I "Had" To Share My Testimony

hey y'all!!

Sooooo this week was greattttt!!! J is doing well!! He is still working towards the 10th:) He has his baptism interview this week:) He even cleaned the church Friday night with some of the families in the ward and then we had a little lesson with him at the church right after and it was really good, he is in Ether now and we asked him about the BoM and how he feels about it since he started reading a few months ago, he said that it is exciting and it feels him with emotion at times. We talked about how he's felt the spirit while reading and the spirit was just so strong! He used to always say that he felt it brought him closer to Christ but didn't know if it was all true.. but he said he knew that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. And that's all he said, a simple testimony but it was powerful, and I've realized that with testimonies, you don't have to say a lot or use fancy words, you just have to say what you feel in your heart, the things that the spirit has testified to you that are true. 

Actually speaking of testimonies I had to share mine this week at the end of zone conference, I say "had" because it's not like I don't like to share it, but it was because this was my very last zone conference:(:(:( they always have the missionaries that won't be at the next zone conf. share their testimony. So I still have a long time so it was like you know when you see someone at the grocery store and you're like hi and talk and stuff then you keep shopping and you're just both in the same aisle...its kinda weird*. I felt like that because it makes it seem like I'm leaving soon but nope haha I'll still be here a couple months haha so weird, but done with that and don't have to worry about it for a while!! But the zone conference was amazing!! Seriously!! We really just talked about the doctrine of Christ, all things that we have heard before, but the spirit each taught us new things that we needed to apply into our lives and into our work! Seriously the spirit makes you tired! So the meeting ended at 8 and we had a meeting the next day in Hurst on the Sabbath day observance, it was the training that was recorded that the apostles gave for all the general authorities and they wanted all the missionaries to see it before general conference!! So since we had that the next day the sisters in Stephenville asked pres if they could just stay at our apartment so that they wouldn't have to drive all the way home that night and then drive all the back the next morning.

Sleepover with the Stephenville sisters

Soooo of course I wasn't going to let them sleep on the floor so we gave them our beds but I refused to sleep on the floor because ew the carpet is gross here, I mean elders used to live here... and bed bugs too!!! So I made this little bed out of the chairs and had it just right so my head could lay on my desk and it was good beside that the arm of the chair was hitting my collar bone but I didn't care hahah. This story ends sadly, I woke up at midnight and went to the bed bug floor.. ew I know right! My life is so hard. hahaha just kidding I'm so spoiled!!! Anywho the meeting was wonderful!! I just am loving all this sabbath day training! And thanks for all your thoughts on it as well!! A few notes I had from our discussion: I realized the importance of keeping the chapel quiet and being there early to ponder and pray before the meeting begins.  As a missionary I always struggle with this because I want to talk to the members and the investigators, so my new goal is wait in the foyer and welcome everyone and investigators and talk as much as I need there and then when in the chapel to not talk. Another thought pres ames shared was that when we partake of the bread and of the water, it really becomes a part of us, I guess in a way it kind of dissolves in us and is part of our body. When I think of that symbolically it really makes me think, is Christ and his atonement a part of me? Thank you so much for teaching me and our family to keep the sabbath holy! I may have not always been the best but I am grateful!

Jimmy Johns lunch at the dog park

K and S are doing well!! K is still working on the WoW she said she wants to quit by Nov 17... that's too far away so we are gonna work on that:) butttt the primary program was yesterday!!! and S was so cute up there singing and saying her part!! She told her mom that when she is older she wants to go on a mission! So precious!! Oh and Carrol came to Sunday school again!! Yay!! That is only his second time he will only stay for sacrament, but not class! Now we just need to get him to priesthood!!

Unfortunately I haven't watched all of the womens session because kinda funny story we got a ride to the church (we have no miles) and there weren't very many sisters there but the guy in charge of the projector wasn't  there and we couldn't get the projector to show the picture.... so all the ladies left to their homes... but we had T coming so we didn't wanna leave her.. so she came but then she left because right now she is living at her bf's house and his dad's gf is crazy and doesn't like the church so the family is in chaos so they were having a family meeting she called it a come to Jesus meeting, ha so she had to leave to that!! It was so crazy. So T is the one we were teaching but we passed her off to the elders in the ysa because she's 18 but we still contact her and stuff because her friend M is a LA in our ward and we just love T and she has a baptism date for October 10th!!! She is having a lot of opposition from family and friends but she is so solid and firm she wants this and it's so cool!!! We love her!! So we were at the church and the elders came to do something and they are so nice and got it on in the clerks office for us so we heard Pres Uchtdorfs talk which was sooo good!!!! I'm so excited for general conference this weekend!!!!!

