June 23, 2014

My birthday was awesome! Thank you so much for the package. It was cool with the umbrella. I thought “what is this?” I open it up and boom! It’s raining birthday wishes. Aunt Denise, Uncle Todd and Grandmom & PopPop sent me cards. I have not written Grandmom in a while. I will send them a letter, but, tell them thank you for me. I really  appreciate the  love from home. The  pictures you sent made me anxious to come home but it’s only a few more months. My birthday: I woke up at 5:30 with Elder Reeder calling my name. He says, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” and then jumps on me. It was funny. We got up and went to the morning program with a few from the zone. Not a lot of missionaries like to get up that early but we do. We played “umpaloompa ball”. It’s fun. Trust me. All the missionaries wished me happy birthday and a few of the branch members got me donuts. It was super cool! We get home, showered, studied and such. By this time I had already opened your package (a few days in advance, I’m really impatient when it comes to that stuff). Then we started walking around. At 11 we met a lady, Hilda. We talked to her on the street for about 15 minutes, prayed with her, and got her info. The sisters that are teaching her now said that she is super solid. She has a baptism date and everything. It was great to feel I was blessing others on a day that is normally would be centered around me. When I’m out here serving the Lord I try to look outward. We ate lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Delicious! We tried contacting a few more people afterwards and then it was dinner time. A guy in the branch, Dakota, fed us hot dogs, cake, and ice cream. Then we played volleyball with branch members. Elder Loveridge, Ramos, and my trusty sidekick, Elder Reeder were there. Elder Reeder gave me a tie that I really like. Elder Loveridge gave me a pair of his shoes that I liked. Great guys! Other members of the branch came to the park and they wished me happy birthday. It was a super great day! But, it’s just another day for missionaries and we got back to work. We had a really great week. We were able to go to Tahoe this week and drop some stuff off for the missionaries. It was so beautiful. Have you ever been to Tahoe? We need to go to Tahoe when we come back to my mission. We’ll see all the sights. Man, it is so beautiful! I want to swim in the lake.  

We got transfer calls yesterday at 10 pm. I’m staying but I’ll have a new companion. I will train him to be a zone leader. That will be neat. This is my first time being the senior companion. I’m zone leader, designated driver, and everything else. Lots of changes this transfer. We had to let everyone know about their transfers before 10:30pm. I made all the calls in 10 minutes. That’s gotta be a new record with 36 people in the zone. It was a stressful task but the Lord provides a way. Elder Reeder has been transferred and will probably be spending his last 2 transfers in Reno as zone leader. He’ll be with his half son (which means he partially trained him) which is super cool. I don’t know much about my new companion. He has served half his mission in an Indian colony.

Oh, remember the man we taught when I served in Walker, Mitch? Well, he got baptized this week! I was able to confirm him and Elder Loveridge baptized him. It was so great! I had the attitude when Elder Loveridge told me he was getting baptized: “I’ll believe it when I see it”. He had been down that road before. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and be disappointed again. But, he did it! This week was super cool with lots of baptisms in the zone!

I love you guys!

Elder Wilson

Carson Zone May 2014