Not a Christmas Email

Good Morning!

Well, it's been a minute, and a lot has happened. Prepping for Christmas was cool, I did get some presents but we had a super tiny tree. My companion and I also discovered the Prophets Christmas message about lighting the world with love, so we shared that for the past two weeks at every member lesson. We've killed it on numbers, and I've enjoyed every single person we've met. And we had a baptism!

Raiden has been preparing for baptism, and had a date a few months ago, but it didn't really work out. I don't know why, I wasn't here yet. Well, Elder Koyle and I have been (gently) bugging him and they finally agreed to! We picked a day, which was yesterday, the 26th of December. And it went pretty well, we thought we had everything planned but we're only so smart, nothing major was messed up. Just make sure you know the words to the confirmation prayer, and DON'T unplug the font until after the confirmations/people leave. It sounded like a squirrel was trapped inside and shaking the chains that bound him down just for a simple thing like freedom. 

I guess squirrels don't like water. 

Regardless, both Raiden (about 10) and his younger brother Riddick (just turned 8) were baptized, and confirmed. They had family there and the Spirit was awesome. 

We met this one guy in Indianola, his name is Rhinn. He has a lot of problems in his past (is the son of a Seventy, he made note of that a few times) and he was definitely in the dumps, and didn't want to live. Well, my companion and I related and encouraged him. I hope we were good representatives of Jesus, and I think we did alright. We gave him a blessing and I've never felt the spirit stronger during any blessing. 

Rhinn ends up relocating homes, and moves down to Mt. Pleasant. On Christmas Day he gives us a call, and we barely understand that he's having a stroke. So we rush him to the hospital and the ER people take care of him for most of the day. Then we stop by when he's home between our evening lessons with some food. Finally, we met him one last time on Sunday, but there wasn't much we could do. He's suffering a lot from previous habits and health issues, we think it's a safe bet that we won't see him again. We tried to encourage him some more, and I hope it sticks. He's a good guy, but doesn't have much motivation for life anymore.

One of my families Christmas traditions is making buckeyes. They're essentially peanut butter chocolate balls and 100% straight diabetes. Due to the nature of my companions allergies he couldn't handle them at all. But thanks to some last second advice from my mom, 90% of them turned out well. We gave them to our investigator families and tried to further our good connections. I have a lot of friends and good people I know in the area, it's an amazing place. 

It won't stop snowing; we hit our first mini blizzard! I've also now driven through a fog bank, though I think I did that once in Texas too. Well, I wasn't driving either time but the event is definitely ending up in a story sometime. The weather is awesome, and I've only thrown like one snowball. I know, I need to do better. It's just, the snow is kind of cold. I don't like it on my hands. 

Our district is doing well, we're all seeing miracles in our areas and working hard on lessons. None of us caught Covid when it was flying around, but some people in Richfield did. That sucks for them, but I'm just glad that, even though I've probably had it 10 times now, I never got tested. I think that's the key. You can't have it if you don't get tested right? 

In a seriousness though, we've felt pretty healthy during our time in Mt. Pleasant.

A lesson I've discovered all to well this week is that, spiritual sensitivity improves as I work on improving my life. I've started to get really good at recognizing a spiritual prompting. Now to the even harder challenge of knowing what it's trying to tell me. But the ways Elder Koyle and I have affected Rhinn, and the better I've felt in my life, has all come from positive change. So that's my goal for you. Even if you think you're doing good at recognizing God in your life, work on self improvement and you'll see even greater success! 

It's like the parable of the mote and the beam. 

Matthew 7:3-4

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Another spiritual reminder is that I can't begin to judge other people's faults until I work on my own, and technically not even then. We are to not judge unrighteously. An example I like is that duh, it's a smart judgment to not walk down a dark Dallas alleyway at 3 in the morning. That's why we have the ability to judge, so we know the difference between wrong and right. But we shouldn't use this ability to judge others faults. We can recognize a trait as unhelpful, and try to avoid adopting it in our lives. But we can't ignore our own problems and expect that everyone else will happily listen to us nitpick them. 

Not much else has changed, I'm still alive so that's a plus! I always enjoy hearing from everyone, stay safe (or warm) but Texas is supposed to be 70 this week. It was 35 yesterday in Mt. Pleasant. 

Thanks for sticking around, see you eventually!

- Elder Williams

I was going to email on Christmas, but they kept delaying my Preparation Day so I decided to just leave Christmas be and talk to everyone on Monday, even though it's been like 2 weeks.

Pictures!

1. My Sanpete County Sheep.

2. The biggest full moon of the year, the photo was taken in Indianola.

3. Like a foot of snow. Yeah, we measured.

4. Another awesome Sunset. Utah needs to stop producing these or I might just move here permanently.

5. Raiden is the taller kid, we're all prepared for the baptism!

6. My kingship with my two killer guard dogs, BJ and Zeus. Don't ask me which is which, they're not even mine.

7. Buckeyes!

8-10 & 12. District Council!

11. Dinner the night before the trainer / new missionary meeting.