Scorpion Huntin'

Wassuh dudes! 

We still chillin’ out here in mini Utah! This week was a little slow because we only taught like 2 lessons and we spent most of our time editing videos! 

First imma start by explaining my email title. Saturday night we went outside to catch some scorpions and after about 5 minutes a guy came up to us and started talking. We weren't dressed in missionary clothes so I think that's why he said something haha. The cool thing about this is when we walked out of the apartment I said "let's go back and get my phone in case something cool happens"... well something cool happened. We met our pal Michael. He asked our names and we didn't have our name tags on so it was funny to explain we were missionaries. He said he wasn't religious but was down to meet with us because he liked us haha. Honestly it was so nice to be able to talk to someone face to face (socially distanced ;))

Like I said this week we were editing a lot of videos and I have learned that if I have a job that involves being on a computer all day, I will die. I don't care if it brings the big bucks back home to future wifey, I ain't about that life. 

We finally got to go to church for the Cameron Ranch ward and it was so nice. We went to 3 different meetings and I loved it so much. The topic for the speakers was the Restoration and honestly I was hoping that I would get called on to speak just because that's a topic I can freakin testify about. We will have meetings with the Durango ward next week so maybe I will get to speak and share my testimony with everyone. 

Now gonna end on some spiritual stuff. We have meetings every Monday with the Greer family in our ward. Elder Greer is in the general 70 and is such a good guy! Like when we have member lessons we usually do the teaching but with him he teaches us. After our lesson with him Monday I was freaking pumped and was on a spiritual high. Basically how it is for me is when I teach and read my scriptures I feel soooooo good! So y'all make sure to do that because it's the best! 

That's it for now, thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Love you all

Elder Wilde 

Flood Pt. 2

Hello Everyone! 

Now if you remember about 10 months ago when I was in Mexico I flooded the house! Well same thing happened here except this time it wasn't my fault! We left for like 30 minutes and came home and the bathroom in the other room flooded haha. When the maintenance guy came I 100% thought he was Danny DeVito, wish I got a picture haha! So that night we stayed over at the Brown's house, they're one of the senior couples in the mish. 

As far as work, we have had a lot of member lessons! On average we have 4 a day and I love it. Meeting new people and teaching are my two favorite things about the mission. We are currently teaching a lady named Ari. She is from Mexico so I have been speaking Spanish to her. I didn't mention that I spoke it until she said something to her daughter so I replied back and I haven't seen somebody get so excited! We spoke for a little bit then I told her we need to speak in English so Elder Pierson doesn't feel left out. She is a super dope lady though. Her ex husband is a member and she has a daughter getting baptized on Saturday. She has a solid testimony and I believe she will be baptized, but we think it will take a little time. 

As I was studying this week, I didn't have one certain thing that stuck out to me. I spent the week trying to gain a deeper understanding of certain topics but the one thing I thought of is how lucky I am to be where I am right now. In the world today it's pretty tough for some people and I have it pretty easy I think. All I have to do is share the Gospel with people and I mean it's pretty fun! I have found so much joy because of the Book of Mormon! If you are taking the time to read this email, you have time to read a few verses in the scriptures, so do it because its worth it!

Love you all!

Elder Wilde

This is what missionary work looks like! A lot of Zoom calls happening here!

Waves & AA

What a crazy week it has been. So we had transfers last week and I have a new area and companion! I moved literally half a mile and I'm covering the Cameron Ranch & Durango wards! My comp is Elder Pierson and he's dope. He's from Long Beach and has 15 months. His name is Carter too so you already know theres lots of jokes from that haha. I also finally saw my MTC comp Elder McMaster, he's best guy still! 

So we spent the first couple days just setting up zoom calls and it was successful! The members are super cool and we have already taught a bunch! The work looks like there are lots of people we can teach, we just need to get in contact with them. For this week we have a lot of solid lessons planned and I'm super excited! But yeah that's about it for the work part. 

