Peter had Two Companions...

Hey Mom and Family,                              8-15-12

I’m sure you'll do just fine in Africa.  It should be good.  This week was good.  I’m feeling like our zone is really starting to get that fire that they need to have success.  These past couple of weeks has been tough for them due to a lack of baptizing, but now there are quite a bit of areas that'll baptize.  We've been trying to help excite them and make them all work together, increasing their faith.  And this week it looks like they have some people that'll get baptized.  Today we played soccer and it was super tiring.  It was a good zone activity. 

So last Friday we got a new companion and we were working in three until now.  This kid lives in our mission and was just helping us out.  He served in the north part of brazil but had to go back home to do a surgery and now he's trying to go back to his mission by serving with us to see if he can make it through another year and a half there.  But it looks like he just can't.  His leg is just hurting way too much, so he's going home today.  It's pretty sad.  These past couple of days that he was with us, we really got a good friendship going.  It's interesting though.  It makes me think of him and our president and other people that didn’t have an opportunity to serve a complete mission.  I guess that God just accepts our maximum.  For example, President Tanner was totally wanting to serve for the 3 years but God wanted something else from him, and so he lowered his health down a little bit, so that it was needed for him to go back home.  Anyways, we were bumbed a little bit. 

Remember Doriedson that almost got baptized?  We stopped by last Saturday to give a present that we got him (which was just a shirt and a tie) and then marked to stop by his house the next day to go to church together.  However the next Sunday we stopped by and he came to the door holding the present we gave him.  And he said that he “doesn’t wear this types of clothes", meaning church clothes.  Later we were talking with him.  He received an answer about the Book of Mormon and he knows that the church is true, but he just doesn’t want to get baptized.  We told him that because of these answers that he's getting he needs to act, but he says that he's waiting for God to give him a bigger answer that he could accept.  He's pretty prideful in that sense.  He deserves “just the best". 

Anyways, a way that we as missionaries give incentive and a desire to read the book of Mormon and to truly search out an answer is to promise blessings.  Our president had us think about why other churches have so many members and so many tithe payers when they don't even have authority.  He said that it’s because the pastors just promise a ton of blessings to their congregations.  Us as members of the church and especially as missionaries have that authority and that right to promise the blessings from God.  Because as the scriptures says by the mouths of my servants or by my own mouth it is the same.  Neat huh?  So with the non-members that you are working with, promise them a lot of blessings and show how it has changed your own life together with the life of our family. 

Yeah so Lucimar is marked to get baptized this Saturday, so pray that everything will work out.  Her son has been really sick so she hasn’t been able to see us too much.  Anyways, love you!

Elder Williams

A Late Letter To Dad...

Hey dad!               8-8-12

Thanks for the email.  It's cool to hear what’s going on at home.  Don’t worry though; it doesn’t make me too trunky.  I feel like there's a light to the end of this mission.  I’m almost done.  It's making me nervous; I really want to be able to work my hardest these ending months so that later I can feel like God has accepted my mission and my service.  These past couple of weeks I feel like I have really been doing just that.  There are days when I just feel exhausted.  It's cool to see that during the day I don't feel the tiredness, but as soon as I get back home I can barely keep my eyes open. 

Last Monday we had a zone leader meeting with the new president.  I think it was a very successful meeting.  One of my old companions was there Elder Smith.  The president opened up the meeting to more of a discussion as to the problems on the mission.  We're having a huge problem with disobedience, and Elder Smith just called out a ton of people saying that nobody wants to be companions with him because of how obedient he is.  It made even a lot of zone leaders look embarrassed and ashamed.  It was legit.  I think that it made a lot of zone leaders become more obedient and helped them open up their vision to the mission and its importance.  This next Friday we're going to have a district/zone meeting and I’m thinking on showing a general conference talk about pride.  There are a lot of problems going on in the zone with people thinking that they're better than someone else, and gossips and stuff.  It was that in 2010 by president Uchtdorf. 

Anyways, things are going good here; I hope you don't die in Kill-a-man-jaro.  Love you dad!

Elder Williams

Pinky Peter...

Hey Mom,             8-8-2012

Thanks for the email!  This week was way good again.  We are working very hard and we're feeling super happy about our progress.  I think the most eventful thing that happened was our meeting we had last Monday with the president.  He is way good and I think he will turn the whole mission around.  Lately there has been a lot of disobedience and a huge amount of gossiping about other missionaries and things like that, and the President it completely stopping it all.  It's great.  It'll help the mission focus once again on the more important things. 

Last Thursday we also had an activity that was way cool.  Me and Elder Duffy had a pancake night.  Brazilians here don’t eat breakfast really, and their pancakes here are more like tortillas so we had to make it for them and it worked out.  We found a recipe to do it all from scratch and made the syrup from hand as well.  Everyone loved it.  We’re now planning a French Toast night for next week and we're publicizing it more so we're hoping that more investigators go. 

