Week 61 and 62: the promised land

So obviously it's a slippery slope. I miss one week and then I miss 3... I'll try to pick it back up though, I've always been well pleased with myself for writing regular emails.

Anyway, I am currently in Odessa Texas! I've been here for 2 weeks and I've already seen so many miracles! It was awesome, on my first day in Odessa, we met this lady named Isela, and we taught a tiny bit of the restoration, and we put her on date for baptism in that first lesson! Please pray for her!!

And then on Day 2 of my time here in Odessa, we had a lesson with Yulieth! Teaching her is so fun. She is so invested and really wants to understand. It's so fun. She takes notes!! Her notebook is the best thing to look at. We taught her the plan of salvation in my first visit with her, and then we put her on date for baptism as well!! So in my first 2 days, we put 2 people on date. That was pretty cool.

Anyways, so Odessa is awesome! It's the promised land that's for sure. We have a few other people who are wanting to be baptized, who we'll be putting on date soon. Please pray for Odessa and all our friends here!

- Elder Wride

Week 59 & 60: sorry

Apologies. I'm sorry I didnt write last week. It was kind of crazy. We had zone P-day, and one of the Elders broke his ankle. He'll be coming back out on the mission soon though. So we spent most of P-day at the hospital. I also am out of time today, so this'll be a short email.

I am leaving Roswell (crying emoji) 

I've loved it here. The district, the friends, the members, so much good has happened and I'm really going to miss the crazy town of Roswell. But I'm going to Odessa, and I've heard only good things about it. I'm excited

Doctrine and Covenants 33:6

And even so will I gather mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, even as many as will believe in me, and hearken unto my voice.

- Elder Wride

Some friends gave me a sick shirt of an Alien ripping through my body as a parting gift. I love them so much

Please pray for the people of Roswell, and for the Berrendo Branch!!

Week 57 & 58: Prayers!!

I'm so sorry I didn't write last week!! I was struggling to figure out what to write anyways, and I didn't have a lot of time. That week was kind of rough (lowest numbers I've seen my whole mission). The other Elders in the city call us the Berrendo farming system, because literally all we did that week was find golden English contacts and then pass all of them off to the English Elders.

Sad news, is Adilene moved to Mexico (crying emoji). It was sudden too, so we weren't able to say bye. She's going to go to the church's there, and we're just praying that she gets in contact with the missionaries. Please add her to your temple prayer list if you can!

There's another friend we have, his name is Omar! He's married to a member, and his daughter was baptized 2 months ago. He's met with missionaries for 17 years, and comes to church every week with his family, but hasn't gotten baptized. We eat with them every week, but he's hard to get in contact with, but we finally got a good sit down discussion with him. He said he just doesn't believe in Joseph Smith. We talked a lot about the lesson of the restoration, and he's going to start reading the Book of Mormon again, and praying for a spiritual witness. Please pray for him too! One, that he'll receive his witness, and two that he'll act on it.

The biggest struggle we have right now is we need more friends. We're trying, but we haven't been finding very many people. Sorry for asking for so many prayers, but please pray with us that we'll be guided to those who have been prepared for the message of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A small thing that I've been thinking about this week is faith. Exercising faith isn't a thing we do just when we have gaps in our knowledge/understanding and aren't sure what to do. Faith is the fire that fuels us to keep going when we don't know how. Idk if I said that right, but I've been thinking about Ernest Shackleton, and his story. If you don't know it, go search it up! They basically got stranded in Antarctica for a long long time. It's incredible, and in their situation they had 2 choices. They could choose to have faith, or to despair. Because they had faith, their odds changed, and while all of them should've died, they all made it back home. Faith truly is an incredible power.

- Elder Wride

(Wesley's mom here explaining these panda photos. He said that they had a challenge in their district to share a certain thing on social media, and they were to report back that they did it by posting a video of their companion ship fighting in slow motion. Wes and his comp took it up a notch, by Wes wearing an American flag cape, which he took of for the battle, and also sporting a flag tie and his new Texas boots!)