I also decided to pick up a little hobby too... let's just say I'm gonna be the next Dean Lewis. If you don't know who that is, repent, then look him up. I am currently mastering the song "Waves" and honestly I'm not too bad for only having 4 days of practice! Guess that's what quarantine does for ya! 

Now for the craziest part of the week. For those of you who know, my Aunt Ann passed away Friday. It was tough but I can only imagine how my family feels right now. She's my great aunt, but is like my second mom and grandma. There isn't a day that has gone by in my life where she hasn't been a part of it. When I found out the news I was devastated and for about 30 minutes I felt lost and didn't know how I could still serve. I got a blessing from my companion  and from that moment on, I've felt nothing but peace. I have been able to study the scriptures so much and read some great conference talks. My testimony has been strengthened so much in these last few days. I look back at my memories with Ann and there isn't anything I'd change about it. She will be missed so much, but I know that I will see her again and hear "Hey Cart, I love you" haha super excited for that again! 

Love you all so much!

Elder Wilde 

Saying goodbye to my house mates

Goodbye house. Thanks for keeping me cool while I've been here.

Meet my new companion Elder Pierson

My new hobby!

McMaster!! He's BEST GUY!!

Beautiful Arizona!

My Aunt Ann! Until we meet again. I love you!

Crazy Girl

Hello everybody! I'm gonna start off explaining the title, then we will get to the important stuff.

So this morning we were chilling downstairs and heard the doorbell ring about 8 times so we went and answered. It was a lady that was about 40 ish and she was asking us for help. We could tell she was on some kind of drug or she was just vibing real hard haha. She tried to get into our house so we closed the door and told her we couldn't help. She started to cuss us out and was going CRAZY in the street. We got a little concerned about her so gave our good ole buddies in blue a call and they pulled up. Of course when they came she was gone haha so we are hoping that we are safe tonight when we sleep! 

Now that the crazy stuff is out of the way, let's get to the goodies. 

First off, we got new missionaries in our house. Elder Foster and Elder Jarvis. Foster went to Salem Hills and played football and is a big dude! He's playing down at Dixie State when we get home and I really like him! Jarvis is from Arkansas and that's about all I know about him. They are both reassigned, one from Honduras and the other from Chile. It's been good to keep some Spanish going in the house. 

I remember a good quote my freshman year of baseball that coach told me about the mission. He said "90% of the time its gonna suck and you'll hate it, but that 10% you love will make up for it". I thought about this a lot this week. Not gonna lie, I've hated sitting in the house all day and I haven't always had the best attitude. 

Well that 10% of good got to me this week. I was reading in the Book of Mormon when I randomly get a thought to start calling people on the "not interested" list. I thought "well I'm reading a good chapter right now so I will wait until after". Well we all know the spirit never fails and again I think, "Carter close the book and call before it's too late". I knew this was the spirit so I listened and we got to calling. First two were voicemails and I just laughed. Shocker. We keep going and finally someone picks up. 3rd time's the charm. We got in contact with a lady named Tina and has been taught before. We set up a day to meet with her and she is super excited. She has a few concerns about the Book of Mormon. She said "why do we have another book if we already have the bible?". Seriously Tina, could you make this any easier for me? I got SO pumped for this lesson because if there's one thing I can sincerely share my testimony about, it's the Book of Mormon! 

Transfers are this week so we will see what happens. I hope I stay. Anyways, please keep Tina in your prayers and pray she will have her heart softened!

Love you all

Elder Wilde 

Back to Church

Hello Family,

For all of you real ones who have seen Billy Madison and know the song "back to school", just know I was singing that the whole week but replacing the word school with church. We finally got to go to church! Seeing people in person is 100x better than a stupid phone. We were fortunate enough to attend both of the wards we cover and had some bomb sacrament meetings. We were also able to help with the sacrament and it's crazy how different things are now. Because Arizona is the hot spot, we had to put hand sanitizer on like 5 times while we were doing sacrament. The Bishop spoke in both wards and they both had some great talks. Even though we haven't had too much interaction with the ward members, we felt right at home. I was sitting in my seat lowkey hoping I was gonna get asked to speak because I was ready to preach. But, in the states they are a little more prepared for a sacrament meeting and won't call on us on the spot. 