I think that Elder Ballads talk was legit.  You should totally find it and send it to me.  I'm pretty excited to see the results of dad's climb.  I guess we'll see if he makes it.  I bought new shoes the other day.  They're super nice and they were pretty cheap.  I needed them to.  My last shoes had a hole on the bottom where I walk, so there was a ton of dirt and stuff coming in.  These would be my fourth pair of shoes this mission.  But don't worry I didn’t buy those construction boots again.  They're just pretty ugly and I don't think I’m going to need to walk a whole lot on my mission. 

Hey so I was thinking of what you can say to people that want to know more about the church, and there’s something that might be of help in Preach my Gospel.  (By the way, my president said that PMG could even be counted as a standard work because of how much revelation was put into it).  Anyways in chapter 8 the last point about accountability could help.  It's helped me at least.  An activity that I've used to help teach accountability to my zone once was when I passed around a ton of little papers and had everyone write their reasons as to why they weren’t baptizing (or in this case, getting a job or doing schooling and stuff) on a piece of paper and they all passed it back to me, then slowly I would rip up their excuses and throw them in the trash.  Then I would help them understand that if they weren’t having success, it was their own fault and not anyone else’s fault.  It was pretty effective.

Anyway, I hope you have a fun trip in Africa and at Annie’s and stuff.  Love you!

Elder Williams

Peter and Companion did this to "Gain a Members Trust"...long story.

Is Peter a Natural Optimist?

Hey Mom and Fam!                        8-1-12

So this week was great!  Unfortunately that guy Doriedson didn't get baptized this last week either.  But we haven’t lost our faith at all, if anything I can feel that it's growing every day.  This last week we've been having a ton of help more with our zone than with our area.  We've been noticing that the moral has been falling a little bit so we've been praying a lot to know what to say and what kind of doctrines we should have, and it's been really helping, and I can feel an excitement from everybody.  There's just one group that's problematic, but it's alright.

 I'm really trying my best to baptize.  Half of the transfer's almost over, but I still believe that the Lord will bless us with 10 baptisms for this transfer.  There's this missionary that’s in the worst area of the whole mission.  It's just unbelievably difficult there.  It used to be a part of my old zone, and so I've been there once already for a division.  It's way tough.  Anyways, he's there and he's just baptizing a ton.  It's unbelievable how much success he's having.  And i think that this is going to really help the mission a lot.  He's proving that hard areas don't exist.  That it's just the missionary and how he works.   

My companion Elder Duffy has been sick these past couple of weeks and Monday we needed to stay at home so that he could get better.  But now he's feeling better, and we're ready to work our hardest.  Pray for us both so that we can baptize and be an example for our zone. 

As far as schooling goes, I was kind of talking with dad about my plans.  I would like to go and do a semester for just the summer term, and then just be on the fall/winter program.  I want to go on the boat trip for sure!  Kinsley's looking legit!  I’m glad it all worked out well.  Tell Marc and Brit congrats.  Dad's done worse as far as biking goes right (100 miler this weekend)?  I think he might make it...  Anyway, I hope everything is going good over there.  I love you!

Elder Williams

P.S. The president lets us do our school stuff the last 6 months of our mission.  If I were to go to the spring term the boat trip would need to be before the 24th of April

Hey Dad!                8-3-12

Thanks for the email.  I think you're in Africa now, but it's cool. I think it's funny that that guy dropped his medal.  As far as schooling goes, I’m for sure going to want to go back to BYU Provo.  I’m not too sure about which semester though.  I'd prefer the fall/winter semester, and I think it'd probably be a good idea to go and do a quick semester in summer so that my GPA can go back up... sorry about the lack of pre-school effort with school.  I wasn't the smartest of people.  I’m definitely going to want to work, but I’m not sure if I’m going to want to work a little bit in Oregon until school, and then get a job in Utah, or not work in Oregon and just start working with schooling in Utah or what.  I guess it depends on if I go to summer semester or not.  What do you recommend?  These past weeks have been some of my most enjoyable and productive times on my mission.  I’m not baptizing anyone yet, but I have faith that God will bless us with success.  But I do feel that I have been growing spiritually and in responsibility.  I think the difference was the rise in responsibility that happened, because before when I was a zl, I was being trained to be a ZL, but now I’m doing the training, and I’m helping the whole zone with their excitement level, and unity.  It's something that I feel is really helping me grow and learn how to be a leader not just in the church but in any kind of job that I’m going to want.  Anyways, I hope that everything’s going good over there.  Love you man!

Elder Williams

PS. Kinsley looks cute, congrats to Marc and Brit!