God bless!

Sister Wells

*metaphor credit to Lizzy Pratt

Thanks!!! I Am So Blessed!

First two pics:  I look like I'm having a good time right?  Well the last pic is how I really felt! ahhhhhh (you have to click on the pics to see the difference in her face :)

So I was in Azle at this family's home.  They have tons of animals and they are like wanna see our snake? I'm like uh sure.  They said want it around your neck? I'm like nooo, I screamed but they still put it there so I had to get a pic. 

No worries, just have two bearded dragons on me!

Thank you so much for all the emails, cards and packages I'm so blessed!! Thanks thanks thanks!!!!!

I'll first off tell you about our investigators! J is doing amazing, everyday I see him he is more and more filled with light, the gospel has truly changed his countenance and it is amazing to see. Every week now he is in a new white shirt and tie from bishop and looks so nice!! I wasn't at the lesson when he set the date for Oct. 10 since we were on exchange but I was sooooo excited when I found out! He's excited and came to the mission president fireside last night, he looooved it a lot!  Now we just need to help his mom yvonne find that these things are true too:) I know that her heart is being softened each time we visit! We are inviting her to the Primary Program this Friday because she would so love it!!:) p.s. bill and sophie were at the fireside to yayayayayayayayayayay love them, miss them!!

Just tickling the ivory's. lol  Sophie took this pic of me at the fireside last night :)  I was sooooo happy to see them there!!!

S was confirmed yesterday and it was very special, K was so proud of her and felt the spirit very strongly she was crying a lot! We were able to meet with her during S's activity days at the church, we talked about baptism and the why of it with her and it seems to click, we plan to see her Wednesday with our relief society president and we are hoping that she will be good fellowshipper, we really want a solid fellowshipper, one that will be with her the whole way. We always have a member there, but we want one that will go with her all the way to the temple! She's great!

We transitioned T over to the ysa elders and it went great. She attended church yesterday and loved it! We saw her and gave her a hug! She already is loving the members there and the elders! She is soooo elect I love her and am sad we don't get to teach her, but we will for sure be in touch and at her baptism which is going to be so soon because she is ready!!

Sorry I don't have much time today, but things are good! It's still hot but I love it!!

Hurrah for Israel!!

Sister Wells

Some extras she sent:  Sis Smith did our nails and took us to lunch for my bday today:)
Thanks for everything and all the ward knew it was my birthday, so sweet! 

Savannah got baptized!

Happy birthday papa smurf and happy anniversary to the best parents ever!!! I hope it was great!!!

Monday: So I'm still sad that all the missionaries are spread out in this area because then we don't do fun stuff on pdays but luckily we  got a key to the church to get the basketballs out and I just played by myself for a few hours while sister c wrote letters. But it was fun I made like 10 free throws in a row I was pretty proud:) But that night we visited carol and jerry with a brother from the ward! It went pretty well with the both of them. Carol is reading from the book of mormon but he just doesn't want to stay for all of church.. only sacrament haha he's so funny but he gave me a birthday gift and I can't open it until wednesday:) We now are trying to get him a time to meet with bishop as well and we think that will help him too! Jerry is great! His mom Yvonne has been sitting in all of the lessons lately and she is a devout Southern Baptist (there are a LOT of them here) she is soooo sweet and I always love what she has to say, but I can see it in her face when she doesn't agree with us, she has a real tough time with tithing, she doesn't like that in order for Jerry to be baptized he has to commit to pay tithing, she said Jesus said come and be baptized and that was it, there weren't rules to follow to do it. We tried to explain and read scriptures with her but she's a little stubborn:) But I know that she feels the spirit when we are there, her heart is being softened:) She has cancer in her liver and so she has been getting a lot of treatments lately she tells us all about it and wow the technology they are using is amazing! Like they do radiation on the spot on her liver with a cyber knife or something like that, and its a laser that goes in and covers that area, crazy. Shes is 80yrs old but seems to be doing really well:)

These lil guys come in our apt all the time, maybe they'll eat the bed bugs!

