair of fleece lined tights and wool hiking socks and my liner and coat and gloves and I still convulse in shivers haha. We did find some hand warmers in our apartment but used them all in one knocking sesh. So. The Lord has been good to us in that when I start to lose focus I'm so cold (that's a thing) some kind soul will let us in to warm up :)

SO! Cool stories all around. Knocking on Tuesday night I prayed to know where we should go and when we got to this place I went to park and just felt like we shouldn't be there. When I mentioned that I was not the most supported.. My poor companion has to back me out and she wasn't too thrilled about this.. ha #trooper. But so I started to drive around this loop and halfway around suddenly I felt like we needed to be there. I was way confused, but we felt ok about it so we got out and started tracting and we ran into Jim, who is the nonmember dad of a lady in our ward who comes to our firesides! He let us in and we talked to him. His son was killed in a drive-by shooting in Tacoma 22 years ago and we were able to share a little bit about the plan of salvation - which was way cool. Needless to say, we found out why we needed to drive farther and then suddenly feel like we were needed again :) We've been back there twice now to finish knocking the street and he hasn't been home, so that was inspired. BUT when we felt inspired to go back there the 3rd time and finish some more of the loop, we knocked into Shonda - who we play basketball with every week! Ha! It was way funny, we were all like, wait - whaa?? And she let us in and gave us handwarmers :) They were just about to head out to a party, so we caught them in the nick of time and it was awesome. (now we know where she lives - ha!) She is so funny, I love her. And she's a beast and basketball, she coaches. Hopefully we can have dinner with her and Stephanie soon. 

 

Speaking of Stephanie, that picture she sent you guys after our "awesome lesson!" ? ... that awesome lesson included Stevens wanting to light a tea bag on fire (a gimmick we're not allowed to use with investigators so members are a safe place to try right?) She lit it on my hand so the little boys weren't dropping fire everywhere, but alas, this tea bag was a bit larger than normal and it then proceeded to tip over while halfway lit and we all maniacally were trying to save it from falling on the carpet and I don't even know what happened but it landed in a plastic bowl.. and then floated upwards in a poof of ashes. #fail. (I see now why we don't use it with investigators).

 

On a more sober subject, this week was weird. I was struggling with some things and having a difficult time with people and I just didn't feel like myself. But, I had an awesome learning/growing experience so that now my testimony is stronger :) I know that God is there, and I need to rely on Him more. I've known He was there for a long time, but I wasn't relying on Him as much as I should. He makes me who I am, and I need Christ to be a part of my life in order to feel like myself because I feel like He is such a big part of myself and who I am. I feel most like myself when He is with me. He makes me ME. I hope this is making sense... But, I love my Savior Jesus Christ :) He builds me and strengthens me. I am HAPPY when He is with me and I feel confident. He is such a huge part of this work not only in preparing these people to receive us, but preparing us to help them. Let Him change you. Let Him be a part of your life and become all you can become! I feel like on a mission you just internalize a bunch of cliche statements.. They become rooted in my testimony.

 

One other thing I realized yesterday - God teaches us in ways we understand. A guy spoke in church yesterday about how he loves to skateboard, and the spirit told him a bolt was loose but he ignored it and ended up biffing it. God teaches us what we need to learn in ways that we will recognize it. I just thought that was cool.

 

I love you all so so so much and I can never thank you enough for you prayers and support :) You are all amazing. I LOVE YOU. Have a fantastic week!!

Sister Wilson

 

 this is for mommy <3

 everything is completely frozen in the mornings...

(including our car - sometimes the handles are frozen shut

and there's always a layer of ice on it in the morn)