Aside from church it was just a normal week. Julia, the girl we are teaching, had surgery on her nose so she wasn't able to meet or go to church. This week we just set up a bunch of zoom calls for the following week.

We had a cool zoom call with a family yesterday and were able to give some advice to the 18 year old boy who is preparing for a mission. Super good family with strong testimonies and I felt the spirit super strong! 

Really not too much to talk about. We have transfers this week I think, guess we will see. The church is still true.

Love you all

Elder Wilde 

Six Weeks to Sexy

Quarantine life, you know what that means... I'm about to get shredded. Basically since life keeps getting more boring I decided to work out to keep myself entertained Haha. Basically I'm tryna come out of this quarantine looking like freaking Arnold Schwarzenegger. Aside from working out physically I've had lots of time to work out spiritually. 

Before I start with my personal stuff I'm gonna talk about Julia, the girl we are teaching. So she still can't get that permission so we are thinking she'll have to wait until September for when she turns 18. She is planning on going to Gunnison, Colorado for school but she might be doing online if this stupid virus stays around. She has been talking with missionaries since October so she has a pretty strong testimony and our lessons are a little more in depth. We talked a lot about the Book of Mormon and her testimony on it is so freaking dope! Like when we teach her I feel like we are teaching a member. Sad thing is she's getting surgery on her nose the 19th so we offered a priesthood blessing and she got excited because she's never had a blessing before haha. So keep her in your prayers because she's awesome. 

Since we haven't done too much I've tried to study a little harder. Not gonna lie it can get hard to just sit and try to read so I've been trying to stay entertained while studying. I've been reading and listening to lots of conference talks, watching church videos, and even looking at a Book of Mormon picture book. You'd be surprised on how much you can learn from a picture book! I read a talk from this April 2020 conference by Joy D. Jones and I loved when she talked about President Nelson answering questions for the primary kids. 

He says, 

"So Moses had to walk all the way up to the top of that mountain to get the Ten Commandments. Now, Heavenly Father could have said, ‘Moses, you start there, and I’ll start here, and I’ll meet you halfway.’ No, the Lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can’t come without it."

I love the way I can relate to that. The Lord loves our effort and will bless us for it. I'm so grateful for a living Prophet and his testimony. 

Love you all, stay sweet

Elder Wilde 

Just doing some more studying!

'Merica

I'll tell ya what folks, if this weekend didn't make you wanna listen to country music, eat some apple pie, watch some baseball, and crack open an ice cold mountain dew, you're not American. Unfortunately, all I could do was crack open a few cold Dew’s and yell 'Merica. That was probably the most exciting part of this week. 

To start off on a good note, a member hooked it up with a bunch of groceries for us this week and that was super nice of her! She has a son on a mission in Virginia and was saying "if I do something nice for you then the members there will help my son!". Just shows how great the members are here!

This was definitely the slowest week of the mission for sure because we had like a 1% success rate. Like there really is nothing that happened this week haha. I try to look at the positives but it can be tough. 

We had interviews with president and we just had a normal interview and he asked how I was doing. I told him that quarantine sucks and how bored I get. He told me to focus on my personal study and it will get better, so I did that. I have been reading lots of conference talks from this last conference and of course the Book of Mormon. Straight up the Book of Mormon is the best and I love it. I like to think of how much I relate to it even when it took place over 2000 years ago! When I catch myself complaining about quarantine I try to remind myself about the missionaries in the Book of Mormon and remember how much harder they had it. Even though it's been a rough time in quarantine I still see God's hand in my life and try my best to share it with others. 

Love you all! 

Stay sweet! 

Stay free, 'merica!

Elder Wilde 

Got my name tag in English now.

How awesome are the members here in Gilbert! So grateful for the groceries!

Lot's of spiders and scorpions here

Just chillin'