Tuesday: We rode our bikes to Manna to do service! I love going to Manna it is a place kind of like DI I guess people bring all their stuff their and we help organize it and clean it and make sure things work and what not. Then 2x a month they have a big sale and we help with those too and people can come shop there, you can literally find anything you need, clothes, shoes, bags, dinnerware, blowdryers, desks, even wedding dresses haha, toys just everything and they sell it for wayy cheap so lots of people that don't have much come there it's so nice to be able to help them:) And then all the money made at the sales is used to buy food! Because they have like a pantry and help people get food that they need! So it is just a great place! And the ladies that work there (no one gets paid) are adorable and they always ask us questions about the church and what we do! I even got a pair of shoes there a couple weeks ago for a dollar and they are so cute I love them! Later that day we were able to see J, now I told y'all about her maybe a month ago, her best friend is a member of the church and she would go with her all the time growing up, she doesn't attend a church right now, but her husband I guess just doesn't really like going and stuff but we were able to see her again finally and we talked about the Restoration and she had really great questions, she's like my favorite she makes me laugh way hard! Anywho I feel like she's already a member she was trying to think of ways to get her husband involved and be interested, she said he likes sports! So we are figuring out when the ward plays bball and softball and stuff and she said that he would play and then he'll like the guys and then hopefully come to church! She is so prepared so hopefully we will be able to work something out!! Then we had dinner at Sister C this sweet sweet old lady in the ward and no joke in the middle of our lesson my allergy switch flipped on it was so weird like almost instantly my nose started running and my eyes started itching and my throat too! And when we were driving to our next appointment it still wouldn't stop and we had no tissues so I had to use my sticky notes to wipe my nose hahahahah ew. So it kind of turned into a cold but no worries I'm feeling better now but just kind of stuffy and what not! Nothing can stop the work from progressing!!:)

Wednesday: We had zone council which was great, learned a lot and used like my whole box of tissues.. not because I was crying haha but because of my crazy nose haha. We also were able to see T and she is doing great! She was so amazed by the idea of having a prophet on the earth and 12 apostles she was just so blown away and she said she really believes that it is true! And we also saw K and S helping S be prepared for her baptism!!

Thursday: Planning day, it was pretty good I like planning and setting up all our appointments and seeing what we need to teach our investigators and what members we should bring to all our lessons:) We saw J and C again that night but had make them quick.

Friday: I"m forgetting everything we did now haha but we have been trying to meet all of the less active members in our ward and we met 3 new families this weekend and they are soooo sweet One invited us over for dinner on saturday and the others said to come back this week too! I'm super excited about that!!

Saturday! S got baptized!! They may have been late to the baptism haha but it turned out so well we had a good little group who came and really helped her feel loved. I have never seen her smile soo big then while she was walking into the font! Her new favorite song is When I am Baptized she wants to sing it all them time:)

K afterwards told us that she wants to get baptized the saturday after her birthday in november so november 21st it is!! Feels so far away but it will be great:) She just needs to quit smoking now!! But I know that she can! Also C her husband came too and he talked to our
bishop a ton and the other brothers which was so good and bishop he's a pilot said that he would take him up flying and stuff so progress for C too! I know that he is ready to hear the gospel too!! I love them!! And that night we had the stake conference! and President Pratt was there yay and he spoke and he even told bill and sophies
story and I was dying because I just love them so much!! It was so great! Our stake president told this amazing story about this little girl who in primary had a lesson about being a missionary. When she got home she told her dad the bishop that she wanted to be a primary missionary, he said ok its a little different here because there aren't very many people who aren't members of the church(they lived in
utah) and she said well who isn't, so he told her and she said that she wanted to go and visit this family. He couldn't say no to his sweet daughter so they took them over some cookies and invited them to family home evening and they couldnt say no to this sweet girl either so they came and it was great and everything went well. A week or two
later the girls mother was making some banana bread and she asked can I have one of those loaves of bread? She wanted to take it to this family. So she took the loaf and said you can have this bread on one
condition, you meet with the missionaries. So the family got some bread and missionaries! And they were baptized and a year later were sealed in the temple, the little girl couldn't be in the temple for the sealing of course, but she was waiting outside for them. That is so precious! We all really can be missionaries:)

Sunday: We had stake conference and talked a lot about the sabbath day and it went really well three of our investigators were able to attend so it was super great! We had a few lessons last night and it was a good day:)

So yesterday I was reading in mosiah 11:3 and it was talking about how king noah had laid a tax of one fifth of all they possessed, on their gold and their silver and their ziff... and I was like what is ziff so since our ipads are so handy dandy I defined it and said it was a beard. hahaha and I was like isn't that interesting they even had to pay a fifth of the their beards hahah I was dying laughing and telling sister c and thought to myself oh my that is like a joke my dad would tell haha. I'm sure ziff is just some type of metal or something but I just thought it was really funny.

Anywho thank you for all the birthday wishes from everyone I have loved all the emails and cards:) I can't believe i'm such and oldie!!!

I love y'all!!

Hurrah for Israel!!

Sister Wells

C after we heart-attacked him! :)

I Love Prayer!

I loooooved the pictures from Nebraska! Looks like a lot of fun! I love pictures! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD TOMORROW! And so I don't forget happy anniversary on the 13th!! This week was busy busy and it was
 just great!!! Savannah had her baptism interview yesterday and she will be getting baptized on saturday!! So excited for her! She just turned 8 yesterday and she is sooo excited for her baptism, she is so crazy sometimes at our lessons but when we went over the baptism questions I was so impressed with how much she has remembered and she has such a great faith and it is bringing her her family into the gospel:) She really wanted to share her testimony at church yesterday so we helped her come up with what she was going to say and she did
great and was so excited and all the members were so impressed. She is so precious! I just love these people here so much!! And kelly (her mom) told all the relief society that she was going to be a full fledged member in november haha but now we know kind of when she wants to be baptized, she won't set a date until after savannahs baptsim. We have so many miracles coming!!

Meet the new Sister Wells

So jerry met with bishop on wednesday and it went really well!! His two main concerns are tithing and not having nice enough clothes to wear to church. Well yesterday he came with a new white shirt and
tie:) He looked so nice! Bishop helped him out, and talked with him about tithing and we need to follow up with bishop how there meeting yesterday went but think that that problem has been resolved! Jerry really loves bishop and said that bishop told him that he was very prepared to be baptized and that made jerry feel good and because pres ames told him that too that made him feel good! So we were like so when are you going to get baptized tomorrow?? hah he said no, and we said next week? and he said no, so we asked next month? He said maybe, but don't hold me to that!! haha he knows we are kidding but  kind of not really.. ha He just likes to move realllll slow but atleast we have some direction with him now:) He is really starting to get fellowshipped into ward and his countenance has changed even since I first met him! He's in 3 nephi of the book of mormon now:) Love him!

Carrol also came to church yesterday! He is really coming along now and actually reading the bom! He has a desire to learn more and has great questions and says hes been thinking about baptism for a long
time! Missionaries started seeing him over a year ago but he just didn't have real intent but now he is totally awesome!! His birthday was on saturday so during lunch we cut out a lot of hearts to heart
attack his door to wish him happy birthday, he is 78 and lives alone and is really lonely, when we were going to put them up he saw us and came outside, darn haha but we talked to him for a little while and I
asked him of his 78 years what were some of his most memorable birthdays and yesterday at church he said that this birthday will be one of the most memorable ones because of what we did. It brought tears to my eyes that such a little thing that we just thought of on the spur of the moment to do would make such a big impact on him. I'm so glad that we did that for him:) So we did it for savannah yesterday too! I can see that following even the smallest promptings of the spirit can really bless others lives:)

We were able to see a lot of other people this week who hopefully will progressing soon!! So many awesome people!! Our rs lesson yesterday was on prayer and we read this from the BD When we pray in the name of
Jesus Christ, it means “our mind is the mind of Christ, and our wishes the wishes of Christ. … We then ask for things it is possible for God to grant. Many prayers remain unanswered because they are not in
Christ’s name at all; they in no way represent his mind, but spring out of the selfishness of man’s heart” I've read this before but it clicks this time! In the talk we read it also said to prepare for our prayers and imagine Heavenly Father before you are to pray, I did that this morning and I felt like it was more real and I was talking with
him it was really cool! But i'm trying to still be better. I love prayer! And we are trying to help our investigators to have real prayers so they can receive real answers:)

Well hope y'all have the best week ever!! Hurrah for Israel!!

Sister Wells

Love  these people!

Sister Tuna "fish" and Vahae are companions now in the Tongan ward! :) <3 td="">